Review

I have been checking out some of the various on-line backup solutions on the web. Earlier, I wrote a review of Mozy and now I'm looking at Box.net. Box.net is not really a backup program, although it could be used as such. It is a file storage program. Let's look at it's offerings and see how we can use it as a backup program.

First off, if you are looking for an automated backup solutions, this is not the service for you. Check out Mozy Remote Backup instead. Now, let's look at what it will do for you.

Let's say you have a big file, or a lot of files, that you need to share with your group. Now, if you have a web space big enough, you could send them there, but this is hard to manage, unless you have the right software installed. You could email the files to the group, but for a lot of files or large files this might not work. Most email programs limit the size of attachments and sending several files is a big pain.

Collaboration is also more difficult through email or a web site. If I send the file to John, Paul, George and Ringo. Ringo then makes a change and he has to then email it to everyone for us all to see the changes. Revisions are hard to keep track of and it is easy for someone to use an older version by mistake. What a pain.

A file storage site, such as Box.net is a great alternative. You can create a link so that everyone can view the file. You can also password protect the file. You can do this for an entire folder too, so that you can put all your pictures you took of the freak hail storm this spring in one folder and make it available to the world. The password protection is not available with the free version though (which I used for testing).

Collaboration is very important if you are working on a group project. Being able to have all the files in one location, clearly organized, is very important. Setting up a file store and adding collaborators means that everyone who is collaborating with you can update the files, upload new ones, and you will be able to see it as soon as they update.

Box.net also allows collaboration with various other services, such as eFax, Zazzle, Blogger, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and many others. They have several price points, ranging from free for 1gb of space to $19.95/month for 15gb. They also have an Enterprise edition that is $15/user.

There are two things I'd like to see that are missing:

1. Check in/check out so that a file can be checked out so no-one else can alter it while you are working on it.

2. Automatically replicate between the files there and the files on your PC. This way, you can update a file locally and it will be uploaded to the file storage service. Also when someone else updates, your local copy would automatically be updated.

Cuil.com is a new search engine. Apparently some Google ex-employees decided to get together and compete with their former employer. Well, my first response is that it needs a lot of work.

I did a few searches and did indeed come up with some results. Some were relevant. I compared the search "Tired Garden" (with quotes) in Google and Cuil.

In Google, the first site to come up is TiredGarden.info. As a sub page it showed a contest being run. It then lists several Tired Garden entries on social networking sites and some other sites that use the term "Tired Garden" in the page. Without the quotes, the search comes up similar. First is the Tired Garden site and then some social networking sites. Then a few other sited that mention both Tired and Garden on the page.

Cuil did not do so well. First off, I can't tell which is the top entry. This could be a good thing, as it displays 11 on a page in three columns (why not 12, so they are even columns?) meaning that several have top display. The main concern that I have though is that of the 11 on the first page, 6 of them do not show the term "Tired Garden" in the display text. A few of those have the terms tired and garden on them, but not as a single term. Why is WhiteHouse.gov there?

Cuil has this nice thing where they show a picture next to the entry, but where do they get the pictures? I have no idea where the one next to TiredGarden.info comes from. I don't remember putting that picture anywhere on the site.

Cuil has potential, but they are not fixing any of the problems with Google. Overall, they are not worth jumping ship and going away from Google. There are several search engines that are better than Cuil. Yahoo, Dogpile, just about any other search engine I've used is better.

Mozy Remote Backup is a backup tool that runs on your desktop and backs up to a remote server on the web. I started using it a few days ago to test it out and see how I like it. It is a nice tool, but it is missing some functions that I'd like to see.

Why Backup?
I have a lot of files that I really would not want to loose. I have lesson plans, stories I've written, a half completed novel. I would be ever so upset if I lost it all. What do you have that you don't want to loose? You address book? Recipe book? Do you have a backup plan? Most people can use a 2gb backup space. More is good for many, especially if you have a lot of pictures from your digital camera that you need to backup. You can back them up to dvd, if you have a dvd burner, but that does not save them from a catastrophe, like a fire.

Description of Tool
Mozy has a little tool that you install on your Windows or Apple based PC (sorry, no Linux). You then set this tool to automatically back up what you want backed up when you want it backed up. Mozy will do it right now, on a schedule, or when the PC is idle. The tool has a history of backups, restore tool and a browser to choose which files to backup. It also comes in multiple types.

I chose to go with the Free Mozy Home edition. This edition is limited to 2 gb, which gets all the data I have on this PC, but not all my pictures. If I wanted to backup all my pictures, I'd need to go for the Mozy Unlimited. They appear to be the same, except the Mozy Unlimited allows you to backup as much as you have, with no limits.

Mozy Pro, is the next step up. This is meant for professionals. It has the ability to backup SQL and network drives. It can also backup Windows Servers, but does not support Mac. It also has better support (24x7 phone support). The Enterprise Edition is the Pro version with a 15 minute guaranteed response time from support.

For a comparison of the paid versions, see here.

Since I am using the free version, the remainder of my review will be about it. If I know something is not true about the paid versions, I'll say so.

The Good
2 gb backup space for free. Not much to complain about with the price. You can specify the types of files you want to backup as well as individual files or directories. There are also several options for when to backup. For me, the idle time backup is best. I never know when I'll be at the computer. I'm not usually at it in the middle of the night, but I try to remember to shut down to save energy. That means the scheduled backup is not so great. Others may have some time when they are always away, so a scheduled backup will work. Some people may want to just say "do it now". All these options are there.

There are several options for restoring files. You can use the software, set up a virtual drive (Windows Only), have them burn a DVD and mail it to you, or you can restore from the web. These are all great options. The software is only good for restoring a couple of files at a time, but the other options make up for that.

Versioning support. If you screwed up your file, but it was good a week ago, you can restore the good one from a week ago.

The Bad
No Linux. My desktop is a Linux box. This laptop is meant dual boot and I spend a lot of time in Linux. When I'm in Windows, the backups get run, but they don't when I'm on the Linux side. For many of you, this is not a problem. I might try installing it under Wine. Perhaps I'll be able to get it to work there. I'll post an update after I test it out.

The program automatically tries to decide what to backup. You will want to go and manually override this, as it is a computer. It is not very bright. It has some of my pictures set to backup, not others. Some of my documents, not others. It did not seem to have much rhyme or reason as to which it grabbed for backup. Two files, right next to each other, very similar files, one was set to backup, the other not. If you want your documents, either tell it to backup every file of that type, or the ones in you documents directory. I told it to backup everything in my documents folders.

Versioning only for 30 days. If your good file was from 31 days ago, you cannot go back and get it. This is realistic, they can't keep every version forever, but I might like to see a longer time that 30 days. BUt that is just because there have been a couple of times that I didn't realize something was corrupt for more than 30 days.

Conclusion
If you are not on Linux most of your life, then this is a good program. There are a couple of flaws, but they can be worked around. Try out the free version and if you like it, upgrade. Or if you have more than 2 gb that you must backup, get the pro version, try it out. If you don't like it ditch it and find another method. I've never used a remote backup option in the past, but this is so much better than other backup options that are stored at home. You don't have to remember to change out discs or tapes and if there is a fire or flood, your backup is safe and sound in another location.

I currently have hosting with two domain companies. This site is with Host Papa and my other two sites are with Host Monster. I will very soon be moving the other two over to Host Papa, even though I have not completed my evaluation of them. Host Monster is down far too often causing too much work on my end and too much down time for my users.

Here is my overall review of the service I have received from Host Monster:

Price

$6.95 per month for their basic service. This is a fairly good price, but you need to buy 2 years of hosting to get that price. They will also register your domain name for you. The price is good. There are some lower, but not many that have as many services to offer. B+

Customer Service

I have often used the customer service. The offer it in more than one form. They have phone support, chat support, and email support. I've never used the email support.

Phone support I only used twice. It was fine, but not spectacular. The tech on the first call was somewhat knowledgeable. Better than you usually get in phone support, including when I was one of the people answering the phones. The second guy was not so knowledgeable. I had to explain to him what I needed of him, it took him 20 minutes to do a 1 minute fix, then misunderstood what I needed and wasted another 10 minutes trying to do something else before I realized what was going on and stopped him.

The chat support I have used quite a bit. At times it was very good. Most of the time it took them a couple minutes to respond between each comment, as they were helping several others on chat as well. A couple times it took more than 10 minutes between question and answer. A minute or two I can understand, but 10 minutes is a bit much, after I've waited on "hold" for several minutes already.

Phone support is a hard job and usually the techs are not that good. They often think they are and have high egos about their worth. I was no exception. It is a place to start in IT. The pay is low and the work is not great. You have to deal with a lot of jerks. Still, you can have a good staff, if you train them properly and give them supports. Overall, the support here was lower than I'd like, but honestly about what I've come to expect from tech support. C

Uptime

The server is often running slowly. About twice a week it goes down completely. Sometimes for just a minute or two, other times for an hour or more. Once for nearly 15 hours. Even if the server is up, MySQL goes down regularly as well. Since my sites are database driven, this amounts to the site going down. D

Guarantee

I learned about uptime guarantees during that 15 hour outage. I contacted the support center about their guarantee, since it had gone way over their guarantee. "unfortunately the guarantee is a server guarantee and since we have hundreds of servers, one going down does not effect the guarantee." She then went on to tell me that I should go to a better service.

They did offer a 30 day money back guarantee, but now I do not see that on their site. You can though, end your contract at any time with no cancellation fee. You will get your unused credits back. C-

Products Offered

They have all the standard features, including SSH, PHP, MySQL and more. The also now offer unlimited space and bandwidth, 100 databases, unlimited email forwarding and many other features. They do not, however, offer a catchall email account which is a big fault which knocks them down a grade. B

Affiliates

If you sign up for the affiliate program from their website, they will give you $65 per referral. If, however, you go to Commission Junction and sign up there, you will receive $90 per referral. If you follow my links and sign up, I get the $90 referral. They pay well, but not the highest. A-

Overall grade

I don't include the affiliate grade in my final grade, as I think that would bias the final grade toward those that pay me well. I don't want you to pick someone just because I get a good commission, especially if you don't realize that is why they scored well. C/C+