Sometimes I talk to myself. Take my recent experience with the online backup service, Mozy.
Chris, you’ve been reasonably happy with Mozy, yet yesterday was the second time that Mozy kicked in and told you that it intended to back up the 57.8GB-worth of files it’s supposedly backed up already. What should we do about this? Will we ever get our bandwidth back? And do we risk wearing out the Internet with all this alleged redundant data transfer?
How to download Mozy Home on Windows? 1- Just click on the download button and select a location to download the file. 2- After the download finishes, open the Mozy Home folder and extract its content. 3- Now, open the Mozy Home folder and double-click on the Mozy Home file. 4- Now an installation window appears, now agree to the License.
I’m not sure what we should do about it, but I’ll tell you what we did do. We strapped on our @BodyofBreen identity and carped, long and loud, on Twitter. And this helped in a few ways.
First, carping about services and businesses you’re unhappy with is often a gratifying way to vent your spleen. Secondly, your followers may have useful advice. And thirdly, smart companies keep an eye on Twitter to see how the Twitterati feel about their business. When good or bad things happen, they stick their oar in. We pulled a hat trick on this one.
On the first count, our spleen is feeling quite airy. Hasn’t been so ventilated in months.
On the second, the ever-helpful (and frequent Macworld contributor) Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF) piped up and suggested that A) I download the latest Mozy update because the application doesn’t update itself when a new version appears (though it’s supposed to) and B) I check the throttle settings within Mozy’s Preferences and put the choke hold on Mozy during the hours when I need largely unfettered bandwidth.
As for the third, @Mozy additionally suggested that I put Mozy’s scheduling option to good use so that I provide it with an open pipe to the Internet when I’m not using my Mac for more productive purposes. It also hinted that this “Gee, I’ve never seen this data before” business is a known issue and will be dealt with in the next major release of the Mozy software.
And, by way of a bonus, a few of Mozy’s competitors (who also apparently keep an eye out for mentions of Mozy on Twitter) have suggested that I give their services a whirl. This is something I may very well do. And should I do so, I’ll be sure to write about my experiences.