Carbonite Online Backup Company Loses Data; Carbonite Is At Fault

I had to post this because it's a classic example of not taking responsibility for something you did wrong.  The online backup company Carbonite reportedly lost a lot of client information : the data of over 7,500 of its customers who trusted it (past tense now) to keep their information in a protected area of cyberspace: a cloud they developed and around which their company is built. Now as long as I've been at this I've always got an earful about "backing up your data" so I would think a company like Carbonite, which is entrusted with protecting data, would be backing up the data they're charged with protecting.  Right? Right? No.  They lost the only data copies they had online, and so now are -- get this -- suing the hardware makers!  If you think that's funny (strange), so do many in the blogsphere, who think as I do.  Take a look at these comments over at TechCrunch :

1) What happens when you get burgled?

We got burgled last week and they took all my local backups. Fortunately I had it all backed up on S3 (and elsewhere too) which saved the day. Not having an offsite backup is a recipe for disaster.

2) They didn’t even have a proper backup? Feels sorry for those who have lost valuable data…

3) “The danger of storing your data in the cloud”

What you should have wrote was:

“The danger of storing your data in the cloud that’s not Amazon.”

Why pigeonhole the real company thats does cloud right for a company that tried to compete against them and failed?

4) No excuse. Carbonite need to accept the blame regardless of who actually caused the problem. It was their decision to use whatever suppliers they chose. I fail to see how they can recover customer confidence after a fiasco such as this.

5) This is the scary thing with putting your data with a company you’ve never heard of. I guess for that matter, putting your data with anyone is a scary thing. Has anyone used amazon s3 with success? I still feel like a drobo or hp media start server is the way to go. Backup is a tough thing.

6) The issue isn’t who the company is but how it does business. I work with a local IT company and we offer various kinds and flavors of backup, typically 3X redundant (live volume, local sync volume, local removable backup volume, offsite RAID). We do this all ourselves with system(s) we built. We started offering backup/recovery because of things like this. I recently moved a customer from a Big Brand Name Backup vendor. Said vendor had not run numerous backups. Said vendor charged ransom to provide the data when the customer quit. Said vendor basically refused to play nice with anyone, even when paid. Carbonite is not expensive but is obviously better at marketing than they they are at solution design (or accepting responsibility for their own mistakes).

Don Perata For Mayor Facebook Group Has 23 Members

I just spotted the "Don Perata For Mayor" Facebook Group, which as of this writing has just 23 members.  With time it may ramp-up, but just how much and how long is a gauge of Perata's popularity assuming of course the creator knows what he's doing in promoting the site.

If another Facebook Group pops up with someone running for Mayor and it has more members, that's a reflection on what could happen should Perata run for Mayor of Oakland.

Ok.  Who's in it?  A lot of folks I know.  Here's a sample...

Russ Giuntini

John Protopappas

Robert Harmala

Cynthia Lee

Phillip Tagami

Dan Rush

Richard Tamor

Now what's interesting is who's not on it.  I don't see John Russo or Aimee Aillson for example.  And the people listed already know each other.  OK, why am I not on it?  I'm not yet sold on Perata as Mayor of Oakland.  Love Don personally, but can he be the change agent Oakland needs?  I talked to one activist just yesterday who's really not in favor of Perata at all, and no, it's not Pam Drake.  Moreover Perata wasn't the focus of our conversation at all; the person just brought him up for discussion.

And that underscores my point: of all possible candidates, he's the biggest lightening rod.  It could derail an effort, and even the skills of Political Consultant John Whitehurst, who's also on the page, could not save him because Don's weakness is Internet-based, and Whitehurst, for all of his talents, is not sufficiently skilled in that area to save Don.  Few people are. 

For some reason I see Perata as a Senator.  That's not a crit of our current Senators of California at all, but a complement to Don as his overall trajectory seems to point in that direction.   The kind of issues that can hurt Perata in a mayoral run can actually benefit a Senatorial run.   It's a kind of weird prestige element.

I really think his best role is yet to come and its on Capitol Hill not in Oakland's City Hall.  A Senate seat Perata could win.  I really believe that.

4.4 Earthquake Hits The Bay Area Today

According to SFist -- I didn't feel a thing because I was sleeping after working until just about 4:30 in the morning -- there was a 4.4 Richter Scale Earthquake today.  Here's the details:

Magnitude 4.4 - duration magnitude (Md)

Time Monday, March 30, 2009 at 10:40:29 AM (PDT)

Monday, March 30, 2009 at 17:40:29 (UTC)

Distance from Morgan Hill, CA - 18 km (11 miles) N (7 degrees)

Seven Trees, CA - 19 km (12 miles) E (91 degrees)

Alum Rock, CA - 20 km (13 miles) ESE (117 degrees)

San Jose City Hall, CA - 25 km (16 miles) ESE (104 degrees)

Coordinates 37 deg. 17.1 min. N (37.285N), 121 deg. 37.2 min. W (121.620W)

Depth 6.2 km (3.9 miles)

A Night With the Stars: Jewish Community Center, SF, 4-21-09

Come out April 21st from 6 PM to 9 PM at the Jewish Community Center for "A Night With The Stars" at 3200 California, Street, San Francisco. Call 415-929-2470 x 304 for more information.

Sierra and Zennie On GDC, Alternative Reality Games

I went to the San Francisco Game Developer Conference with my friend Sierra Choi (who did some executive producing work of the whole event) and after the end, I met her to talk about the GDC and -- my idea -- to enjoy a nice day outside at Cafe Americano on the Embarcadero. As we were in the cab we talked about the GDC, Alternernative Reality Games, and Sierra's ego (LOL!)

Sierra sees ARG's as not games, which is where we disagree. The point is that any game is designed to get you the player to do something. That's the case with ARG's. Sierra thinks that's more social psychology but my explaination is that concern is central to game making. Again, getting a person to "do a thing" is a central tenant of game making.