Your online backup software should NEVER, for any reason, answer inbound connection requests from the Internet. That's what spyware does. That's what Trojans do. That's how computer networks become compromised, and that's how private data is made public. This is why I am deeply concerned about an online backup software product in my market space. I won't mention their name, at least not yet. I want to give them an opportunity to fix this gigantic security hole first. If they fix it, I will report it here. Here's a hint: It's not my software, RBackup or Mercury. I guess you figured that out, though.

A good domain name can MAKE an Online Backup business. The best domain names contain your company name, so they are easy for your customers to remember. Great domain names also contain words end users might search for so they rank highly in the Search Engines. For example, use any search engine to look up "remote backup." You will probably find Remote Backup Systems (www.remote-backup.com) in that valuable number one spot in the natural listings. Over the years we have collected some really good (and some GREAT) domain names. We are now releasing some of them for our Service Providers.

Have you decided not to renew your Maintenance Subscription? We’re sorry to hear that. We hope you will reconsider in the future. If you do, we would like to offer you a 10% discount on your next order as a “thank you” for taking a short survey that will help us improve our software and […]

Remote Backup Systems has activated its Emergency Hot Site for Service Providers in areas effected by the winter storm in the Northeast United States. RBS Emergency Hot Site Servers are available for RBS Service Providers whenever a natural disaster affects their data centers.

It was 23 years ago that I published the first edition of The RBS Book, defining the online backup industry. I am happy to announce that I have finished a new book, and the electronic version is available. The Trade Paperback will be available at Amazon.com and your local book store soon.

There has been a lot of talk about Synthetic Backups lately, and especially a lot of bitter complaining that one of my competitors promised it to his users but hasn't delivered it. I'm going to use Synthetic Backups as a club now, to beat up that competitor.

I’ve been fiddling around with some ideas for tools that can give your customers more information about pricing and backup time. This time I came up with a spreadsheet that can estimate monthly pricing based on increasing storage space, and backup time for the first full backup and subsequent smaller backups

For the rest of the month of January I will be donating 10% of Remote Backup Systems’ gross sales for humanitarian relief in Haiti. The money will go to the funds listed on this page. I encourage you to donate on your own, as well. Injured people who could be saved with medical attention may […]

I have a competitor in my industry (Let’s call the company "Ashtray.") who has just announced a January 1 price increase of 200% to 300% on most items. In an open letter to their customers, Ashtray also apologized for a recent software release that caused massive, repeatable data loss for many of their Service Providers, and announced that they were "pretty confident" that it should resolve at least 90% of the problem. I guess this means that they are also "pretty confident" that at least 10% of their users will still experience massive data loss.

The RBS News for December 2009 contains the following articles: How to Set Prices & Storage Plans, Predict Profits for your Online Backup Service Letter from the President News and Announcements Sales and Marketing Performance Tips Gautam’s Corner – our Lead Developer Answers Your Questions Service Providers with Premium Maintenance now have a FREE Remote […]