Carbonite Cloud Backup Blog

Everyone knows that the best gifts are the ones that keep on giving – and peace of mind makes everyone feel good! So, if you’re a current customer, we have a great opportunity for you to treat the Dads and Grads in your life with a subscription to the better backup plan!

With cloud backup, you can return the favor to Dad – who always made you feel safe and secure. Or protect your grad as they’re heading to the dorms or moving off campus and to a new city.

Getting your loved ones set up with Carbonite is so simple, it’s done within your account! Simply:

• Log into your account,
• Then go to: https://account.carbonite.com/consumer/buy/Gift

A 20% savings will be applied to the gift subscriptions you’re purchasing. We’ll even e-giftwrap for you!

Make the best of your backup by sharing the protection and security of Carbonite with your loved ones!

The Memorial Day long weekend is coming up and, since good things come in threes (that’s the way it goes, right?!), we’re celebrating with a special three months bonus offer on any new subscriptions for our blog readers and social media fans and followers!

If you already follow our blog and our social handles, why not complete the trifecta and start backing up with Carbonite? Whether you need backup for your home or office (or home office), start a trial with code SOCIAL3 and we’ll add three bonus months to your subscription when you purchase.

Of course we know that many of our Cloud Backup Blog readers and social fans are already happily backing up with us. So we’ve got some great ways for those customers to take advantage of this offer as well!

• If you’re backing up all your personal data with a Home subscription, check out the offerings Carbonite has for your business.
• Or, if you’re a Carbonite Business customer, why not try out Carbonite Home for your personal computer? 
• Don’t have a business to back up? No worries, you can take advantage of the special offer by adding another computer to your Home account – and in addition to the bonus months, you’ll also receive a 5% discount!

You don’t have to wait until the long weekend to enjoy this subscription extending promotion! It’s good now through the end of the month. Just enter SOCIAL3 when you start a trial. Current customers can apply the code when they purchase from within their account.

No matter the industry, when your home is your office, you’re often an IT professional too! Our recent survey shows that, from saving time and money to utilizing new technologies to streamlining operations, employing cloud solutions greatly benefits small businesses.

Almost all small businesses are actually using the cloud in some capacity, but nearly half of our respondents thought they were working without it. So it’s no surprise that 8 out of 10 respondents admitted they aren’t using the cloud to its full potential.

One of the best ways to employ the cloud at your small business is with automatic online backup.

If you’re already using Carbonite, you know the cloud is brings benefits with automatic, offsite backup. But did you know that with our Anytime, Anywhere Access feature, the cloud can do even more? From anytime, anywhere access, to restoring lost or deleted files, the cloud acts as an amazing personal assistant whose got your back(up).

Check out this infographic to learn more about work from home trends, visit our Small Business Hub for articles about efficiency and productivity.

Finding a work/life balance is hard. And for small business owners who work from home, there are even more challenges!  In fact, a new survey by Wakefield Research for Carbonite found that nearly half of home-based business owners feel it’s more stressful working for themselves. And this infographic shows us why…



From hiding in the bathroom to finishing a project to missing happy hour with friends, small business owners working from home often play hooky from life in order to take care of business. It’s not ideal, but it is understandable, since these leaders are striving to manage everything from time constraints to data loss.



But business owners aren’t the only ones affected by the challenges of home offices. As they turn the kitchen table into a video conference table, tensions can arise at home as their partners start to feel the weight of the stress. The top reasons couples argue include: work cluttering other parts of the house (32%), working late takes away from family time (31%), and the inability to separate personal life from professional life (30%).

Despite the challenges, working from home can reduce overhead costs and encourage productivity, especially for small businesses that employ cloud services in their home office.

The cloud may not be able to quiet your toddler’s tantrum while you’re on a client call, but backup certainly comes in handy if your kids accidentally delete an important file from your desktop while you’re squatting in the basement trying work in peace!

It has been a shocking, sad and incredible week here in Boston, Carbonite's hometown.  So many Carbonite employees live in and around downtown and the areas in the news this past week – and we have been so amazed by the outpouring of support we saw from the community – from our customers and industry partners, and from stories we heard on the news and from our own neighbors and loved ones.

The past week was intense and like nothing anyone has really experienced here before. But Boston is a city with a great, vibrant heart and it will recover, and while we are still recovering from a devastating tragedy, we are so overwhelmed by and grateful for the bravery and heroism of the first responders, all of our police and law enforcement agents, and all of our citizens. The spirit and heart of Boston will help us all to heal and bring us through.

In the days that followed the explosions, there were quite a few extra cops in the neighborhood.  I talked to one who was just outside the Prudential Mall near our offices, and he said the increased police presence was simply to make people feel more comfortable. We certainly appreciate their work to keep us safe while the investigation progressed. Today, we are back in our offices at work, as are many other businesses, but we continue to contemplate the pain and suffering of those who lost relatives, children, and friends and those who are in the hospital recovering from grievous and traumatic injuries. 

As we know so many people are generously giving to charities to support the Boston Marathon bombing victims, we wanted to share this article from Boston.com with info on how to be sure you are choosing your donation sites carefully. At Carbonite, we are proud to be donating to charitable organization One Fund Boston by matching any donations made by our employees.

At 2:50 pm today, Carbonite will join Governor Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas Menino – along with so many others, for a minute of silence in Boston and across the Commonwealth. We are Boston Strong.

Tackle Spring Cleaning

Tax season has wrapped up, which means we’re on to the next daunting task – spring cleaning! But before you start stressing about your to-do list, take a deep breath; we’ve got some tips to help you tackle the digital component of getting your home (and life) organized!

• Take it "byte-by-byte." Tackle files on your desktop, tablet and smartphone one at a time so you don't feel overwhelmed. And remember, just because you have the storage space on your device doesn't mean you need to keep every photo, document and email. It took a while to create the mess, so it will take some time to organize it. But every bit of cleanup makes a big difference!
• Tackle those taxes. Tax season is finally over, but the IRS recommends keeping copies of your returns for up to seven years. Cut the clutter by scanning your financials, records and receipts and creating a folder on your computer for each year.
• A picture’s worth a thousand words. Start by sorting through photos from the past year – delete the blurry images, photos of you with your eyes closed and shots with a finger over the lens, and create an annual "Photos to Print" folder so you can quickly find your favorite shots.
• Create a VIP club. Make an "Important Files" folder with copies of your car title, passports, mortgage documents, birth certificates and other important records so you can quickly find them when you need them. Back up this folder to the cloud so you can access the contents from another computer, tablet or your smartphone in case you need it when you are away from home.
• Protect your files. Make sure your files are always safe and secure by backing them up to the cloud. In addition to giving you peace of mind, Carbonite also enables you to remotely access your backed up data even if you misplace the hard copy.

While getting your digital life in order will be a breath of fresh air, we know that spring cleaning consists of more than organizing your files. For help organizing your computer room, home office or any other rooms in your house, check out Carbonite’s Clean Sweeps sweepstakes for a chance to win a free year of the better backup plan and a gift card to Merry Maids!

Whether you’re a self-employed small business owner, head of household or an individual filer, tax season can be stressful – especially if you’re waiting until the deadline. And, as if compiling and filling out forms wasn’t stressful enough, there’s the chance that something could go awry with your tax preparation software or your computer!

So while you’re scrambling around your home office looking for your W2s, 1099s, business income statements and receipts, we’ve got your back(up). Here are some tips to take the stress out of tax season:

• Digitize your documents – Scan copies of your financials, records and receipts. When you create a copy of physical files and upload them to your computer, you have access to the data you need even if you misplace the hard copy.
• Organize your files – Creating folders for each tax year makes it easy for you to refer to prior returns should you need to look back.
• Back up to the cloud – Not only are you safeguarding your financial records and the work you’ve done preparing your returns, but backing up your documents to the cloud ensures that even when April 15^th is far behind you, your 2013 tax returns are still safe and only a few clicks away – which can be valuable, since the IRS requires you to hang on to tax records for up to seven years!

During tax season, making the best of your backup means backing up all those tax documents! Start safeguarding today with a free trial of Carbonite Home or Business.

Last week, Captain Carbonite dropped in to surprise and remind us that he’s got our back(up)!

Today, he’s back on the streets of Boston – in Harvard Square, Government Center and Copley Square  – sharing info about Carbonite and Backup Day, which is this Sunday!

Wondering how one awesome backup superhero can be in three places at once?! It actually makes perfect sense: he’s an advocate for data protection and to be totally secure, data should be kept in more than one place. Even though you may be backing up to disks or external hard drives, a copy should always be stored in the cloud under Captain Carbonite’s watchful eye.

We hope you join Captain Carbonite in his Backup Day celebrations! If you’re not in Boston, you can still participate in the festivities by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook. And if you spot the Captain out and about, we’d love to see your pics – don’t forget to use the hashtag #CaptCarbonite!

Backup Day is at the end of the week and the best way to celebrate is by – no surprise here – backing up!

So we’ve got a great offer for you! Now through Backup Day, enter offer code BACKUPDAY13 when you start a Home or Business trial and we’ll add two bonus months to your subscription when you purchase!

Know you want to celebrate, but still curious about what the cloud can do for you?

Data is precious, but it’s also vulnerable. When you back your files up to the cloud (with a service like Carbonite), you can rest assured that you’re prepared – and your files are safe – no matter what!

Data protection isn’t the only way the cloud can help. Small businesses can employ the cloud in a myriad of ways to increase productivity and, best of all, cut IT costs. Some popular cloud applications include: email, CRM, financial software and – of course – backup!

Small businesses are always evolving and looking for tools and solutions to help them remain productive and efficient. Whether you’re running a global enterprise or a local firm, protecting your business critical data is vital to business success.

While SMBs recognize the need to keep their data protected, they are often apprehensive about jumping into the cloud. Spiceworks found that when it comes to backup, SMBs feel like there are myriad obstacles to overcome; including limited budgets, backup know-how (or lack thereof!) and shifting landscapes.

Those challenges seem daunting, but the cloud offers ease of use, reliability and affordability – key factors in the backup buying decision process – and empowers SMBs to backup with confidence knowing that they aren’t busting the budget or straining their already extended resources.

How is your SMB dealing with data security? Is the cloud a part of your protection plan?