Nick's dashboard

Thanks wildcatsigns. The "back up files of this type" feature is a small step in the right direction... I guess I'm not as tolerant as you, though, since I don't think Carbonite's policy has anything to do with simplifying the user experience. The simplest thing would be to back up everything in every folder that I flag for backing up, except for obvious system folders/files. Period.

The fact that they don't back up video files by default (often some of people's most sentimentally valuable files) shows that this is all about their bandwidth and storage costs, and has nothing to do with improving or simplifying the customer experience.

I'm still evaluating viable alternatives (someone in this thread recommends iDrive), and will be able to post my recommendations here soon. At this point, I'm leaning toward services that are not unlimited (have 50 GB, 150GB, etc. plans), but that at least back up everything you tell them to back up, and that have established a reputation for reasonably problem-free recoveries (unlike Carbonite, where horror stories of failed recoveries are common).

I've been using Nuevasync for about a week to sync my Google Calendar and my iPhone Calendar, and it seems to work perfectly. The setup is poorly designed, however, and is not for technical novices.

You're certainly correct that the reason they have this maze of crazy rules about what's backed up and what's not is to save money on storage. In principle, however, I have no problem with Carbonite (or the others) trying to discourage people from uploading unnecessary files. No-one should be backing up their entire hard drive, because this would drive up costs for all the other customers (like us).

What I DO have a problem with is the way they're going about trying to limit "over-backupping". Ignoring files basically at random and not telling users what's going on when it happens is almost criminal, and is causing a lot of grief for a lot of people who were responsible enough to get a backup service in the first place. As someone pointed out in the thread above, it renders the service not only useless, but dangerous.

Dirk- I've suggested to Len that, when files in a folder that has been selected for backup will be ignored, that a large warning appears asking the user what they want to do about the ignored files (back them up, back up all files of this type, ignore, or ignore all files of this type). Apparently they're working on a new software release now, so we'll see if this functionality is included. If not, I'm finding another backup service.

My original email to Carbonite a month ago asked if there were going to be any changes. Thank you for finally answering that question.

Posting warnings on install is not good enough. I didn't read it, and I'd guess most others didn't either.

As a general rule, if a software app isn't going to do something I just asked it to do (like back up ALL the files in a folder), it needs to tell me right then and there in big bold letters (not 6 months ago when I installed it, and not if I happen to notice the color of the icon on the folder afterwards).

While the "set ignore rules" option is a step in the right direction, I think some kind of wizard would be more helpful, and less complicated. Something that says "Some of the files in the folder you just selected will NOT be backed up by default. Here are the files (or file types) that will be ignored: [list] If you want these files (or types of files) to be included in the backup, click the "Include in backup" check box." Or something along those lines.

At least this way I know what's going on, and don't have to memorize some crazy list of rules. More work, yes, but better than always wondering if all my files really are being backed up.

If you implement this, I will gladly remain a customer. I like all other aspects of the service except for this.

Thanks for your reply, but it doesn't address the concerns I raised. If you read my post carefully, you'll see that -after learning the hard way- I understand that certain file types are not backed up by default.

To paraphrase, my complaints are:

1) At the time that I purchase my subscription (last year), your basic promise was "unlimited backups". When paid my $100, I was not told anything about exception lists, etc. and the client app seemed to be backing up everything I asked it to. Now it isn't, and on your website you seem to be backing away from the "backup everything" messaging, but that's not my problem.
2) Putting the exception list in a FAQ three clicks into your website doesn't make it OK. Throwing up a huge red warning message when files that I asked to be backed up are NOT being backed up would be a step in the right direction, but...
3) Your exception list includes files that probably 90%+ of users NEED to be backed up (home movies, .exe's, files with underscores in the name, etc.) which makes the service not only useless to most people, but dangerous (because they think that their backup is complete when it isn't). At best, it makes the service ridiculously labor-intensive, because every single time I create, save, copy or download a new file, I have to manually check to see if Carbonite is ignoring it or not. The suggestion that I memorize a long list of rules about what's backed up by default, what's not backed up by default, what's not allowed to be backed up at all, unless it's under a certain size, or in a certain directory, or if I have a paid subscription, etc. etc. is ludicrous, and beyond the capabilities of 99% of the general population.

I'm disappointed because I loved the install-and-forget functionality of the original client app, but your policy changes have destroyed its usefulness. Clearly the "back up everything" promise was biting off more than you could chew, but these crazy new restrictions are not the solution. If people are uploading 200 GB worth of pirated movies, charge them more, but don't mess with those of us with 30GB of legit data to backup.

No problem. I guess my point is that if I had understood that

a) I could seed my company on GS with an official FAQ and
b) the benefits to my company of doing so (more users getting more answers from it)

earlier, I would have been more interested earlier. I'd put this somewhere in your "for companies" page.

Thanks Erik. My take on "official" FAQs is that users don't read them because they feel that

a) there's a low probability of finding their specific question in the list, and
b) it takes too much work to figure out IF their question is in the list.

I got excited because I think users will be more willing to type a question into an intelligent-looking knowledge base search tool (i.e., that will do some natural language interpretation) that includes official AND community information. Less work to find out if your question is in there, and more chances that it is in there.

From a company perspective, I would see entering (or importing) an official FAQ as being the obvious way to kickstart a community, and vastly increase the chances that, if a user enters a query about my company, they'll get something useful back before others have started contributing.

I think this is a really important aspect of Get Satisfaction that you should highlight in your marketing. After stumbling onto Get Satisfaction via PBWiki this morning, I was considering leveraging it to augment our customer knowledge base. When I realized (via this post) that it could be a complete knowledge base for both "official" and "unofficial" Q & A's with a powerful search capability layered on top, I was completely sold.

Looking forward to kicking off the ChoiceBot company in GS (assuming someone doesn't do it for me first...)

I'd like to echo this concern. I almost abandoned PBWiki because I thought there was no revision history feature.