Mike Lavender

Not much is new.

mike.lavender@simplyoffsite.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:41:24 GMT

Well it has been an interesting couple of weeks.

Since Christmas I have had a couple of goals that I am pursuing, you could almost call them New Years resolutions. The first and perpetual goal is improving the website’s Page Rank and placement on Google, which I must say is going rather well. Content, content, content… and a lot of keyword optimization (mostly keyword optimization at this point).

The second goal is… adding content to the website. The main content that I want to add is support related. As you probably noticed this goal is not going so well. My excuse is that weather, a blizzard, has interfered with this task.

Anyway, I will get to work on adding the support content over the next couple of days.

Newsletter: Nov. 27th, 2006

mike.lavender@simplyoffsite.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:41:24 GMT

As I’ve been sitting here thinking about what to say in this email, I’ve been watching the second winter storm of the season role over Saskatoon. With highs around –16°C (3°F) and lows below –20°C (-10°F) I can imagine that you are wondering why anyone would move his or her business and family to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It gets cold, really cold, in the winter, and hot in the summer, but people are friendly and it’s a dry cold (or at least that is what I’ve heard), and the heat is dry too.

I guess I should go back a bit and let you know that I, and Simply Offsite, have moved… to Saskatoon. We moved here back in July and I am just finally getting around to letting everyone know. I should apologize for the long delay and lack of communication. I have been very busy working behind the scenes to make changes so that I could communicate with you.

So what does the move matter to you? It matters a lot as it represents a major change in focus for Simply Offsite. It represents a change from wanting to be customer focused to actually being customer focused. The first obvious change is the website, the goal of which was to be a community based site. That is it is a site that you can participate in, provide input or feedback through and communicate with others. It is intended to give you choice and control over the type or types of services you get.

The new website also coincides with some changes in the services available to you. You can now choose between, Free Data Backup, Basic Data Backup, Professional Data Backup and Ultimate Data Backup service levels. This new range in services is intended to make backup available to everyone, from students, both pre and post secondary, to medium sized business, to those with critical data protection and data archiving needs.

This email is getting a bit long so I will end it by saying, please keep an eye on the website, visit it and let me know if there is anything that you would like to see.

Finally, please do not hesitate to contact me. If you have any questions, comments or problems I would love to hear from you.

Mike Lavender
Simply Offsite
Suite 208 - 416 21^st Street East
Saskatoon, SK S7K 0C2
Canada
1-866-814-1110 Toll Free (US & CAN)
1-306-244-4880 International

Has Online Backup Come of Age?

mike.lavender@simplyoffsite.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:41:24 GMT

Obviously I think the answer to this is yes (Simply Offsite is my company) as do Fred Wilson and Jeremy Zawodny, (see their posts Online Backup's Inflection Point, and Swimming Pools and Hard Disks), however, I still don’t think its practical to backup an enormous amount of data but not because of bandwidth. The cost of storage is the problem.

Data backup: What is it and why do it?

mike.lavender@simplyoffsite.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:41:24 GMT

What is data backup and why do it? Seems like a silly question but you would be surprised to know that most people don’t really know the answer to either of these questions. Lots of people know they should do it, what exactly or how on the other hand...

What is "Online Backup"?

mike.lavender@simplyoffsite.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:41:24 GMT

Originally an online backup meant backing up files, usually on a server, without taking the server off line. That is the server and what ever it was serving, like a web server, or email server, remained available during the backup process. The real need or desire for an online backup (aka open file backup), evolved with our amassing of data, the Internet and an insane work ethic.