A familar problem for everyone. Is ther now a solution?

Written by Chris Cameron


Lost & Found forrepparttar 21st Century In today’s hectic world more and more people are turning to those handy gadgets and mobile products that can be taken with them anywhere they go. The more things consumers own,repparttar 133313 more they're prone to lose them. This in mind we actually went out and tested a new service onrepparttar 133314 UK market from Want it Bak. Lets see what Londoners are really made of.

We left a Palm m130 PDA onrepparttar 133315 Jubilee Line ofrepparttar 133316 London Underground, a Sony Ericcson Mobile onrepparttar 133317 number 15 bus route, a Blackberry “email onrepparttar 133318 move” gizmo down in a local pub in South West London and a rucksack sitting in Starbucks Chancery Lane area. Lastly we left a digital camera sitting out inrepparttar 133319 open in Hyde park. Notrepparttar 133320 easiest thing leaving items lying about in this highly security conscious world we live in these days.

Here inrepparttar 133321 21st century our lives have become more and more reliant on mobile items. As we go through our days, keeping a mental log of everything we have and where we have it becomes more and more difficult. It is inevitable that some things get lost. In fact as stated in a recent research “Around 62,000 mobile phones were left in London taxis duringrepparttar 133322 last six months. That's an average three phones per taxi, according to a survey of licensed London cabbies byrepparttar 133323 Taxi Newspaper and Pointsec Mobile Technologies. Absent minded and drunken travellers also forgot 4,000 laptops and 5,000 PDA’s when exiting cabs”.

So what can we do to have give us some reassurance that we have at least a chance of getting our valuable or even sentimental items back.

In steps lost and found forrepparttar 133324 21st century inrepparttar 133325 form of Want it Bak. The service is based aroundrepparttar 133326 belief that most people are actually honest and will dorepparttar 133327 right thing if a method is offered to them. This feel good factor is enhanced byrepparttar 133328 added incentive of a reward for doingrepparttar 133329 right thing.

Anything you can imagine, mobile phones, keys, cameras, PDA’s, laptops, binoculars, backpacks, passports, briefcases, wallets and purses, golf clubs, power tools, textbooks, credit cards, cheque books... you getrepparttar 133330 picture, it can all be protected using their simple system.

How does Want it Bak work? Simple. You purchase a range of security tags each with their own unique id number. You register them with Want it Bak and that’s it. If you ever loserepparttar 133331 item and someone finds it they contact Want it Bak directly using their website or their 0800 number and they arrange a courier to pick it up and return it torepparttar 133332 owner for a small admin charge.

One ofrepparttar 133333 best things about this service isrepparttar 133334 confidential nature of it. The “Finder” never knows whorepparttar 133335 owner is and vice versa. Reassuring for owners of expensive items, they can now safely retrieve their possessions.

"It's a great incentive for people to dorepparttar 133336 right thing", says Chris Cameron from Want it Bak, "Our research shows that most people are actually honest andrepparttar 133337 biggest barrier they have to returning items isrepparttar 133338 hassle of finding out who it belongs to, arranging delivery or pick up, gettingrepparttar 133339 time to droprepparttar 133340 item off atrepparttar 133341 local police station. Now they don't have to do anything except ring us or visit our website, and they get a Reward for their troubles".

Remote Backup Service Providers: Clarifying the Value Proposition

Written by Tommy Gardner


Online Backup Service Providers: Clarifyingrepparttar Value Proposition

White Paper presented by:

REMOTE BACKUP SYSTEMS, INC. ONLINE BACKUP SOFTWARE www.remote-backup.com

•Introduction •A Brief History ofrepparttar 133312 Backup Universe •...Who has my Data, and Where? •Customer Service in Online Backup, What does it mean? •Cost/Benefit Analysis – Don’t Believerepparttar 133313 Hype •Summary

Copyright © 2004, Remote Backup Systems, Inc. Any reuse withoutrepparttar 133314 expressed written permission of RBS is prohibited.

Introduction Online Backup of computer data is finally gaining mainstream acceptance among business and consumer clients. Due primarily torepparttar 133315 pervasive nature ofrepparttar 133316 internet andrepparttar 133317 widespread availability of broadband connectivity, online data backup is finally coming into its own. With this change from a technology once consideredrepparttar 133318 domain of onlyrepparttar 133319 largest well-funded businesses to a high-profile, high-reliability service offering come many challenges forrepparttar 133320 consumer. An historical look atrepparttar 133321 data backup and management marketplace andrepparttar 133322 technologies that helped shape it helps to make some sense ofrepparttar 133323 current trends in this business. In an effort to make use of their idle server farms, wholesale online ‘Data-Mart’ companies have begun advertising remote backup services at ultra low prices, attempting to capitalize onrepparttar 133324 new-found popularity ofrepparttar 133325 service. Data Storage and Online Data Repository companies are also on every virtual corner, hawking wildly varied products that initially confuse even industry veterans. Many of these companies are actually inrepparttar 133326 advertising sales business, and feature data backup as a sort of loss leader, hoping to attract visitors – and thereby advertisers, to their sites. The value of computer data is higher today than ever before, yet many online remote backup companies seem convinced that businesses are interested in a ‘lowest common denominator’ backup solution. Corners are being cut, misinformation rules, and marketing dollars are flying. In a forest-and-trees analogy, price wars are blinding corporate America torepparttar 133327 critical data management component they began looking for inrepparttar 133328 first place – service. Following is an exploration ofrepparttar 133329 commercial computer data backup and storage market, historically and currently, withinrepparttar 133330 context ofrepparttar 133331 diverse service levels provided by different types of companies.

A brief History ofrepparttar 133332 Remote Data Backup and Offsite Data Storage Universe Inrepparttar 133333 olden days - that isrepparttar 133334 mid 1980’s - there simply wasn’t any commercially available Online Backup software. The small handfuls of people providingrepparttar 133335 service were using a mix-and-match combination of communications, shareware, and other utilities not designed for remote data backup. In fact, there were no standard protocols at all for electronic communications or graphic user interface to computer programs. The microcomputer industry was in a great state of change and modems were still stalled at 1200 to 2400 baud, making transfers of large amounts of data excruciatingly slow (1 mb = 72 minutes!!). As technologies improved, so didrepparttar 133336 possibilities and prospects forrepparttar 133337 online data backup and management industry. As connectivity speeds increased,repparttar 133338 market for Online Backup services expanded...

Duringrepparttar 133339 time that faster modems and internet protocols were in development, tape backup systems gained in popularity. The mainstay of larger corporations sincerepparttar 133340 1950’s, tape backup saw significant improvements withrepparttar 133341 advent ofrepparttar 133342 8mm and 4mm tape formats, achieving then-revolutionary local transfer speeds of 240 KB per second. Cottage industries sprung up asrepparttar 133343 technology began to transform existing paper record storage businesses into larger tape transport and storage enterprises. Because ofrepparttar 133344 ongoing costs associated with moving these tapes around andrepparttar 133345 relatively high failure rates of restoring data from tapes, companies began to research and develop ways to transfer data over telephone lines. Software costs were as high as $125,000 forrepparttar 133346 first reliable product, and high-speed modems were still relatively scarce. The need for an affordable, reliable online backup system was becoming clear. In 1987 Remote Backup Systems, Inc.’s founder introducedrepparttar 133347 first commercially available online backup system to a group of physicians in Memphis, TN. Originally designed for backing up medical records to a remote location,repparttar 133348 requirements were strict on features including encryption, compression, authentication, and other high security measures. As connectivity speeds increased,repparttar 133349 market for online backup services expanded. The advent of Cable and DSL modems offered an opportunity forrepparttar 133350 average business to take advantage ofrepparttar 133351 latest in secure data transfer technology. Duringrepparttar 133352 tech boom ofrepparttar 133353 1990’s this service gained widespread acceptance among many industries, including small and medium sized organizations that began to rely more heavily on PCs for their businesses profitability. Now, as high-speed connectivity is becoming commonplace andrepparttar 133354 general acceptance of secure data transfer increases,repparttar 133355 service is gaining mainstream popularity. Many IT firms are looking to add service offerings which provide a recurring revenue stream while requiring minimal resource dedication - and online backup is more attractive than ever. From dedicated remote backup service providers to ‘data management companies’ who are actually inrepparttar 133356 advertising sales business,repparttar 133357 landscape of this industry is becoming more difficult to navigate every day.

Reseller, Client and Server, or Data Repository – Who Has My Data, and Where? When a business decides to add Remote Backup to their data management plan,repparttar 133358 subsequent decision on which type of service to choose can be equally as critical. The data backup industry is perhapsrepparttar 133359 most confusing market segment in all of digital data management, due largely torepparttar 133360 amount of marketing hype and misinformation inrepparttar 133361 industry as well asrepparttar 133362 sheer number of companies in this space. To cut through some ofrepparttar 133363 confusion and propaganda, it can safely be said that there are three main types of remote backup companies an organization can choose to do business with: •Backup Service Resellers – These companies act as middlemen, charging their clients forrepparttar 133364 use of another company’s backup software, hardware, and support network. They may offer some education and assistance duringrepparttar 133365 sales and support process, and they may appear as a more secure option due to their affiliation with a larger company. Resellers usually have no physical responsibility or control over stored data, and may not even know whererepparttar 133366 data physically rests at any given time. The ability to deliver data to a client organization is dictated primarily byrepparttar 133367 hosting company, notrepparttar 133368 sales organization, andrepparttar 133369 details around this process are typically contained in sub-paragraphs ofrepparttar 133370 contract. These companies are also frequently in direct competition with their own suppliers, which can result in strained supply chain relations and hierarchal availability of services. •Online Data Storage /Data Repository Vendors – Like their names imply, data storage and repository companies rent space on their servers and allow clients to simply park data there. Users are typically required to manually log in torepparttar 133371 service, to configurerepparttar 133372 repository to fit their needs, and to manually move data torepparttar 133373 vendor’s storage area. Usually deployed separately from an automated and secure data protection measure, data repositories can allow individuals or organizations to share data by uploading it to a third-party server or mailing disks in to be loaded byrepparttar 133374 hosting company, enabling access by others on a password-protected basis. These offerings can runrepparttar 133375 gamut from consumer photo-sharing applications to more sophisticated products which allow sharing and collaboration on projects, documents, and other data.

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