Recently in Personal Category

It’s been a long road, but the Mac version of Mozy is finally out of beta. We released our official 1.0 version late last week, and I am a happy developer. It was almost exactly a year ago that Mozy released it’s first Mac software, which is way too long to be in a beta program. We won’t let that happen again.

We are going to release a business version, MozyPro for Mac, later this summer. And we have a lot of performance improvements and interface changes we want to make. There is a lot of work ahead of us, which is great.

So while I was taking some deep breaths, I got a chance to read up on some of what people are saying about Mozy. iDrive, one of our competitors, just released a beta version of their Mac software, so I thought I’d take a look.

They seem to have done some pretty cool things with their software, but it’s clear that they don’t understand the word unlimited. iDrive includes this disclaimer in small text on the bottom of their homepage:

The concept of ‘Unlimited Storage’ is subject to fair usage of the service. This is to facilitate a low one-price plan to backup a PC’s critical data that meets requirement for high majority of consumers; there may be some limits based on what constitutes fair usage. The current limits include 150GB of total storage and 100GB of bandwidth utilization per day. Do refer to Conditions of Use. Pricing structure for business use varies from personal use.

So you get “unlimited” storage for whatever they decide is “fair.” Not really unlimited. I really like that Mozy’s unlimited service has no restrictions on space.

MozyHome does have a bandwidth cap to limit how fast files are uploaded, but in practice very few people have upload speeds that reach this limit. We are always open to customer feedback, however, and reevaluate this decision from time to time. MozyPro does not have this limitation.

In addition to the whole unlimited thing, iDrive’s comparison with Mozy is incorrect in several places.

Still, they have some good ideas in the design of their software. And it’s good for Mozy to have competition. Keeps us all working hard at listening to our customers.

We’ve had some really nice weather recently. However, it always seems to snow one last time just as I start feeling like I can leave my coat at home. So the kids were able to play in the snow for one last day. I upload some pictures to our picture gallery along with some schoolwork the kids recently brought home

Tyler really got into the spirit of April Fools’ Day and played several jokes on his parents and siblings. We found books in our pillow cases, stuffed animals in our toothbrush drawers, and various missing articles of clothing. He liked it so much he kept playing jokes on his parents over the next few days. I also uploaded a picture of one of his jokes on me that made me laugh.

I uploaded some older pictures to our .Mac page. These are from Katie’s wedding, fishing with the kids last summer, our trip to a dude ranch with the Davis clan, and our trip to Phoenix for Thanksgiving.

Just a few clicks to get it all up there. I like it.

I finally signed up for a .Mac account. It had never seemed worth the money until recently. The feature that finally drew me in was web galleries — automatic picture uploading from iPhoto.

So, here you go Mom. Enjoy.

My job involves working on the Mac version of Mozy. It’s good to see very positive reviews of our work. I know there’s room for improvement too, but it’s great to see happy users.

This is a cool illusion that tricks your eyes into seeing a color picture.

Well, after receiving many (justified) complaints about not putting up pictures of our new daughter, I’ve finally gotten around to uploading some. Her name is Amberly. Mom, you can stop looking at Tallie’s baby pictures now. :-)

I saw this chain reaction Honda commercial years ago, but still love it. Apparently, it took 606 times to get right. None of it is computer animated.

I wanted to write a quick update to let everyone know we are still getting the finishing touches on our newsletter. Well, actually, we’re still writing parts of it. Last years Christmas letter became a New Year’s letter, and this year it’s looking like we’ll have to rush to avoid it becoming a Valentine’s letter.

We also closed on our first “for keeps” investment property. It’s a fourplex in Payson about 20 minutes from our house. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but the price was low and the numbers worked out, even counting some needed repairs. And the best thing is that I find I enjoy being a landlord. I like talking to the tenants and hope to make the building a great place to live. Of course, I haven’t had any calls in the middle of the night yet. So we’ll see how things go.

I got a rare chance to see both my brothers and their families this last weekend. It was great talking to them both and catching up. I didn’t get much of a chance to bond with Owen or Tia. But Kristy’s family was very generous. It was great to experience Texas hospitality again. Scott and I went to see a movie that neither Kristy nor Cheryl would’ve wanted to see: I Am Legend. It was fairly good, but made me jumpy later that night.

Dave and Carly stayed the night in order to cut an hour or so off their drive back to Phoenix the next day. Little Addison is growing up quickly, even since I saw her at Thanksgiving. And I discovered that Dave has also considered buying silver as an investment. Since I purchased some silver recently, I wanted to write a bit about why and how I did it.

First, silver is a precious metal and has often been used as money at various times in history. Second, it is an industrial metal used to make stuff. Third, we’re using more silver than we’re digging up — the amount of above-ground silver has decreased by 90% over the last 60 years. Fourth, the current price doesn’t reflect the increasing scarcity. Fifth, there are now several convenient ways to own it. Theodore Butler has written a great article describing the reasons to own silver in more detail.

There is now an exchange traded fund (like a mutual fund, but traded in real-time instead of at the end of each day) that specializes in owning silver. Apparently, there is an ETF for oil too, but I haven’t looked into that.

I also wanted to take physical possession of some silver. I did quite a bit of research and price comparisons and ended up buying American Silver Eagle coins from Bullion Direct. The coins are minted by the U.S. Mint and are trusted to have very high quality. The coins cost a bit more than raw silver does, but are easily recognized and should therefore be easy to sell or trade when the time comes.