Delboy’s Blog

Late last night I received the following email for Tom Metge of Mozy.

“I’ve been postponing an answer until I’ve had something concrete to give
you.  My apologies for the silence- unfortunately, we’re still buried in QA.
Anyhow, until you get back on your feet, there’s no point paying for the
service.  I’ve taken the liberty of refunding your last payment… That will
hold you out until 5/28/09.

I do have some good news for you- from your last log, I can see a number
connection errors and other network interruptions, but Mozy seems to be
plodding along, getting the job done.  You have 1.1TB backed up right now,
which is no mean feet

Hopefully the refund will help us keep things moving.  I’ll try harder to
keep you up-to-date as we get a fix out on this.  Believe me, we’re making
it a priority.  As soon as I’ve got even an alpha build of a client that
addresses this, I’ll fire it off to you.

Nice blog post, by the way.  Let me know what I can do to help turn your
opinion around.  We have nearly 1 million users, so I can’t say I’m
surprised to hear that you’ve found people having a few problems.  What may
not have come across (and that is my fault and I offer my apologies) is
that, regardless of the number, we have a vested interest in solving every
single one of those problems.

Let me polish this off with a personal promise- until we have this fixed,
you won’t pay a penny to Mozy.  That refund stands and will stand until May
of next year, at a minimum.  As we work through this, I will also make sure
that your help is appropriately rewarded, beyond the refund.  Helping us to
push the boundaries of what Mozy can and was designed to do is enormously
valuable to us.

Thanks again for the help and the patience.  Once more, I offer my apologies
for the silence.  My intention was to have a solid answer for you.  I hope
the refund and renewed commitment will stand until I can hand that solution
to you.”

I now feel that Mozy has done the correct thing and does care about me as a customer. I will continue to recommend Mozy as a god backup option as until this problem I had no issues and I now believe that Mozy IS doing everything they can to fix my problem. I still do have an issue with the current version but I am able to get some backups done using an older version of the software. I would like to thank Tom for the update and I will update my blog once I get the new version of the software.

Over the last 8 weeks I have been having a problem with Mozy the company I use for my online backup’s. Even though the problem is still not fixed I deiced to blog about the problem so far.

About 8 weeks ago I noticed that I had started to have 2 problems with my Mozy Home client. The first problem was a MozyServerError6 problem, the second was I noticed that my client was send more data than was being encoded, this was a real problem for me.

OK the first problem was easy I emailed Mozy and they told me that this was an error with there server’s and would be fixed very soon. I was told that my client would reconnect and this would not be a problem. This may not be a problem to most people but when you have 1.3Tb backed up to Mozy it can take a good couple of hour to restart a backup. 8 Weeks later I am still having the same problems with this first error which makes me wounder just how good are the server’s back at Mozy or how good are there engineer’s.

The second issue has been a far worse problem to try and get fixed. After speaking with a number of Mozy engineer’s over a 2 week period it became clear to me that none of them had a clue what they were talking about. Over there chat option I was told that this is not a problem and my data was being encoded and being sent to Mozy, over the phone I was told that this was an issue and to upgrade to the latest version. When I told him I was at the latest version he didn’t know what to say (I would have asked for the version number first). After more investigation at my end I now know that the client is not sending any data and has crashed just saying that it is sending data, it just sticks on the same file, that is until it crashes out with a MozyServerError6 problem.

After 4 weeks of fighting with Mozy about this problem and getting nowhere fast I was leaving for Microsoft’s TechEd. Imagine how happy I was when I came across a Mozy stand at the EMC Booth. It was here that I met Tom Metge who told me he was a lead engineer for the Mozy client, great I thought. I told Tom of my problem and explained to him how I was getting no support, Tom told me he was fully aware of the problem and how the help desk didn’t really understand the problem. Tom told me that there was another version getting ready for release to fix this exact problem and asked if I would like to be a beta tester to be sure the problem was fixed, I agreed. I had a number of emails back and forth with Tom showing him my log files and the error’s I was getting he told me one of his engineers to email me with a link to the beta version and all would be good. I spoke to Tom a number of times during my week and TechEd and all looked good.

A week after returning from TechEd and I still had not received the beta software and so I emailed Tom and surprise, surprise no reply. I have now emailed Tom a number of times over the last two weeks and as yet no reply, another sinning example of Mozy’s great support.

Yesterday I received a follow up call from my time at TechEd from Mozy, so I told the poor girl just what I thought of the company and the support they have. She told me that she will arrange a call with Mozy corporate to get this issue fixed but so far I have herd nothing. I will update this post if anything happens.

As of today 8 weeks after my problems started I have managed to backup just 10Gb in that time (I used to backup about 7Gb a night) I am no further forward and still no fix insight. In the whole 8 weeks I have only had 1 good call to Mozy when and egineer called Josh extended my subscription by 3 months as I have been unable to backup my data, but still no fix.

I will keep this blog up dated as to when or if I get my problem fixed.

******Update******

Please see this blog post for the latest update http://delboycarter.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/mozy-redeem-themselves/

Technology @ Home

I was recently asked about how I use technology in the home and how I share my home media with my family back in the UK. I thought that this would be the ideal subject for my next blog. In this blog I will highlight what technology I am currently using in the home and how I share my digital media with my family and friends back home in the UK.

How do I store my Data?

I store my data using a small windows XP box with many USB drives hanging off it. I currently have 6 USB drives with a total capacity of 1.5Tb. I also run a number of applications on this “Server”.

What Software do I run on the Server?

iTunes – I use iTunes to share my Photos, Music and Video with my AppleTV and other devices within the house.

Mozy – I use Mozy home to back up all my data to an offsite location keeping all of my data secure. I currently have 1.1Tb backup to the Mozy servers (I wonder if anyone has more backed up).

Skype – I use Skype as the main phone service into the house. I find this much cheaper than using a conventional phone server, especially for calling the Europe. I have 2 USB Linksys iPhone (the original iPhone) for my handsets.

NTRConnect - I use this as a way to remote control my Server and in partnership with MSN i am also able to copy any of my files to and from my remote location.

MSN Messenger - I use messenger and the shared folders option to copy files to and from my remote location. If I need a file I can remote to my server with NTRConnect and put the file in my shared folder that is shared with my Laptop. If I have some new files when I am traveling I am able to add them to my shared folder on my laptop and they are then copied to my server, I am then able to remote to my server and move the files to where I need them. Even adding files like picture’s to my AppleTV so they can be viewed on my TV before I am even home.

Sharing my Media in the Home

Last year I decided to be an early adopter of the new AppleTV when it was released, for sharing my media in the home. This has been the best purchase I have made. Before I bought the AppleTV I was using a Linksys Media device to share my digital pictures and music with my TV and sound system. This was fine, but I wanted to share video with my TV. When I read about the AppleTV I decided that this was the device for me.

AppleTV

With the AppleTV connected to the TV I am now able to stream all of my media from my server to my TV at the touch of a button. This includes over 400 movies, 1000+ TV shows, 1000’s of music files, and of course my digital pictures. On top of this I now have Youtube on my TV.
Earlier this year Apple released an update to AppleTV adding a number of features. The 4 features that I like the most are as follows.

Movie Rental – I am not really bothered about renting standard movies, but I really like the option of renting High Definition movies.

AirTunes – I can now push music from any PC or Laptop on my home network to my AppleTV and then on to my surround sound system with AirTunes. If I also add an AirPort Express Base Station to the network and connect some speaker I can now send music to a number of different room through out the house all in sync.

Photo sharing with the Web – The new version of AppleTV allows you to now look at photos and Video that are shared on .Mac and Flickr. This gives me the ability to look at my friend’s pictures on my TV, and give my family and friend’s the ability to look at my Photo’s and Video’s on their TVs back in the UK.

HD and surround sound – Adding 5.1 surround sound and High Definition movies as an option made AppleTV far better option.

So, how do I share my digital photos and home movies?

Well, I upload my media to my .Mac account from there. My family and friend’s can either access my photo’s from my website or via there AppleTV on there TV’s.

What I would like to see next from Apple TV

There have been many rumors as to what might be next for AppleTV, and if we have learned anything from Apple, it is to expect the unexpected. However, for what it is worth, here is what I would like to see next for AppleTV.

Video Messaging – I would like to see video messaging integrated with AppleTV. An application like Skype added to the box and a web cam connected to the USB port would be great for communicating with other AppleTV users.

Internet Browsing – An Internet browser added to the box, plus a wireless keyboard and mouse really would connect the Internet to the living room.

HD Movie Purchase – Now that we can play and rent High Definition movies through AppleTV, I would like to be able to purchase HD movies from iTunes so that I can watch them at my own leisure.

Now that’s how I use technology in the home.