Carbonite has been a popular choice for Windows users for quite some time because you pay one price ($54.95) for a yearly subscription and that’s it. There are no additional fees for storage or bandwidth. It’s easy to install, easy to configure, and doesn’t seem to drag a computer down while it works in the background.

It makes a simple mirror of your files. Change a file, and the new version replaces the old one on the server. Rather than backing up on a set schedule, it detects when files change and automatically backs them up, meaning that there is little chance of losing an important file because it was lost before the next scheduled sync.

Carbonite has been teasing Mac users for well over two years with the promise of a Mac version. The wait is over. Is it worth it?

Carbonite for Mac installs (and uninstalls) very easily onto a Mac running OS X 10.4 or 10.5. While the PC version sits in the taskbar, the Mac version is configured via a system preference pane that you can set to access from the menu bar.

By default, Carbonite backs up every file it finds in the User folder, except for applications and system files. You can also manually select additional files to back up (or not back up) through the Finder, although in practice this didn’t work for me. To restore, you access the “Restore” tab in the preference pane and select the files you want to copy back.

Carbonite is not meant to create a full drive backup. For that, look to Apple’s Time Machine or SuperDuper and back up to an external or network drive. Online backup services are best for recovering specific files lost through corruption or accidental deletion, not for complete hard drive meltdowns.

The problem with Carbonite for Mac is that we’ve moved on. What seemed like a life-saving service two years ago now feels kind of ho-hum and a bit too pricey.

Carbonite’s big downfall is that it’s licensed per computer only. If you have a desktop computer and a laptop, you need to pay another $54.95 to back up the second machine. You can’t share common files between machines. You can have multiple machines on your account, but each needs its own license. Depending on how you work, that can get expensive.

New to Carbonite is the ability to browse and download backed-up files through a web interface. Unfortunately, in my testing I found accessing files this way to be painfully slow.

There are now more choices for Mac users for automated online backups, including my personal favorite: Jungle Disk. It provides a very easy-to-use interface for automatically backing up files to Amazon S3 storage space. It’s not quite as brainless to configure as Carbonite, and you have to pay Amazon for the storage (my invoices have been averaging $9/month for about 30GB of files from two machines). But it still has a very easy-to-use interface, and it’s far more flexible than Carbonite. For example, with Jungle Disk you can specify how many backups you wish to save, so you can go back and restore an older version of a file. Carbonite has no such option. Also, side-by-side, it feels like Jungle Disk uploads much faster than Carbonite.

I installed Carbonite a few years ago on my mother’s Windows-based computer. It was — and is — a perfect solutions for her, and was quite handy when she accidentally lost a folder full of important files. If your mom is a Mac user, I would recommend Carbonite for her, too. It does what it says it will do, and it does it well.

But for a web worker needing easy online backup, Carbonite is a bit too lightweight for its price to be taken seriously.

What’s your favorite online backup solution?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Do Consumers Care Where Their Content Is Stored?
• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce

Om has details about the back-from-the-sleeping service over on GigaOM.

In addition to opening the service up to new users, Om reports that Google Voice will host a suite of new VoIP features:

1. You can use your GrandCentral number to send and receive SMS messages, and have them forwarded to your current wireless phone. You can send messages from the mobile or from the landline phone.
2. Make phone calls using the web or your mobile/landline phone.
3. You can get transcripts for voicemails left on Google Voice. These transcripts, based on internal Google technology currently being used by GOOG-411 service, can be sent to you via SMS.
4. Create conference calls by dragging phone numbers onto existing calls. This will be useful for small businesses and web workers.
5. Free calls to all U.S. numbers. You can make international calls but that will cost you, depending on the country you are dialing.

Google Voice will also integrate with Google contacts, which will be a very welcome change.

None of these new features are groundbreaking. There are a number of startups that can do what Google Voice does and more. But with Google Voice we can likely expect a simple, straightforward interface and low barrier to entry, with only a Google Account required to sign up.

We’ll have a more in-depth look at Google Voice once it’s widely available.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

Without a network sync component like Windows LiveSync (aka FolderShare) and DropBox, Box.net competes by focusing on reliability and accessibility. Once a file is uploaded to Box.net, it’s easy to grab and edit from any desktop browser or mobile device. The service is consistently fast and available. Plans range from free to enterprise solutions. While the free version is functional with 1 GB of storage space, it may be worth the upgrade to the $7.95/month Individual plan for the faster uploads alone. It’s significantly faster than any FTP server I’ve ever used.

After keeping the same look and feel for years, Box.net recently refreshed their interface and introduced the ability to create documents directly on the site.

The new look shows more info about a folder at a glance. Before you had to click on a drop-down menu to work with a file/folder; now most of that info is right in the sidebar. This makes it much easier to collaborate on assets.

They’ve also introduced the ability to create documents on the fly. Previously, you had to create your document in another application and then upload to Box.net. Now, you have no need to jump out of Box.net for simple additions.

It’s not meant to replace Google Docs or Zoho or any on- or offline word processor. For starters, you can’t import or export files. But all the basic WYSIWYG editing functionality is there. Don’t think of it as an online Microsoft Word, think of it as an online Notepad or TextEdit.

Truth be told, the value of this feature is limited. You certainly wouldn’t use it for complex documents. But, if the file is not explicitly shared, it is locked even to collaborators. So it could be useful if you want to write more information/instruction than can fit in the sidebar comments and you don’t want your collaborators to remove or edit the file.

The significant weakness of Box.net is its lack of an offline feature. If you don’t have Internet access, you are not getting to your files. The company has hinted that they have something cooking in that direction, but until then it’s important to keep a local copy of any files that you might have to access on a moment’s notice.

What service do you you use for cloud storage?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Personal tools lead to practical business
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout

Back in April of last year HP decided to reinvent the online storage wheel by introducing their own backup service, named HP Upline. It came. It never quite got off the ground. And now, it’s officially joining the deadpool.

Just in case there is anyone out there who actually put data on Upline and didn’t get the email from HP announcing its departure, it says in part:

HP continually evaluates product lines and has decided to discontinue the HP Upline service on March 31, 2009.

HP will no longer be backing up your files to the HP Upline servers as of Feb 26, 2009 at 8 am Pacific time. HP will keep the file restore feature of the Upline service operational through March 31, 2009 Pacific time in order for you to download any files you have backed up to Upline.

If you have a paid subscription to HP Upline, you will be refunded the full amount of the fees you paid for the service. That refund will be credited to the credit card account or PayPal account that you used to subscribe to the Upline service. If you do not receive the refund prior to March 31, 2009, please contact our customer service team at http://www.upline.com/support/email.aspx.

HP looks forward to offering you additional technology products and services in the future.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Listening platforms: finding the value in social media data
• Personal tools lead to practical business
• The Internet of things: creating tomorrow’s health care

Gmail, including Google Apps, went down for about four hours or so this morning (or this afternoon, depending on where you are). It says a lot for Gmail’s reach that when it does go offline, it makes immediate headlines.

Like many, the first thing I do every morning is check my email accounts. When the errors started popping up, I went straight to Twitter Search to be assured I was not alone.

I had other things to do. I could have checked headlines. I could have finished some work that had nothing to do with email. I could have balanced my checkbook. Heck, I could have spent extra time with the morning paper or gone for a brisk walk. But no, I kept trying to load my email while keeping an eye on Twitter. Judging by the tweets, I was not alone.

I know I’m over-reliant on email. As soon as I saw it was a global problem, I knew Google would resolve it quickly, and they did. But still, it bothered me that it was so difficult to concentrate on anything else until service was restored.

Checking email is part of the web worker’s routine. Does it throw you off kilter when it’s not available? What do you do to pass the time until Google gets the hamsters running again?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

Ask any telecommuter for a downside, and they’ll likely start talking about the isolation. It’s more than discussing last night’s game around the water cooler. When you’re physically in the office simply doing your job, your presence is a constant reminder to the rest of your team of the value you add to the company. No virtual project management site can replace the spontaneous collaboration that happens in the hallway. And when the boss is looking for someone to play a role on a key project, odds are her first thought isn’t going to be that guy sitting 200 miles away.

So how do you sit in your pajamas all day and stay connected to your peers?

It depends on the company, and it depends on you.

It Depends on the Company

It’s not about you or your job. It’s about the culture. How much conversation typically happens in the hallways? Do folks tend to work from home in the evenings or take their work on the road? How much work is planned in advance vs. what happens spontaneously?

If you want to work for a telecommuting-friendly company, consider working for a nonprofit organization or a vendor that services nonprofits. In general, you’d be hard pressed to find an industry more conducive to non-traditional work environments than the nonprofit sector. I’ve attended a number of nonprofit conferences where I continually meet folks who, like me, work full-time for geographically-distant causes.

Of course, if you are working to provide a direct service you need to be where that service is. However, there are opportunities to work for organizations where they may be grateful to have your expertise without the overhead of having you on site. While nonprofits do traditionally pay less than comparable jobs in the for-profit world, the compensation is not as bad as you might think. And you have the warm fuzzies of working for the greater good. Check out the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) for more information about working in the nonprofit technology world.

Regardless of the sector, whatever you do, don’t expect the culture to change to suit you. If your co-workers rarely log in to a project management/collaboration web site; if they never have conversations via IM or Twitter; if emails are rarely longer than 5 words; if their idea of an impromptu conference call involves a cell phone in speaker mode…they’re not going to change for you.

Last week I was visiting my office, as I do each month, and I asked my co-workers to share with me any challenges they’ve had working with a telecommuter. They expressed that they feel bad that I miss some of the casual hallway conversation, but for the most part not much is different. They IM with me just as much as they IM with each other. In fact, after over three years we’ve developed our own shorthand language that works well for SMS and IM. We use a variety of web-based tools to keep in touch and stay organized. It’s just part of our culture, regardless of where everyone is physically.

If you can’t figure out a way to comfortably work in the culture of the company even when you’re not there – without expecting anyone else to change their habits – then you may be wasting your time. Even if you are perfectly comfortable with telecommuting, have an ideal home office, and have your supervisor’s buy-in, you will probably feel frustrated and disenfranchised in the end.

It Depends on You

So you work for a progressive company that loves to communicate via instant messenger or Skype. They use web apps or VPN and nothing important happens in the office anyway. Home office here I come, right? Not so fast.

Your coworkers can’t see that you’re busy. They can’t tell when you’re in a good mood. Except for scheduled or impromptu phone calls or web conferences, you have to be comfortable showing who you are almost entirely in written communication.

There are some people who are able to comfortably write emails that aren’t too long, aren’t too short, and it’s the same as if they were standing in front of you. They make ideal telecommuters. And there are others who have difficulty coming across as they intend in writing. Those folks should stick close to the office.

Here’s something you don’t want to hear: The successful telecommuter practices Inbox Zero. That’s right, you need to make sure that every email is read and dealt with in a timely manner. You’ll need a system for quickly responding to IMs and other messages, even if it’s to say you can’t deal with it at the moment. Superior electronic organization skills are key to a telecommuter’s successful relationship with peers.

If you can’t keep up with your email and other electronic communication when you’re face-to-face with your coworkers, forget working remotely on a regular basis. You’ll have all your typical email from the outside, plus additional communication from co-workers who can no longer just shout at you from down the hall. Imagine how your coworkers would feel if they asked you a question in person and you routinely ignored them for a few hours…or a few days? Whether it’s IM, Twitter, Skype, the telephone or the inbox, you need to get on top of the communication tool that’s as readily accessible to you and your coworkers during business hours as conversation. It’s not always realistic to expect people to call you for everything.

Fellow telecommuters: any advice you’d give to someone just thinking of taking the leap?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

In short, they’ve found that while free apps are downloaded like crazy, active use drops off fast. Paid apps tend to see more use after installation and are used for longer periods. If it’s a paid game, all the better.

Long before he stopped using his iPhone altogether, Om raised similar questions on GigaOM regarding app usage.

Does your own iPhone usage support this data?

Looking at my iPhone I find that most of the applications I actively use are those that support or work in cooperation with the web-based tools on my desktop computer. Even though I’m not using a wide variety of applications, overall I’m using my iPhone on a daily basis far more than I have used any other mobile device.

My app mainstays include Remember the Milk, Facebook, TwitterFon, Salesforce, BeejiveIM (expensive at $15.99 but worth it), 1Password and Box.net. I also regularly launch eReader, TWC (Weather Channel) and Now Playing. While I still have a few games on my iPhone, I can’t remember the last time I launched one.

I took a rare visit to the App Store to see what I might be missing.

#9 on the Top Paid App list is something called “White Noise”, which pretty much sums up what the store is like for me these days. Not much seems to stand out in a sea of mindless games and fluff entertainment.

Part of the reason I’m bored by the App Store is how often I’ve been burned by apps that don’t live up to their promise. The ratings aren’t as helpful as they could be since you can’t see which version the reviewer was using when they cast their vote. So instead, I tend to grab apps from developers I already trust or those that are recommended on other web sites.

What apps, if any, are still making your cut? How do you decide what to buy/download?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Defining work in the digital age: an analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Flash analysis: Steve Jobs
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce

I’ve decided to only sync my calendar between Google and my iPhone, which after one false start now works well. I didn’t bother syncing contacts. Why? Because nowadays when I need to find someone, the last place I seem to look is in my usually-outdated contacts application.

Sure, I have some contacts in my desktop address book which I sync back to Google with Spanning Sync. Mostly immediate family, doctors, school contacts, etc. Those few people I really need to call when out and about. Every work contact is in our organization’s CRM and is accessible through the Salesforce iPhone app. The rest of my life is either in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn where the contacts themselves make sure their own data is up-to-date. All are easily accessible from my iPhone.

When I leaf through my desktop address book there are so many out-of-date entries, I often wonder why I bothered putting them there to begin with. I know there’s Plaxo for keeping an address book updated, but that utility comes with its own set of problems.

Let’s hear how other web workers handle their contacts.

Has your local address book been shoved aside in favor of web-based tools? Do you worry about the accuracy of contact data on your phone or desktop? How do you keep it all up-to-date and in sync?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

Last week, Google introduced the Multiple Inboxes Lab, which works for both @gmail.com and Google Apps addresses. This lets you sub-divide your inbox into multiple views; check out Simon’s Multiple Inboxes screencast from yesterday for an overview. I didn’t enable the feature for a few days, thinking that I already had a pretty good system for getting to Inbox Zero and staying on top of what needed to get done. Turns out that multiple inboxes makes a good system even better.

You can get quite creative with the panes you have set up in your Multiple Inboxes beyond the default is:starred or is:unread that it comes with out of the box. Here are two inbox panes I’ve configured that are helping me stay organized.

label:waiting

It’s too easy to send an email and then forget that you’re waiting on an answer. Set a label (I use “waiting”) for those conversations that are stalled because you need someone else to do something. By making it into an inbox pane it’s in your face all the time, so that the loop isn’t closed.

I only wish there was a way to do a relative date (for example: before:7 days ago) in the search box so I could do a better job of keeping on top of only the most stale responses I’m waiting on as those are the ones that tend to slip through the cracks.

label:read-later label:unread

My goal is always to get email out of my main inbox as soon as possible. Ever get an email that you know you have to read in more depth, but don’t have time to do so at the moment? There may be a task hidden in there, or maybe not. It’s certainly not important enough to set as an actual task yet. So this label is for emails that I need to read later, but haven’t yet.

The key to this inbox pane is to label the message without marking it as read. Once you’ve read the message, there’s no point of seeing it as a message to read. To do that, select the email, and then the label from the new “Move to” drop down. It’s not actually moving anything – this is Gmail, after all. What it does do is to keep the status as unread while labeling and moving the message out of the main inbox and into the Archive. Now when you read the email, it will automatically be removed from the Multiple Inboxes pane.

Are you using Multiple Inboxes to increase productivity? Share your tips in the comments.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What Enterprise Software Vendors Could Learn from the Consumer Space
• NewNet Winners and Losers of 2009
• Social Media in the Enterprise

I have two computers: a MacBook Pro and an iMac. Even though Firefox 3 is my default browser on both computers, I regularly have at least three different browsers open to do what I need to do in my work day. Certain sites only work in Internet Explorer, while others simply behave better in Chrome or Safari. Other sites are bookmarked in Safari solely for the iPhone.

Foxmarks has long been the free go-to utility for syncing bookmarks between multiple instances of Firefox. I’ve long preferred Foxmarks to Mozilla Weave which, while it syncs more information between Firefox browsers, I’ve found to be less reliable. For non-Firefox browsers, I’ve had to use my.foxmarks.com to access sites using IE or Safari that are bookmarked in Firefox.

No more. Last week, Foxmarks introduced syncing for both IE and Safari (I can’t wait for a Chrome version).

How does it sync browsers that don’t support plug-ins the way Firefox does?

On the Mac, it installs a new system preference:

On the PC, it’s a little application that can also sit in the system tray:

This solution is not quite as elegant as it is for Firefox, where it can work entirely in the browser without requiring any additional system resources. On the other hand, you don’t have to wait for IE or Safari to launch to sync bookmarks, like you do with Firefox.

After a few hours of testing, I’m quite satisfied. Make a change to bookmarks in one browser, and within seconds the files are synced in all other browsers, regardless of the platform. I did notice that the Firefox “Bookmarks Toolbar” is renamed to “Links” during the sync and is accessible through a drop-down menu in the upper right corner.

Limitations:

• It does not appear that Foxmark’s new password syncing is available outside of Firefox. For site password syncing that is available cross-browser, I would highly recommend 1Password on the Mac (works in both Firefox and Safari) and RoboForm on the PC (works in IE and Firefox, among others, not including Chrome).
• On the Mac, it only works in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)
• On the PC, it only works in IE 6 & 7 and it’s a bit buggier than the Mac/Firefox syncing. It did crash IE once for me. Of all the browsers I use, I’m in IE the least so this is not an issue for me. But if IE is your mainstay browser, perhaps because a work-related application requires it, you should probably hold off on Foxmarks.

Have you tried Foxmarks? What tools do you use for browser bookmark syncing?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How emerging technologies will influence collaboration
• Personal tools lead to practical business
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis