EmptorMaven

Online hosting is a crowded market.  For over four years I have used 1and1.com and have found their services to be competent, reliable, and very competitively priced.  There are probably other players out there that are just as good, but with so many questionable businesses in the mix it’s hard to be sure.

I cringe every time I hear of somebody paying $35/year for domain name registration when they can get full-service registration with privacy on an ongoing basis at 1and1.com for $7/year.  Nobody should buy web services before comparing with 1and1.com.

Paying for delivery of fresh flowers is a woefully expensive gesture, especially considering what you could send instead for $50-$100.  I have yet to find a woman who wouldn’t rather receive a SpaFinder.com certificate in the same amount.  Pick one up at Costco and you can get her a $100 credit for only $80.

Online backup of your personal data is as essential as ever. A year ago I recommended Mozy for online backup, but recently its competitor Carbonite released a new version that I believe has given it an edge. I have kept 46GB of my photos, videos, and documents backed up for several months now with Carbonite.

Drawbacks to Carbonite include:

1. It won’t backup USB drives.
2. Backups aren’t encrypted (for those paranoiacs out there).
3. After trial period you must subscribe by the year, not month-to-month like Mozy.

Drawbacks to Mozy include:

1. GUI not integrated; not as easy or convenient to use.
2. Many complaints heard about restore problems.

Note: For small amounts of data you may find JungleDisk more economical.