clearing the air

Simon Shaw, CTO, Zoogmo

So here it is.

My first blog post.

If you would have asked me a couple of years ago whether I would ever write a blog, the response would have been a convincing NO and I would have probably enhanced that with some sort of adage like “there are those that do and those that blog”.

So what made me change my mind?

First and foremost I think that the state of the blogosphere has totally changed, the bottom up effect whereby the good stuff rises to the top has had time to percolate through and like it or not a large amount of the information I glean from the web either comes directly from one of the blogs that I read or a blog that somebody else has read and then passed on to me via email.

Many of the blogs that I came across in the early days were simply noise to me, but as Figgy Milburn (my A-Level physics teacher) used to say, noise is simply unwanted sound, the fact that it is unwanted by me does not necessarily mean that it is unwanted by somebody else or even a group of somebody elses. Over time I came to realize that the whole point of blogging was to enable people to stand on their own virtual soapbox and talk about whatever topic took their fancy. Taking the sheer size of the internet into account you are bound to find somebody with similar interests even if they aren’t currently part of your social network or geographically proximate to you.

About 3 years ago, after 12 years in a job that came with a built in bonus of a 45-60 minute commute L, I stumbled upon the DotNetRocks site. For those of you who don’t know, DotNetRocks is a site that puts out a weekly podcast where the hosts, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, discuss one niche or another from Microsoft’s dot net world of development. After listening to my first show (show #120 something in their archive) I could not believe how lucky I was to fall on exactly the show where they were not only talking about a topic that specifically interested me but they were also talking, for the main part, on my level. I tried more and more shows and they were all of the same quality, my commute to work had overnight turned into an educational and mind broadening experience, traffic congestion had become a relief that enabled me to hear the end of the show rather than another reason to poor extra money at my cell phone provider.

When I originally started listening to DotNetRocks they had around 100 thousand downloads per month, today they are closer to 2 million. Remember this is 2 guys who have built this, to all effects, in their garage and made the content available to anybody with an internet connection, they are definitely the case of the cream that made its way to the top and they have built themselves one hell of a soapbox.

So there it is, I have philosophized enough and cleared the air, now is the time to really start blogging. I promise not to write any more articles like this. The model I intend to emulate is that of one of my favorite blogs VistaDB, whereby I will talk about the everyday R&D and technology challenges that I am facing and I will also let you know about the cool things I have found and enjoy using. Feedback will always be welcome!!!.

risk taking

I’m Dov Sugarman, CEO and co-founder of Zoogmo. My voice will be one of those you will hear regularly on the Official Zoogmo Blog. Before helping to found Zoogmo I worked in a variety of senior management positions in companies at different stages including start-up, expansion and turn-around.

Like most people out there, I was not particularly concerned about backup, though as time went on, I did find myself collecting more and more stuff I cared about on my computer. All that changed when my laptop hard drive went on me and took with it a whole bunch of really important files from a project I was working on at the time. Restoring and recreating all those documents was really aggravating and took a ton of time and a bunch of money. Since then I am careful to backup my important files, but I remain fascinated by the question of why so many of us are willing to take such huge risks with our data.

Recently I saw the IMAX film, Adrenaline Rush: Science of Risk, which takes a look at the world of extreme risk taking such as skydiving and base jumping. It is a really cool movie that I recommend to all of you. The film explores the psychological and physiological forces behind risk-taking, and the physics involved in these activities. One theory put forward in the film is that extreme risk-takers tend to have lower than normal levels of the enzyme Monoamine oxidase(MAO) and that the experience of taking risks somehow balances them out. The film points out that some risk taking is normal and not necessarily illogical or irrational. While I would not dream of calling those guys who parachute from bridges and cliffs crazy, these are not the sorts of pursuits that most of the people you and I know are involved in (so I guess our MAO levels are ok!).

We insure our cars and homes, lock our doors at night, look both ways when crossing the street, maybe even try not to spend more than we earn. Hey a whole lot of us even have installed anti-virus software on our computers. In other words, we take steps to minimize the risk of things going wrong and the impact when they do.

And yet when it comes to backing up our computers somehow the overwhelming majority of us just never seem to do it. It remains one of those tasks on our “to do” list that we really do intend to get to, but meanwhile we continue taking risks with our data that are more characteristic of adrenaline junkies than us folks with normal MAO levels. What’s that about?!

I’d love to hear your answers to this question. Meanwhile check out Zoogmo – your online backup community at our website – www.zoogmo.com and get backup off of your “to do” list. The really cool thing is that when you invite a friend to join you as a backup partner, you both benefit – kind of like tandem skydiving…

new kid on the backup block

We are really excited to announce that after many months of long hours and really hard work, we have launched into beta!

Zoogmo is a cool new backup program that offers FREE, UNLIMITED backup.

With Zoogmo you control where your files are backed up by building a backup network of your own or your friends’ computers.

Zoogmo automatically backs up ALL of your data over the internet, using a combination of Triple-DES and AES 256 encryption to make sure that only you have access to your files.

Check out Zoogmo at www.zoogmo.com to learn more and begin turning your social network into your backup network.

Remember, with Zoogmo you have no annoying monthly fees – totally free unlimited backup you can trust!