A Carbonite Update

You probably missed it, but on my post about backup methods, I have been corresponding with Dave Friend, the CEO of Carbonite.  Seems that he found out about my blog post and decided to do everything he could to look into my problem.

Color me impressed.

It’s so great to see a CEO so dedicated to the quality and public perception of his company that he takes the time to personally comment on blog entries.  He also e-mailed me a number of times in order to try to help me with my problem.

Unfortunately, the end result was that they are aware that a few Mac users are having this sort of problem where the backup stalls.  It’s not everyone, but it does affect some of us, and they are working on it.  He also made sure that I got the refund I requested.

Given this level of service, I would love to be able to continue to use Carbonite, and offered to be a test subject as they try to fix this problem.  I thought Carbonite was great for my PC.  Unfortunately, I do want to be sure that my computer is backed up, and can’t afford to wait until the Carbonite problems are fixed.

Even though the end result is that I’m still not using Carbonite, I’m very happy with how this turned out.  My opinion of the company is once again very positive, and I will be recommending them to all the PC users I encounter.  Clearly, this is a company run by people who truly care about their product and their customers, and that’s so important.

So thank you, Dave Friend, for all your help and for your comments.  You provide a great service to PC users (and most Mac users) and I trust that soon, Carbonite will be an excellent service on both platforms.

Megan Smith

Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.