Our first Restory is actually two stories. Each lovingly crafted and delivered to Backblaze. And you thought online backup couldn’t be romantic…

A One Way Street

“ I think I should take this time to just tell you what our relationship is: a one-way street.

Honestly, I don’t think about you at all. You just go and go – constantly running behind whatever I do, and whatever files I create – and I really don’t pay attention in the least.

What’s even worse is that you’re whom I go to first when there’s a problem. I take advantage of the fact that you’re always looking after me. I never even acknowledge you’re around until I lose something – then you’re my only hope. You would think after saving me so many times, I would show more gratitude. The truth is, I kind of like what we have going. You do all the work of following me around and making copies of what I leave behind, and I’ll forget about you until I need you. Deal? Deal. ”

— Aaron

I Couldn’t Ask for a Better Partner

“ We met on a dark and stormy night. I was scared. She was not. She had it all. Tons of reliable storage for all my back up needs. She had the confidence, the stamina, and the strength to take all my fears away! The storm raged on. The power kept going out. I knew then that I needed a solution to my back up issues. No therapist could help me. I had to jump in with both feet. I took the plunge and signed up for Backblaze.

Now, 4 months later, I sleep at night knowing she is taking care of my back up needs without any effort on my part. I feel safe and protected. And it just happens. After that initial uncertainty I now love her simplicity, her total competence and loyalty to my data, keeping it secure and safe so I can rock my MacBook without reservation! I know now that every song I download, every video and picture I capture is safe and I will never lose anything, ever again!

I couldn’t ask for a better partner. I am secure in my relationship with her and now I have the confidence to forge ahead with my files, my music, my pictures. All I need to do is just keep on keepin-on and she does the rest. ”

— Michael

Giving the gift of Backblaze to back up your Valentine’s photos, videos, music and more probably isn’t the most romantic present you can give – we understand. But remember, Backblaze will silently and reliably back up your Valentine’s files long after the chocolates have been eaten and the flowers have died. Such is the calling of the strong silent type.

One of our support guys sent an email to the company a few minutes ago saying Steve Jobs died. After a moment of disbelief there was some shock, then sadness. Steve Jobs wasn’t one in a million. He was one in a billion. And while we had never met him, he had a profound impact on our lives.

There will be plenty of tributes to Steve Jobs and the grand scale of his impact.
Here, I just want to share a few small stories:

Unbelievable Turnaround
In 1999, much of what is now the Backblaze team was working on another startup. Some of us loved Apple and pushed to build a Mac version, but at 1% market share, there was just no rationalizing spending time on it. In 2003, we were working on a new startup, but the story was the same: we just couldn’t justify building a Mac version.

Fast forward to 2007, we started Backblaze and decided the Mac would be a first-class citizen at the company. We wanted to support the Mac and believed it had a chance of making some small business sense. Perhaps it would be 10% of our sales.

Instead, the Mac platform is now more than 50% of our customer base. Our CTO, a former Apple employee during the non-Steve Jobs days, said the employees loved Apple, but knew where it was headed. Market dominance with products everyone loves was not that place. The turnaround that has occurred is nothing short of unbelievable.

Unbelievable Products
I vividly remember seeing the first iPhone. I thought it was fake. A mockup or “concept device” perhaps. It was too cool to be real. The iPhone has become a part of my life in a way that I am lost without.

My wife is not a gadget freak, nor a Mac “fanboy”. For a while she rolled her eyes when I would wax poetic about the iPhone. Now she can’t live without hers.

A couple months ago I purchased an Airport Express for our home and sent music via AirPlay from my phone. My wife’s eyes lit up and she said, “Ok, that may just be magic.”

—

And I guess that was the thing with Steve Jobs. He didn’t just build a reality distortion field; he made us believe magic was possible through his marketing and then really pulled the rabbit out of the hat with the products.

When Apple announced Steve wouldn’t keynote Macworld a couple years ago, we were bummed and handed out flyers showing our support for Steve, to show him he’s being missed. There isn’t much more to say beyond it is a sad day and he will be really missed.

While Apple just recently announced their newest operating system, OS X Lion (10.7), Backblaze has been working with developers and beta testers for a while to ensure our online backup service is fully compatible.

When you rush out to upgrade to Lion, know that your Backblaze online backup service will work seamlessly. The new OS has 250 new features, but I wanted to call out a few:

Download the latest version (v.1.5.5) by clicking the Start Backing Up button on www.backblaze.com and enjoy the service on Lion! (All users will be automatically updated within a few weeks.)

Possibly.

A customer yesterday asked, “Do you have any idea how big iCloud is?” I thought it was an interesting question and poked around.

Two months ago it was reported that Apple ordered 12 petabytes of storage rumored to be used for its new North Carolina data center.

Certainly Apple already has significant storage for their existing iTunes and MobileMe data and the North Carolina datacenter has room for much more than 12 petabytes, but is this the storage that Apple expected to need to support the iCloud offering initially? Apple would not confirm, of course, but it does seem plausible now with iCloud announced and Steve Jobs talking about Apple’s massive new datacenter:

Image source: Data Center Knowledge

At Backblaze we hit 10 petabytes of customer cloud storage by the end of 2010 and now we just crossed 15 petabytes!

It’s becoming challenging to take a good photo, but here is what 15 petabytes of Backblaze Storage Pods looks like:

So does Backblaze have more cloud storage than Apple for iCloud? Perhaps.

Yesterday Apple announced iCloud, launching in the fall, which lets you sync music, photos, apps, calendars, etc. between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. As Mac-fans, all of us here at Backblaze are pretty excited about using these features for ourselves!

A couple people asked, “How will Backblaze work with iCloud?”
The answer? Seamlessly!

* iCloud will sync your recent 30 days of photos across devices and recommends you store all the pictures you want to keep permanently on your Mac; Backblaze will ensure ALL your photos stored on your Mac are safe forever.
* iCloud will sync files from compatible apps; Backblaze will backup all data.
* iCloud will have 5 GB of storage; Backblaze is committed to unlimited online backup.

We are very excited by Apple’s new features and looking forward to using them!
And you can continue to look forward to having all of your data completely protected by Backblaze!

Did you get your new iPhone 4 (or upgrade to iOS 4)?

I created some iPhone 4 Wallpapers (640×960) you may enjoy. They’re free to use.

How to Switch the Wallpaper:
* Open this blog post on your iPhone.
* Click on the one image you like (including the one with the flame) to open it.
* Click and hold on the image > Save Image
* Open Photos > Camera Roll
* Click the icon in the lower left corner > Use as Wallpaper.

Enjoy.

Sometimes its the little things that warm my heart. In January, many of us hoped to see Steve Jobs on stage as the keynote for the MacWorld event. We decided to show our support by making “Bring Back Steve Jobs” posters and passing them out the morning of the keynote.

Today a very cool time lapse video by Peter Belanger showing the making of a MacWorld cover circulated around our office.

Then, someone noticed that at about two minutes into the video, as he is walking down the hall at MacWorld magazine, posted in the middle of the glass wall of someone’s office is one of the “Bring Back Steve Jobs” posters we had created. Made me smile to think someone is still enjoying the posters and thoughts.

See Peter’s fantastic video here: Cover Creation

Josh Pigford at TheAppleBlog was excited by the arrival of a new simple drawing application for the Mac called “Paintbrush” that brought back the pixelated times of the past. To celebrate, he challenged his readers to create images with the new app and offered to give two 1-year subscriptions to Backblaze to the best ones.

A few people really stood up to the challenge and created some amazing art.
Here are the two winning designs (by Sean Leary & DangerDude):

You can probably guess to which one I’m partial.

Congratulations to both of you and enjoy the Backblaze service!