Carbonite isn't a web based storage service per se. It doesn't let you watch uploaded videos or look at pictures like other services such as Box.net. But as an online backup service, Carbonite can store a lot of your data online in case your hard drive crashes or you lose your computer and you need to restore your files.

Recently Carbonite decided to make it easier for users to access their stored files from any computer through a web interface. All you have to do is login using your Carbonite ID and you can browse through all the files that have been backed up. You can't open pictures or movies online, but you can download any files stored on Carbonite's servers to your computer using a web browser.

[via Lifehacker]

Carbonite has been providing online backup services for PC users for years. This week the company launched a Mac client.

Here's how it works. For $54.95 a year, Carbonite provides you with unlimited online storage space to backup all the important files on your computer. At regular intervals, the program will scan the folders you designate and copy any new or changed files to the server. If you're using your internet connection to download files, watch online videos, or do other things, Carbonite will adjust its upload speeds so it doesn't interfere with your other activities.

In the event that your computer crashes, or if you need to recover some files you accidentally deleted, you can use Carbonite's tools to restore the data to your Mac.

Carbonite isn't the first service to offer online backup for Mac users. Mozy also has a Mac client which offers up to 2GB of storage space for free, or unlimited storage for $4.95 per month (or $59.40 per year).

[via Yahoo!]

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you're trying to think up a few good gift ideas for your geeky or not so geeky friends and family, we're here to help. Over the next few days we'll be bringing you a number of suggestions for Download Squad style gifts.

To kick things off, I wanted to talk about a gift idea for the computer user who doesn't really need any new software: subscriptions. Nothing says I love you like a year's worth of unlimited domestic VoIP phone calls, or the security of knowing your files are securely backed up to an offsite storage space. Well, maybe not nothing, but certainly few things. Here are a few ideas for subscription based services you might want to buy for your loved ones. Feel free to add your own ideas or argue with my choice of services in the comments.

Skype

Skype provides a free way for Windows, Mac, and Linux users to make free voice or video calls to one another. But you can also buy credit or monthly subscriptions to make calls to regular telephones. You can also purchase a phone number that people can call to ring you on Skype.

Prices range from a few cents a minute for domestic calls, to $9.95 a month for unlimited international calls. For less than $36 a year you can buy a plan that will allow users to make unlimited domestic calls in the US and Canada. $60 a year will get you a SkypeIn phone number. If you purchase both an unlimited calling plan and a SkypeIn number, the price is even lower. And there are a ton of other options available.

Skype isn't the only game in town. You might also want to check out Gizmo5 or newcomer VoxOx.

So far I've told you about two applications that were so awesome that I had no problem sending some cash to the developers to pay for continued use of the products. But both BeyondTV and Pocket Informant only require one time payments. Sure, you might want to pay for the major upgrades that are released every few years (smaller updates are usually free), but you don't need to keep paying to keep using the software. But now I want to tell you about a utility I'm gladly paying $50 a year to use: Carbonite, an online backup solution.

Recently someone I know, (I'm not going to name names, but his is an anagram for Brand Idler), may have accidentally wiped his wife's hard drive while trying to reinstall Windows XP. Sure, he backed everything up to a USB hard drive first so he could restore all of her important documents, media, and other files. But the hard drive was faulty and an awful lot of important data was unrecoverable.

This problem could have been easily avoided if Mr. Idler and his wife had spent a few bucks on Carbonite before the accident instead of signing up shortly after. Once installed on your computer, Carbonite will go to work backing up everything in your documents folders and any other oflder you specify. Items that are backed up will have a little green dot next to them, while items that are not yet backed up have a yellow dot. It can take a few days to perform your initial backup, but once that's completed subsequent backups go very quickly. And everything happens in the background so you can use your computer normally while backups are in process.

While you may still want to backup your files locally in case you need to restore them quickly or on short notice, knowing that all of your files are safely stored online and accessible from anywhere in the world provides quite a bit of piece of mind. Carbonite provides you with unlimited online storage space for $50 a year. You can get a discount if you sign up for two or three years in advance.

Carbonite is availble for Windows. There's also a beta version available for Mac users.

A friend of the Squad, (we're not naming names here Ben), recently had a little mishap with his data backup plan. He was doing a fresh install of Leopard on his Mac, and so he backed all of his data up to a external hard drive, installed OS X 10.5, and then found out that the drive was corrupt.

No problem, he logged into Mozy, his online backup service to access his 60GB of offsite data. But he had to wait 12 hours before the data was ready, and then he had to download 100 different dmg files. He wasn't pleased.

We've mostly heard good things about Mozy, but we've also heard people rave about Carbonite, Amazon's Jungle Disk, and several other services. And we're intrigued by, if a bit disappointed by ADrive. But honestly, we're not sure which is best, so we thought we'd ask you, our trusted readers. What do you use for offsite data backups, do you like it, and why?

Carbonite is one of the best service for backing up your Windows XP computer online I have seen. Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch echoes that sentiment by calling it the "closest to perfection we've seen so far." You download a small file, then Carbonite goes to work backing up your computer at a rate of 2GB per day. You pick the files, you tell it what you want backed up, and Carbonite will take care of it. It will also restore your files 10-15GB a day if you ever need it. The online version of your backed-up files even retain the same exact structure as your PC, so there is no confusion when trying to find and restore files. Did I mention you get unlimited storage capacity for your computer backups? They offer a free 15-day trial (no credit card required) and plans starting at $5 per month. Website owners can even partner with Carbonite and get paid for your site's referrals to the service. Prepay one year ($49.95) and pay $4.16/month, or two years ($89.95) and pay only $3.75/month. The download is fast, it installs fast, and starts backing up your PC.