Yesterday we launched the newest version of Norton Online Backup. Technically it is version 2.0, but as this is a web-based product with software as a service and only a small running client, all users will automatically see the new interface when they login to the Norton Online Backup service. By the way, don’t worry about trying to find the right version. No matter how you subscribe, you will download the latest version. For those of you who are already using version 1, your client will automatically update sometime over the next few weeks and in the meantime your Norton Online Backup should still continue to work just fine and you will still be able to use all of the great new features on the Web.
Norton Online Backup (or NOBU as we call it internally) builds on the functionality from its initial release this past spring. You can still manage up to 5 computers from a single dashboard, allowing you to access your data anytime and anywhere you have an internet connection. In fact, I made sure the new version was running last night when I landed in Washington DC by signing into my account from my new Droid phone!
One of the big changes with this new version is that you can now backup PCs and Macs, all from a single account and all using that same web dashboard. This also opens up the possibilities to copy files between my computers, including between my PCs and Macs. There are a few places where this becomes helpful, such as when I buy a new computer and want to transfer files. For me though, I use it even in simple cases when I need to take one of the pictures that I saved from my camera to my Mac, and then want to copy it via a NOBU download to use as my wallpaper on my PC. Sure there are other ways of doing it, but hey it’s really pretty easy – especially since I only think about these types of things while I’m on the road.
Among the other new features is 90 day file versioning. If our competition offers it at all, it is usually only 30 days. I have actually had to use this feature a few times even when the product was in pre-release. There were a few times that as I was scrambling to work on different documents and presentations that I opened up an old file, made changes and mistakenly overwrote the old version I wanted to keep. File Versioning allowed me to get back to that old version, now there’s no crying with file overwrites.
I may be biased, but I have really grown to appreciate Norton Online Backup. For example, during our “away” wedding reception we were able use my wife’s cousin’s computer in South Korea to login to NOBU to download pictures of our wedding over the summer. And with the new version, not only can I download those files easily, I can also email download links to large groups of pictures or even the “gi-mongous” wedding videos (ughh, which got sent to me in 3 parts) to share with the family. Seeing as how only some family members are truly interested, they can choose when and if they want to make those downloads. Not only is it quick and I don’t have to do another upload of those files because they were already backed up, there are no more of those “file attachment is too large” error messages from my email provider.
There are a bunch of new features and loads of usability improvements beyond those mentioned above. To find out more, check out our new micro-site on www.backup.com and/or read the press release. Or better yet, try it out! Oh and for you bacon lovers, be sure to enter to win a year’s supply of gourmet bacon at www.nortonsavedmybacon.com.