We’re so excited to have the blog back that we threw a party to celebrate! OK, not really. I mean, we DID throw a party, but it was in honor of our newly released MozyHome for Mac 1.0 product. Anyway, because a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll stop the yadda yadda and cut straight to the pics.

The crowd at the SLC Hard Rock Café

Josh Coates! (And his lovely wife, CeliAnne)

Me preaching the Mozy gospel.

Vance Checketts MC-ing it up.

Rock Band – The Official Mozy Timewaster

Dueling Pianos provided by Garrett Entertainment. (Tips went to theMake-a-Wish Foundation)

Rich trying to explain why he stole all the chocolate-covered strawberries.

James (the famous Mozy Intern), with the ladies.

Open Letter to Customers by Josh Coates

Mozy Customers,

Berkeley Data Systems, the company behind Mozy online backup, has been acquired by EMC Corporation as of Oct. 1. Mozy will operate as a separate business within the EMC New Ventures Group. EMC will continue to invest in Mozy's full portfolio of online backup and recovery services and advance the Mozy brand in the marketplace. Mozy headquarters will stay located here in the thriving metropolis of American Fork, Utah.

What does this mean to you?

Mozy has always been and always will be simple, automatic, and secure. That will not change. We will continue to innovate and improve our product and service for both consumer and business customers.

The big change is that you will get the benefit of all the stability and security that a large public company has to offer. EMC has been around for almost three decades: Your data will be in the hands of the most trusted global leader in information management.

I appreciate your loyalty, support, and patience over the last couple of years as we've broken barriers and disrupted this market. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm excited to start a new chapter of innovation here at EMC.

Be safe,

Josh Coates,
Mozy Founder

Every once and a while someone will tell me that they really like Moxy and that they are so glad that their data is backed up in a secure, remote location. Moxy? Um... you mean Mozy, right? Or maybe you mean Moxie...

See, Moxie is actually a really foul tasting soda that was first produced in 1876 from New England (Maine specifically.) I used to live in Boston, and had the opportunity to sample this archaic cola proto-type. It's like drinking history - and by that I mean it's just like drinking a really, really old bad cola drink that tastes more like cough syrup than anything else.

Despite the taste, by 1920 it was more popular than Coca Cola. But why did people keep drinking it if it was so gross? Simple - how could you not drink something that has the power to "recover brain and nervous exhaustion; loss of manhood, imbecility, and helplessness." It said so right on the label. Heck, it was like Viagra and Prozac combined. Oh, and the fact that cocaine was one of the primary ingredients up until 1906 probably helped people get over the bad taste.

Moxie has been around over 100 years and the trademarked brand was adopted into the English language long ago. Merriam Webster's tells me that Moxie means energy, pep, courage, determination, know-how and expertise. So, no, I don't mind when folks mix up Mozy and Moxie. Cheers!

This doesn't have much to do with Mozy, but I've always thought it was neat: the Monty-Hall problem.

Here's how it works:

Get three playing cards - an ace and two jokers.

Note where the ace is, and put all three cards in front of you face down, and ask a friend to try and guess where the ace is. Have them pick one of the cards, but don't let them look at it. Then turn over one of the jokers and tell them they can pick again, if they'd like. I.e., they can either keep the card they originally picked, or they can pick the other card.

So should your friend switch, or stick with their original pick?

Read the rest...

I was thinking about writing something on encryption, specifically the Chinese Remainder theorem, which is based on ancient Chinese/Hindu mathematics, and contributes to the foundation of modern encryption. So I got out my old discrete mathematics textbooks and started reviewing things.

So it turns out that I used to be a lot smarter than I am now. Solving systems of linear congruencies, fiddling with probabilistic primality tests, contemplating moduli – this makes my head hurt.

Sun Tzu, the third century mathematician (not the same as the Art of War guy) offered the following puzzle:

There are certain things whose number is unknown. When divided by 3, the reminder is 2; when divided 5, the remainder is 3; and when divided by 7, the remainder is 2. What will be the number of things?

Doesn’t that make your head hurt?

Read the rest...