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To continue our series “My name is ____ and I work for Mozy” – we’d like to introduce you to Tony Patrick, PR Manager-extraordinaire. Tony is based in our London, England offices and he is the shepherd of Mozy Public and Analyst Relations and social media for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Side note from author: I should warn you that since Tony is a sophisticated Englishman, he’ll have all kinds of spelling mistakes in his English … needless to say, since Tony is one of my personal favorite people at Mozy, I have to grab at every chance to razz him!

I define my workspace as …
A sophisticated city desk / A posh bus stop

A device I can’t live without …
A pen – I listen with my pen and think with it too

When I arrive at work, I typically start off by …
As the majority of the team is in a different time zone, I start the day with a full inbox. By the time I get to work, I’ve gone through everything on my iPhone, replied to anything quick and prioritised what needs urgent attention. I’ll also have gone through the major news stories for the day and worked out where we should be commenting. The first couple of hours in the day are all about actioning that – and drinking tea!

My work routine is …
I really don’t have one. In PR every day is different depending on what’s happening in the world and in our business.

I do/do not listen to music at work and it helps me work better because …
I’m more likely to be listening to the news than to music during the day. I start with BBC Breakfast and Daybreak for the TV agenda first thing in the morning and then spend an hour or so on each of the major radio stations during the day. I have to turn it off when I write though or stray words from the announcers can creep into what I’m writing.

The best advice I can give a recent college graduate looking to do what I do is …
1) Start early! Take as many work-experience placements as you can whilst you’re studying, it saves you time when you’re ready to start work properly.
2) Take as many opportunities to write as possible – try blogging on a favourite topic and get a feeling for what it’s like to write to a schedule.
3) Don’t send out boring CVs – this is your chance to demonstrate your creativity.

Outside of work, I am passionate about …
I got a new puppy about six months ago and a lot of my spare time is taken up either taking care of him or repairing the things that he’s broken. I also do voluntary work and exhibit an unhealthy interest in pop culture.

My eating habits are …
Bad!

If I could be someone for a day – I would be …
Tim Berners-Lee. When I bake something or build something for the house, I get a huge amount of satisfaction from thinking ‘I did that’. I think it would be incredible to be able to think the same thing about something as huge as the Internet.

The “secret sauce” that makes me who I am …
I call it ‘creative pragmatisim’. For good campaigns, you need to think creatively – but you have to keep your goals in mind and make sure that you’re supporting the business – and there’s no room for being precious.

Sometimes spinoffs can be extremely successful. For instance, “Cheers” was one of the most popular television shows for twelve seasons before ending in 1993–but its spinoff, “Frasier,” matched its success, staying on-air until 2004.

Reeder, which is an iPhone and iPad app that was once used in conjunction with the soon-to-be-defunct Google Reader, will now attempt to go solo in an attempt to retain the plethora of shocked and saddened Google Reader users. While it isn’t a “spinoff” in the traditional sense of the word, for Reeder’s sake, the RSS feed-based app can only hope it doesn’t go the way of “Joanie Loves Chachi.”

What makes Reeder’s independence so noteworthy is that there doesn’t seem to be any precedent in app history. Even though it is common for an app or company to pivot, Reeder’s new outlook is more of an unorthodox expansion than a pivot. The near-future death of Google Reader (on July 1, officially) should have, in fact, put apps like Reeder out of business. But instead, developer Silvio Rizzi embraced the market-shattering development.

According to Reeder’s site, Rizzi stated:

“Unfortunately, it’s still too early to have answers to all questions I got the last couple weeks. Probably most importantly, one thing that’s clear: development of Reeder will continue after July 1st.”

Rizzi also mentioned that the updated Reeder app will look to integrate Feedbin as well as support for standalone/local RSS feeds. In addition, Reeder will soon “add more services [that users] can choose from in the next weeks and months.”

Despite the grandiose plans, Reeder’s potential to monopolize on the Google Reader void isn’t clinched quite yet. Even though the app might arguably be in the best position to cash in, they’re not the only tech company throwing their hat into the “Google Reader replacement” ring. Feedly, a similar news aggregation app, immediately saw their own base climb by three million new users within two weeks of Google’s announcement. In addition, Feedly, unlike Reeder, already has an Android app in place. Also, Digg, a popular social news website that averages hundreds of thousands of unique views per month, announced their legitimate plans to compete for displaced RSS-feeders.

Competition aside, if Silvio Rizzi and Reeder follow through on their promises, and turns its app into a the most user friendly, and viable Google Reader replacement, they will not only become a RSS mammoth, but also, become the gold standard for dependent-apps-turned-independent.

Reeder is now a free app for the iPad, but will cost $2.99 for the iPhone. Download Reeder at the iTunes Store.

Master Sergeant Eric Madden has been in the Air Force for 16 years. He’s currently stationed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey as a Health Service Manager in the Medical Group. With a job requiring frequent travel, Eric never thought it would be possible to perform his duties while also pursuing a college degree. But thanks to the technology of distance learning, he’s currently enrolled at Burlington County College.

Each week we scour the internet to find the best stories on technology, digital living and news of note. This week features a bike with car-like lights, a juror jailed for texting in court, and a mind-reading tablet. All that and more in this edition of Mozy’s Technically Speaking.

The Tablet You Move with Your Mind

Samsung is planning some Jedi mind tricks with some of it’s new touchless tablet technology. According to Zachary Lutz of Engadget, the company is working with researchers at the University of Texas on brainwave technology. By using EEG caps, they can harnesses the power of the mind to control tablets and smartphones. Right now the technology is aimed to help people with disabilities, but the article suggests Samsung may eventually make it more mainstream.

Texting During Trial Lands Juror in Jail

In a story fit for both the police blotter and technology news, a 26-year-old juror in Oregon, was sent to jail by a judge after texting in the middle of an ongoing trial. Mike Flacy of Digital Trends reports that the judge had previously warned the jury that all electronic devices were forbidden during the trial. When the judge noticed Kohler’s bright screen during the viewing of a surveillance video related to the case, he sent the man to jail on contempt of court charges.

Voice-Activated Vacuum Does Your Cleaning on Command

The new Roboking by LG is a vacuum that takes voice commands and can tell which direction they are coming from. So, simply stand by a pile of dirt and demand the vacuum come over and clean it, says Amanda Kooser of CNET. This robo-vac also has a feature where it will pause when you clap twice. Going for about $735, the Roboking can last for 100 minutes before needing a charge.

Bike Wheels with Build-In LED Lights Designed for Rider Safety

Revolights City v2.0 bike wheels are sparking some interest among cycling enthusiasts. The wheels, which have built-in LED lights, have taillights and brake lights (just like a car) so riders can be seen at night. According to Mashable, the product has been created by the group Revolights, which in 2011 launched its original LED tires on Kickstarter with much success. However, the biggest complaint about the initial product was that the lights were difficult to put on the tires. So to combat that issue, the company has come back with version 2.0, which are tires with the lights already built in.

Viewers to Determine which Amazon Original Shows will Stick Around

Amazon isn’t just selling DVDs of television shows these days; they’re now airing pilots of 14 original shows on their website, and they’re allowing their customers to choose which ones will stick around. According to the Los Angeles Times, Amazon will post all 14 pilots online and ask viewers for their feedback. Based on the critiques, the company will decide which of the shows are developed into a full series. Among the shows featured are “Zombieland” (based on the movie), a musical office comedy set in Manhattan, and an action comedy about four senators living together in Washington D.C.

Imagine working on your laptop in a coffee shop where the barista only speaks Mandarin.

Living in Shanghai, China is unlike any other experience. But working in a foreign country doesn’t necessarily have to be so different.

At least, if you can set up a virtual work station, you won’t ever have to worry about adapting to new office dynamics. Work whenever you want, however you want.

The must-haves are a comfortable work space, a reliable internet connection, and your data backed up to the cloud.

China. Argentina. Morocco.

At times, the air and noise pollution in Shanghai got to me. As did the communication barriers.

But whenever I needed to get some important work done, I just had to pay for a nice cup of coffee before I could begin pounding away at my keyboard, tuning out the foreign world around me while increasing my productivity.

When I lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, there was WiFi everywhere, and in some cases, it was free. WiFi was available in bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and even public parks and plazas.

Then, after a day’s worth of hard work, I’d gorge on empanadas baked in the shop around the corner, or several slices of “fugazetta” pizza from local gem, El Cuartito.

Around Morocco, you can find a strong connection at McDonald’s. But when the popular fast food chain is out of sight, the big telecom providers offer contract-free Internet connections. Meditel offers a portable USB key that lets you connect your computer to its 3G network all around the country. Best of all, it’s cheap and it’s prepaid.

Keeping Security in Mind

Whenever I was on the road, whether I was traveling between Shanghai and Beijing or crossing the border from Argentina to Uruguay, I always made sure my laptop was wiped clean of any sensitive data and that those critical files were only available in the cloud.

Bag, laptop, passport, and wallet stolen. 

I have been fortunate enough that I have never been robbed or pick-pocketed while traveling. Knock on wood. But a friend I was traveling with once had her bag stolen out from under her seat at a Starbucks in Buenos Aires. The worst part was that she had kept her laptop, passport, and wallet in that very bag.

Throughout my travels, for personal and professional purposes, I’ve made it a point to keep important documents and possessions in secure places (i.e. passport and credit cards in the hotel safe, or sensitive work documents in a reliable cloud server). So, if I was robbed or mugged, it wouldn’t be a total inconvenience. Or if my computing and mobile devices got damaged, at least my work would be safe.

Last month we piloted our series “My name is ____ and I work for Mozy.” This series is our way to introduce you to some of the extraordinary people that work at Mozy and who are the catalysts to why Mozy is a great company.

This month, we’d like to introduce you to Traci Magleby, Sales Manager with the “most-est.” Traci manages the sales team for the West Area for Mozy’s EMC Backup and Recovery Services team. In addition to being an extremely approachable and compassionate person, Traci also works with our EMC Partners to close deals to their customer base for Mozy’s military-grade security enabled cloud backup and recovery enterprise offerings.

I define my workspace as …
Functional and inviting (a mix of job-essential items with mementos & pictures of my family). I want my space to be approachable, where anyone feels welcome.

A device I can’t live without …
iPhone

When I arrive at work, I typically start off by …
I usually arrive to work before my team which gives me the opportunity to jumpstart my day. I go through my email inbox, check my calendar for appointments that day and schedule time into my calendar for tackling must-do items. I also start completing my tasks in Salesforce. Once my team arrives, I take time to check in with each of them and find out their schedules for the day and any items needing my attention.

My work routine is …
My work routine varies day to day. Some days I am in a boardroom all day reviewing my team’s pipeline or on management calls. Other days, I am on the road, training partners or visiting customers. And then other days, I am at my desk going through spreadsheets and reports. I try to ensure that I communicate with members of my team daily and do everything I can to help make it easier for them to sell Mozy!

I do/do not listen to music at work and it helps me work better because …
Even though I love music, I seldom listen to music at work. I find that in my position, I am constantly being asked questions and communicating with my team. I like my team to know I am accessible when they need me – I don’t want earphones to get in the way! An added benefit is that it allows me to overhear conversations my team is having with partners and customers. It keeps me in the loop on their deals and allows me to provide any needed feedback.

The best advice I can give a recent college graduate looking to do what I do is …
People buy from people! Relationship building is crucial so start now in building your network and relationships.

Outside of work, I am passionate about …
My family, the outdoors and being creative.

My eating habits are …
I drink lots of water and bring snacks from home so I’m not tempted to indulge in the free soda pop and less healthy options in our break room. At home during dinnertime, I gather my family together almost daily and my favorite part is the conversations we have. I’ve been attempting to curb my sweet tooth this year, so I have limited to having sugar or dessert to once a week. My kids have joined me in this goal and I’m surprised with how well they are doing.

If I could be someone for a day – I would be …
I would choose my grandmother – she’s one of my biggest heroes. She has such a zest for life and I love how she handles life’s hard situations with confidence and grace. I benefit from her wisdom and would enjoy learning more of what makes her who she is.

The “secret sauce” that makes me who I am …
I try to give my time to things that matter the most in my life and I try to live a life full of gratitude. I hope I’m remembered this way.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament begins today. Over the next three weeks, millions of people will watch as carefully selected brackets are turned into meaningless scratch paper by amazing upsets and tournament drama.

Business productivity will suffer (to the tune of either $4 billion or $192 million nationwide, depending on who you believe) and millions of cubicle dwellers and desk jockeys will spend their time watching, instead of working.

While your bracket might be worthless after the first weekend, and your 14th seeded alma mater might not make it past game one, Mozy is giving you a chance to still be a winner during this tournament.

Every weekday during the NCAA tournament (beginning Thursday, March 21, running through Monday, April 8), we’ll tweet out an NCAA tournament trivia question with the hashtag #MozyMadness. If you know the answer, reply and include the #MozyMadness hashtag. Follow @Mozy on Twitter to make sure you see the questions.

You can also find the questions updated on this blog post. You can also enter by commenting on this post with your answer.

Each tweet/comment with the correct answer will be entered into a drawing to win a Mozy Madness prize, complete with an office basketball hoop and matching ball, a commemorative faux leather Mozy basketball, and two headbands for your epic games of cubicle 1-on-1:

Each basketball hoop winner will be entered into a grand prize drawing for a pair of custom Nike Zoom KD V iD basketball shoes (in Mozy colors, of course), along with a 94Fifty Bluetooth basketball and a free year of MozyHome.

We’ll be posting the questions here on the blog as well, so if you’re not on Twitter, bookmark this post and come back daily for a chance to leave a comment and win. Everyone who answers correctly (whether on Twitter or by commenting on this post) will be considered eligible to win. We’ll update each question with an answer and winner after one has been chosen. Best of luck, this could be your one shining moment!

Contest rules and info: No purchase necessary. Limited to US residents only. Nike is not a sponsor of this promotion and does not endorse it. Shoe sizes available in men’s 7-18, women’s 5.5-15.5, and kids 4Y-6Y. Shoe design may be different from appearance in picture.  94Fifty Basketball is a Kickstarter project. If it is not fully funded and/or the product is not available, Mozy reserves the right to offer a different prize of similar value. Mozy reserves the right to alter, change, or discontinue this promotion and its associated prizes at any time. Participation in this promotion signifies understanding of and agreement with the above rules and guidelines. Mozy employees and contractors and their families are not eligible for this promotion. Previous winners are not eligible to win again. 

Trivia Questions – comment below with your answer to enter to win!

1 (Thursday, March 21): What are the odds of filling out a perfect bracket?

Answer: 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9.2 quintillion). Winner: @Steel_By_Design

2 (Friday, March 22): How many teams were in the inaugural NCAA tournament in 1939?

Answer: 8 teams Winner: @EricBfromCLE

3 (Monday, March 25): Number 1 seeds have won how many of the last 14 NCAA tournament championships?

Answer: 10 teams Winner: @GeekDad248

4 (Tuesday, March 26): What university hosted the first NCAA men’s basketball tournament?

Answer: Northwestern University Winner: @curtislu

5 (Wednesday, March 27): Who is the only coach to have won an NCAA and NBA championship?

Answer: Larry Brown Winner: @KrisJano99

6 (Thursday, March 28): Who holds the record for most points scored in a single tournament game (61)?

Answer: Austin Carr, 1970 Winner: @StaceyLClark23 

7 (Friday, March 29): Which team won both the NIT tournament and the NCAA tournament in the same year?

Answer: The City College of New York Winner: @JohnSpielmann

8 (Monday, April 1): What team has the longest streak of consecutive NCAA appearances?

Answer: North Carolina, 27 (1971 – 2001) Winner: @jteek2000

9 (Tuesday, April 2): What four teams have at least 40 appearances in the NCAA tournament?

Answer: North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, Kentucky Winner: @sperls13

10 (Wednesday, April 3): Which coach has the most NCAA tournament wins?

Answer: Mike Krzyzewski, 79 wins Winner: @leah_bh

11 (Thursday, April 4): How many different coaches have won national championships with the University of Kentucky?

Answer: 5 (Adolph Rupp, Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, John Calipari) Winner: @ukfan4life66

12 (Friday, April 5): What school has the most appearances in NCAA national championship title game?

Answer: UCLA, 12 appearances Winner: @DeejDrake

13 (Monday, April 8): How many combined championship game appearances do Louisville and Michigan have?

Each week we scour the internet to find the best stories on technology, digital living and news of note. This week features Facebook planning a whole new look, cloud and it’s potential impact on Healthcare, and a law that would prevent texting while walking. All that and more in this edition of Mozy’s Technically Speaking.

Nevada isn’t Tripping: New Law Would Prohibit Texting While Walking

While many states are still fighting to get people to stop texting while driving, Nevada would like to put a new law on the books that would force people to keep their hands free while walking as well. Edwin Kee of Ubergizmo reports that Las Vegas Councilman Harvey Mumford has proposed a law that would prohibit pedestrians from texting while walking on state roads, intersections, and neighborhoods. The reasoning behind the law, according to the article, would be so people don’t bumb into other walkers, walk into manholes, or cross highways without paying attention. If the law is indeed put into place, the first two offenses would result in warnings, while the third offense would cost someone a $250 fine.

How Cloud May Change the Face of Healthcare

Cloud computing is known to improve aspects of many industries, and the latest one being talked about is healthcare and patient care in particular. While cloud has been approached with care thus far in the industry, according to Jake Gardner of Wired, it could eventually be one of the technologies to help lower healthcare spending and associated costs. The Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) is changing the processes that organizations use for Healthcare–look for cloud to take on a more prominent role moving forward.

Startup Rents Out Children’s Books in Netflix-like Service

The new company Sproutkin has taken Netflix’s idea of delivering entertainment right to your doorstep, but they’ve put their own twist on it. The founder, a lawyer with two children, came up with the idea out of necessity because she was reading to her kids every night and getting low on material, according to TechCrunch. Sproutkin is currently available for parents of children ages 3 to 6, and users are allowed to get up to 10 books at a time.

Sophisticated Software for Retail Stores Tracks Customer Movements

As retailers try to track which products in their stores are attracting the most customers, many of them are turning to state-of-the-art technology from San Francisco startup Prism Skylabs. Sumi Das of CNET reports that the software takes security camera footage and uses it to track customer movements and create “heatmaps.” The images show the retailers where the shoppers went throughout the store, and which items they came into contact with. Retailers use the technology to determine product placement and floor layout.

Facebook to Get Major Facelift

Big changes are in store for the popular social media site Facebook, as the company has announced plans for a complete makeover of it’s homepage, according to The New York Times. Users of the site will start seeing much bigger photos, links, photos and advertisements. The company’s co-founder and chief executive is quoted as saying he wants Facebook to be “the best personalized newspaper in the world.” Facebook is hoping the changes encourage users to stay on the site longer and help bring in more advertising dollars. No official launch date has been set, but the end of March has been mentioned as a possibility.

It is the era of the online-market independent.

If the Freelancer Fast 50 report for the end of 2012 tells us anything, it’s that employable skills in the cloud-based world of business are at the center of what hiring managers want.

“The Freelancer Fast 50 report is a fairly unique leading indicator of the online economy,” said Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, which recently released its report after surveying some 261,000 job posted online — companies in search of new blood.

Let’s look at the main points from the survey’s results.

Top Trends from Q4

Things are changing in the cloud. Internet traffic is up, but social networks are in flux. The online marketplace was anything but consistent, at year’s end.

But the good news about that is that independent workers are scooping up business opportunities, and the numbers and the percentage-shifts are, for the most part, not small.

Here’s what Freelancer’s report tells us about what’s happened.

— Website Hosting: Jobs skyrocketed over 3,300% to 4,059 jobs as businesses moved into the cloud. Many of these jobs involving the transfer of established websites to  cloud servers, or they were related to companies throwing the switch and making cloud-hosted sites live for the first time.

— Software and Website Jobs: Quality assurance positions soared as eCommerce sites rushed to fortify themselves for holiday season traffic. Q4 saw a spike in software- and website-testing jobs, and software-testing jumped 2,500% to 5,200 jobs. Meanwhile, website-testing saw a 2,055% increase to 3,923 jobs.

— eBay Jobs: After 17 years in the online auction business, eBay rolled out a number of changes to its website and mobile application, including new branding. These changes, in combination with a pivot to a mobile-centric and small-business friendly focus, correlated with eBay jobs gaining 22% (to 1,790 jobs) for the quarter as it diversified its auction house into an e-commerce marketplace.

— Social Media and Internet Marketing: Jobs in this space may be experiencing a moment of contraction, in the wake of platform and search-index changes. According to the New York Times, only 14% of digital advertising budgets are currently allocated to social networking, and social-networking projects declined 5.1% (to 5,820 jobs). Both Facebook — down 8.4% to 7,186 jobs — and Twitter, down 6.4% to 2,240 jobs, seemed to feel a pinch. Internet marketing in general was flat — down 1.4% to 15,244 jobs — while SEO may still be reeling from the after-effects of Google’s Panda changes (down 3.3% to 10,159 jobs). Some marketers fell back to e-mail marketing, which ticked up 186% to 1,003 jobs.

Those are the numbers, and, of course, what might seem clear from Q4 is always subject to changes in the market place.

What’s currently certain is that most freelance workers with a tech-savvy portfolio are deep in this mix. Whatever the result for individual companies — those seeking to impose or reinforce their presence in the marketplace — 2013 should still be a time when those seeking work will find it.

Mozy is a great place to work. We’ve won “Utah’s Best Place to Work” four times in a row. We’re successful; our products are secure and sustainable, and we value our customers and their feedback.

All that being said, Mozy wouldn’t be the amazing place it is without our dedicated, passionate and generous team members. We are very fortunate to be surrounded by extremely intelligent people who inspire others to strive to be better co-workers but more importantly, better humans who meaningfully contribute to the world.

To make you jealous of our fortune (and to be brag about our team members), we are starting a series aimed at introducing you to the incredible people that make up Mozy.

We’d like to begin by introducing you to meet Zach Moffett. Zach is our Community Manager (also addressed as Sensei) for our robust Support Portal. In addition to undertaking the deceivingly hard Gluten free diet regime, Zach manages the Community forum where our customers can find peer-to-peer advice and help. He writes, produces, directs and is featured in many of our Support tutorial videos. Zach also engages our customers on our social channels and contributes to our blogs.

I define my workspace as …
An efficient setting where I can get things done and entertain company at the same time.

A device I can’t live without …
iPhone with Audible.

When I arrive at work, I typically start off by …
Amp Energy drink and beef jerky.

My work routine is …
Stretch, yawn, go to meetings, talk to customers and take a nap in the sun (weather permitting).

I do/do not listen to music at work and it helps me work better because …
It doesn’t. My productivity drops in half. That being said, I really love listening to Imagine Dragons Radio on Pandora.

The best advice I can give a recent college graduate looking to do what I do is …
Stay positive, know the research and come through on your commitments.

Outside of work, I am passionate about …
I am enrolled full-time in grad school and I love spending time with my wonderful wife.

My eating habits are …
Beef Jerky and Gummy Bears. Is that a habit?

If I could be someone for a day – I would be …
Iron Man. I’d settle for Tony Stark.

The “secret sauce” that makes me who I am …
Author’s note: Zach refused to provide his “secret sauce” – I personally think this he has super powers and doesn’t want us to know about them so I’ll boast for him and say that Zach is extremely helpful and has a vast depth of understanding on how to make our customers feel heard and more importantly, help them! Plus he has a freakishly clean desk…considering his eating habits