PC Mag Lists Backup Among Last-Second Gifts

PC Magazine offers suggestions for the procrastinator: what you can buy as late as Christmas morning. Number one is Amazon.com Gift Cards (always a good thing to get Sallie), and number two is…backup.

Backup Tools

PC backup is one of those things that everybody needs, and nobody really wants to pay for. Make the tough decisions for them by gifting an online backup account. For PC users, a Carbonite account offers unlimited storage for $49.95 per year. Carbonite loads a small application on your computer which runs in the background and hunts for new and changed filed to back up. Sign up your loved one for an account at www.carbonite.com. Mac users can gift a MobileMe subscription for $99, which offers 20GB of backup, syncing, and remote access to your files. Better yet, sign up for the Family Pack and get 20GB of storage for yourself and 5GB of storage for four other family members. Get it at www.apple.com/mobileme.

Both these suggestions are for online services, because you don’t have to worry about delays for delivery, or trying to go into a store at such a crazy time of year. But any form of backup at all is a good gift for anyone with a computer, at any time of year. Make it a New Year present. Or an un-birthday present. I’ve reviewed plenty of fine products in the past year, and one of them is bound to be the right thing for your loved ones.