For many consumers, the Friday after Thanksgiving is almost as big a holiday as Turkey Day itself! Every year, droves of bargain hunters camp out in front of their favorite stores to get discounts on the hottest gifts. But grabbing a random spot on the sidewalk and hoping for the best is so 2005!

Before you set your alarm clock Thursday night, Code 42 suggests downloading these apps to find the best deals and master the Black Friday crowds.

• TGI Black Friday. Search more than 10,000 retail stores, compare prices and create a personalized shopping checklist. A must-have for any serious shopper, TGI Black Friday even publishes ads from major retail stores before they appear in print. For iOS and Android. Cost: Free
• Sale Saver. Sale Saver is a calculator app that lets shoppers quickly calculate their potential Black Friday savings. Additionally, you can use Sale Saver to compare prices at other stores, calculate sales and stay on a budget. For iOS. Cost: Free
• Foursquare. Many retailers use Black Friday to take full advantage of this popular social app. In the past, shoppers have received gift cards and discounts for checking in on Foursquare. Be sure to check in at your Black Friday destinations and you may score some additional savings! For iOS and Android. Cost: Free
• Fast Mall. This app maps out major shopping centers and allows deal seekers to plan the most efficient shopping route. A bonus: it’ll even point you to the nearest restroom. For iOS and Android. Cost: Free
• Slice. As CrashPlan fans are aware, Black Friday deals aren’t limited to shopping centers. Slice is an organization app used to track online orders made right from the comfort of your own home. It pinpoints the location of shipped packages you are expecting. For iOS and Android. Cost: Free

Use these apps to stay sane and come out on top during Black Friday. What does Code 42 have in store for Black Friday, you ask? Stay tuned to find out….

A question we often receive on our CrashPlan social networks is, “Can I upgrade my CrashPlan subscription?”

Yes, you can easily switch to a different CrashPlan+ subscription. Let’s say you have a CrashPlan Individual Unlimited plan, and you want to share the love by backing up your spouse’s computer, too. An upgrade to our Family Plan is what you’re after. Log into “My Account” and follow the instructions on the screen. You’ll get a registration key to activate backups for the new computer (your backups will continue uninterrupted, of course), then we’ll refund the unused months of your old subscription. How easy is that?

Do you want to upgrade your free CrashPlan account to CrashPlan+?  Simply purchase a CrashPlan+ subscription from the CrashPlan store. You’ll get a registration key you’ll need to activate your account and start backing up to CrashPlan Central. You won’t need to restart your backup; just upgrade and go!

Easy-to-upgrade subscriptions: Just another way CrashPlan is backup done better.

We have tons to be thankful for this holiday season, including all of the great mentions we’ve received recently. The folks at The Iconocast, Macworld and Technorati all agree: CrashPlan is the perfect gift for the holidays. So before you unplug for Thanksgiving break, check out why industry experts are lauding CrashPlan’s automatic backup solution.

The Iconocast News: Ask LH: How Should I Back Up All These Pictures?

No need to stretch the ol’ pocketbook this holiday season. The Iconocast knows a good deal when they see one. Check out what they say about our affordable, online backup plan:

“Backing up online is definitely a sensible precaution, but as you note, it isn’t free. That said, it needn’t be ridiculously expensive. Backing up with CrashPlan (one of our favorite ways to back up automatically and continuously)….”

Macworld: Bulletproof Backups

Worried about losing your holiday photos? Relax; take a cue from Macworld and back up to multiple destinations, automatically!

“When it comes to backups, remember the adage ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ Several times I’ve had the gut-wrenching experience of looking for a crucial file in my backups only to find that the backup drive had itself gone bad, the online backup provider was down for maintenance, or something else made it impossible for me to get at my data.

“With CrashPlan, you can configure multiple destinations for your backups. For example, you might set it up to put one copy on a local hard drive and another on CrashPlan’s servers or a friend’s Mac.”

Technorati: Fastest backup solution for your digital life

In wake of Hurricane Sandy, we’ve all been reminded of the need to protect our homes, including our data. Thanks to Technorati, people are more aware of our off-site backup solution!

“In case of flood, hurricane, fire, etc., your entire computer could be gone in an instant, and even with backup copies in your home, they could be gone as well. The only true answer is to have your files stored off-site. The newest and possibly the best service available now is a company called CrashPlan.”

We are thankful to have such great fans!

Code 42 Software is on the go yet again, this time presenting and exhibiting at MobCon 2012. MobCon is the premier annual mobile conference, giving top mobile and IT executives the opportunity to share ideas regarding mobile technology, marketing, implementation and growth strategies. The event starts today and runs through Nov. 14, 2012 in Minneapolis, MN.

Justin Grammens, vice president of engineering at Code 42 Software, will take part in the “Cross Platform Mobile Development Tools: Panacea or False God?” panel discussion today from 2:30 – 3:15 p.m. Attendees will learn how and when cross-platform environments help or hinder mobile efforts. Grammens leads Code 42’s mobile solutions team and also is the lead producer of the Mobile Twin Cities User’s Group and Mobile March, an annual conference targeting mobile business and development.

Also today, Code 42 client software architect Damon Allison will take part in the “Enterprise Mobility” panel discussion from 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.  Panel members will discuss potential solutions that combat cost and security risks while addressing the mission-critical nature of mobility for security, application management and financial management. Allison leads Code 42 Software’s iOS and OS X development team. Previously, he wrote iOS applications for companies including Best Buy, General Mills, Cisco Systems and United Health.

To learn more or to register for MobCon 2012, visit www.mobcon.com

Ask anyone at Code 42, from our support team to developers, there is never a slow time in our office. November is no exception! Our CrashPlan PROe team is hard at work planning and executing an onslaught of online webinars and in-person training sessions for anyone interested in learning more about enterprise backup.

If you’d like to learn how CrashPlan PROe’s technology reduces the IT burden of enterprise backup, our Tech Forums are for you. Held at local venues across the country, there’s bound to be one close to you. Here are November’s scheduled Tech Forums:

-       Backing Up Everyone, Everywhere: Kansas City, MO – Thursday, November 8.

-       Backing Up Everyone, Everywhere: Columbus, OH – Tuesday, November 13.

Can’t make it to a Tech Forum this month? Code 42 also offers webinars for beginning (Getting Started) and intermediate (Beyond the Basics) walkthroughs of CrashPlan PROe.

For a full list of CrashPlan PROe Tech Forums, webinars, classroom training and trade shows, visit the CrashPlan PROe Learning Portal.

I received a request from one of our Support members, asking if he could write a post on our blog about his experience working for Code 42. I was thrilled, of course! I enjoyed reading Xander’s perspective on helping people, and I hope you do, too. -AB

The East Coast is dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a storm of unprecedented impact. People who packed their bags to stay with family and friends further inland are returning to assess the damage. After securing essentials such as power and water, IT managers and consultants want to ensure their business data is protected. That’s when they call me.

My name is Xander; I’m on the CrashPlan Tier 1 Customer Support team. I answer phone calls and emails. Hundreds a week. I enjoy my work for many reasons. Our company, Code 42, treats its employees well. My teammates are fun to work alongside. The work that I do every day matters. It matters to me. It matters to you.

We spend the majority of our day answering routine questions about error messages and common network issues. But at least once a day, I receive a call or email from someone who needs assistance getting back a file that went missing, dealing with a mistake made in a database or a fixing a backup that isn’t working. These are the moments when I thrive. It often requires me to think creatively. I have no idea where your accounting spreadsheet was located or when the last time that your contact list was updated, but you can be sure that I will do my best to help you find out.

Tech support can be difficult because we all speak different languages. I come from a business that uses metaphors and analogies to simplify complex concepts. There are definitely times when this approach is difficult, especially when people are stressed about losing an important piece of their life. That’s when I have to get creative. Some of my greatest successes have been built around speaking a common language to solve a problem.

I hope to share these experiences with you as our support team grows, because I think these stories are important for everyone to hear, and it gives you and I a chance to speak the same language. Get to know me as more than a voice behind a phone and keyboard, and I will be able to more successfully understand how to address the issues you are having.

Before the storm, I answered dozens of calls from people getting ready for Sandy. They were not certain what would happen with the storm or how their home or business would stand up. But they were confident that having an online backup would put them one step closer to their digital security.

Please know that if you and I interacted to help you deal with Hurricane Sandy, my efforts were to reassure you that your data was safe. You were working with a team who wanted to make the backup process simple, so that you could focus your energies on other important tasks. I wish you the best and look forward to helping you soon.

Just a few weeks ago, my wife, our friends and I strolled through the East Village in Manhattan, looking for a restaurant to visit. It’s difficult for me to believe that my friends—along with so many others—had to abandon their home last Monday evening, as the waters rushed towards them.

The most important thing after a disaster is to return to normal life as quickly as possible. This was the primary consideration when we created CrashPlan: to restore lost data. To that end, we offer a special service called “Restore To Your Door.” We’ll ship a 1 TB hard drive to your location, so you can get your data back without the restrictions inherent in restoring via the Internet. Normally, this service starts at $124.99, but to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, we would like to extend a 50% discount as a small gesture of our concern.

Of course, you can still Restore your data at any time by following these simple steps, but if you’d like to take advantage of this offer, just go to www.crashplan.com/sandy.

A few things to keep in mind: with roads, bridges and even some airports closed or restricted along the path of the storm, FedEx may not be able to meet their normal delivery expectations. Also, please note that FedEx cannot ship to Post Office Box addresses, so please make sure you provide a physical shipping address when you order.

Finally, through the end of November, Code 42 is donating 10% of all CrashPlan+ sales to the American Red Cross to benefit those affected by the hurricane. Please consider joining us in the recovery effort by supporting the Red Cross with your own donation. In addition to financial aid, blood supplies are critically low in many of the areas hit by the storm; consider donating at a local blood center to help those in need.

Code 42 Software Inc. announced enhanced capabilities for its entire family of CrashPlan endpoint backup solutions today at Cloud Expo West 2012. This new version of CrashPlan expands ease-of-use by both end users and data backup administrators, and provides powerful new enterprise functionality for managing private clouds.

Available today are a variety of additional capabilities for Code 42’s enterprise solution CrashPlan PROe which extend the solution’s ease-of-use for administrators, such as:

• Single-point upgrades of private clouds – With this new version comes automatic upgrade functionality for storage servers, which makes managing private clouds easier and less time-consuming. Once all servers are individually upgraded to the current version, administrators can upgrade their entire private cloud with a single-point upgrade for future releases.
• Support for Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0 (SAML 2.0) – This version of the SAML OASIS standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains enables web-based authentication and authorization scenarios including single sign-on (SSO). Organizations utilizing SAML 2.0-based SSO technologies (such as Shibboleth) can now integrate CrashPlan PROe with those systems, which simplifies the authentication process by delegating all authorization to the organization’s identity provider.

In addition to the aforementioned new capabilities, PROe gives the enterprise:

• Continuous, silent backup – Works quietly, continuously, in the background to unobtrusively protect data according to admin or user settings.
• Self-service restore – When a restore is required, users can initiate it themselves – with only a few clicks, and without needing IT intervention.
• End-to-end security – Encrypts data both on the device and again during transit, and keeps it encrypted during data storage.
• Flexible data storage options – Offers both public and private cloud data storage across multiple physical locations via a hybrid architecture.
• Superb performance – Innovative compression and multi-threading technologies provide superior performance; a byte-level differential only transmits and stores new information.
• Dynamic data balancing – Provides optimum use of available storage and bandwidth within and between servers and data centers.
• Easy monitoring and administration – Gives admins a real-time view of the entire system and an easy way to control every aspect of the backups – whether for 200 users or two million – via an intuitive admin dashboard and console.
• Easy, trusted access to data while on-the-go – Gives users secure access to all their data from anywhere via mobile apps for Apple iOS, Android or Windows Phone; apps feature one-touch update and the same industry-leading security as the PROe desktop applications.
• Customizable backup sets – Provides an easy way to back up different groups of files and folders on different schedules and/or to different destinations.

Code 42 Software will demonstrate CrashPlan PROe at Cloud Expo West 2012 this week, Nov. 5-8, 2012, in Santa Clara, Calif. Also during the event, Code 42 Senior Enterprise Engineer Andrew Renz will outline how to leverage a variety of cloud backup strategies to confidently secure enterprise information while meeting corporate security and/or compliance mandates. Renz’s conference session – “Backup Strategies to the Cloud” – takes place Nov. 5 from 5:10-5:55 p.m. PST. For more information about or to register for Cloud Expo West 2012, visit www.cloudcomputingexpo.com.