The ads then announce to the world how their prices will be reduced PERMANENTLY by 20%. I know why they felt compelled to say this in order to attract new buyers into their stores but at the same time it screams WE’VE BEEN RIPPING YOU OFF – OUR PRICES WERE TOO HIGH!

It would seem to me that a better approach would be to have truly freshened the brand to appeal to the younger set while at the same time updating the stores and working on a real reason to go into the stores the next time you needed something that you’d otherwise go to Target, Walmart or Amazon for. Whenever I’ve had to go into a JCPenny store it felt like my grandmothers closet and if you got too close to the perfume isle it usually smelled like it too. Most certainly address the pricing but with all of the everyday LOW, LOW price monster box stores out there how can they rise above the din? Target does it pretty well without slashing their prices (feels hip and I like Target dog) and Walmart is… well… Walmart. My wife and I shop there because it’s cheap for the everyday essentials and they usually have a great selection of dog sweaters which my wife insists our dog needs multiple.

So ultimately, their biggest problem which I have yet to see being addressed is how can JCPenny insert themselves into someones mind the next time they need a new sweater, socks, perfume or cooking pot?

We were looking for a remote backup service and explored offerings from Rackspace, Amazon and Google and all were WAY too expensive for the amount of data we had and were too hands on. These services are meant for larger organizations with a lot of data and development teams that tie into their APIs. Then we looked into the everyday companies such as Mozy and Carbonite. At first these offerings look good but they only allow you to backup one volume typically your main hard drive. We have a lot of external drives along with our main drive so these weren’t going to work either. Finally, we found BackBlaze – they allow you to backup external drives along with your hard drive and the user interface was so simple to use. Just download and it starts. For as low as $3.69 per month you get:

Backup all data

BackBlaze was designed to be really easy to use. There is no need to select the folders and filetypes you want to backup. That means all your data will be backed up without having to do anything.

Unlimited Storage 
Backblaze is unlimited so you never have to worry about going over some limit and paying extra. Unlimited storage. Unlimited bandwidth. Unlimited file size. And we’re committed to unlimited online backup for the long-term.

World’s Most Efficient Cloud Storage
We are able to offer all of this unlimited storage for just $3.96 month by designing the world’s most efficient cloud storage system. No databases, no load balancers, no overpriced hardware.

All for as low as $3.69 per month – beats Mozy and Carbonite on price and what you can get backed up. Check it out.

FreshBooks has implemented security safeguards including 256 bit encryption, data backups, firewall protection, and more to protect your sensitive data from prying eyes. Once an estimate or invoice is generated you’ll receive an email alerting you that a new estimate or invoice is ready for review. You can review, approve, and pay your estimates or invoices online and even download a PDF copy for your records.

Also, they are integrated with our project management tool and have a support portal built right in. So, if a client has a support request they simply login in to http://orbitdesignworks.freshbooks.com and submit a ticket. Brilliant!

To learn more click here to visit FreshBooks.

Check out what NPR has to say.

Click here for FashionETC and;

Shine from Yahoo!.

Here’s a few samples as well as some articles on the new launch.