If you are in the business of offering online backup services to the public, you have heard stories about flooded hard drives and lost data. GeeksForRelief.com members offer free online backup services during hurricane season to businesses and individuals in affected areas.

While there's not much we can do about the physical damage caused by hurricanes, we CAN protect the computer data by moving a copy of it out of the path of the storm. Protecting data can help get people back on their feet quicker. If you are in the Remote Backup business and meet a few requirements we would like to invite you to participate in GeeksForRelief.com

What's in it for you? Providing much-needed help to those in the areas most likely to be affected by this year's storms. Let's all lend a helping hand this year. Together, we can make a difference for thousands of unprotected businesses and consumer computers.

GeeksForRelief.com is sponsored by Remote Backup Systems, Inc., developers of RBackup 2006 Remote Backup Software. However, we invite you to join the program even if you use someone else's software.

We will promote your involvement in the program via press releases, radio spots, newspapers and other media.

As storms approach, the main page at geeksforrelief.com will contain live feeds from NOAA weather sources like satellites, radar and graphical forecasts from the National Hurricane Center. It also contains live storm-specific weather advisories updated every 15 minutes, and links to hurricane-related web sites.

GeeksForRelief.com is open to all online backup service providers who meet the following requirements:

You must own at least a 250-client version of your online backup software, and have enough available trial accounts and bandwidth to support the expected load. If you are using RBackup 2006 software, we will temporarily upgrade your client count if needed to support more trial accounts than your current license allows.

You must extend minimum 120-day free trial accounts with a minimum of 2 gigabytes of storage space to those in hurricane zones. For the purposes of this program, hurricane zones will refer to the Gulf States inside the US from Texas to Florida, and those on the eastern seaboard, including the eastern shores of Florida northward to the North Carolina border.

Your software or service must be able to be distributed online automatically without the need to contact you by email or telephone. Customers in the storm zones must be able to go to your web site 24/7, download your software (if necessary), sign up for an account, and send a backup immediately.

Post a special landing page on your web site for the link we will distribute. That page should contain instructions and a way to activate service immediately without the need to go to a different page. You can view a sample landing page here: http://geeksforrelief.com/landingpage.htm. You are welcome to copy and modify our sample landing page.

You must have enough resources (disk space, bandwidth, etc.) to handle a large influx of new clients within a short period of time even if your own service is effected by a storm.

After we welcome you to the program and verify your landing page and service activation, you may copy and use any of the GeeksForRelief.com graphics on your web site, with a link to your own landing page or to the GeeksForRelief.com main page if you like.

At the end of the 120 day trial period you might convert some of the trial accounts to 'live' paying accounts, or depending on the weather you might want to extend the trial period. That's entirely up to you.

At the end of the season we will again publicize your involvement with the program.

Who can and cannot particpate - The GeeksForRelief.com program is open to all companies who offer full service, automated, hosted online backup services directly to the public. Participants must store customers' data securely on disk resources under the control of the particpating company. This program is not open to "grid backup" services, "peer to peer" services, or companies selling software only, without back-end services. The program is not open to companies who sell software designed to operate remote backup services, nor to companies who recruite "affiliates" or "partners" to re-sell their services. The program is open to your affiliates and partners, as long as they meet all other requirements.

If you are ready to participate, install your landing page and email the link to Tommy Gardner. Please contact us only after you have fully enabled all of the requirements listed above. Due to the overwhelming response, we reserve the right to limit participation.