Carbonite Online Backup

This is a great article on how to backup your Google Apps

So many of us these days are jumping on the Google bandwagon making the most of the ’so many’ services that Google has to offer the home PC user as well as the very small business person. Services like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets, have you ever considered what could happen to these files (your files) if Google loses them or even denies you access to them? This is particularly relevant if they are personal or business files. I am sure (and I haven’t read them myself) their T/Cs ensure they have every right to determine if the files stay online or not, at the end of the day it’s their servers.

It would be wise to ensure that your most sensitive information is in your control.
Automatically back up your Gmail account

The easiest way to create a local backup of your Gmail account is probably through POP access with a desktop based email application like Thunderbird, which is also free. It is also cross platform and comes with easy Gmail setup already provided. There are others taht you can also use eg MS Outlook.

Obviously you then need to consider backing up your email client to ensure that should your PC die, you data and emails don’t die with it. Using something as simple as Carbonite is ideal for the home PC or small business user.

This is where to go to find out how to backup Thunderbird.

Another simple step you can take is to forward all incoming email to a secondary email account with Gmail. That means you can back up to a secondary Gmail or Yahoo! email address.
Backup Google Calendar

If you’re looking to back up Google Calendar, the best solution is to set up a complete bi-directional Gcal sync using the cross-platform GCalDaemon.

With GCalDaemon, not only can you ensure that you’ve always got a backup of your latest and greatest Google Calendar appointments and events, but you also get to add, edit, or delete those events from your desktop and watch as they sync back to Gcal.

If you are looking for something a little more basic, you can just subscribe to your calendar’s iCal feed to back up your events offline.
Backup Google Docs and Spreadsheets

The long way around this problem is to download them one at a time. Alternatively, if you are using Firefox, it allows you to back up all or select chunks of Google Docs and Spreadsheet files in various formats (including MS Office or Open Office formats, PDF, plain text, or CSV) in one simple step using Google Docs Download Greasemonkey script. The Google Doc Download Greasemonkey script adds a download link to the main Docs and Spreadsheets page that gives you quick access to download your docs in whatever format you want.

You will need to ensure that you regularly perform the backup step and then use something like Carbonite to secure it all.
Back up your Blogger blog

Bloggers can easily back up their Blogger accounts using Blogger Backup (Windows only). Simply point the program at your blogspot URL.