It may have escaped your notice, but the FIFA World Cup is almost upon us. We're big fans here at Carbonite, especially of the goal keepers. Why is this? Because we're both all about saving. Goal keepers save shots on goal, we save people's data.

During World Cup, we're running a Twitter competition asking you to guess how many goals will be saved during selected World Cup matches. One lucky winner will win a brand new 16GB Wifi iPad, worth $629 (£429.00), and 12 entrants will win a full year subscription to Carbonite, worth $54.95 (£41.95) each.

To enter all you need to do is watch out for World Cup tweets from @carbonite and RT with your guess of the number of saves for each match. For example, when you see this tweet:

•World Cup competition: Round One England vs USA [how many shots saved?] RT for chance to win an iPad and Carbonite online backup #WC2010

You need to retweet with:

•RT @carbonite World Cup competition: Round One England vs USA [3 saves] RT for chance to win an iPad and Carbonite online backup #WC2010

As soon as you tweet, you'll be entered into the competition. You can tweet a guess for as many matches as you like, but only one guess per match per user will be counted. Winners will be selected at random from entries with correct guesses. Any guesses after kick-off will not count.

We'll be running the competition on the below matches. Keep an eye for our tweets before each match and make sure you enter!

• ROUND 1 - England Vs USA (12th June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND 2 - Slovenia Vs USA (18th June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND 3 - England Vs Algeria (18th June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND 4 - Slovenia Vs England (23rd June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND 5 - USA VS Algeria (23rd June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND OF 16: 1C Vs 2D (26th June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• ROUND OF 16: 1D Vs 2C (27th June 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• QUARTER FINAL: W49 Vs W50 (2nd July 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• QUARTER FINAL: W52 Vs W51 (3rd July 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• SEMI FINAL: W58 Vs W57 (6th July 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• SEMI FINAL: W59 Vs W60 (7th July 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

• FINAL: (11th July 2010)
   Stat: Total Shots on Target Saved

Winners notified after each match. The lucky iPad winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries and notified after the World Cup final on July 11th 2010.

Full terms and conditions can be found at http://carbonite.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2796

— Alison

I found this question on Twitter. Short answer: Carbonite checks this in the background using something called a checksum. As amazing as it sounds, about every 90 days Carbonite goes through every one of the roughly 25 billion files we have backed up and checks to make sure that the file in our backup still matches what's on your PC bit for bit.

If you are still feeling nervous, try this: Pick any backed up file on your PC (it will have a green dot on it if it's backed up with Carbonite). Delete it. Now open the Carbonite Backup Drive from the icon on your desktop. Find the file you just deleted – the status column will say "Right-click to restore latest backup copy (Original file deleted)." Right-click on the file, and select "Restore." In a few seconds, you'll see a Carbonite pop-up saying that the file has been restored. Go back to your C: drive and open the restored file. You'll see that it's perfect. I'm sure this is true of every file on you've backed up with Carbonite.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite