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Glitch Has Users Fuming, Google 'Frantic'
netbuzz writes "A problem with Google's Personalized Home Page feature has apparently cost a lot of users their carefully crafted doors to the Internet. And Google, which says it is frantically searching for a fix, also acknowledges that it is not sure if it will be able to recover the lost settings. 'The problem is the latest in what seems a regular stream of technical glitches and availability problems affecting Google's online services. In the past six months, Google services like Blogger, Gmail and Google Apps have all experienced significant technical issues that have left users fuming. The problems highlight one of the risks of relying on hosted applications providers, which offer to house software and its data for individuals and organizations. Google is one of the biggest cheerleaders for this software provisioning model, which many see as a viable option to the traditional approach of having users install applications on their own PCs and servers.'"
So some random guy posts some random blog trying to stir up controversy and the people of Slashdot are supposed to pay attention?
So people are "fuming" that their personalized news page and other crap, which is free, and mostly in beta, had a minor glitch and now they'll have to spend two minutes setting up their precious, precious settings again. My, what a catastrophe.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Maybe your company should invest in some decent infrastructure. Trust me, it isn't as expensive as you'd expect.
I worked IT at a rather large firm several years back. During one of my interviews they bragged about their uptime. They had production mail servers that'd been up for 3 years. I thought they were full of shit. That was, until they hired me and I actually got to see these systems.
Their entire email infrastructure was run off of four PCs. Two were in one city, and two were in a branch office in another major city on the other side of the country. The two I worked with ran BSD/OS, and had in fact been up for 3 years when I started. Of the other two at the other office, one ran FreeBSD, and the other ran NetBSD. When I left there, the BSD/OS server had been up for about 4.5 years, the FreeBSD server for just over 3 years, and the NetBSD server for just under 3 years. They kept their systems powered during outages using the typical battery backups you find at a Circuit City.
They'd probably set up those systems for no more than $10,000, including hardware, BSD/OS, the battery backups, and the installation. When you consider the millions upon millions of dollars those systems helped bring in, it's really amazing that they could do so much with what was essentially so very little.
There is no reason why your company can't have servers with uptimes approaching five years, if it's that important to you. And it can probably be done for a very minimal initial cost, and even then with minimal upkeep.
Back in the day, when users were confined to terminals with access to the mainframe at the whim of the sysop, PCs with their own software were supposed to set us free from those shackles. Free to develop their own creativity. Free from timesharing computer resources. Free from someone else having access to every file, every preference, every .conf. They threw a big hammer through Big Brother's face during the Super Bowl and everything.
So what's the attraction to going backwards to putting Big Brother in charge again? Having your data on someone else's server, with its security only as good as the least honest person with access to the server? Having no choice over the software you use every day and being dependent on the choices, preference s and whims of the person running the server ("What? You preferred Emacs? Sorry, now you're using vi.")? Having to look at ads all day long so that you don't have to pay for software?
All these things that are supposed to be so much hipper like IMAP and googlapps just give your control over your data to someone else blindly on faith that they are trustworthy. What a crock!
FTA: "I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive Internet needs," a user wrote on a Google discussion group. "Now it's all gone."
This article is about losing your personalized homepage information that is stored on google's server, not being unable to access their server because something is messed up on your own computer.
With that said, this article is blown way out of proportion. I feel sorry for the guy who spent weeks tailoring... wait, weeks? Are you kidding me? I don't feel sorry for that guy at all. If you spend weeks developing something and don't back it up, it's your own damn fault. There isn't a way to backup this information you say? Then don't spend weeks doing it. That guy sounded like a MMORPG player crying because he just got his account hacked. Yeah, it sucks, but that shit happens. It's a risk you take, and most people should be aware of that risk. Even my parents, who don't understand how the porn spam knows what city they live in and once asked me how to rewind a dvd, know the difference between storing things on your home computer and on the internet. They also know that if you get a bad virus or your hard drive crashes, you might lose everything on your home computer. There are always trade-offs. The GPs post was pointing out that this isn't anything new, and for that matter, it really isn't that serious. It's not like Google just lost everyone's email messages from the last 6 months. Maybe if people had written down all of the widgets and gadgets and tabs and bookmarks then they would be able to restore their information without spending "weeks tailoring" it again.
And this is just lost data, which is easily fixed in any useful system via a sensible back-up policy.
Wait until the first time a big web-based app doesn't mass-erase data, it mass-leaks it. As businesses stupid enough to trust their confidential documents to external systems watch their competitors get all their trade secrets for free, and consumers stupid enough to trust on-line systems to hold their credit card details securely for extended periods (I'm looking at you, Amazon) watch all their cards get defrauded, then people will realise that most web apps run by third party services simply don't offer any real advantage for anyone except lazy administrators.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yeah, and bringing 4oz of shampoo on an airplane is a threat to aviation security. And not having my own power generator could result in a lot of spoiled food in the fridge. And using city water could be deadly if it's not filtered properly. And not fixing my own car could cause an accident. Shall I go on? Ok. And not growing my own food means that I have to trust McDonald's not to kill me. And taking Tylenol could kill me (it's happened before you know). And ....etc etc etc.
It's risk. When that happens (not if), somebody will get sued, the problems will get fixed, and we'll move on. The economics of the hosted model are too compelling to cause it to go away.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
> If you promise that something will happen, without knowing for sure that it will happen, that's fraud.
> Specifically false representation, in this case "A statement of fact with no reasonable basis to make that statement".
Question #1: how many politicians actually deliver on their promises?
Question #2: how many politicians get charged with fraud?
For bonus points: explain why.
The culprits use English as a second language. I know the French have a particularly rough time with this one.
Hose, pose, rose.
loot, hoot, woot.
Lose is a bit out of place.
I gotta admit, this is a tricky call.
Suppose you have a couch on your lawn. You figure you'll hire somebody to come move it to the dump, but your neighbor says, "Heck, I got a couple of strong boys. I'll move it for free tonight." Next morning, the couch is still there. A few days later, you mention it to the neighbor. "Sure, I'll get the boys to do it tonight. No problem!" Next day, it's still there. It rained that night and the couch is now soaked through. You can't mow the lawn because there's this couch in the way. The in-laws are coming over tomorrow and you'd rather not have this big ol' couch sitting right smack dab in the middle of the lawn. But the neighbor says, "Hey, don't worry. My boys'll be over to take it away."
Sure, it's not costing you anything. But how annoying is it? And considering this problem, would you really trust your neighbor to, say, feed your dog while you were away on vacation?
So some of this is perception. Google says, "trust us with your data." And when something goes wrong, they'll try to get it back? They have to show me that they can get it back before I'll trust them with my important data.
The funny thing is, just recently the googlites were hyping about how good you have to be to code for Google, number of applicants versus number of positions available. Perhaps it relates more to how like minded you have to be, to 'fit' the Google monoculture, willing to work more for less but your 'special'.
Gaagle - a flock of googlites baa-ing at the alter of Google where privacy is sacrificed daily for profits ;). Google definition of trolls, customers who complain about free beta services. It ain't free to the customer once the customers has invested their time and effort and read the endless adds, and end users don't treat their data entry as beta work so neither should google programmers.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yes, exactly. That is NOT funny but insightful. Almost all of these services are in beta. What the hell are you doing using Gmail for your corporate services?
What is *google* doing pushing their beta services to corporate clients? Right now, the whole "beta forever" thing just has become a very lame disclaimer for every time something screws up.