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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.'"
Computers break down.
News at 11.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Searching? Have they tried Google?
It's still in beta!
Personal Home Page? I knew they should've have used PHP.
why storing all your data on some company's servers is a good idea?
So 3 different apps have 1 hiccup each over the course of 6 months. If only my desktop applications were so reliable. I can't even count how many paragraphs in Word I've lost due to crashes, or how many settings I've lost in Gnome from random bugs. I don't see what the fuss is, it's still a matter of "shit happens" only Google seems to be rather responsive about it all.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Jeez, what a screwup! You'd think that Google would offer to refund affected users their license and subscription fees for the service! I mean if I paid good money for something like that and they messed it up, I'd be hopping mad. I'd take my business to all those other sites that offer all those cool Ajax apps along with the biggest search engine in the world. Not like I was getting something for free or anything!
Oh wait a minute...
Forget losing my data, I'm using the "Seasonal" theme on my Google homepage and it's still showing snow-covered hills and a snowman. It knows from my zip code that I do not live in Siberia or even Buffalo. How is this seasonal!? I think Google should drop everything else and get on this one pronto.
The above comment is proof positive that MBA's post at Slashdot.
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.
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.
I thought all of Google was still in Beta?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
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.