Google keep claiming that locked G+ profiles don't block GMail. However, reports keep coming in - e.g. from the Guardian, this story. And a followup from Thursday - despite Bradley Horowitz claiming two days before that mail locks were not happening, even though they clearly were and still clearly are.
The message that's going out: Don't get a G+ account, or your email is at risk.
I wonder if anyone at Google ever thought their policy would lead to headlines in major general-interest newspapers.
But it's noteworthy because G+ appear to have decided that they don't need the techy early adopters any more, e.g. the open source people who naturally want to be known by their handle and who will tell the thousands of people following their blogs when something (anything) pisses them off.
That is, I submit that even if the percentage is small, it's a rather important percentage not to piss off.
You get up tomorrow and log into GMail. You can't get in. Your account is locked. Your mail, calendar, documents — all gone. What do you do now?
Remember that Google has no customer service, even for paying customers. If your account is locked for any reason, spurious or not, you're utterly fucked.
I keep a regular backup of my GMail. The official interface is IMAP, but GMail's IMAP implementation is really flaky (e.g. Thunderbird or mail.app won't suck everything down). The way to do this that actually works is with OfflineIMAP. It's command-line and geeky, but by crikey it works.
This will create a folder with all your mail in it, in mbox format (readable plain text). You will have duplicate messages in different folders. I'm just doing this to get an archive, so zipped the result.
GMail's IMAP interface is subtly broken, to the point where it can crash offlineimap. Just start it running again, repeat as often as necessary. (If you like, get a more current version.)
GMail is still the best email interface I've ever used, and I wish Thunderbird would just get the hint and clone it to the last detail. But this way I also have all my stuff myself, just because I can.
I haven't tried this on a Mac or Windows. Could someone do this and write up instructions?
For other Google services, you can get your data from Google Takeout. While your account's not locked.
The thing is, past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. Intent is *thought of* as a predictor, and put forward as a predictor, but is not in practice a good one.
"You're pulling unacceptable bullshit, Google, over and over." "But we're not evil!" "Really? Oh, that's OK then."
The brochure doesn't matter. Observe the actions and extrapolate back to predictions; ignore the bleatings.
The trouble is you are debating "being evil" over "doing evil". That is, "Don't Be Evil" rather than "Don't Do Evil" is a distraction - it means that when Google does something that's just fucking obnoxious, people start debating the inner content of their hearts rather than that they're doing something they should damn well stop doing. Excellent piece of derailing, that slogan.
Dude, it varies per printer. Microsoft Word literally changes its rendering according to your printer driver. This is widely known and well documented, and I've been burnt by it frequently. Claiming this is "FUD" is FUD.
No. And if you run MySQL and need actual performance, you need to over-optimise your code to MySQL to a horrible degree. Proper databases like Oracle and Postgres handle queries a lot more smartly.
MySQL is such a piece of shit. But Oracle's pricing model is "how much have you got?" and the M in LAMP is always MySQL and almost never Postgres unless you're going to take on the support for it yourself. Bah.
So far, Ford have withdrawn their advertising from NOTW, and Mumsnet have removed their advertising from Sky. The latter will hurt, as that's advertisers considering all of News International too toxic to deal with.
YESLER WAY, Seattle,, Saturday (MSBBC) — Microsoft today stealth-released its new social network, Bing Minus, automatically adding every person in the world still using Internet Explorer, such as your mother.
The Bing Minus software was distributed Friday morning in an automatic urgent mandatory critical Windows security update. It will also be available on Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry.
“Social networking is the new primary focus Microsoft is betting the business on,” said CEO Steve Ballmer, defining “the business” as “my job.” “It’s already banned in China!” he proudly declared, although Chinese contacts deny this. Productivity has also increased in offices containing Bing Minus users.
Bloggers and tweeters are already swapping tips on how not to obtain Bing Minus invitations every time you click on anything whatsoever in IE or Windows itself.
“Facebook is definitely quaking in its boots. Who are users going to want to give all their information to, Facebook or Microsoft? I think the choice is obvious.”
Ballmer looks forward to a bright future for Bing Minus. “Whatever happens,” he said, “it’s going to suck less than Buzz.”
Upsized font - are you using a trackpad (e.g. on a laptop) and you happen to be holding the control key when the font blows up? Then you hit the scroll wheel zone of the trackpad. Go to about:config and change mousewheel.withcontrolkey.action from 3 to 0.
(This is just one site, of course. But (a) Wikimedia has no interest in pushing the numbers (analysts' business model is selling out) (b) it's a top-10 general interest site used by normal people, not just geeks (c) this is worldwide.)
Research in Motion have broken much-needed barriers with the PlayBook tablet, a BlackBerry that can’t read email. And needs to be tethered to a phone.
“We feel a technology preview is just the thing we need to fight iPhone and Android in the consumer market,” said founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “The missing core functionality should be seen as areas of spectacular potential. Also, the board has ascertained that you should stay away from the brown acid, it’s not so good.”
The PlayBook has launched remarkably, with thousands of the devices being recalled for crippling operating system bugs straight after release.
In a double-tap Osborne through the head, the PlayBook uses the new QNX BlackBerry OS, which does not run current BlackBerry apps, will not be available on phones for another year and will not work on any current BlackBerry device. This is separate from OS 7, to be released soon, which will also not work on any existing BlackBerry. RIM’s present mobile carrier partners were “overwhelmed” to be stuck with so much already-obsolete stock, and developers were simply thrilled to have two dead platforms and one that didn't work yet..
RIM led the world into the smartphone era, several years before Apple’s iPhone turned everyone into the sort of twat you only ever used to see carrying a BlackBerry.
Technology industry rumours suggest a Microsoft takeover of RIM, considered an excellent match in competence and vision. “Synergy’s just another word for two and two makes one!” said Steve Ballmer. “We will assimilate your technological stench of death into our own.”
Slashdot Mirror
This is an official claim, but the reports keep coming in of GMail being locked with G+, e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jul/25/1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jul/28/google-open-letter-google
Just because Google say it isn't happening does not mean it isn't happening.
I did ask Mr Horowitz in that thread for an explanation or correction. Still waiting.
While it's foolish to trust that a provider is never ever going to fuck you around, that does not make Google's actions here any less odious.
This is an official claim, but the reports keep coming in of GMail being locked with G+, e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jul/25/1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jul/28/google-open-letter-google
Google keep claiming that locked G+ profiles don't block GMail. However, reports keep coming in - e.g. from the Guardian, this story. And a followup from Thursday - despite Bradley Horowitz claiming two days before that mail locks were not happening, even though they clearly were and still clearly are.
The message that's going out: Don't get a G+ account, or your email is at risk.
I wonder if anyone at Google ever thought their policy would lead to headlines in major general-interest newspapers.
Well, personally, I frequenty search my mail for old conversations, possibly from years ago ...
So I am told: "For paying customers, you get nearly nonexistent, abysmal customer service."
G+ is a disaster at any point where customer service is required. There's a reason for this.
Yeah, I suspect it's not a vast percentage.
But it's noteworthy because G+ appear to have decided that they don't need the techy early adopters any more, e.g. the open source people who naturally want to be known by their handle and who will tell the thousands of people following their blogs when something (anything) pisses them off.
That is, I submit that even if the percentage is small, it's a rather important percentage not to piss off.
You get up tomorrow and log into GMail. You can't get in. Your account is locked. Your mail, calendar, documents — all gone. What do you do now?
Remember that Google has no customer service, even for paying customers. If your account is locked for any reason, spurious or not, you're utterly fucked.
I keep a regular backup of my GMail. The official interface is IMAP, but GMail's IMAP implementation is really flaky (e.g. Thunderbird or mail.app won't suck everything down). The way to do this that actually works is with OfflineIMAP. It's command-line and geeky, but by crikey it works.
Using it on Ubuntu or Debian is absurdly simple:
This will create a folder with all your mail in it, in mbox format (readable plain text). You will have duplicate messages in different folders. I'm just doing this to get an archive, so zipped the result.
GMail's IMAP interface is subtly broken, to the point where it can crash offlineimap. Just start it running again, repeat as often as necessary. (If you like, get a more current version.)
GMail is still the best email interface I've ever used, and I wish Thunderbird would just get the hint and clone it to the last detail. But this way I also have all my stuff myself, just because I can.
I haven't tried this on a Mac or Windows. Could someone do this and write up instructions?
For other Google services, you can get your data from Google Takeout. While your account's not locked.
Apparently they're not evil, so I'm sure it'll be just fine.
The thing is, past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. Intent is *thought of* as a predictor, and put forward as a predictor, but is not in practice a good one.
"You're pulling unacceptable bullshit, Google, over and over."
"But we're not evil!"
"Really? Oh, that's OK then."
The brochure doesn't matter. Observe the actions and extrapolate back to predictions; ignore the bleatings.
Of course, Google aren't releasing numbers. However, Skud is gathering data at the suspended accounts list.
The trouble is you are debating "being evil" over "doing evil". That is, "Don't Be Evil" rather than "Don't Do Evil" is a distraction - it means that when Google does something that's just fucking obnoxious, people start debating the inner content of their hearts rather than that they're doing something they should damn well stop doing. Excellent piece of derailing, that slogan.
How's Minix 3 benchmark?
Dude, it varies per printer. Microsoft Word literally changes its rendering according to your printer driver. This is widely known and well documented, and I've been burnt by it frequently. Claiming this is "FUD" is FUD.
The problem with Microsoft Office for me is that it cannot be trusted to produce a file that will render identically on Microsoft Office systems.
No. And if you run MySQL and need actual performance, you need to over-optimise your code to MySQL to a horrible degree. Proper databases like Oracle and Postgres handle queries a lot more smartly.
MySQL is such a piece of shit. But Oracle's pricing model is "how much have you got?" and the M in LAMP is always MySQL and almost never Postgres unless you're going to take on the support for it yourself. Bah.
They admitted it in court. They even claimed a First Amendment right to deliberately lie.
The way to deal effectively with this is to take out the advertisers. A boycott is in progress and is getting results.
* News Of The World advertisers list - includes handy Excel spreadsheet, suitable for mailmerging
* Addresses and phone numbers of advertisers
So far, Ford have withdrawn their advertising from NOTW, and Mumsnet have removed their advertising from Sky. The latter will hurt, as that's advertisers considering all of News International too toxic to deal with.
Buzz: "Don't be evil. Do, however, be stupid."
YESLER WAY, Seattle,, Saturday (MSBBC) — Microsoft today stealth-released its new social network, Bing Minus, automatically adding every person in the world still using Internet Explorer, such as your mother.
The Bing Minus software was distributed Friday morning in an automatic urgent mandatory critical Windows security update. It will also be available on Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry.
“Social networking is the new primary focus Microsoft is betting the business on,” said CEO Steve Ballmer, defining “the business” as “my job.” “It’s already banned in China!” he proudly declared, although Chinese contacts deny this. Productivity has also increased in offices containing Bing Minus users.
Bloggers and tweeters are already swapping tips on how not to obtain Bing Minus invitations every time you click on anything whatsoever in IE or Windows itself.
“Facebook is definitely quaking in its boots. Who are users going to want to give all their information to, Facebook or Microsoft? I think the choice is obvious.”
Ballmer looks forward to a bright future for Bing Minus. “Whatever happens,” he said, “it’s going to suck less than Buzz.”
Photo: Ballmer ecstatic at his bright personal future.
Yes, FF5 is noticeably better than FF4 on my anaemic little Mini 9 netbook (running Ubuntu 11.04).
Upsized font - are you using a trackpad (e.g. on a laptop) and you happen to be holding the control key when the font blows up? Then you hit the scroll wheel zone of the trackpad. Go to about:config and change mousewheel.withcontrolkey.action from 3 to 0.
Dude, there's a Chrome billboard at my local train station. They're aiming for the casual browsing populace.
Wikimedia browser share gives Chrome at 15.6%.
(This is just one site, of course. But (a) Wikimedia has no interest in pushing the numbers (analysts' business model is selling out) (b) it's a top-10 general interest site used by normal people, not just geeks (c) this is worldwide.)
Research in Motion have broken much-needed barriers with the PlayBook tablet, a BlackBerry that can’t read email. And needs to be tethered to a phone.
“We feel a technology preview is just the thing we need to fight iPhone and Android in the consumer market,” said founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “The missing core functionality should be seen as areas of spectacular potential. Also, the board has ascertained that you should stay away from the brown acid, it’s not so good.”
The PlayBook has launched remarkably, with thousands of the devices being recalled for crippling operating system bugs straight after release.
In a double-tap Osborne through the head, the PlayBook uses the new QNX BlackBerry OS, which does not run current BlackBerry apps, will not be available on phones for another year and will not work on any current BlackBerry device. This is separate from OS 7, to be released soon, which will also not work on any existing BlackBerry. RIM’s present mobile carrier partners were “overwhelmed” to be stuck with so much already-obsolete stock, and developers were simply thrilled to have two dead platforms and one that didn't work yet..
RIM led the world into the smartphone era, several years before Apple’s iPhone turned everyone into the sort of twat you only ever used to see carrying a BlackBerry.
Technology industry rumours suggest a Microsoft takeover of RIM, considered an excellent match in competence and vision. “Synergy’s just another word for two and two makes one!” said Steve Ballmer. “We will assimilate your technological stench of death into our own.”