August 2008 Archives

I talk a little about all of you and the dynamic audience you are. Lots of tech news and I am headed home to Hawaii tomorrow.

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Last December two OLPC laptops that I purchased as part of a fund raiser here at Geek News Central went missing after delivery. This past Friday OLPC replaced the two laptops, and I will be giving them away on Tuesdays Podcast.

I will pick two random winners on the show from those that donated to the cause.

I am pretty happy this is resolved, I called attention to their slow response to the issue some weeks ago. That blog post resulted in the OLPC figuring out what the status of the claim was, and replaced the two units. I am grateful that we have the two new units and that the OLPC was able to resolve the situation.

Well, I finally went to see the Dark Knight at the local IMAX today and I can tell you I now know why it's been sold out for the last 2 weeks. Out of all the "Summer Blockbusters", I have to say this one is the real deal.

Here's the real impressive details: It's expected to hit $400 million in sales by the end of this weekend. Since the show I went to was technically sold out (3:40 PM on Saturday - there were 4 tickets left according to the Box Office), I believe they will hit that record. Some are wondering if this will be the best grossing movie of all time.

One thing is for certain: with Home theaters and Bittorrent being a supposed killer of the movie theater industry, this proves that people still want to go to a major theater to see a good show. They'll pay the $25 per person price for ticket, popcorn and soda. Difference is, they'll be more selective.

Of course this is not the 60's: we don't go to movies to get out of the house, watch a new film, get out of the heat or whatever. The reasons for going to see a movie are completely different. We got AC, large screens and surround sound at home so why should we pack up the crew and pay $70 to see a movie? Simple: We want a true experience.

With new innovations in home theater technology jumping up, we will most likely go back to the "theaters are losing out" theory again soon. For now we have a movie that surpassed Spiderman 3 in opening weekend box office (Spiderman 3 made 151 Million where TDK made 154 Million) and it is climbing the all time box office charts.

Right now it's at the number 7 spot with the original Spider-Man movie. By next week it should be in the top 5 - and we're talking movies that have a few years worth of sales under their belts. Titanic, for example, is the all time leader: it has grossed to date 600 Million ($28 Million in it's opening weekend).

I expect the DVD sales to be just as powerful and The Dark Knight to surpass Titanic.

The Software DVDXCopy by 321 Studios was banned in the US 5 years ago after a big battle with Hollywood. 321 studios took on a lawsuit stating that people have a right to backup and archive material they purchased. The movie studios countersued, and in February 2004, it was ruled that DVDXCopy violated Digital Millennium Copyright Act laws and was officially banned in the US.

Well, the website apparently revamped their site from the Sale of the DVDXCopy software to an informational website of the best DVD Copy software. They review 3 different DVD copy programs, but are heavily pushing DVDneXtCopy, which the pro version can allow copying of single, Double sided DVD's in multiple formats including formats for the iPod and PSP.

The site is not shy on saying that the XCopy version has been banned. But they are also warning people that there are fake versions of the software out there.

Of course we all know that copying movies for redistribution is illegal. However I would like to back up my movies in the case of damage. When I travel I don't like to take original movies - I like to take copies. That way if something happens, I don't lose the original.

Then again, with items like Blockbuster and Netflix around, will copying DVDs be as important nowadays?

This site does not use Feedburner nor it never will because I knew a long time ago that I can measure my own readership statistics a lot better than any third party will ever be able to.

I never understood why people would use a service in which they don't need. My blog application creates perfectly good RSS feeds, to ask a third party to copy that data and then redisplay under their branding never made any sense.

But now it turns out that spoofing ones subscriber numbers with Feedburner turns out to be pretty easy.. [Hack your FeedBurner Numbers Today]

Live recording of the Geek News Central Podcast check out the podcast page for the archive of this event.

Back in Hawaii and more fun shooting the show in Video as well. Lots of good tech tonight. Shows flavor changes a little bit when its live as I can not make mistakes.. I'm sure you will find them.

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BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

That is presuming you are still actually looking. If you look at this article from O'reilly you will see that while the number of subscribers are increasing the number of active users is slowly declining. Meaning that more people are falling off the site than are joining. If I take a quick poll among my peers this matches what is shown on this graph, that a lot of them have fallen away from Facebook use. The number of useless applications that are available continues to grow.

As reports over the last day or so are suggesting a number of Facebook shareholders (mostly employees) are trying to realise some equity for their stake now, presumably while it retains some value. The company seems to not be using its initial advantage to build a sustained business model yet and there is obviously some more work for them to do. While the promise of the social network that incorporated third party application integration was high, this is yet to translate into something that is actually useful.

The problem could be that Facebook simply grew to fast. During the fast growth they made quick decisions on philosophy and technology. While the site continues to need more work to expand its utility these changes are hugely more complex and difficult to implement while providing support to their existing users. While new functionality could help the site over time it could alienate some users or disrupt service which will annoy even more.

There is still promise in the philosophy but it is losing some of the market impetus while they work out how to turn promise into reality. I would imagine that some of the larger investors will be pushing for some experienced business builders to be brought onto the team to help work out what to do.

Once again my planning for the Consumer Electronics Show is underway. While our coverage of the 2008 event is still getting play online the search starts again to find a sponsor.

With the 2006, 2007 & 2008 coverage reaching millions of people the 2009 event will be no different. If you want to reach millions of electronics consumers you will want to consider sponsoring our 2009 coverage.

Andy McCaskey from Slashdot Review and I will once again be making the trek to Las Vegas. For a sponsorship package drop me a line at geeknews@gmail.com

Yesterday’s story from Chris Brogan about a colleague who came back from lunch to find his Google account locked out, reinforces what I have been advocating for a number of years.

Who do you trust with your data, with your rss feed, your documents, your email…… Well a lot of people trust Google with that data. What would happen today if you were locked out of your Google account forever?

Brian my creative director teased me the other day, and said I needed to get with the program and start reading email via the web, versus reading email in Thunderbird. The lock out incident yesterday reinforces the need to always have a local copy.

Some will say this is a isolated incident, and that it would never happen to me. Well what if you got locked out of your Feedburner account, or worse yet had someone hijack your account. Your audience would be in the hands of someone that was intent in stealing your account and there would be very little you could do.

How long would it take to undo the damage, who would you call first? You do realize Google really does not do live technical support. You may have to wait weeks to get your accounts back.

Here are some simple rules:

• Keep as much data as you can on your local machine
• Never let Google do what your local applications can do
• Always have a backup plane just in cast the worse happens
• Never leave or have mission critical data on a Google site

Really we all love online collaboration, my company has lived on that from day one. But we also have always taken those documents out of the cloud just in case.

Yesterday, I was working on a deadline project so I had both my desktop machines going and my laptop as well. But I was spending most of the time on my desktops, so I set the screen saver on the laptop to run through all the pictures I've got in my My Pictures directory. This would be four years or so of pictures I've taken with my little point-and-shoot Kodak camera.

As they flashed by out of the corner of my eye, I realized just how many there were. Or maybe not. I left that screen saver run for several hours and did not reach to the end of the pictures. I was somewhere around 2006 when I bumped the mouse and turned the screen back on.

As those pictures flashed by, I realized that I probably could afford to delete some. The ones that are crooked, are pictures of the back of someone's head, etc. That would probably get rid of about a third of them.

But still, that's a lot of pictures, trapped on my hard drive. I've printed some, and sent them around to people via email, and put them on my blogs, but most of them sit, in digital format, where they will always sit and may never been seen by anyone but me. It's rather like the five ginormous boxes of photos in my basement storage room that will never see the page of an album. After all, I've been taking pictures for nigh on forty years. I got my first camera at age 10 and never stopped clicking that shutter.

What to do with all that, whether they are digital or printed? Do I just keep accumulating and let my kids deal with it when I'm gone, like my parents have done?

I'm thinking I need to be more proactive in cleaning up this stuff and making it more manageable, not only for myself, but for my kids someday, since they are the ones that are going to have to clean it out. I just spent the better part of a long weekend going through an entire trunk of my mother's photographs. I don't want to leave that legacy for anyone.

What are others doing with all of their digital content, especially pictures? I'm curious.

Ever hear of a kid named Jason McElwain who is probably better known as J-Mac? If not then you missed out on one of the most inspirational stories ever. This young man with autism was the team manager for his high school basketball team in 2006. He finally got a chance to play in a game so he decided he would make the most of the time he got to play. With about 4 minutes to shine and this kid did not disappoint. He scored 20 points and hit six 3 pointers. When the game ended the whole gym went crazy because they were so happy for this guy.

His story on is on youtube here. The point of this post is to show how many people were affected by J-Mac's story because of online video. His story is a great read but when put in video form it can touch more people. If a picture is worth 1000 words how many words is a video worth? ESPN was where I saw his highlight reel first so TV could have brought the inspiration once or twice then everyone who missed it was just out of luck. Now anyone who hears about the autistic kid who had never played in a high school game then lead his team in scoring the first chance he got, can see for themselves online. Think about how many families with autistic children were given hope by seeing a short clip on youtube. The video link I put above had 433,000 views and there were many more users with similar videos so I'd say millions were able to access inspiration online.

The video from the game was likely a low cost digital camera and the footage, while not great, was certainly watchable. The fact that the technology was there to capture the game then upload it to ESPN and youtube makes everyone's life better. Believe me I have watched some crappy NBA games from the 80's on ESPN Classic and that film was terrible compared to $500 consumer DV cameras today. For all the idiots falling down, breaking things, and generally acting stupid in online videos, at least there are a few stories worth watching and sharing.

Lots of great tech news tonight, lots of trouble in the iPhone space. Mix up on OLPC resolved I hope. Congrats to our July money winners

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Mark Cuban is among many who are bidding to buy the Chicago Cubs. Whether you like this guy or not it would be fantastic for Major League Baseball, not to mention the Cubs. MLB has had all kinds of troubles over the past decade or so from steroids to player strikes to an incompetent commissioner in Bud Selig. While these things have hurt "America's Pastime", it is the refusal to do new things & let the status quo go unchecked that bothers me most. Mark Cuban is one of the brightest people on the planet so I'd be more apt to make him commissioner than just an owner of a single team. As owner of the Cubs he could affect change by changing how his team does things so others will follow suit. I think Mark would have better ideas than turning a blind eye to steroid use just to get attendance numbers back up. He might actually institute some new technology and ideas.

The first thing he could do is make baseball players more accessible to fans. Nascar blew up because the average fan could talk to the drivers and team members in the pit area. His personal blog often covers his NBA team so instantly the average fan will get thoughts on their favorite team from the top guy. The next thing he would do would likely get the Cubs on HDNET as well as their local WGN channel. That would expand the viewership which is already huge for the Cubs. Another improvement he could make is push for better technology for the strike zone which is subjective to which human umpire is on the job. Also he could try to improve the game by speeding it up with a pitch clock that keeps the action going instead of wasting time between pitches. No one has time for four hour baseball games anymore. The biggest thing Cuban could do for baseball is just be different than all the ancient owners that are currently there. These guys likely don't care about high def, the internet, and have never heard of a blog. Even if you disagree with Cuban's position on online videos and other issues relating to the web, at least he understands what is going on. He is not stuck in the 80's or 90's. As an owner he would have a voice in overall baseball policies. When Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks that team was a joke but he turned them into a perpetual winner with great attendance. Think about what he could do with a team that already has a great fan base.

Likely the powers that be in Major League Baseball won't allow Cuban to get into their elitist club because they like things the way they are currently. People don't like change especially when it threatens their powerful positions. It is similar to how old media is holding on for dear life resisting change that is already here. The current leaders in baseball would rather keep things "the way we have always done it" than make a change for the better.

Let me share my feelings on Apple products. I don’t like them period. It is not because they suck or are not easy to use. Clearly they are user friendly and from what I hear do not suck. That is why they are so popular. But the company is so controlling about what you can do with their products. And make no mistake it is their product even after you put down your hard earned money for it. Sure you can use it when you want, take it where you want, even sell it when you get ready to do so. But try to alter it or use it in a way Apple does not care for, then you have trouble. And they can even disable your device in cases like the iphone. Try to move your itunes library to another computer or media device not made by Apple and you will see who really owns “your” stuff. I tried to get my wife’s songs from her itunes library into mp3 format so I could place them on a new Creative Mp3 player. Well if I wanted to burn cds of all the songs and go on a digital adventure that would last hours I would have went ahead. But I just gave up. I understand why they create a walled garden. It is to keep people using their devices the way Apple deems appropriate. But it also keeps people like me who like a little flexibility in their tech devices from buying Apple products. I know Steve Jobs will make it without my few dollars though:) .

The story Todd did on the last podcast about some people’s iphones getting disabled because they had an unauthorized application loaded on it really got to me. Either the phone is yours or it is not. The fact that a small percentage of people may get over in some way by not giving Apple more money does not justify keeping every single user from using their property how they want. When you by a new Dodge truck you have the ability to get accessories after the fact that were made by companies other than Dodge. When you buy a house from a builder he does not lock you out of your home when you don’t let him build on a new deck that your brother will do for free. I understand this is comparing apples to oranges but the principle holds true. Just because Apple can lock you out because it is a digital product does not make it right to do so. Wikipedia defines ownership as “the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property”. If Apple controls your iphone or ipod after you bought it do you really own it?

For the last two days there have been rumors swirling about the possibility of Dish Network and DirecTV attempting a merger. They tried it in 2001 but the FTC wouldn't approve it. After the recent merger of XM and Sirius, I have to think the FTC has loosened their stance on not allowing large media providers to merge.

I would say the merger would be good, but only if it meant that the new company would focus on providing true competition, and figure out how to become large media providers. They will have to offer something different than just television service. They need to be able to move into the broadband market.

Our choices here are limited to bad, and worse than bad. We have Charter Cable in my local area, which is fast, but with horrible service and lots of outages (every time it storms, just about). I live in a neighborhood where all wiring is underground, and when there is a failure, the cable company simply strings a nice orange data cable from yard to yard until they get around to putting it back underground, which can be months. Last winter during snow removal, one of these orange cables was in the gutter of the street, and the snow plow snapped it in eight places, disconnecting cable to half the neighborhood. Then there's AT&T, our only source of DSL, which is stable and works well. My fear of AT&T DSL is that they will start capping our bandwidth, which they are already talking about. I have the highest-end DSL, so I would think the cap would be higher because we pay more, but who knows? We don't have alternatives like FIOS or Clearwire available here.

If the satellite companies could figure out how to deliver true high-speed, economical broadband service to homes, that might be a breakthrough worth cheering. The more competition we can see against behemoths like AT&T, the better it will be for all of us.

This is the live recording of the Geek News Central Podcast. While the Audio version is available in the podcast feed you are welcome to watch me record the show live.

My team at RawVoice has released our latest podcasting tool, it’s called the Blubrry PowerPress Podcast Plugin for Wordpress.

The PowerPress plugin was built to support podcasters and also support our Premium Publishing Service at RawVoice. While the plugin carries the name of our flagship website it will work with anyone looking to publish a podcast on Wordpress.

The Podcast Plugin has some of the following features

• Easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts
• Integrated media player
• iTunes RSS tags
• iTunes album/cover art
• Standard RSS Feed album/cover art
• Ability to upload new cover art
• Ping iTunes
• Media size detection
• Duration length detection (mp3 only)
• 3rd party statistics integration

My team had a goal to make a podcast plugin that would be easy to maintain as Wordpress matures. The way it was developed was to ensure that the plugin stores podcast episodes the way Wordpress expects them natively.

RawVoice looks forward to community feedback and like all products we develop it will continue to evolve over time.

When I heard NBC was going to tape delay most of the Olympic events I knew they were kidding themselves if they thought they were going to be able to stop people from accessing Olympic content being broadcast real time in other countries.

My wife watched the Olympics live from a Chinese website and although the commentary was in Chinese the video was good enough for her. In desperate action NBC had people ready with take-down notices and supposed pre-arranged agreements with the big video sites.

Shame on NBC for tape delaying. They were foolish to think people would wait 16 hours for event. We live on the Internet and people want the video of these types of events live.

NBC should stream everything live and then do their tape delay, then they would not have this issue.

When I am stuck, in a funk or whatever, I pack up my laptop and head for the nearest Wifi. spot. In this case, it's a coffee shop about 2 blocks away. The coffee is not that great but it can be with a little shot of espresso....

I also have a Panera Bread close by. A little farther I can go to 2 different bars and even more places where I can sit and work. Beer and Blogging - my favorites.

Every now and then I look up and see who else is sitting here and what they are doing. Reading books, playing on the Internet, talking business. A few days ago I watched an 18 year old have an interview for a Database job. Yes, I was eavesdropping. It was interesting.

I have to admit, if it wasn't for Wifi, I would never be in a coffee shop. Most gourmet coffees are not of my taste. Call me crazy, but I like the coffee that comes with your eggs, hash browns and toast.

I wondered how much coffee shops rely on Wifi to bring in customers? Even so, I wonder if that actually helps or hurts the coffee shop.

A couple months ago I reported on my own site that my favorite coffee shop (Caribou Coffee) closed it's doors by my house in Fitchburg, WI. I knew they weren't doing that great, but I thought it was just a small slump.

The funny thing about it was that coffee shop usually had people in it. This shop I am in now (the closer one) is not as busy and it's even bigger than the other one. Nonetheless, that shop had problems.

Last Thursday I spent 7 hours at a coffee shop. I wrote 4 different articles and ran through a lot of business in that time. As I was there I had 3 cups of Coffee, a cookie and a Root Beer. $8 for 7 hours of work. That's a little over a dollar an hour to rent the space and Wifi. I left a tip.

It does ask the question if a coffee shop actually makes money. Of course, lots of people drink it, some of them go out of their ways for good coffee. You have businesses that order large amounts for the break room, special meetings or other events. I suppose they can get business that we wouldn't even see.

Nonetheless, I am glad I can go somewhere else to get some work done. I even like the idea I can "Beer and Blog". It gives me a change of scenery and I get some great food and drink. I hope this doesn't go away...

Ever time I see someone quote Alexa numbers it makes me sick to my stomach. The reason is that their numbers are far from accurate.

Last week I had a client email me looking to advertise on one of my properties. He sent me a advertising figure that I quite literally laughed at. When I replied that the rate was about 15 times lower than what we normally charged he replied with a Alexa chart.

I followed up with some screen shots from my Google Analytics account, and the client said it was impossible for the numbers between Alexa and Google Analytics to have such a huge delta, and actually semi-accused us of fudging the numbers.

I wrote off Alexa a long time ago, sadly many people still do not have a clue that their numbers are pretty far from being even reasonably accurate.

Faulty Alexa data ends up hurting small companies like mine because this gives agencies the ability to negotiate with bad data. I think though the Agencies know it’s bad data and they use Alexa data points when they can as they know they can strong arm companies into lower advertising rates and get away with it.

I don't get too caught up in the "hot new thing" on the web. There is just so much stuff out there that is, well, a waste of time. Mostly I see new services and widgets that are neat but don't help you do anything better than before. I found Piclens about 3 weeks ago and have been bragging on it ever since. Basically it is a "3D wall" of images or videos that runs on your browser. I use it on Firefox 3 but it is available on all the other major browsers as well. It makes viewing photos & videos smooth as opposed to the clunky way of I used to search for them one at a time. It works with google images, yahoo images, youtube, myspace, facebook, flickr, photobucket and more.

It’s nice to have all the photos in one place to just click through as you please. I can't swear to it but the images look enhanced as well. Using it for youtube videos is even better as you don't have to wait for another page to load before starting your next video. More sites are becoming compatible with Piclens everyday so it should only get better. If you have a giant screen for your PC or connect your computer to your bigscreen TV that just amplifies the experience. Oh yeah, it costs exactly nothing.

On October 5^th 2007 when I wrapped up a 24 year career in the US Navy something happened during my retirement ceremony that really pointed out the power and realities of personal brands.

When preparing for my retirement ceremony, I had asked a Officer that I had flown with for a number of years to be my guest speaker. I had asked the guest speaker to have fun with his remarks and there really was no topic off limits.

His goal was then to dig up a little dirt from my shipmates to mix in with the accolades that come with such a ceremony little did I know he would also use Google. I had hoped his comments would be like a mild “roasting” Which would make the ceremony fun for all in attendance.

While I had never blogged about my day to day job in the Navy. (did not want to go to jail) I have had a pretty public online life for a long time. I was online long before the advent of the modern Internet, in fact I started my first dial up BBS back in the late 80’s when it was fashionable to dial up at 300–1200 baud. Thus he had about 17 years worth of stuff to pick from that is largely indexed by Google.

In his remarks he highlighted just a few things about my Net Identity aka Personal Brand. He figured out how many my times my name was mentioned online, my unique name made it pretty easy.  He said Google found over 100,000 entries, he mentioned my wikipedia entry as he seemed impressed with that, along with data points on my startups, a few failures and my published book. Along with a host of other topics that my net family knows fairly well but few in my Navy Family had. This made for interesting discussion at the retirement party later.

The simple most important thing to remember for everyone online and those that don’t have a online presence is that Google has a very long memory, that memory will likely outlive all of us. Google is even more accurate on obtuse subjects and on people that have a very small digital footprint or no online identity. In fact those that don’t have a online presence are the ones at most risk and here is why.

There are articles I wrote 5+ years ago that are still #1 in the Google Index on people and subjects that have very little coverage from the person referenced themselves or a property or product that did not have a voice online.

That being said and this goes back to something else I learned while in the Navy. Choose your Battles Wisely. While I have won my share, had draws in others, those that you worry about are those battles you loose and the effect it has on your overall reputation and personal brand.

One only has to loose a battle with someone that garners more power in the Google index to have a very bad year / life. I have always been cognizant of what the search engines will index. I am sure some future employer, investor, business partner will take a look at that history. Its up to them to figure out if I am a person they want to work with.

So the next time you want to go off on someone online, be aware that you will effect that personals brand forever. This also goes with the way people talk about you online. Nothing rises to the top quicker as bad news because people love to pile on when people are down.

In lieu of things going on today with political marriage scandals and all the other nasty stuff being reported online, one can bet today that what they do in public can and will effect them for a long time. The best thing is to keep ones nose clean and be aware that your reputation online will be how most people get to know you.

Once again the Geek News Central Podcast has been rated the 8^th most popular podcast on podcast.com. This is the 7^th straight month in 2008 that Geek News Central has made their top 25 list.

Thought it would be a good time to put up a page just for Live Recordings. If you want to join my Live Recordings on Monday and Thursdays. Just tune in between 8pm and 9pm Hawaiian Standard Time

Live Recordings Page

As you all know I have been doing live Video at the same time I record the show and this has been challenging. I would like to hear your feedback on the show. Last thing I want is the content to suffer but I find myself juggling a lot more which I think is distracting me feedback is appreciated.

Show 400 on Tuesday when I get back from NME listen for a cool way to win on Show 400!

Link to complete full show notes for this show here!

Please Support my Show Sponsors!:
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I openly admit I'm addicted to the Internet and my laptop. I know, I can get the Internet in lots of places without needing my laptop, but still, I like having my "baby" with me.

Yes, even on vacation.

A British psychologist has said that taking your laptop on vacation is stupid and can break up your family. I can understand where the guy is coming from, but that doesn't mean I'm leaving my laptop at home when I go on vacation.

The assumption the psychologist is making is that when I (or others) take their laptop on vacation, they are using it to do "work" and that is not the point of a vacation. Well, I can guarantee you I'm not doing work on vacation! I rarely do anything for my J.O.B. at home, or anywhere but my office, and I keep my hours at 45 hours a week or less. The only time I break this rule is when we have a catastrophic failure or weather incident that requires us all to be involved in the repairs. They are not paying me to work at home, or the beach, or at a hotel room in the mountains with my family.

So why do I have my laptop? It is how I stay connected to the rest of the world. I like to check the news at home, to make sure there hasn't been an insurgent uprising in my little town or military coup taking over the local fire department. I like to check the weather where we are, so I know how to plan for our days. This is especially critical if you're going to be spending your day at the beach! And I like to keep in touch with the house sitter, who can send me daily updates via email. And most importantly, because I have a family and a digital camera, I've got a ton of pictures to deal with. I often keep travelogues of our vacations on my daily personal blog, for my friends and family to follow while we are gone.

These are things I do because I like to, and because they are my habit. Leaving my laptop at home would mean being disconnected from the things that make me happy; and trust me, if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, especially when our family of five is crammed into a hotel room on a rainy day.

There are people I work with that check email and voice mail when they are on vacation. I'm not one of them. My workplace won't fall down in tatters because I don't read my email for a week. What am I supposed to do about emergencies when I'm a thousand miles away anyway? No one is that indispensable.

I don't think taking my laptop is "stupid," and it's certainly not breaking up my family. Years of vacationing with my laptop AND my family have proven that. Just don't expect me to be checking in with W.O.R.K.

Gmail was down for a couple hours yesterday afternoon due to a systems failure.

No biggie.

For some, it was a biggie. Lots of screaming on Twitter and some other places about the fact that gmail wasn't available. I find that amusing, actually. Very amusing.

Gmail is cool, and lots of us use it (100 million or so worldwide). I count on it for lots of things, including long-term storage and plenty of it. Combined with Google docs it's a powerhouse for me (and for many others). But if it goes down, I don't complain. It'll come back, eventually. Just like all the other web-based solutions I use on a daily basis that have intermittent outages.

Gmail is FREE. You aren't paying for it, you are only using it. That means when it goes down, you just take a deep breath and move on, and come back later when it's back up. In the two years plus that gmail has existed, how many outages have there been? I can count them on one hand. And the fact is, during the outage, no data was lost, and incoming mail was still being delivered to each user's gmail inbox. I'd say that's pretty stable for a web-based system, one that we are not paying a dime to use.

It amazes me sometimes how quick we are to complain about things being out of service, when we are getting those things for free to begin with. If my ISP goes down, or my web services provider goes down, then I have something to complain about. I'm paying for their service an expect excellent up-time. But when it's something I'm getting for free, then I feel I have no right to complain if there is downtime.

You get what you pay for. Right?<