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Glitch Has Users Fuming, Google 'Frantic'
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Apr 26, 2007 04:53 PM
from the look-before-you-goog dept.
from the look-before-you-goog dept.
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.'"
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And In Other News... (Score:5, Funny)
News at 11.
Re:And In Other News... (Score:4, Insightful)
While computers do break down, but my broken Firefox browser doesn't affect yours.
I felt a great disturbance in the GoogleNet, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
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beta.Google? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:beta.Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:beta.Google? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
If my computer breaks down, I'm the fool who didn't back up. When a hosted solution goes down, everyone loses.
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
Go back 30 years and substitute "the mainframe goes down". That's how it was before the "personal computer" was invented. Now we'll come full circle. The same system, one central computer and many users, and with it one central point of failure.
With a personal computer each user has more control over their information, but also more responsibility. There is a lot more "stuff" between my data stored by Google and my keyboard/monitor than the data store on the HD on my computer. A local HD or better still a good RAID storage system is still WAY more reliable than all the technology that needs to work correctly for the Google approach.
When there is a power outage here, we have UPS/Generator backup. However that is useless for the Internet, since the data multiplexer box about a quarter mile from here doesn't have any sort of backup. It just quits. The old POTS and dial up still work, but that will not sustain any serious work on any remote server. As far as the Internet goes, we're just held incommunicado until the power comes back.
Until the Internet becomes at LEAST as reliable as the good old fashioned phone, Internet applications will have no appeal to anyone who values reliability and accessibility to their data.
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Shit happens", that's true. You should always be prepared. You should always backup.
But... if Google lost everyone's email messages from the last 6 months would it be fair of Google to say "well you should've backed it all up"? After all, what is Gmail if not a purely-online, searchable e-mail archive?
You can't expect users to be prepared for their archive to be destroyed, right? If Google wants me to manage my e-mail online, they can't expect me to download it all too, just in case.
The "stream of technical glitches" described in the article, albeit overstressed, is pointing at something that should worry us: If the software market is going towards online services, where data is centralized and 1 server down means 1,000 users down - what strategic steps do we take in order to protect our users and our data?
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:And In Other News... (Score:4, Funny)
Mine is a Belgian waffle. With fresh strawberries and clotted cream. Mmmm.
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So many jokes... (Score:5, Funny)
It's still in beta!
Personal Home Page? I knew they should've have used PHP.
That's the trade-off... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's the trade-off... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Contronyms: for people who sanction opposites
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Re:That's the trade-off... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:That's the trade-off... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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So explain again... (Score:5, Insightful)
why storing all your data on some company's servers is a good idea?
Because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because over the course of a few months or years, Google's uptime is a lot higher than my company's servers?
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Re:Because... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:So explain again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because managing an email server is not my core concern.
Say that you business is selling fruitcakes. You make awesome fruitcakes. That's your core. Everything else that you do is not fruitcakes.
Do you grow the fruit yourself? Nope. You order them from some fruit company.
Do you make the box that the cake goes in? Nope. You order boxes from a box making company.
Do you make the machines that run in your plant? Nope. They come from an automation company.
Do you generate the electricity to run your plant? Nope. The electric company does that.
Do you sell the cakes directly to consumers? Nope. Retail grocery chains deal with the consumers.
Do you sell them directly to retailers? Nope. You have a distributor who deals with them.
Do you transport the cakes yourself? Nope. You contract to a logistics (trucking) company.
Do you even clean your own toilets? Nope. There's a cleaning service.
Why should you manage your own email servers? Contract that to a company who's core business is IT infrastructure. They are going to be better at it than you.
The problem is, Google isn't that good at it. Their core business is search. Everything else is just someone's cool project idea, and not a real product with real resources and real support. It's all just "hey, look at this cool thing with a cool UI" and that's then end of it.
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Re:So explain again... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So explain again... (Score:5, Insightful)
You often can't go to a different supplier because computer services tend towards monopolies. Find me a decent alternative to Google for searching. Find me another free/ad based web usenet provider that only requires port 80. For that reason keeping your email store with a 3rd party that's more than a little stupid. An alternative company can't sell you a new copy. Trusting a company in that way is crazy. It's not quite as high a level of trust as you're forced to place in your doctor or taxi driver, because there your life is at stake. However that's why these industries are heavily regulated. The internet...well good luck settling that issue in court and if your data just happens to be destroyed in the meantime, whooopsie it slipped.
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Re:So explain again... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait...
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Re:So explain again... (Score:4, Informative)
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Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have to rely on 'frantic google engineers scrambling to find a fix'. I know absolutely that my data can be recovered.
I backup my data based on how valuable it is to me.
How valuable is your data to google? I know they try, and they even do a pretty dammed good job, but at the end of the day, you aren't even really their customer -- you are their product.
Like a farmer raising chickens; they want them strong, well fed, happy, healthy, content, disease free, and they take steps to ensure they stay that way. But at the end of the day, they aren't really in it for the chicken's welfare.
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Seems to me that should be enough to recreate it, obviously you don't have the backend but it sounds like they were mostly produced by the service and can be recreated by the service.
This may be a generalization but people doing cool stuff with css2 and mySql probably aren't using Google's free service for hosting.
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Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
By contrast when Google groups suddenly started eating all my usenet posts the other day while falsely showing they were being posted, then stopped showing new Usenet messages, I was borked. There was nothing I could do. It's still borked by the way and I'm totally at their mercy.
Now when you say Google are responsive about it all, what do you mean? I can't get a reply for one from one of their staff for a problem I experience. If the problem isn't being had by a large number of people I can guarantee I'll be ignored.
I don't understand how someone can say with a straight face that it's no different with remote apps. Even more puzzling is how it gets modded insightful.
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Step away from the web (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Step away from the web (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course, a desktop application would NEVER have a bug that caused you to lose information or settings.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Step away from the web (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, you managed to misspell "fucking." How hard was that for you?
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hmmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what they said when gmail mail was disappearing. All of the mail (IIRC) was recovered.
This is just basic CYA. If they promise that the data will come back, then they're legally obligated to restore it.
Most companies just would have not issued any kind of statement until they already knew what the problem was.
This announcement is a GOOD THING(tm).
Re:hmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Under what law? IANAL, but I believe making a hopeful statement in a press release is rather different than signing a legal contract. I think it would be poor public relations to overpromise and underdeliver, but illegal? That sounds crazy.
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Re:hmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Terminator... (Score:4, Funny)
Eggs and baskets... (Score:4, Insightful)
And don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Google has never made any binding promises about the availability of many of its services or the data that users entrust to them. If Google loses all your email, tough noogies. They are not accountable. Stop pretending that they are.
huge problem for me (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:huge problem for me (Score:5, Funny)
The above comment is proof positive that MBA's post at Slashdot.
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Refund (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait a minute...
Re:Refund (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Fuming? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Big Cheerleaders" (Score:4, Funny)
server based approach is inherently flawed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:server based approach is inherently flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just about the scariest thing I've heard in a long time! When I'm shopping on eBay, at least I have some protections against fraud. Dealing with any random give-me-your-card-number joe on the internet is not my idea of "secure".
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Oh dear me no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh dear me no. (Score:4, Funny)
Catastrophe doesn't begin to describe it. I had only just set up my personalised home page and Gmail account and this disaster happens with no explanation.
Please would someone contact me at ';delete * from personalisedsettings;'@gmail.com if they have any news.
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So ask for your money back. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, right.