Rodent Regatta

There is opportunity buried here somewhere. The news about things happening on the Internet is compelling. We’re nearing another transformation in the ways that people get and share information and entertainment.

For some this will mean investing in public companies or IPO’s. For others it will mean going to work at a new business or in a new industry. Startups will form.

Skeptics continue to ask who will pay for the Internet. The answer can be found by asking, “who paid for all of the big media coverage of the recent storm disasters?” Hint: the business of advertising is changing.

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Fine. Congrats all around. But I’ll bet those guys never had to move or change seven domains at three different web hosts, make eleven email accounts work and see to it that all seven sites were visible to the public.

Had they tried, they’d still be working on it, and their temperaments would be very dour by now. Not just dour, very dour.

* * * UPDATE 10-6-05 * * * Okay, the domains have all be relocated and are resolving at TextDrive. Email is (mostly) squared away. Now for the challenges of restoring web sites.

Time was you just called somebody on the phone when you had a problem. Talking a bit, your problem might be solved over the phone. Otherwise, dispatching began and help was on the way.

Rev. 2.0 of this phenomenon involved a call center. With a call center came two things to help the call center—not the customers. Hold queues lined your call up in a straight line, no talking. Voicemail said, “talk now, but make it snappy, we’re very busy.”

Rev. 3.0 emerged from the bowels of the world wide web. We have trouble tickets and we have a forum. Type your problems and perhaps some kind soul will be watching. If you’re lucky, the spectator will be someone who has experienced something similar or knows the answer to your problem. Otherwise, you wait.

I’m snarled in the tangles of three hosting companies, five forums, three trouble ticket systems and six domains with email addresses. I have successfully created a condition in which none of the email addresses will work, none of the hosts can send me email and from roughly 3a.m. this morning (we’re now at 1p.m.) the condition has only grown worse.

Isn’t technology progressive!

Remember the old joke about the guy just discovering the thermos? Hot things it keeps hot; cold things it keeps cold—how do it know?

Google is out with their Google Blog Search. I entered the following searches, just to see how this weblog stacks up:

• Berkshire Hathaway
• The HP Way
• rodent
• regatta

Revisiting these searches in a few months might reveal a bit about how and at what pace Google is able to index weblogs.

* * * UPDATE * * * RSS feeds are used by Google to identify weblogs. Read the how’s, why’s and what-not’s here.

Technology frustrates as much as it helps. Yet, when it turns the corner, it can be fantastic.

After several days of a mysterious ftp problem, my ftp software simply worked today.

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