Well, they’re back up. My congratulations to the engineering team, and I hope they’re getting some sleep.
Anybody who has run a public service will understand the stress they must have been under. Trying to think clearly about what the problem is while under immense pressure to get it back up. The need to avoid quick hacks, do the right thing even if it takes long, while millions of users are waiting.
Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again - for everyone’s sake.
If I get no dial tone on my landline I assume that there’s a fault in my wiring. You just expect that tone to be there.
For the first time ever for me, Skype is just not connecting. All day. I had a Skype call scheduled now, and can’t make it as something, somewhere is stopping us connected or Skype is just down.
This is, of course, the point at which traditional carriers will start laughing and feeling smug about their futures. This VoIP stuff will never catch on, it’s not mass market. So it’s our (collective in the industry) duty to ensure that all forms of telephony live up to the standard of traditional services.
Today’s Dilbert shows the PHB berating Asok for poor performance due to the conclusions of his new performance spreadsheet. Asok points out that the model is both simplistic, and more importantly, the formulae certainly point to the wrong cells. Oh yes.
How often have you seen spreadsheets which look fine to the creator, but actually have subtle but fatal flaws in them due to wrong ranges/cells being used? I’ve lost count. I’m glad to see someone other than me bemoaning this error, which as common as forgetting attachments on e-mails but much, much more serious.
Is there a way of avoiding this? I’m sure there is, but product after product just settles for replicating the old model.
We’ve now deployed an ad-powered mobile guide/review service for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, sponsored by The Times Online. Check it out by entering mobi.edfringe.com to you phone’s browser.
You can click on the ads to call the box office and book the displayed shows.
Back after two and a half weeks holiday in Tuscany, Italy. It was wonderful. Interesting to note how little internet access there was, but the mobile phone signals were great. Even out in the depth of the country signs were good, and any town would have rock-solid 3G booming in.
And Italians make great use of these networks - people were on their phones constantly, everywhere. People sitting on the beach, chatting. People by the pool, texting. A constant background noise of chirping and beeping. Mobile culture rules.
