There, I’ve gotten that off my chest. Usually I jump on my blog early in the day and check up on a few things. You know, like comments, spam, outdated plugins, incoming links, etc… Then come back later in the day and, hopefully, get a post written and posted a couple times a week. Of course, I’ve been quite lax in that area lately. 😉
So this evening, I go to log into my blog and I get this:
I dig a little deeper and find that the entire godaddy.com site, services, and everyone who hosts their sites with them is offline. Heck, even TechCrunch was unreachable for me – are they on GoDaddy too?
Apparently GoDaddy is the exclusive registrar for the new .me TLD domains, and many in the blogosphere are pointing to the massive registration and failure of correct billing of these new domains. I can’t find enough time at this point this evening to really give a good account of what’s really going on. All I’m reading is people’s experiences and their frustrations, so I’ll hold off on drawing any conclusions.
At this point, about 9:00PM (CT), I’m not really upset yet. Sure, my blog is down – all my sites are down actually – but I really don’t know the facts, and I can’t blame people for things without knowing the whole story. As an IT pro – I’m continuously amazed that all this stuff works in the first place, so I’m not too surprised when a complex operation or an overabundance of traffic takes a site or service down. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s figuring out the reasons that these things happen is the puzzles that I really love to solve most. 😉
So I’m writing this post offline and will upload later when GoDaddy is back – hope it’s tonight. My comment to the team at GoDaddy right now: don’t rush, you’ve got a big outage – take the time you need to be able to come back at or near 100%. Good luck!
UPDATE: Just as I finished this post, up came GoDaddy.
UPDATE 2: I got a friendly call on Friday (July 18th) from GoDaddy’s “office of the President” from a fellow named Alon. Nice guy, he explained the challenges that GoDaddy (and other registrars) faced when new TLDs were brought online with the large number of highly sought after domains.
We also talked about the outage that I (and many others) suffered through when we couldn’t access our hosted sites. It seems that the problem was actually with Comcast and their network. Appearantly (and I have yet to verify this, but have heard rumblings about it) Comcast had a trunk issue in their network that affected customers in the midwest that affected their ability to access many sites that appear to be hosted in the Pheonix area. Strange stuff, but it happens.
So I was right, I didn’t have the whole story – still don’t, but at least it’s starting to make a bit of sense. Also, I see that this post is attracting a bit of attention for comment spammers. Just an FYI to those types of folks: I’m deleting any spam post, so move on.
That about sums up what I’m doing this weekend. Amy and I decided at the last minute on Thursday to pack the camping equipment up and head out… and so we did. There’s been much fun just doing the usual thing of getting away and relaxing all the while.
Internet access is of course spotty, so I connect with my phone if at all, and decided to post a quick note. I wish I would have crafted the 4th of July post that I wanted to put together, but instead spent Thursday evening packing the SUV and trading stories with the family on the drive out. I think I chose wisely.
So here we are, somewhere in northern Wisconsin, watching the campfire and enjoying the quiet randomness of life that is too easily ignored. I wish you the best this holiday weekend, and look forward to getting back in touch on Monday.
As it happens to me a few times a year, work & life take precedence over blogging. It’s a frustrating experience as it usually happens when I am in the middle of pulling a lot of ideas together.
At any rate, I have realized something this time around. I spend more time blogging when I don’t have much exciting things going on. Or looked at another way, I blog a lot less when I’m spending more quality time with family, friends, and making social media things happen in the real world.
Right now, I’ve been so involved with the transition from one client to another that I haven’t made a priority to talk about things here. There’s enough happening out in the real world, that I’m struggling to get back and talk about things here. To me, that’s doubly bad because I have a lot to talk about with you, and had just redesigned the blog to accommodate a lot more of these topics.
I’ve found there are a couple page to finish up here as well, to finish the refocus of things I learned at SOBCon08. Speaking of SOBCon, there were so many new learning’s for so many people coming out of that one event that it amazes me still, two months later. Start planning to attend next year folks, that’s all I can say.
Well, I’ve got a number of posts and post ideas in the works, and will be working on those and many other things. Hopefully I’ll have a few interesting pieces to share soon. Thanks your for patience – we’ll see you around the ‘net.
One of my favorite bloggers has been picked up by one of the big names in blogging today. Blogging friend Steven Hodson can be found blogging on Mashable in addition to his own blog, WinExtra.
Steven has a knack for bringing a practical approach to all this newfangled technology and sharing stuff. He’ll tell you that he’s “a cranky old fart wandering the Internet causing mayhem as he goes”, but I know better. He’s a knowledgeable blogger who’s not afraid to point out some of the silliness that we think is import in web 2.0, and also shares useful ideas for making it better.
So congratulations Steven! I have long believed that it was only a matter of time before one of the bigger blogs snapped him up to write for them. Check out his first “official post” as a blogger for Mashable.
Mark Evans has a post today in which he talks about the importance of thinking through our contributions to conversations. It’s something that I’ve learned myself in various businesses & projects that I’ve been involved in.
Taking even a half hour to contemplate and let the questions or ideas rattle around in your head allows you to better understand what was sent to you. It also gives you the time to formulate a more informative and relevant response.
Since we’re so connected and probably overloaded with communications, it’s too easy to simply reply right away. Sure, in doing so we demonstrate our ability to respond, we show that we’re connected and are willing to participate.
However, do we really give every communication we receive the full attention it deserves? How often do you take the time to fully contemplate the full context of what someone is asking? Do these quick replies really add value to the conversation or to the person who sent the message?
I think Mark is onto an interesting line of thought lately. Thinking about blogging, conversations and the quality involved simply in communicating with each other. Sharing information is a great thing, and we can do it so easily these days. The responsibility is upon us to use these opportunities of sharing information in a useful way. That means not sharing incorrect information, or being too verbose in our replies, thereby wasting time in misunderstandings.
What else fits in this area? What more can you add to what Mark is pointing out? There are many great tips that you have to share – leave one here or on your own blog. How do you handle replies? Quick or thoughtful?
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