Comments on: I would like to be the first to welcome our Googley overlords https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/ Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:25:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505430 Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:25:33 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505430 I always back up Very Important Things on multiple drives – including one that I store offsite, on my webserver (where I have theoretically unlimited space and bandwidth – in practice there are very firm, but reasonable limits), on DVDs, on my MS “SkyDrive” and on the googleverse. On top of that, all of my Really, REALLY, Extremely, Very Important Documents are also backed up separately – living everywhere else, but also on a couple of home servers. The friend who keeps my stuff offsite (both on HDD and DVDs – documents in hard copy as well) stores them in his (essentially) disaster proof gun vault.

I have lost too many very precious things that cannot be replaced, so I am very paranoid about ensuring that important shit – like pictures and home vids, are kept very safely. I am even more paranoid about the especially important documents, as they would be instrumental in protecting my family in case a particular something rather regrettable were to happen.

That said, I was very loyal to google and blogger for ages, because during a period where documenting certain shit was extremely important, one of their tech guys helped me set the settings on a private blog for which they would track and save the data on. That way, if I ever needed to go to court, it wouldn’t be hard to date when I had written a given “post.” No guarantee that a court would have accepted it, but that certainly increased the likelihood.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505429 Sat, 23 Jul 2011 02:40:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505429 embertine, that must have been somewhere else, because G+ does not have friend requests. It does have a few creeps, though.

Irene, I’m sure that’s a very rare event, but it is a distinct possibility. And other things could happen as well, not as quirky, involving change in policy or technology. I would advocate using all Google has to offer but not assuming anything about access to your data … back up on the cloud, but a DIFFERENT cloud. Personally, I use Dropbox: http://db.tt/KZB2c3f I love it.

]]> By: Irene Delse https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505428 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:10:21 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505428 However… I’ve come across a story today on Twitter that’s pretty disenheartening:

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/bt2p2o

“Dear Google, I would like to bring to your attention a few things before I disconnect permanently from all of your services. On July 15 2011 you turned off my entire Google account. You had absolutely no reason to do this, despite your automated message telling me your system â??perceived a violation.â? I did not violate any Terms of Service, either Googleâ??s or account specific ToS, and your refusal to provide me with any proof otherwise makes me absolutely certain of this. And I would like to bring to your attention how much damage your carelessness has done…”

This guy had tons of photos, articles and emails tied to his Google account, and lost access to everything.

]]> By: Irene Delse https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505427 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:23:58 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505427 @ embertine: To be fair, on G+, people can put you in their circles without you having to do the same with them. (A bit like, on Twitter, you can follow people who don’t follow you back.) One feature of Facebook I don’t like is that being “friends” must always be reciprocal.

]]> By: embertine https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505426 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:14:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505426 I lasted two days on Google+, before the targeted spam emails and the creepy friends requests drove me off. Better than the 15 minutes I lasted on Facebook.

]]> By: irenedelse https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505425 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:00:56 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505425 @ khan: If I remember correctly, that quote was originally about the Byzantine empire: “A tyranny tempered by assassination.”

(On the topic of teh Googles… OMG. That’s so true. First thing I noticed when I joined G+ was: “It’s just like FB.”. Second thing: “Oh, there’s also a Twitter-like feed inside”. Third: “Uh, oh, links to my Gmail account and Google profile appear on that black bar at the top… and other links to other Google apps… No wonder they have “circles” in here, we are all being quietly surrounded!”)

]]> By: khan https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505424 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:39:47 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505424 â??The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.â? Attributed to Voltaire

]]> By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505423 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:46:59 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505423 I can’t imagine that blogger wouldn’t be included in that cloud – but then you would have to deal with blogger. Even I, with a now rather defunct desire to do it all with Google gave up on blogger though. And it sure doesn’t help someone who’s locked into a whole different platform. That said…

You can totally blog through google docs, though there are formatting kinks to work out when you are doing so with a non-blogger blog. I rarely do so anymore, mainly because I am forcing myself to learn how to use the clunky and almost, but not entirely non-intuitive MS Office 2010. This has me saving things to SkyDrive, though I still also upload to google docs and using SkyDrive (because you have limited Word functionality, even when using FF in Linux). I fought against it for ages, but fucking MS keeps fucking up the formatting for Word docs created with OO and after a huge presentation disaster with a powepoint created in OO, I just finally gave in.

I would note with great anger adn irritation, that you can create OO documents with Word – while MS is constantly fucking with OO’s ability to create Word docs. Unfortunately most of my instructors want papers sent to them as Word docs and PPs created in OO do very bad things when you try to view them with MS PP.

I have yet to try out google+, I just don’t have time right now, but I am curious and will definitely explore it when I have a chance. For now, I must deal with math, comparative government, history pre-1500 and Dave’s newfound obsession with “My Little Pony.” I am really hoping he doesn’t discover the fucking “Carebears,” though I can at least appreciate that he never got his brother’s obsession for “Bob the Builder.”

]]> By: Rorschach https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505422 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:24:55 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/20/i-would-like-to-be-the-first-t/#comment-505422 The cloud is evil I think. Also, after I registered for G+, now if I surf the net on my (Android) tablet, I get those “share on facebook” links you occasionally encounter on websites displaying my full name. Which is why I went and changed my G+ name to my nym. The whole thing creeps me out slightly from a privacy point of view. Never mind FB selling my info to third parties, you’re ok if you don’t put info there in the first place. But google are nosy bastards.

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