Yesterday was a rough day for those whose online presence is the lifeblood of their business. Authors, included. Early on Friday, August 2nd, a datacenter in Provo, Utah, experienced an outage. Millions of sites came crashing down. Including this one. Perhaps yours, too.
Endurance International Group, the parent company of the largest webhosting firms BlueHost, GatorHost, HostMonsters, JustHost, and 50 others, experienced a cascading crash of its servers stranding small businesses for the day. In a statement from COO Ron LaSalvia, the incident is still under full review and they have already put into place processes to prevent this from happening again.
“I sincerely apologize for any outages and negative impact you may have experienced… We are committed to providing you with the high-quality, reliable service that you’ve come to expect and deserve. We value our relationship and the role we play in helping your business succeed.” COO Ron LaSilvia posted his weak apology and empty promise on a quickly assembled centralized site for all of their brand to provide an ongoing stream of information about this incident. The site proved necessary when even the webhosting corporate sites went down.
Meanwhile, in yesterday’s morning business news, EIG announced its partnership with Google to make the matter of making a small business website as simple and fast as having a cup of coffee. EIG acquired WordPress Designs, a software company that sells website developer tools based on the WordPress platform, and Magento, an ecommerce platform. WordPress is widely used by small businesses, non-profits, authors, and artists because it is free open-source code. Magento is also based on open-source code and partners with EIG companies for webhosting services. Sounds as though one new big corporate family is about to provide the solution to the problems they created. Don’t hold your breath.
Breathe.
Neuroscientists are beginning to understand how chemical releases in the brain can be induced through behavioral conditioning. Much of what we do online releases dopamine into the brain’s pleasure centers, resulting in obsessive pleasure-seeking behavior. Technology companies face the option to exploit our addictions for profit.
When technology fails you, just walk away. Step back from your computer. Go take a walk or ride your bike. Write a letter. Read a book. Let it go.
Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel
As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…