Joined Up Typing

Why does the whole world seem to revolve around Google…

I have been trying to work on 3 different web projects today and have been hampered because something is wrong with Google - i.e. their entire infrastructure appears to be down from where I am sitting.

This would not seem to be a huge problem as I can use Yahoo to search, but the as so many websites rely on Google Analytics & Adwords, etc.  I am still stuffed:  When Google’s servers go down, all the other sites break because they hang when trying to load content from Google.

So, I can’t download the latest version of Wordpress, I can’t seem to read all the blogs from one particular aggregator.  I am having problems using my time tracking tool, plus a load of other stuff, which means I can’t do my job today through circumstances beyond my control.

So much for the internet being unbreakable - back to the drawing board people - although this does highlight the fact that relying heavily on one particular provider could bite you in the a** if they go pear shaped.

This provides a good example of why monopolies are bad:  if you rely on Google, Amazon, or any of the other big players for your livelyhood, you are stuffed when they screw up.  I guess it’s a bit like investing all your money with some cronky US bank, although at least with the internet, “investors” are as stuffed as the “customers” as it is more democratized, which is one nice thought.

Tip of the day -  Web designers, put the effing analytics code and any other JavaScript that relies on external resources at the bottom of the page just before the </body> tag.  To do otherwise is a bit of a schoolboy error and I shall swear at your incompetent web offerings, then go somewhere else.