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Gmail was down

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Re: Gmail was down

#381

Post by dgesang »

umsm wrote: post #246
pkfrank wrote: post #170

This actually raises a slightly terrifying reality. How much would someone have to pay you to never again recover your gMail account? I would demand just an absurd payout to willingly walk away right now, with all those contacts, messages, unread e-mails, organization, etc... Scary how much faith we put in this free service.

Each one of us has the power to do something about it: Perform a Backup. We should be downloading our mailbox with our contacts on a regular basis. I'm guilty for not doing this, but seems like an area that can use a SaaS.

Also, backing up Emails is super simple, just fire up any mail client ...

Re: Gmail was down

#382

Post by mburns »

sebastianavina wrote: post #250
coolsunglasses wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could drop it without too much pain, honestly. It wouldn't cost that much for me to delete my gmail accounts. But I learned to own my data where it matters and not sweat the rest ages ago. (Stopped compulsively "hoarding")

the problem resides on big companies. I use google apps for email, and it's almost impossible to backup all the mails..

Does IMAP not work for you?

Re: Gmail was down

#384

Post by flippyhead »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #282
simonsarris wrote: post #42

Very funny that me and my coworkers at nearly the same time opened our office doors to look into each others eyes and silently confirm that we were having the same issue. Then we all turned around and went back into our offices to check HN to see if it was just us. Very funny that everyone reading this did something similar. 84 points in 4 minutes.

The intensity and speed this thread rose up on HN illustrates a very important principle. People are more likely to leave a review/comment/upvote if something is not working for them. Understanding that is useful when comparing products using reviews.

I think half the reason people upvote stories about big important sites like gmail being down is because it makes them feel better about any downtime their own sites have had.

Re: Gmail was down

#385

Post by avenger123 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #327
btilly wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very important principle. For a time, Target used Amazon's website code. Here is what they found. People leave reviews of books that they like. People only bother reviewing microwave machines when they didn't work. This meant that Amazon's code didn't work out as well for Target as it did for Amazon...

The whole online review thing is thoroughly broken. I am not even talking about people leaving bad reviews for things like "the seller didn't ship it on time", etc. I am talking about the fact that most people that leave a review have nothing to compare the product to. For example, try shopping for a wireless router. You'll find lots of people either praising or bashing it but having no basis for comparison. Star rat…

It's sometimes great pleasure to see how an original topic in HN starts delving into side topics that have nothing to do with the original. I thought it was a one-off thing but seems to happen quite a bit.

Re: Gmail was down

#387

Post by [deleted] »

manachar wrote: post #375
matznerd wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there offline reviews that are better? Do you trust the information of a salesperson better? I think there are definitely problems with a selection bias of who leaves reviews, but sites like Amazon have implemented a number of features to improve upon them like rating distributions (how many 5, 4, 3 ,2, and 1s), the vine program, reviewer rankings, verified purchases, large volumes etc.

An impartial third party with a high level of experience and expertise in the area of review. Especially good if they can compare the product side-by-side to its competitors. This can provide its own bias. For instance, your average film critic has seen so many versions of stupid action movie that they find those movies pretty tiresome. My favorite reviews are currently from America's Test Kitchen. Their equipment re…

[deleted]

Re: Gmail was down

#390

Post by aryastark »

hueving wrote: post #358
aryastark wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brain hurts from contemplating what you wrote. The point of gmail is that they take the configuration and headache of maintaining a mail server away from you. If you're okay with running your own qmail/sendmail, then there are vastly better open source UI options than gmail. Google didn't invent email. They just run some of the world's largest mail servers as a (mostly) free service.

>there are vastly better open source UI options than gmail. Really? Because I haven't found a web front-end as good. Otherwise I am happy running my own mail server.

I don't consider a web UI as anything more than a temporary workaround for when I don't have a native mail client around. They all tend to suck. Even gmail's. Try roundcube if you must.
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