Too much power, too much control

Recently, I had an unfortunate incident with my GMail account. It got blocked for around one hour “because of suspicious activity”.

I was doing some User-Agent tests with Firefox and User Agent Switcher with GMail open in one tab so you can imagine my terrible crime… nothing at all :) I didn’t even refreshed a lot the GMail tab.

The feeling of impotence, of not being able to do anything (I use Google for my calendar, documents, emails… even my photos) was very frightening.

Also, the page’s help was very deceiving. It said to click on a link if I thought I was “innocent”. I did so and it sent me to the help. Inside the Answers system I was able to fill a form, which apparently was sent and I was again in the help, looping between the form and the details.

So the only solution was to wait until they decided to release my account back again.

 

Moral of the story: Don’t put too many power in just one place, if someone takes over control of it, you’re screwed.

I will start migrating all important stuff to a @kartones.net account so in case of more “lockdowns” I can at least unplug the domain from Google Apps for Domain and plug it elsewere to keep it working and receiving emails.

 

Moral #2: As soon as there’s money implied, everyone is evil. It’s only a matter of who’s more or less evil compared with the others.

Published 08 February 10 by Kartones
Filed under: ,

Comments

08 February 10 by Vicente

# re: Too much power, too much control

That's why I have 6 email accounts :p

08 February 10 by xamar

# re: Too much power, too much control

Don't relay on Google. It's easy, is convenient, is free but you/we put way too much information on it: Email, calendar, search, maps, docs, etc..

In my case I've setup a Funambol syncML server, so I don't need Google Calendar anymore. My Nokia N85 and my multiple desktop computers get easily synched with that.

For email, courier+exim4+roundcube webmail.

For docs, Eye OS, I know it's limited, but for some tasks is great.

I could go on.... There are a lot of alternatives, you just have to search them :)

11 February 10 by Kartones

# re: Too much power, too much control

@Vicente:

Is not a matter of having 6 accounts, you're crazy xD

Is more of just having your own domain account, so that if something goes wrong, I can unplug it and re-plug into another server.

@Xamar:

Too much software and stuff needed for me, as I said to Vicente, I just need a single account but within my domain. I do a "local backup" of the emails with outlook (Thunderbird would be ok too) and I don't need nor want a local SMTP server.

For calendar I'll check if Funambol syncs with GCal, because it is my primary source and I'm not going to change it for the moment, just switch to Google Apps for Domain.

There are tools, yes, but I want something easy, fast and that works with my Android phone. If I change I'll fight/investigate based on my device capabilities :P

Leave a Comment

Title (required)  
Name (required)  
Your Website/Blog (optional)
Your Comment (required)  

Captcha
Enter the number of digits on the image above (required)