This is the official Web site for GuyOnTheAir. It is not intended to amuse, entertain, or be a useful or factual source for information. Thoughts recorded on GuyOnTheAir.com are just the streaming content of GuyOnTheAir's brain, nothing more or less. For more information, email Guy@GuyOnTheAir.com
GuyOnTheAir's Latest Projects:
Get deeper into the mind of GuyOnTheAir with private.GuyOnTheAir.com, the members only private blog of GuyOnTheAir. Sign up for access!
Monday, April 21, 2008
-
Major GrandCentral outtage, and my response
I've become a huge user of GrandCentral, a service bought by Google, which claims to be your one stop shop for a phone number that won't change for life...
So, most people that know me now have my GrandCentral phone number. (Readers of private.GuyOnTheAir.com even have a button to click to call me directly from there...) And, overall, I like the features and service...except when it goes down, as it did on my birthday, just a couple weekends ago.
And, upon service restoral, shocker, they even posted something about it on the GrandCentral blog. So, I've posted my "comments" response. But, since my comments are awaiting "moderation", I have a sneaky suspicion they might never see the light of day. So, I publish them here, so that all the world can read, whether or not they become an "official" comment.
GuyOnTheAir Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. April 20th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I find it astounding that this service seems to be no more than a “mom and pop” setup. Sounds like it’s coming from someone’s garage.
A number of things are disturbing:
1) A colo facility, apparently now contracted by Google, had a “power issue” that knocked the whole service offline. Any colo facility I’d ever do business with would have backup power, generators, something. Did all of those fail? Were they even in place?
2) Every guy deserves time with his family, and Craig should be no different. But, is Craig the ONLY guy running GC? Is there NOBODY else that could deal with problems? Would not a variety of people be paged and consulted in case of an issue? Craig says “we were able to restore the service”, implying it’s more than just him, but I’m starting to wonder.
3) Keeping us informed would be great. It seems that all communication, save one or two blogs, has been cut off ever since Google acquired GC. As an end user, it would appear the service is doomed, as there have been no major developments, and changes, other than the mysterious end being able to invite others to the service. That doesn’t bode well, either. Is the service doomed?
I do appreciate that at least SOMETHING was written about this outtage. I’m sure most people don’t even realize this blog is here, though, and it certainly hasn’t seemed to be a complete resource for all things GC in ages…
I do hope that things improve.
Finally, can we get a way to call our GC number, look somebody up in our Address book, and then be able to call them, if we’re not able to get the web interface? That and text messaging are the biggest hurdles to making this service truly replace all my other numbers.
