This is exactly what I am dealing with right now. On July 6, 2010, I attempted to log into my Gmail account and received the following error message:

The username or password you entered is incorrect

I tried a few more times. Then a few more times. Nothing. Hmm. I tried logging into some of my other Google services,… Calender, Reader, Docs, etc…, and got the same error message. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I gave up and decided to initiate a password recovery, only to receive the following message:

There are no Google Accounts currently registered to the username skyecade@gmail.com.

Panic ensued. I spent the morning trying to figure out what went wrong, but to no avail. My Google Account was gone, and with it, my Gmail, Gtalk, Docs, Reader, Calendars, Buzz, Profile, Youtube, Wave, Voice, Analytics, and Feedburner account. Half a decades worth of content and several gigabytes of emails, feeds, documents, appointments, contacts, voicemails, and videos, all vanished without a trace. Incidentally, I can’t access my Blogger, Picassa, Orkut, or Jaiku accounts either, but since I rarely use them, I didn’t mention them in the list above. (Scratch that, I do have access my Jaiku account.)

At this point, I’m going to assume that my account still exists on some server out there in Google land. That may be wishful thinking though. For all I know, my account may have been hacked, molested, and then deleted. The worst part is — I can’t get a hold of Google to find out. Their support is nonexistent. They have an account recovery form that you can fill out (assuming I still have an account to recover), but it seems to be completely automated. I get this response within minutes of submitting the form:

Thank you for your report. We’ve completed our investigation and cannot
return your account at this time. We were unable to verify that you own
this account based on the information you provided.

And then after a few more submissions:

Thank you for your report. For account security, we limit the number of
requests that can be processed about the same account. Please wait a few
days and try filling out the form again.

The account recovery form consists of questions regarding Gmail, Blogger, and Orkut. Two of these services I don’t even use. The third, Gmail, I created 5 or 6 years ago and can’t remember a lot of the specifics, such as the exact date I opened the account or the recovery email address I used when I signed up. But I did the best I could and submitted the form over and over again hoping to get a different response. Perhaps even a human response.

The part that kills me is that it would be so easy to verify my account. Google has my cell phone number. They could just call me. Or text me. I also have a verified name on my Google Profile that can only be obtained via credit card or social security number. How much more verification do you need than that? Or perhaps they could verify my account through my Google Analytics or Voice or Docs. Anything is better than having to answer questions about Orkut. The process seemed a bit antiquated for a company that all but dominates the Internet.

So yes, I’m frustrated with this whole ordeal. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t come any closer to finding out what happened to my account and I can’t find anyway to contact Google. This has, however, made me seriously rethink my stance on cloud computing. For one thing, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Having all Google services tied together under one account probably isn’t the best idea. Two, sync (formerly known as backup). Once upon a time I used to tell people that the harddrive would become obsolete. I hope I’m wrong. Being able to access your data on the cloud is a huge advantage, but as I’ve learned, there is nothing like a good old fashioned local copy. Developer’s of applications such as Dropbox, Evernote, FeedDemon, and even Google, to an extent, see the benefits of syncing across multiple computers, while still utilizing the cloud for convenience. I really hope this trend continues.

So that’s my sad story. Google, if you’re out there, give me a call. You have my number. In fact, you gave it to me. If my account is gone, so be it. Life goes on. I should have been more proactive in safeguarding my data and a lot less reliant on the cloud. I take full responsibility for that. But it would still be nice to know what exactly happened and whether or not I can ever expect to get my account back. For now, I guess, all I can do is sit back and wait…

I recently read somewhere that, for this next generation, the Internet is the new television. What?!? That made me slightly depressed, considering the Web has the potential to change humanity in ways we can’t yet imagine — and can do an infinite amount more than just aggregate gossip and entertain the masses. Luckily for me, there are people in high places that share my convictions. Luckily for you, they’re a lot smarter than I am.

Enjoy!

TIME TO START TAKING THE INTERNET SERIOUSLY By David Gelernter

The original…or at least the site that launched the microblogging craze. Twitter is also the most simplistic of the three sites. Where some people would criticize its simplicity, I would praise it. It’s this exact feature that makes Twitter so outstanding. There’s nothing to think about. You make a post, 140 characters or less, and off it goes for the world to see. You can follow other people’s tweets by adding them as friends, or by going to the public timeline to watch the entire community. It can be surprisingly addicting. You can tweet from your mobile phone or from an IM client too (currently AIM and gTalk). Twitter also offers some nice javascript and flash badges for you to put on your blog, Myspace, or Facebook accounts. I prefer a more minimalistic approach as seen on my sidebar. Just straight HTML and RSS. I call it sidebar blogging. Pretty clever, eh! Think it will stick?

Twitter’s prettier sister. Jaiku has almost all the qualities of Twitter and then some. One of Jaiku’s greatest features is the ability to pull all your feeds from around the net (including those from Twitter) and place them into your Jaiku. For example, I have my flickr photos, my blog entries, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and my tweets all streaming into my Jaiku. It’s like one stop shopping for everything I do on the net. They also have an improved commenting system and the ability to subscribe to different channels (groups). Think of Jaiku as a more robust and complex version of Twitter. For me, I just set it up and let it run on autopilot. My Jaiku is constantly updated by my feeds. I do pop in from time to time and post something in person or check my channels. If you’re looking for something with a little more kick than Twitter, Jaiku is probably right up your alley.

The new kid on the block. So new in fact that’s it’s invite only. Pownce almost doesn’t fit in the microblogging category. There are no outgoing (or incoming) RSS feeds to broadcast your posts. Everything is done on the site and is a very closed atmosphere. While it may not be a full-fledged microblogging platform, it does share some characteristics with the genre. I would describe Pownce as a hybrid service. A cross between microblogging, chat, and file sharing, and this is where it gets its strength. Pownce gives you the ability to choose who to send various entries to, whether in be to the public, a private message to a friend (or friends), or to a predefined group in your contact list. You can also determine what type of post to send them, i.e., a message, a link, a event, or a file — the latter of the four being the most useful. With a standard account you can send up to 10 megabyte files, or upgrade to a pro account for $20.00 a year, and send up to 100 megabyte files. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, I’ll keep you posted. Pownce is still in its infancy as a web app and I’m sure we’ll see some new features rolled out over the next few weeks. They also just gave us 6 more invites, so if anyone would like to check it out for themselves, just say the word and I’ll shoot you an invite.

The last thing I’ll mention is that all three services above have stand-alone programs that allow you to monitor and interact with their respective communities. This is nice if you don’t want to keep your browser open all the time to receive/post new messages.

And that’s it, those are my thoughts. If you leave here with anything today, it should be this:

• Twitter = simplistic / minimalist
• Jaiku = robust / feature rich
• Pownce = hybrid (blog + chat + ftp)

twitter.com/skyecade
skyecade.jaiku.com
pownce.com/skyecade

His name is Robert P. Lindeman. Apparently, the case was leaning in his favor, at least until the opposing counsel sprung the following question:

“Was Lindeman Flea?”

At the time, the jury had no idea what this meant. It turns out that Dr. Lindeman had a blog, and on this blog he went by the name Flea. This obviously isn’t bad by itself, but what he was writing on his blog was a bit of a shocker. According the Boston Globe, Lindeman scoffed at the plaintiff’s case and the plaintiff’s lawyer. He wrote things like the jury was dozing. He even revealed what their defense strategy was.

Needless to say, the defense quickly settled the next day.

I don’t usually write about stories like this, but this one caught my attention. Probably because of a discussion I had a month ago with a friend of mine who was stating the reasons why NOT to blog. One of his arguments was that you can get busted for things that you don’t want other people to find out. He’s not the only one with this view either. But that’s no reason why NOT blog. Just don’t blog about stuff you shouldn’t be blogging about, e.g., the details of an on going court case that you happen to be a part of. If you’re going to blog about something, or comment about something, or post about something, or……almost any case where you add something to the almighty Internet, assume anyone can get a hold of that information. Because for all intents and purposes, they can.

Finally!

I guess I’m done. It’s been nice knowing all of you. I’m going outside now.

Twitter is sort of a cross between a blog and an away message. Unlike a blog, you can only post 140 characters at a time. You have the ability to post entries, or tweets as they are so affectionately called, via the web, a cell phone (sms), an IM client, or from a variety of desktop applications. Twitter asks the very simple question, “What are you doing?”. All you have to do is answer that question. It’s strange, I know. It’s even more strange that people are doing it. Not a few people mind you, but thousands. People use it to keep tabs on their friends. Organizations may use it to keep interested parties up to date. Some people even use Twitter to campaign for the Presidency.

I know, still a little strange. In fact, be sure to bookmark this page, because you’re probably going to dismiss Twitter pretty quickly. I know I did. It’s the natural Twitter cycle — a couple of weeks will pass and every time you hear the word twitter your ears will perk up. You’ll start hearing about it more and more, until finally, curiosity gets the best of you. You’ll sign up, you’ll post your first tweet, and you’ll be hooked. It’s usually around a 2 to 4 week process. At that time make sure to come back here for a list of some pretty handy Twitter resources.

Ah good, you’re back.

Let’s start with twittervision. This site pretty much sums up the Twitter experience. It grabs tweets from the public Twitter timeline and places them on Google maps in real-time. It’s addicting all by itself.

Remember those desktop apps I referred to up above? They allow you to post tweets and receive updates right on your desktop. You can choose to receive updates from the public timeline or limit it to people in your friends list. There are a few different applications to choose from, depending on what operating system you are running. Let me make it easy for you:

Twitter Desktop Applications

• Twitterific - for Mac users
• Twitteroo - for Windows users.
• gTwitter - for Linux users.

Recommended reading:

I really enjoyed the Twitter write-up over at Kottke.org. Check it out if you get a chance. While you’re it, another good article to read is Hacking Twitter for Fun and Profit. Good stuff there.

Some extra tidbits:

The founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, was also the co-founder of Blogger.com and more recently Odeo.com. Blogger.com was eventually acquired by Google and Odeo.com has since been put up for sale. From what I understand, Evan’s company Obvious Corp wants to focus all it’s time and energy on Twitter. That’s good for you Twitterholics.

And there you have it. Now go give it a try. You can look me up at twitter.com/skyecade. Just in case you want to know what I had for breakfast,… or what movie I’m watching,… or what pants I decided to wear,… or what project I’m working on,…or what I’m thinking about at any given moment, etc…

I also wanted to cross post to a Livejournal blog, mostly because I really like the LJ community. Alas, the Livejournal Crossposter plug-in doesn’t work for me. I believe it has to do with Godaddy not allowing outgoing socket connections.

<rant>
Here’s the thing about Godaddy; I’ve never really had a major problem with them and my site is up 99.99999% of the time, but they leave very little room to grow. This is the third time I’ve tried to add some kind of functionality to my site and got slapped in the face with, “uhh, Godaddy doesn’t allow that”. I guess you get what you pay for.
</rant>

That’s okay though, I’m just happy that my Vox account will be revived. By the way, if any of you out there are interested in blogging but don’t know where to begin, I would highly recommend checking out vox.com. It’s extremely user friendly, it’s free, and the community is really cool.

As of the time of this writing I only have one friend. Well, one friend not including that psycho Tom. He freaks me out. Anyways, I spammed like 30 people that I know tonight, begging asking them to be my friend. Hopefully they’ll accept my request soon so I won’t look like such a loser!

Myspace is the third most visited website on the net in the United States. THIRD! Out of billions of websites! That blows my mind. Yahoo and Google are numbers 1 and 2 respectively. So I figured, if one wants to have a presence on the net, then one should really have a presence on myspace, no matter how dirty that one feels.

I played World of Warcraft for over a year. Night after night I would play with my friends, exploring the vast lands of Azeroth with thousands of other players. It was really fun and I still consider it one of my best gaming experiences of all time. Unfortunately, for me, that fun came to an abrupt end. Once your character hits level 60, the game switches gears drastically. For those of you who are unfamiliar with MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing game), let me bring you up to speed. All new characters start at level one. As you progress through the game, your character gains levels. The higher your level, the more powerful you are. Most games of this type have a level cap. World of Warcraft’s level cap is 60.

So what then? At level 60 you really only have 3 options.

1. Roll a new character and go through the leveling process again. My A.D.D. won’t allow that. It was fun the first time, it would be tedious the second time. Or the third time. Or the fourth time.
2. PvP (Player vs Player) This is where you pit your skills against other live players. At present, there are 3 fighting arenas called Battlegrounds, each with their own objectives. This is fun for a while, but in order for you to increase your standings (rank), you would have to commit an obscene amount of time to the game. The higher your rank, the better gear you get and at level 60, the only thing that matters is gear. That brings us to number 3.
3. Endgame instances. This is where you get together with 40 of your closest friends and try to tackle various dungeons. These dungeons (also called instances) have to be completed in a certain order. In order to attempt AQ40, you need to complete Black Wing Lair. In order to attempt Black Wing Lair, you need to complete Molten Core. And so on, and so on. A guild could spend months on one dungeon, doing the same thing over and over again, night after night. Not just to beat the dungeon, but to equip 40 people with enough gear to be able to beat the next dungeon. And why would you want to beat the next dungeon? To get really cool gear. For me, the tedium out ways the fun. Gaming A.D.D.

This is just my perspective on the game. Seven million people play (or have played) this game, so Blizzard is doing something right. And at $15.00 a month, they are pulling in some good loot too. Pun intended.

There is a serious problem with these types of games though. They take people out of reality and put them into a fantasy world where they can be whoever and whatever they want. That’s really the point of any such game, to allow oneself to temporarily escape reality. But they did such a great job of creating a fantasy world that people sometimes lose site of the fact that’s it’s actually just a game. For those of you who’ve never played such a game, you must have a hard time believing this, but it’s true.

This isn’t a problem exclusive to World of Warcraft. In fact, it’s not even a new problem. Back before WoW was even conceived, there were games like Everquest and Ultima which posed the same problems. Why be a nobody in the real world when you can be a god in a virtual world. For some, the lure is too great.

I actually had no intention of writing this much. What provoked this written commentary was a blog entry that I read yesterday called A View from the Top, which was written by a former World of Warcraft player. It explained how the game almost ruined his life and why he eventually quit the game altogether. I thought it was a fairly intriguing post. What I found more intriguing were the 700+ comments that were left in response to the post. If you have the time, I would highly recommend checking this out. At the very least, you’ll get an interesting cross section of the World of Warcraft community. That’s interesting enough in itself.

I just want to mention a couple of things before I finish. Though there is an obvious problem with the way that some people latch on to these types of games, the majority of people who play MMORPGs are in it just to have a good time. It’s very similar, in my eyes, to ones usage of alcohol. I know a lot of people who drink (myself included), but that doesn’t mean they’re alcoholics. Like everything else, when something is used in excess, it has the potential to be harmful, whether mentally or physically.

And lastly, I actually like the World of Warcraft. I don’t want this post to be interpreted as a WoW bash session. I’ve met dozens of great people while playing this game and have had hours of fun doing it. I truly think it is one of the greatest games ever created. But like I said, I have gaming A.D.D. — and for me, sitting in Molten Core night after night for hours on end is about as stimulating as watching reruns of the Golden Girls.

This won’t happen over night. In fact, we are years away from services like this taking hold at all. There are still plenty of obstacles to overcome. You see, when you download a video from Unbox, you are limited to watching it on your computer or portable video player. That’s great for a small niche group of people, but it won’t impress the majority of consumers out there. Especially the ones with 50″ plasma TVs. Pricing is also an issue. Why would I buy Braveheart as a digital download for $13.17 when I can buy the physical DVD for the same price? Is this service targeted at the spontaneous buyer who wants to watch the movie immediately? Perhaps. That’s still a pretty small niche though.

Digital rentals, however, have more of an appeal to me. I can justify spending $1.99 or $2.99 on a rental. Once you download the movie, you have a set amount of time to watch it until it becomes inactive. I believe that number is 30 days right now. Perfect. I have Windows XP Media Center with a very large monitor and digital 6.1 speakers, however. I’m in the minority. Most people have small monitors and crappy speakers. Who would want to watch The Matrix on that set up?

It will be interesting to see how Apple competes with this. To tell the truth, I’m a bit surprised Amazon beat Apple to this at all. I’ve been hearing rumors of Apple’s movie service for weeks now.

One thing is for sure, the world of media is changing at an increasingly rapid rate. I often think of how we will tell our children and grandchildren about things like network television and the TV Guide. How we had to sit in front of the TV at the exact time a show started or you would miss it, perhaps never to see it again. Or how you had to sit through an entire network news program while they spoon fed you stories you didn’t want to hear, all because of the fear of missing the story you did want to hear.

Thank god we live in the age of the Internet!

Here is a list of what I’m looking for:

• Reasonable amount of disk space (5GB to 20GB)
• Reasonable amount of bandwidth (15GB to 50GB)
• POP3/POP3 Secure Email Support
• IMAP/Secure IMAP Email Support
• Aliased Domains
• Subdomains
• MySQL Databases
• CGI-BIN
• Server Side Includes
• FTP Access
• Shell Access (SSH)
• Cron Jobs
• PHP Version 4 or 5
• Perl 5
• Python
• Ruby / Ruby On Rails
• MySQL 4.1
• SSL Secure Server (maybe)
• Half way decent support
• And it must be on a Linux box

Price isn’t too much of a factor and I really don’t need everything on that list, but I would like room to grow if I need it. GoDaddy doesn’t offer cron jobs on their shared hosting accounts. I really could have used that feature a couple of months back. Oh well, you live, you learn

I’ve narrowed it down to 7 companies. They all come pretty close to what I’m looking for and they all have a pretty good reputation. Some better than others.

And the final contestants are:

• Site5
• Liquid Web
• Dot5
• Bluehost
• Hostgator
• asmallorange
• Servage

Here’s where it gets tricky. Some companies have every feature that I’m looking for, but receive mediocre reviews from its users (Bluehost), whilst other companies receive stellar reviews, but lack certain features I would really prefer to have (Hostgator & asmallorange). When will this madness end!

After months of reading reviews and talking to admins, I’m going to buckle down and pick a hosting company tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night. Let me just read one more review. Just kidding, I’ll let you know who I choose and why.

robertsinclaire.com

I figured I should scoop this up before some other Robert Sinclaire snatched it. Luckily, the spelling of my name is pretty rare. Take notice of the e at the end of Sinclaire. That little baby sets us apart from the rest.

Sinclair, on the other hand, is a very popular name. In fact, both robertsinclair.com and robertsinclair.net are already taken. One of the Robert Sinclairs is web designer, and a pretty good one at that. Neat, huh? The other is a hair dresser. Umm, that’s neat too, right?

Sorry, I’m babbling.

This brings my domain name count to 8, with about another 5 I have my eye on. One project at a time though.