Reform health care in the U.S.A. now

Released: Thursday, March 26, 2009 BURLINGTON, VT

Howard Dean launched a new campaign yesterday evening on a Democracy for America conference call with thousands of supporters across the country. The former chair of the DNC called on Congress to pass healthcare reform which includes a universally available public option, such as Medicare.

"Healthcare reform legislation rises and falls on whether the American public is allowed to choose a universally available public option, like Medicare, or not."

"If we are allowed to choose a public option like Medicare, the bill will be real healthcare reform. If we're not, we could be back fighting about it for another 20 years before anybody tries again."

~Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

Dr. Dean's announcement comes at a time when insurance companies and HMO's have vowed to fight President Obama on his campaign promise to include a publicly available option in the healthcare reform he wants passed by Congress this year.

"The battle against real healthcare reform already begun. Our Stand With Dr. Dean campaign will ensure that policy makers in DC hear from every American, not just big money who will stop at nothing to retain the status quo."

~Arshad Hasan, Executive Director of Democracy For America.

As a first step in the campaign, Dr. Dean asked supporters to add their name to a petition statement at www.StandwithDrDean.com. The campaign will be run by Governor Dean and Democracy For America. This is the beginning of a multi-pronged campaign which will generate broad based support for a public option through neighborhood canvasses, meetings with legislators, running ads in targeted districts, and more. The organization expects to deliver over 250,000 signatures to members of Congress in the weeks to come.

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I know it’s fashionable in certain circles to say government can’t get things done - but big insurance has had decades of control over our medical decisions and costs, and they sure aren’t getting it done right. We pay more per capita than any other nation, yet the results are high costs and millions with no coverage at all. Let’s put an end to bureaucrats at insurance companies making decisions about our medication and treatment now, those decisions should be left to skilled doctors and nurses interested in our well-being, not accountants and CEOs interested in their bottom lines.

Work. Work. Work. One Tired Guy I Am.

I've got a lot of work to do which is good, but it's taking a lot of hours. The absence of a good work partner is the problem. Really, I need someone who will write proposals and blog for a small compensation but a percentage of revenue of work secured. That person also needs to be someone I can count on and is credible -- I can truat their word.

Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter (Updated)

More at TechCrunch: “Here’s a heck of a rumor that we’ve sourced from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.”

Promise Tech Sued By Carbonite : A Lesson In Data and Responsibility

Three days ago I decided to write a blog post that focused on an issue which at first glance would seem to have all the stuff of sleep-producing content.  It's a tech matter involving a company known as Carbonite , who's corporate mission is to provide "Unlimited online backup for one flat fee" according to its website, versus another firm Promise Technology.  The same website reads "How will you survive a computer disaster" and with a photo of a man that could very well be me, head bowed in his hand. 

Video version:




YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Crackle and Sclipo

In fact, a couple of months ago that was me.  My MacBook's hard drive crashed big time, and while I was away from my home and office.  Even though I was visiting my mother in suburban Atlanta, I was still without my second computer and even worse, I had to catch a flight in just five hours.  So, I found a place nearby that works with Apple products and the tech warned me to have my "stuff" backed up.   All of the "stuff" I needed was online in various places, so I was ok.  

But it never entered my mind to me to sue Apple Computer.   

Thus my interest in this lawsuit over a matter that happened over a year ago but with a lawsuit filed almost two weeks ago.  Here's what happened:  

According to The Boston Globe , Carbonite is suing Promise Technology and another company Interactive Digital Systems for allegedly faulty equipment and breach of warranty, respectively.  Carbonite was responsible for over 7,500 backups which it lost in 2007.   Promise Technology hardware was supposed to monitor customer data and preserve the information  Carbonite claims the products by Promise were "defective".

Promise stands by its hardware devices and says they're reliable.  

This story has hit the tech blogsphere like wildfire.  It was picked up by TechCrunch first, and that story became linkbait for a number of blog posts rendering fact and opinion, including mine, because I was interested in what the comment writers had to say, most of which was critical against Carbonite.  

See, what's hard for many to wrap their mind around is why Carbonite itself lacked a backup system, especially considering the number of customers they had?  Every time I've had a hard drive problem over the years, people have asked, "Did you backup your data?"  That's asked all the time; I can hear someone asking it now.  So, the story spread and so did the comments.  Eventually, even our San Francisco Focus Blog entry on this had comments.  But one of them really caught my attention.  

This one:

Hi Zennie, 

I would like to make sure that your readers understand two points with regard to Carbonite’s lawsuit against Promise Technologies as your headline is misleading to the facts of the case:

1) This event happened over a year ago. We do not say this to minimize the matter. But we do want to point out that this has not happened in a long time and is not an ongoing problem. 

2) The total number of Carbonite customers who were unable to retrieve their data was 54, not 7,500. We did take responsibility for the loss of data, which impacted the 54 customers. 

Here is what happened: The Promise servers that we were purchasing in 2006 and 2007 use RAID technology to spread data redundantly across 15 disk drives so that if any one disk drive fails, you don't lose any data. The RAID software that makes all this work is embedded as "firmware" in the storage servers. In this case, we believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs that caused the servers to crash. Carbonite automatically restarted all 7,500 backups and more than 99% of these were completely restored without incident. Statistically, about 2 out of every 1,000 consumer hard drives will crash every week, so 54 of these customers had their PCs crash before their re-started backups were complete. Since they weren’t completely backed up when their PCs crashed, these customers were unable to restore all of their files from Carbonite. Most of the 54 got some or most of their data back. We took full responsibility for what happened and I did my best to call each of these customers personally to apologize. 

As a result of our problems with the Promise servers, we switched to a popular Dell server that uses RAID6 – an improved RAID that allows for the loss of 3 of the 15 drives simultaneously before you lose any data. This configuration is in theory 36 million times more reliable than a single disk drive — the chances of 3 out of 15 drives failing at the same time are almost nil. 

So far, Promise has refused to accept responsibility for their equipment’s failures, so now we are suing them to get our money back. The Dell RAID servers have been flawless and we're extremely happy with them. 

Dave Friend, CEO

Carbonite, Inc.

Dave's friendly comment certainly gave this blog entry new weight, but something Mr. Friend wrote concerned me:

 The RAID software that makes all this work is embedded as "firmware" in the storage servers. In this case, we believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs that caused the servers to crash. Carbonite automatically restarted all 7,500 backups and more than 99% of these were completely restored without incident. 

"We believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs" is another way of claiming there's no real evidence to back that claim.  That's a real problem and I'm surprised Dave Friend just hauled off and wrote that.  In other words, there's no way Carbonite can actually prove Promise Technology's hardware was at fault.  They have their belief, but that's it.  That means there could have been a lot of actions that led to the loss of customer data, and even Carbonite's Friend admits that only 54 of 7,500 customers were adversely impacted by this data loss.

Let's go back to my Apple example.  If my Apple MacBook crashes, techs ask me if I use disk utility tools to properly maintain the hard drive.  They instruct me to use those tools both in the care and recovery of data and the hard drive. Thus the care of the hard drive is ultimately my responsibility.




This is also at SFGate.com

Welcome for Obama in France on 3 April 2009

Video: Barack Obama in France, Europe on 3 April 2009.

American School of Paris Students Shake Hands with President Barack Obama

From dlynn78 on YouTube: On Friday, April 3rd, 47 American School of Paris students traveled to Strasbourg, France to witness the first public address delivered internationally by President Barack Obama. The address was followed by a "town hall" question/answer format. Afterwards, President Obama shook hands with our students. This starts about 40 seconds into the video.

Health insurance industry red tape hurts - it adds no value

It's time to put doctors and nurses back in charge of medical decisions. If you think government can't get anything right, ask yourself: has big insurance been getting health care right? No way.The insurance industry profits by taking roughly 1/3 of the money going to health care to pay for overhead while they overturn the decisions of doctors to pay executive bonuses.

Big insurance companies make so much money that they spend millions of dollars on lobbyists every year in DC, yet costs are outrageous and a disgraceful number of people don't even have coverage. Obviously there's big money working to keep the status quo or this would have been fixed decades ago. Instead of reform, instead of the kind of continuous quality improvement they apply to their internal functions, we get red tape - we get misinformation trying to label any reforms as "socialized medicine" while medical decisions are made by bureaucrats.

read more | digg story

CIA: Torture Gave No Leads, Foils No Plots, Led Goose Chases

The Feds are finally releasing more & more information that was hidden under the Republican administration that reveals that torture was not just totally unreliable, but is a waste of valuable resources, sending the CIA on global wild goose chases over & over with little to zero results. In fact other techniques have proven much more reliable.

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CIA: Torture Gave No Leads, Foils No Plots, Led Goose Chases

The Feds are finally releasing more & more information that was hidden under the Republican administration that reveals that torture was not just totally unreliable, but is a waste of valuable resources, sending the CIA on global wild goose chases over & over with little to zero results. In fact other techniques have proven much more reliable.

read more | digg story

Fox accuses White House of trying to impose Sharia law in US

No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. Fox is seriously accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose Sharia law in the United States. Needless to say, the accusation totally false and just another example of the hate-filled paranoia and insanity of Foxaganda.

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How One Man Travelled to New Zealand Relying on Twitterers

A brave traveller has made it all the way to New Zealand without buying a single ticket along the way. Paul Smith - dubbed the Twitchhiker - made the 11,000-mile trip using only donations from people who use the social networking site Twitter.

read more | digg story

Report: Google to invest $100 million in VC fund

Google on Tuesday is expected to announce more details of its venture capital fund, including a $100 million investment in the first year, according to a report Monday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site that cited people familiar with the matter.

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Twitter To Kill Off The Auto-Follow

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone sent out an Email earlier this afternoon to a number of users who had previously enabled ‘autofollowing’, stating that the company is planning to shut the feature down. ‘Autofollowing’ allows users to automatically reciprocate whenever another Twitter user follows them.

read more | digg story

Twittering & Watching YouTube Makes Workers More Productive

Have you been caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? Well now you can tell your manager it actually makes you a harder worker. An Australian study found surfing the internet for fun during office hours actually increased employees productivity by nine per cent.

read more | digg story

Stop Time Warner Cable's unfair bandwidth tier system

Time Warner Cable is planning on introducing a tier based bandwidth allocation system in Austin TX, San Antonio TX and Rochester, N.Y.

read more | digg story

Google Redesigns YouTube, Copies Hulu

Google is redesigning YouTube to make the site more attractive to the content creators who make the kind of stuff Google could actually sell ads against -- like Disney, for example.

read more | digg story

Joe the Plumber Gets Booed Out of Pennsylvania

Somebody in the Republican Party thought it would be a great idea to send Joe the Plumber to Pennsylvania to rally against the Employee Free Choice Act. The pretend plumber faced audiences so hostile in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg that he skipped a rally in Philadelphia. This perfectly sums of the state of Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame.

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MPAA chairman Dan Glickman to be Thrown Out

MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is currently searching for another job. The Clinton-era cabinet minister has been head of the MPAA for the last four and a half years, but will be replaced in 18 months time because of his lacking performance. By contrast, Glickman’s predecessor, Jack Valenti held the office for 38 years.

read more | digg story

Oakland A's Ownership Rumored To Consider Firing Lew Wolff - Oakland Focus

The above headline will catch you by surprise, but the wind is blowing in that way.  The point is that several people behind the scenes, in touch with the ownership group, and around the Bay Area are talking about how Oakland Athletics Managing Partner Lew Wolff has, as one person put it "blown $20 million" on the effort to find a new home for the Oakland Athletics. Another contact told me one would be "fired" if they lost even $8 million on such a development project so early into the process. 

But the concensus for now is to let Wolff continue to do his work, but he's on a short leach.  The main problem is Wolff fell in love with the "baseball village" concept, where the ownership has to buy a lot of land not just for a baseball stadium but for residential development in the hope that the improved land sells for more than the group bought it for.  That works in a credit-health, prosperous economy, but in today's recessionary and deflationary world its a terrible strategy.  

And there's where a lot of the money was lost; in land acquisition.  As has been reported, Wolff was not-so-quietly buying land in Fremont with the idea of implementing the village strategy.  But now, with the credit crunch that blew up in his face.  I explained to the other member of the A's  ownership team Don Fisher not too long ago (at a party) that such a move was risky because of the economic bet, but hey, no one listens to me except Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley.

Maybe that will change.  

Perhaps in calling Mayor Dellums for a meeting, Wolff has seen the light of a possible new approach involving redevelopment funds and whatever stimulus money can be gotten from the federal government.  It's a better gambit now than it was even a year ago, when the word "stimulus" wasn't in the American lexicon.

When I use the term "rumor" in this case, it's not to be taken as something I "overheard"; this possible letting go of Wolff was told to me by two different sources, which I will not reveal, but frankly do want the news out there.  So am I saying "the knifes are out"?  Yes.  They are.  And they're sharp ones.

People in the A's organization will wonder who the person's are, but the unfortunate fact is I talk to a lot of people, even folks there.  Zeroing in on who it is?  Impossible.

Wolff's on notice.  Perform and stop losing money.  Or else.  Of course, now that Major League Baseball's committee on the need for a new A's stadium is in place, it could be said that Wolff's college buddy Commissioner Bud Selig saved him from almost certain doom.

Maybe.

Promise Technology Inc Announces New ServicePlus On-Site Parts Replacement Program for US and Canada

First I take a stance on how backing up data is a personal responsibility and how Carbonite - a data protection company -- should take the rap for losing its customer's data, then I get comments on the San Francisco Blog about it, and from some high level folks, and now a press release?  Interesting.  It means our blogs matter in the tech world after all.  Here's the release I got on Promise Technology's news about an onsight parts replacement program:

Promise Announces New ServicePlus On-Site Parts Replacement Program for US and Canada

Industry leading support program expands to include on-site component swap offering

MILPITAS, Calif., April 1, 2009 – Promise Technology Inc., a leading supplier of sophisticated RAID storage solutions for enterprise and SMB customers, today announced general availability of the Promise ServicePlus parts replacement plan for their VTrak enterprise class RAID storage subsystems. The ServicePlus program is an available upgrade to Promise’s leading 3-Year limited advanced parts replacement warranty. The ServicePlus plan offers onsite parts replacement 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the existing VTrak warranty period.

The Promise ServicePlus Plan provides for the rapid response and installation of components that have been identified as being in a fault state. This program provides storage administrators with the peace of mind that their storage is protected 24x7 against component failure. Combined with Promise’s existing 24x7 technical phone support this program is able to significantly minimize downtime. Average response time for component replacement can be as little as four hours in most major metropolitan areas.

“The ServicePlus program builds upon our already best in class support program”, said Vijay Char, Vice President of QA and Support, Promise Technology.  “Continuing to add to our support offering is part of our commitment to providing our customers with the best available uptime and service.”

The Promise ServicePlus plan is available for VTrak E-Class RAID, J-Class expansion chassis and M-Class iSCSI models in the 3U/16-bay form factor. The program is valid for the entire 3 year VTrak standard warranty period.

Pricing and Availability
The Promise ServicePlus plan is immediately available in the U.S. and Canada. Please contact the Promise sales department for further information.

About Promise Technology, Inc.
With a long history of innovation, Promise Technology develops and manufactures sophisticated RAID solutions – offering a complete line of RAID controller cards and SAS/SATA RAID subsystems catering to enterprise, mid-range and entry-level data protection needs worldwide. Known as the originator of SATA/ATA RAID products, Promise’s comprehensive product base includes high available (HA) standalone RAID subsystems with standards-based management interfaces, SAS host-based (internal) RAID controllers for servers and NAS appliances for SOHO. Headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., Promise is ISO-9001:2000 and ISO-14001:2004 certified, and has offices and operations throughout Asia and Europe to support local business partners and customers. For more information, visit Promise Technology's website at http://www.promise.com/serviceplu

Feminist Advisory Board [FAB] within Organizing for America

The founder, Madama Ambi, is now exploring turning FAB, which first gained notice during the 2008 Presidential campaign, into a platform for communicating with The White House Council on Women and Girls. She also hopes for the women's movement to "unify and strengthen its networks" but stresses you need not be a feminist or female to participate.

In the words of U.S. President Barack H. Obama,

"...it's up to us to carry that work forward, to ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their dreams, no obstacles to their achievements -- and that they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of."

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Protect Military spending, cut everything else? GOP fail

Bush knew leaving the economy for Obama to fix would stain the GOP reputation for years, possibly decades. Yet today the GOP numbers, as detailed by the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan (R-WI) reveal they were only talking about improving education, reforming the health care system, and energy independence to win votes.

The GOP budget proposal is: protect the military spending (that evidently funds their campaign finances,) and preserve Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. With their backs to the wall they're writing off the moderate, middle of the road voters?

With the Obamas modeling family values, the President's popularity riding high, and the world markets in chaos despite bailing out the bankers on Wall Street all the Republican economics experts have got to offer is "Defense spending" and keep helping the rich?

They call that a plan?

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BREAKING: Senator Barbara Boxer Sent "Keep A's In Oakland" Letter To Baseball Commissioner Selig

I just received this letter copy via email.  It comes on the heels of the news that Oakland A's Owner Lew Wolff called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums to request a meeting to discuss ways to keep the A's in Oakland.  

SEN. BOXER WORKS TO KEEP A’S IN OAKLAND

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today sent the following letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig:


March 31, 2009


Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
Major League Baseball
245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10167

Dear Commissioner Selig:

            I appreciate the announcement you made yesterday that you are forming a committee to review the various proposals regarding the future of the Oakland Athletics.  As your committee does its work, I urge you to do everything possible to keep the team in Oakland.

            As you may know, Oakland has recently gone through some difficult times and families there deserve some good news. As someone who splits her time between Washington, DC, southern California and Oakland’s Jack London Square neighborhood, I have seen first hand that Oakland is teeming with new young families and major developments that present endless possibilities. My children learned to love baseball through the Oakland A's and our family was so fortunate to develop that common bond.  We must give a new generation of families that same chance.

Oakland is witnessing a downtown renaissance, with new residences, restaurants, art galleries and entertainment venues opening weekly.  Two new office towers are in development and the Port of Oakland recently announced a private investment of close to $1 billion. Major League Baseball can play a key role in continuing this momentum by working to keep the A's in Oakland.

            Through their rich history and shared experiences, the identities of the City of Oakland and the Athletics are forever linked.  For more than 40 years, the people of Oakland have backed the Athletics during good times and bad. In the 1970s, Oakland celebrated the Athletics' glorious run of three consecutive World Series victories. And, together, the city of Oakland and the Athletics mourned the devastation caused by the Loma Prieta earthquake that took place during the team's 1989 championship run.

            Now that the team has ended its consideration of Fremont as a possible home, the time is right to renew the focus on keeping the Athletics in Oakland.
        

            It is critical that Major League Baseball and the A's ownership do everything possible to keep the A's in Oakland and I stand ready to help in any way possible, including attending and setting up meetings for you and the Committee.  Please do not hesitate to call me at 202-XXX-XXXX to discuss this issue.

                                                            Sincerely,



                                                            Barbara Boxer
                                                            United States Senator

BREAKING: A's Owner Lew Wolff Calls Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums To Request Meeting

I have it from a very good source that Oakland Athletics Owner and Managing Partner Lew Wolff called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums today to request a meeting to "explore options to keep the A's in Oakland".


That's great news and it comes on the heels of Monday's report that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig formed a committee to determine why a baseball stadium deal was not struck in Oakland, and Selig did so with wording that could have been read as a forecast of a move to take the A's out of Oakland.


But Wolff's phone call to Dellums today signals a new start to a recommittment to Oakland by the A's owner. Meanwhile here's the stadium proposal the Mayor's Task Force saw last Thursday:

Coliseum Stadium Plan For Oakland Athletics Revealed

The Commissioner of Baseball on Monday announced a new committee devoted to determining the viability of baseball in the East Bay. In his statements Commissioner Bud Selig said that the A's owners have exhausted their efforts in Oakland.

But really, they have not.

Here's an example in this plan for a new Coliseum baseball stadium on the parking lot land of the facility.

The plan, created by architect Frank Dobson and Retail Leasing expert Bob Leste with Oaklander Steve Lowe was first introduced in 2004 and while it was presented to the then-new ownership group and A's Managing Partner Lew Wolff, it went largely ignored by them. Wolff was known to be in love with a concept called a baseball village and needed a lot of land to make that work, hence the Fremont land chase.

But the idea called for hundreds of acres of land, more than the A's organization could afford given the economy and so needing public money turned to Fremont, which turned a deaf ear to their request.




Wolff has not wanted to be in Oakland, but the Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force wants to maintain the A's here in Oakland. To that end, it supports the plan you're about to see in this video.

The plan needs to be upgraded for 2009 and a financing plan developed. It also lacks an economic impact analysis and a job development report. But just eyeballing the plan I can say it can generate about 10,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs. It calls for a new stadium, a parking structure, and a retail structure at the Coliseum as well as an enlarged BART bridge. The total cost is about $440 million but we at the task force understand that was a 2004 estimate.

The video shows much of Bob Leste's presentation to the task force last Thursday and the discussion as well as the plan itself.

Facebook users urged to track down rapist

The boyfriend of a rape victim has set up a Facebook page to track down her attacker, in what is believed to be one of the first times the social networking site has been employed to identify a criminal.

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Mars Impact Crater: The Largest in Solar System

Recent analysis of the Red Planet's terrain using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Global Surveyor spacecraft observations revealed what appeared to be by far the largest impact crater ever found in the solar system. That's larger than Pluto. The impact gouged out a crater the size of the combined areas of Asia, Europe and Australia...

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Kucinich to probe $3.6 billion in bonuses at Merrill Lynch

Even as Merrill Lynch & Co. bled money and warily eyed a merger with Bank of America, company executives were preparing for a windfall. Following the federal government's promise of $10 billion in TARP funds to buoy the ailing firm, Merrill paid out $3.6 billion in bonuses: a package 22 times larger than compensation given by AIG.

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Google Chrome Beta For Mac Might Be Released By Fall

The open source Google Chromium repository now has an OS X Cocoa shell. We downloaded and compiled the latest OS X build of Google's browser, and we talked to the developers to get a sense of how long it will be before Mac users can get their hands on a working beta.

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New Report Urges Congress to Reverse Parts of Patriot Act

One of the nation’s leading legal rights groups is calling on the U.S. Congress to make major changes in the USA Patriot Act to reverse parts of the hurriedly passed law that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people.

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Darren Rovell Eats A Burger Almost As Large As His Head!

My friend Darren Rovell formerly of ESPN and now on CNBC must have gotten the go-ahead to do something outrageous for television because dude ordered, then ate on camera an enormous thing called a Fifth Third Burger.  You've got to see this 5,000 calorie gastronomic invention.  It's huge. Moreover, it's almost as large as Rovell's head.  I'm not kidding!  Look at this video:

Carbonite Online Backup Company Loses Data; Carbonite Is At Fault

I had to post this because it's a classic example of not taking responsibility for something you did wrong.  The online backup company Carbonite reportedly lost a lot of client information : the data of over 7,500 of its customers who trusted it (past tense now) to keep their information in a protected area of cyberspace: a cloud they developed and around which their company is built.

Now as long as I've been at this I've always got an earful about "backing up your data" so I would think a company like Carbonite, which is entrusted with protecting data, would be backing up the data they're charged with protecting.  Right?

Right?

No.  They lost the only data copies they had online, and so now are -- get this -- suing the hardware makers!  If you think that's funny (strange), so do many in the blogsphere, who think as I do.  Take a look at these comments over at TechCrunch :

1) What happens when you get burgled?

We got burgled last week and they took all my local backups. Fortunately I had it all backed up on S3 (and elsewhere too) which saved the day. Not having an offsite backup is a recipe for disaster.

2) They didn’t even have a proper backup? Feels sorry for those who have lost valuable data…

3) “The danger of storing your data in the cloud”

What you should have wrote was:

“The danger of storing your data in the cloud that’s not Amazon.”

Why pigeonhole the real company thats does cloud right for a company that tried to compete against them and failed?

4) No excuse. Carbonite need to accept the blame regardless of who actually caused the problem. It was their decision to use whatever suppliers they chose. I fail to see how they can recover customer confidence after a fiasco such as this.

5) This is the scary thing with putting your data with a company you’ve never heard of. I guess for that matter, putting your data with anyone is a scary thing. Has anyone used amazon s3 with success? I still feel like a drobo or hp media start server is the way to go. Backup is a tough thing.

6) The issue isn’t who the company is but how it does business. I work with a local IT company and we offer various kinds and flavors of backup, typically 3X redundant (live volume, local sync volume, local removable backup volume, offsite RAID). We do this all ourselves with system(s) we built. We started offering backup/recovery because of things like this. I recently moved a customer from a Big Brand Name Backup vendor. Said vendor had not run numerous backups. Said vendor charged ransom to provide the data when the customer quit. Said vendor basically refused to play nice with anyone, even when paid. Carbonite is not expensive but is obviously better at marketing than they they are at solution design (or accepting responsibility for their own mistakes).

Fox News Short Skirts: Johnny Dollar Misses The Point For My Skin

No sooner after I post a video detailing how Fox News uses sex to sell news, do I get someone who's so busy looking for something wrong they trip over themselves. Such is the case of blogger Johnny Dollar, who hilariously writes that the cable ratings I referred to were just for prime time and so my point about Fox News using sex doesn't matter.  HA!

This is one Dollar that took a dive.

The cable news ratings are daily -- got that Johnny -- daily. The data reads "same day" and that's what I was addressing. Now what does "daily" mean? Ah, morning, noon, and night.

Even though the data I quote refers to prime time, Fox News beats CNN the entire day and I argue for the same "sex based" reasons. Also, the point I was making is you can interchange the Fox anchor woman and the result is the same and has been for years. It does not matter that Linda Vester hasn't been with Fox News for a while; she was one example. In fact, that's why I used the term...former.

See, Dollar looked at me, saw that I was Black and making a video and had to find something wrong. Thus the reason he trips all over himself. I've seen it before. Such people.

Now, let's look at Fox Prime Time. Bill O'Reilly's the winner here, but hey, he's known for his overuse of young pretty blondes to work his news segments. So the process continues with the pretty women wearing low-cut blouses. See, Dollar didn't think about that, or perhaps he was so blinded by the need to "prove the Black guy wrong" that his I.Q. took a dive.  Sad.

I'm not the first to point to this process of Fox News using sex in it's production; Taylor Marsh did in 2007 and wrote:

Ratings rule and we know that the Fox channel is having a tough time these days. Their credibility is in tatters, particularly because of the way they've pimped the Iraq war. So the cheapest way to get viewers back is through gratuitous titillation. We've seen it through the wall to wall blondes and babes delivering the news, but the graphic video and interviews they air takes it to a whole new level.

Take Bill O'Reilly's sexual interview of Miss New Jersey. As a former Miss Missouri, I can tell you that this sort of interview would never have happened in a million years before Fox "News" and Bill O'Reilly. Is this a fantasy picture thing? Is it a negligee situation?

How about that, Dollar?  The sex play on Fox News goes on!  Now next time perhaps Dollar will be more balanced and fair?    I doubt it.

Oh, and for those who think I'm Gay and read Dollar's blog, get a life and a girlfriend.  Oh, and here's my video:

Fox News Hires Ex-AOL Head John Miller; Can He Make A Website?

What i don't get -- someone explain it to me -- is how some of these guys like now-former AOL head John Miller get to be the new CEO of Fox News Digital (a new title made for him) when Miller's never made a website! Plus, according to ValleyWag, they say he's, well, not really all that and a bag of chips.

See my point?

I can name lawyer after lawyer who was gotten to run a digital media corporation and none of them would be able to write the code for an anchor link to save their lives. Ands god forbid you ask him to code a basic webpage!

Why? How can a person like Miller claim to be an innovator in digital media if he doesn't know how to make the one thing that defines digital media: the website? Is it that the people who select these guys -- and they generally are men -- don't know the stuff and so select people who are like them: without a real Internet clue? If you don't understand how to make a website to make money for yourself, then you have no business in digital media. Period.

What's the deal here? Why the talent gap between people in charge and those who make the digital business go?

My charge is if the CEO can't make digital media, then the CEO does not know what to ask for to make their digital media business work better.

Tell me why I'm wrong.

Sierra and Zennie On GDC, Alternative Reality Games

I went to the San Francisco Game Developer Conference with my friend Sierra Choi (who did some executive producing work of the whole event) and after the end, I met her to talk about the GDC and -- my idea -- to enjoy a nice day outside at Cafe Americano on the Embarcadero. As we were in the cab we talked about the GDC, Alternernative Reality Games, and Sierra's ego (LOL!)

Sierra sees ARG's as not games, which is where we disagree. The point is that any game is designed to get you the player to do something. That's the case with ARG's. Sierra thinks that's more social psychology but my explaination is that concern is central to game making. Again, getting a person to "do a thing" is a central tenant of game making.

Tata Nano Inveiled At Party In Mumbai, India

Reuters Image, originally uploaded by sudarshannus.

I hope this car -- the Tata Nano -- makes it to the U.S. this year. But you know this is the car General Motors should be making here in America.

GM's Wagoner to Step Down; Obama To Give GM 2 Months

more at SFgate.com GM's CEO Rick Wagoner is reported to step down effective this week, as President Barack Obama -- according to sources -- is giving GM just two months to get its' act together and restructure.

One of the ways GM's reported to do this is the Chevy Volt, the electric car. But other than the Volt, there's no "wow" car GM can point to signaling a turn-around in their direction.

The Caregiving Equation at Fem2pt0 : society’s issues + women’s voices

More at Fem2pt0 I like this blog post on caregiving, but the problem is she thinks of women but the reality is men and women are in this position. The "gap" she write of is one that men have to fill too.

Obama on Flooding: We Will Help

From the AP: President Barack Obama assured the nation Saturday that he was keeping tabs on floods roiling the Midwest and putting the federal government's weight behind efforts to avert disaster. (March 28)

Production Chevy Volt in Motion

From GMVolt: The world's first to be mass produced electric car, GMs Chevy Volt in final production form driving and with interior views. See GM-Volt.com to join the Global Volt community.

Fox News' Female Short Skirts Get Ratings Over CNN

For the first time, according to Nielsen, CNN came in third place in cable news program ratings behind Fox and MSNBC. CNN had 1.14 million viewers in March, compared with 1.16 million for MSNBC and 2.3 million for Fox News. Some say the reason is Fox is conservative; it's really their focus on women anchors with short skirts.

So Fox could be liberal as heck and still have the same ratings if they had the same "sex sells" strategy. There have been a lot of Fox female anchors doing the showing of a lot of leg: E.D. Hill, Ainsley Earhardt , Linda Vester, Gretchen Carlson, and Catherine Herridge to name some of them.

That's a lot of women, and I'm sure I've left someone's name off the list without intention. The point is, it's too much of a habit to ignore, thus it's part of the high ratings, because it builds expectations that a viewer will see women in short skirts, especially in the morning.

Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no. Look, we can't deny that above all else, television is a visual medium. It's not radio at all. So people react to what they see. Moreover, we're wired to reproduce -- people forget that -- so visual cues that appeal to our sexual nature will get more attention than those that don't.

That's a fact.

I can't blame Fox for this. But I can blame Fox for coupling it with some lame reporting. Much of it's so biased I don't watch it at all. I flip between CNN and MSNBC. And CNN has some attractive female anchors, but they don't present them like Fox does. If they did, I hate to write this, but CNN would overtake Fox for the ratings lead.

The question is will they do this?

Fox News' Female Short Skirts Get Ratings Over CNN

For the first time, according to Nielsen, CNN came in third place in cable news program ratings behind Fox and MSNBC. CNN had 1.14 million viewers in March, compared with 1.16 million for MSNBC and 2.3 million for Fox News. Some say the reason is Fox is conservative; it's really their focus on women anchors with short skirts.

So Fox could be liberal as heck and still have the same ratings if they had the same "sex sells" strategy. There have been a lot of Fox female anchors doing the showing of a lot of leg: E.D. Hill, Ainsley Earhardt , Linda Vester, Gretchen Carlson, and Catherine Herridge to name some of them.

That's a lot of women, and I'm sure I've left someone's name off the list without intention. The point is, it's too much of a habit to ignore, thus it's part of the high ratings, because it builds expectations that a viewer will see women in short skirts, especially in the morning.

Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no. Look, we can't deny that above all else, television is a visual medium. It's not radio at all. So people react to what they see. Moreover, we're wired to reproduce -- people forget that -- so visual cues that appeal to our sexual nature will get more attention than those that don't.

That's a fact.

I can't blame Fox for this. But I can blame Fox for coupling it with some lame reporting. Much of it's so biased I don't watch it at all. I flip between CNN and MSNBC. And CNN has some attractive female anchors, but they don't present them like Fox does. If they did, I hate to write this, but CNN would overtake Fox for the ratings lead.

The question is will they do this?

'Building a Mystery' by Sarah McLachlan on QTV

Q was fortunate enough to have Sarah McLachlan as the live musical guest for the Toronto live special broadcast out of the CBC's Glenn Gould Theatre. Playing to a packed house Sarah started her appearance off with her hit 'Building a Mystery'.

Personal Injury Law In A Recession: Bob Schock in Oakland

Bob Schock is an Oakland personal injury lawyer. We talk about lawsuits in a recession and how businesses can protect themselves and why people file lawsuits. Contact Bob at 510-839-7722.

YouTube Adds A Twitter Button

Everybody's doing it. Even YouTube has succumbed to Twitter mania.

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GOP Budget Fizzles Amid Lack of Details, Infighting, Mockery

House Republicans today made a big show about how they were going to drop their own brand-new alternate budget proposal, packed with urban-suburban hip-hop "flava" and dance moves Eric Cantor learned at the Verizon Center, watching Britney Spears. As it turns out, READY THEY WERE NOT, and so everyone is making fun of them, and it.

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Top 10 Athletes Who are Deadbeat Dads

In honor of the recent Chris Bosh accusation made by his former girlfriend Allison Mathis that he is a deadbeat dad. We have compiled a list of who we think are the Top 10 Athletes Who Are Deadbeat Dads.

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Tesla Sedan Unveiled! Tesla Model S Hits the Road

Vote For The Alameda Point Development Plan May 19th 2009

On May 19th Alameda residents will be able to assure the economic future of the City of Alameda by voting for the Alameda Point Development Plan for the redevelopment of Alameda Naval Air Station as planned by the Alameda Base Reuse Committee and its subsequent evolutions to the Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Commission of today.

The plan consists of a mix of uses and an ambitious plan adding over 4,000 much-needed housing units.

But the most important fact is the plan will mark the begining of the replacement economic development we have worked to achieve for so long.

Opponents point to Measure A as the reason why the plan should be defeated, but the fact is Measure A was passed in 1973 and represents a time when Alamedans were interested in restricting development and maintaining Alameda from people of color.

Those days are long gone.

Now, Alameda needs jobs and the region wants to see The City of Alameda have an economic development project that replaces the closed Naval Air Station. This is that project.

MN Senate set to siphon stimulus money away from education

If you wanted a regulator - say of banks, for example - to issue an unbiased report on the performance of the bank, would you make it possible for the regulator to earn money from the bank’s ongoing operation? The MN legislature - dominated by elected DEMOCRATS - is redirecting money for charter schools away from the schools and districts in a flagrant conflict of interest that harms the districts, teachers, and children. Get mad.

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