He's also pointing out that shopping local is very expensive for a small businessman.
REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 10:09 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Mike Gurstein is presently dealing with an email nightmare and so is offline for now Well said. A sober reflection on the way in which entrust valuable information to unseen business people. You are saying shop local. For food and computer support. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 6:57 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: Mike Gurstein is presently dealing with an email nightmare and so is offline for now GMail is, you know, cool and convenient and all like that. But if your career depends on reliable email (which is intrinsically unreliable), you should become an instant email control freak. + Your mail server -- the physical machine -- should be located within easy driving distance of your principal place of abode or business. + It should be operated and maintained by a human whom you have met face to face and whose name and reliable contact info you know, probably a small- or medium-sized business owner or a tech manager or system administrator for same. + That machine and that individual should be contracted to maintain frequent periodic backups of your email archive and provide you with timely access, direct or indirect, to those backups in a way that is not impossibly technical or time-consuming. If your career can be totally crashed by mail archive loss, those backups should also include off-site backup and possibly (depending on how tempting a target you are) encryption. + Direct personal support, at least 8/5 -- better 24/7 -- from your mail server admin or his technically competent employees or colleagues should be part of your contract. + You should have your own redundant periodic backups (what if your server establishment burns down?) on DVD, a second machine, a home server, a portable HD or other means. Off-site is desirable, that is, if your house burns down, your friend, relative or neighborhood techie has your box of DVDs in his attic or your backup HD in his desktop machine. + And yes, you should expect to pay for all this. This is your career, right? It's an essential business expense. Imagine a "free" ATM service run by ACME-Google. All you have to do is watch a 2-minute video each time you use it. Would you keep all your money in such a service? After all the talk on FW about the nature of the modern corporation in all its maleficent aspects, I can't imagine trusting my career, income, fiduciary (or other) responsibilities to the whim of a large^H^H^H^H^H giant corporation which has no binding contractual obligations to me. That said, Mike, I wish you all the best in getting things working again. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
