Richard A. Johnson

UPDATE: after just over 2 days, all of my whining may have paid off. I woke up 12/15 to find my GMail working again. I would like to think a Google employee who contacted me on Twitter got it fixed or at least escalated for me.

If you can’t read what that says, here it is:
Temporary Error(500)
We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes.

Well, 2 days later, not a few minutes, it is still dead. So I did what everyone else would do in a situation like this, I head to Tech Support. Yeah, like you, I couldn’t find a clear tech support channel either. I did find a bunch of documentation that didn’t pertain to the situation, and what documentation I did find, didn’t help the situation. Well, luckily I found a contact link, actually I found 2, maybe 3, different contact links, to report the issue. So I did, all 3 times. I waited with another email account, thanks Yahoo! for working! And I am still waiting, over 24 hours later. Next step, the amazing Google Forums, or whatever the hell they call that.

So I post my problem initially with a subject of Temporary Error(500) - Numeric Code: 93. This didn’t even draw in a response. So, I did something I can’t stand, I said screw bumping the thread, let me create one with a subject that shows a little panic. I added the info they asked for, I told them everything I have gone to from Google and GMail to rectify the situation, and none of it works. Wouldn’t you know, my subject draws someone in, and their first response is:

Did you check this link? Have you done this?

At this point I have steam coming out of my ears. How in the hell could you ask me that question if you read my initial post? How? I don’t get it? Supposedly this person is a ‘Level 4′, whatever the hell that means. I think they give you a level by the amount of posts you get. I did a little research on this person, and wouldn’t you know it, they are doing the same shit in every one of the other HELP ME! posts in the forums. Oh, this is part of the reason I can’t stand forums.

I have done everything. I hit Twitter, messaged people who work on GMail, everything, except fly to Mountain View and grab the first ass I saw riding some foldable bicycle coming out of one of their numerous gyms or campus hot spots there, and choking them until my GMail worked again. So now I have resorted to my blog, and I am hoping that just 1 of the 3 people who read my blog, knows someone who knows someone.

I am seriously at a standstill here. Everyone of my email addresses forward to my GMail account. It is kind of like my digital lifeline. I have a few major tasks, one including Christmas presents and lists, that I have to do like yesterday, but I can’t. I have an Android that is damn near useless to me right now, except for Angry Birds and Bubble Blast 2.

OK, so to my other point. What ever we all do with this wonderful world of free and open source software, lets never get this bad when it comes to getting some sort of support for a free product. Yes, we have docs, we have forums, we have IRC, and we have, well we have everything one needs to get something fixed. I don’t think in all of my years of working on Linux, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, KDE, you name it, I have had to wait a day, let alone 2 or more, to get something fixed. Well, get something fixed that is as important as your email. If you want to make sure you don’t fail with your product, just head over to GMail support, look it over, and promise not only yourself, but everyone of your users, that you will never be like that!

OK, my venting, or dribble, is done here. Everyone enjoy your day and the rest of your week!

NOTE: I have another GMail account for cycling stuff that works perfectly. I have tried no less than 6 other browsers, 2 other operating systems, cleared cache, history, cookies, and candy bars.

Severed Fifth has been here for years!

OK, probably not the brightest idea to mix a little bit of LL Cool J and Severed Fifth, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Do you know what Severed Fifth is? No? Where the hell have you been? You have? Awesome! </jcastro>

Jono Bacon is in the process of finishing up his second album as part of his Severed Fifth project. If you know Jono, then you know there is a bunch of loud noises, a few grunts, and a wanna-be British man screaming from the depth of his gut. Years back, prior to the release of the first Severed Fifth album, Denied by Reign, I had the privilege of listening to a few of its tracks at a Linux fest. To quote myself after hearing some tracks:

“Oh yeah…this is the kind of shit I want to listen to before I break into someone’s house and rob them.”

I have heard a couple of the raw tracks through the Severed Fifth UStream channel, and I think my previous quote still stands. I haven’t heard the words yet, well not all of them. One day I overheard Jono growling something about My Little Pony, so you never know!

One thing Jono recently added was Fair Pay. Jono has been spending quite a bit of money to keep the Severed Fifth project afloat and recently if you remember, another group released an album where you paid what you thought was fair. Well, Jono is doing the same. If my broke arse can afford to donate money for some incredible music that I am free to do whatever I want with, then so can you! Only afford $1, groovy, Jono could use it. If you were planning on heading to space this year and still have $20,000,000 lying around, screw space, rock out with Severed Fifth instead!

While recently reading through the Severed Fifth website, I came across one of the posts talking about how Severed Fifth was being used in quite a few online videos. Don’t know about you, but I found not only the work cool, but the fact there are some people I would have never expected listening to metal using it in their video. Check that out and definitely look the videos over.

Street Team time! You can help spread the word of Severed Fifth in your community. When Denied by Reign came out, myself and a friend worked hard to try and get airplay on Q101, a local radio station here in Chicago. They were impressed to say the least, but 2 things stopped them from doing so. Metal wasn’t really their genre though they played some, and the other was the fact Jono was a misplaced British guy who isn’t from Chicago. Hey we tried. I did however get the local college to play it on their airwaves, so a few people got to hear the goodness.

So, if you are a metal head, or even if you aren’t, head on over to Severed Fifth’s website and check it out. I promise you a good time, and who knows, you just might end up a metal head if you weren’t already one.

Mama said knock you out!

It all started a bit over a month ago when I lost 2 machines to a natural disaster, one being my build machine which was powerful and the other being my laptop, which I used the most. Then yesterday when finishing my bike ride, busted spokes sent me into a nice slide with a broken wheel. The other day I noticed a clicking in my server, hard drive is what it sounded like. So I was able to power up, make a final backup, and noticed it wasn’t clicking. So I ran it for a day and just now, it died. One of these days I will have all of the money in the world and this type of stuff won’t bother me so much, but right now I am flat ass broke. So, until I can scrape together some money, I do not think I will be able to help much around the Ubuntu world. I will be using my netbook for pretty much everything right now, and if you have a netbook, lord knows you can’t do much with it besides surfing the intertubes.

Calgon! Take me away!

I have setup my own Tracks instance on my web server, installed Shuffle on my Android phone. I have created all of my contexts, setup my common tags, setup next-actions/waiting for/someday lists, but I have nothing TODO. On my desktop, I fired up Task by Taskwarrior to take a look and nothing!

So, with work beginning on Maverick for Ubuntu, and of course Kubuntu, I need something to do. So JR, Scott, Harald, Jon, David, and whoever else I forgot, gimme sumpin’ to do already!

Speaking of getting things done, as many of you know Task is my favorite. I needed something that I could access with my computers and my phone, so Tracks and Shuffle are the two best things for a droid phone. I want Task on my phone, and seeing as we now have Dropbox on the droid, I am starting to think about how I can get a GUI for Task on my phone as well. Oh, maybe that could be a to do!

Phil Bull, the amazing Ubuntu Documentation writer, says he wants stuff on the left and UDS on the moon, so this is just for him, while he waits for the manual to be released!