The post I attempted to make yesterday has disappeared into the ether. This reminds me that although blogger.com is very, very cool it isn’t under my control.
The original version of this diary was written in html and posted to this server by ‘me old mate’ ftp. That meant that whenever I had something to say I fired up my html editor (Vim usually) and ftp’ed the results to my hosting company. This version is written by pointing a web browser at http://www.blogger.com and using their application.
This means that any problems with their servers or the network between me and them will mean that my words of wisdom aren’t published and you, my smashing reader, are bereft of reading matter until the technology is back on track.
Whilst this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is a salient lesson in the drawbacks of the application service provider (ASP) business model. I have to weigh the complexity (and therefore cost) of maintaining my own system against the convenience, sophistication and uncertain availability of blogger.com.
I’m sticking with blogger ;-