Server Failure vs. Operator Error

Posted by joseph bahgat on July 05, 2012

goawaydaddy.jpg

My apologies for being offline for a few days. Of course I realize that I don't post here everyday, but (surprisingly) my inbox has been flooded with folks asking what happened to the blog. I also didn't want anyone to think that it was LexBlog's fault that we were down. Although there were some blogs that were down because of the massive power outages in the mid-Atlantic region—and this one may have been included with those—they fixed that problem over the weekend, and we just came back online today, probably because of a simple error of my own.

FYI several months ago, during the SOPA controversy, I discovered that all of my domains were registered through GoDaddy.com, which was purportedly a strong proponent of the controversial legislative proposal. Wanting to dissociate myself and my firm from that brand of politics, I opted to have all my domains transferred over to a company that I didn't have to be ashamed of.

I'm a big fan of EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). They do great work, valuable work, IMHO it's just as important as—if not more important than—the work the ACLU does. I followed their lead, and had all of my domains transferred over to gandi.net. In doing so, however, I unwittingly assumed certain responsibilities that were previously being handled by the good folks at LexBlog.

So the long story short is that recently this blog started getting a lot of comments posted by spammers, and I had some new mechanisms put in place to stop the spam. But after I did that, I forgot to have the DNS settings updated with the registrar.

I probably didn't need to tell you all this, but it gave me an opportunity to (a) take responsibility for a mistake that may have been blamed on my friends and colleagues at LexBlog; (b) remind people why they should avoid godaddy.com; and (c) tell everyone about gandi.net, and one of my favorite organizations—EFF.

See also: How to Jump Ship from GoDaddy to a Better Web Host and Registrar

Image credit: Adam Dachis, Lifehacker

UPDATE (2012-09-11): GoDaddy’s DNS Servers Go Down, Along With Thousands of Sites

See also: GoDaddy Got You Down? Here Are 5 Alternatives

 

The Irony of Technology: Takeaways From #ABATECHSHOW 2012

Posted by joseph bahgat on March 31, 2012

ts2012_ep_468x60.jpg

I'm writing this from my Chicago hotel room after just getting back from the final session at ABA TechShow® 2012, where I spent the past three days learning about, seeing, and trying the latest and greatest technology tools for practicing law. Ironically, despite the myriad gadgets and tech toys from literally all over the world, the best part of TechShow was the people. So many of us obsess over having the hippest gear, or the latest-generation iToy—we even justify the expense of it as an investment—and in doing so it's easy to lose sight of how important it is to invest in good-old-fashioned, personal relationships.

These past few days I've had the chance to talk one-on-one with folks whose books and blogs I read, whose apps I use, and with whom I tweet and email back-and-forth regularly, yet never met in person. For example, I spent time talking with Ben Schorr (@bschorr), who literally wrote the book on mastering the Microsoft Office suite in the practice of law. I talked with famed bloggers like Kevin O'Keefe (@kevinokeefe), Carolyn Elefant (@carolynelefant), and Tim Baran (@Tim_Baran). I also hung out with Mac gurus like Victor Medina (@victormedina), Ben Stevens (@themaclawyer), Ernie Svenson (@ernieattorney), and Randy Juip (@rajuip), iPad guru Tom Mighell (@TomMighell), and the original Mac Power User David Sparks a/k/a Mac Sparky. Dave also wrote the books Mac at Work and iPad at Work, which are like the Physician's Desk References to attorneys using Macs (I'd call them bibles but for fear of reprisal, especially right before Easter).

On the eve of TechShow, Matt Homann (@matthomann) of LexThink hosted a phenomenal forum in which each speaker had just 6 minutes to deliver their message about technology and the practice of law. There, I met Mark Britton (@mark_britton), CEO of Avvo.com, and Jay Shepherd (@jayshep), two incredibly dynamic speakers, both of whom are using their legal training to do great things outside the traditional practice of law. Despite how great Mark and Jay were, my personal favorite was Will Hornsby (@willhornsby), but I think that was because he mocked one of the silliest ethics rules still in effect, in New Jersey of all places.

Throughout the conference I was also speaking to guys like Brett Owens, founder and creator of Chrometa (@Chrometa), Deskspace Attorney's Nick Lightbody (@nicklightbody), and Ian O'Flaherty of Lit Software (@litsoftwareapps). Ian is the developer of one of my favorite legal tools in my arsenal—Trial Pad for iPad. I'm also anxious to try out his latest app—Transcript Pad. It's fascinating to interact with the people who actually create some of the tools I use, and to hear about how complicated it is to bring something like that to the marketplace. (Disclosure: I received a free copy of Trial Pad for purposes of writing a review.)

Although I'd met Ian before, it was great to reconnect with him, just like it was great to hang out with old friends like Andrea Cannavina a/k/a the Legal Typist, Brett Burney (@macsinlaw), Marc Matheny (@Indysoloesq), and Jack Newton (@jack_newton) and Gwynne Monahan (@econwriter5) from Clio. On Thursday night, the Clio crew threw a red-carpet bash at Chicago's Sushi Samba Rio, which was a virtual who's who in legal technology. (Disclosure: My firm uses Legal Typist's services, and I am a regular contributor to the Legal Connection eZine publication; my firm also uses Clio for practice management. I did not receive any benefit for writing this.)

So it's easy to say that I learned a lot about tech at TechShow, but thanks to these relationships, my takeaway from TechShow is so much more (human) than that. I wholly embrace technology in my life, both personal and professional. I believe that technology makes our lives richer—by increasing our efficiency, creating access to information, and enabling us to share things with friends and family we don't see often—but technology is not a substitute for human contact. Texting, tweeting, and Facebook-ing are all fantastic communication tools, but they can't replace handshakes, hugs, or sharing a beer.