So yesterday was the official start date of a project I’ll be working on for the next week or so. Several steps of this project require me to have access for testing purposes to a particular piece of technological gadgetry which I do not own, so I arranged with their internal project manager to borrow one of these widgets for the duration.

This lovely, charming, but geographically challenged man is local to me, and so offered to drop the magical bag of telephony tricks directly to my door. As I am notoriously lazy, notoriously exhausted, and a rumoured agoraphobe (I’m not afraid to leave the house or anything, I just very rarely do), this sounded like a marvellous idea to me and I immediately gave him my address and directions.

“On Blarney Street, off Shandon Street, just past the post office.”

He promised to call me when he was on his way, and I crashed into the duvet and slept like the dead.

When the phone rang four hours later, I was still asleep and in a state of what might be best described as train wreck. My plan was to ignore the fact I was clad in my PJs and just brush my teeth, open the door, thank the nice man, and go back to bed. This plan was going roaringly well until he rang again to ask “Where are you? I’m at the post office.”

I stepped outside my door on the cordless to ask if he could see me, since I live mere steps away. Needless to say, he couldn’t, and after a bit of faffing we determined that he was: a) at the wrong post office; b) parked, and c) wandering around Shandon Street.

Make a note for future reference: most plans devised on four hours of sleep and no coffee have flaws. Tragically, at this critical juncture I was simply not awake enough to remember this.

“Right,” I said, “I’ll walk down the hill, you walk up the hill, and we’ll bump into each other in about two minutes.”

And so I did. I walked out in exactly what I was wearing, which was:

• Light pink pyjama bottoms with huge bright pink stars;
• A ratty Disney World sweatshirt circa 2000, complete with one hole and a bleach stain;
• Freshly washed hair, which I had kipped on whilst wet, and was now perfectly straight on the half I’d slept on and wonderfully curly on the side that had air dried.

I hurried, at some pace, down the hill. Past the post office. Past the school. Past the car dealership. Past everything, in fact, right down to Shandon Street. With each landmark I passed, the absolute humiliation of this sartorial parade of mine became ever more excruciating. The Yummy Mummys queued up for 3 PM pick-up looked every bit as horrified to see me as I was to see them; no doubt they thought this completely insane looking bag lady was going to make off with a complete matching set of Little Tarquins. Carriages were clamped. Babies were clutched. Children were told to avert their eyes.

As if all of this were not bad enough, it goes without saying that I never found him. And so back up the hill with me: past the garage, past the post office, and past the ladies who were now absolutely convinced I was a an unmedicated menace to society and stalking their offspring.

Finally back at home, the phone rang, a car drove up, and kit was delivered. I went back to bed and vowed to never, ever leave the house again.

Agoraphobia: it’s a plan.

It isn’t very often that you get to watch a real live-action example of true crisis PR. But when you do, it’s always instructive, and usually amusing in that “bang head against wall, wash, rinse, repeat” kind of way.

This weekend, The Planet experienced a catastrophic outage when a transformer at H1, their Houston data center, exploded, blew out the walls of the electrical room, and started a fire. The building was evacuated, the fire brigade called, and at the insistance of the fire chief, all power - including backup power - shut down.

The good news: nobody was hurt, and data on all 9,000 servers was secure. The bad news: none of the servers had any power.

I do not consider this to be a particular failing of The Planet. Catastrophes happen, even with the best of plans. While it sucks for the people affected, and we were lucky to not be on that list, at the end of the day people, not hosts, are responsible for data resiliency and catastropic backup plans. If you’re not prepared to pay for the technical know-how and costs associated with that, then you’re either not running anything mission critical (my blog: not mission critical) or you’re going to have to be prepared to suck it every now and then.

Amidst all the bitching, moaning, threats of law suits, and small contingent of cheer leading, The Planet did a lot of things right:

• Within hours, they promised updates every sixty minutes on their forum, and delivered them - even if all they had to report that there was no update.
• They let customers know very early on that their SLAs would be honoured and that refunds and credits would be calculated as soon as normal operations resumed.
• They pulled in manpower from their vendors, contractors and staff in the middle of the night on a weekend and worked for 28 straight hours to rebuild a power system virtually from scratch and manage a huge volume of support calls.

There were also some extremely odd choices made, some of which are harmful to their PR. As everyone playing along at home can guess, these failures were primarily in the area of transparency:

• NONE of these updates appeared on The Planet’s blog. Not a single word. If you were pissed off enough to hunt down and root through their customer forum, you got info. If you go to their blog, which is where you’d expect to get crisis updates, you get bupkis.
• For a particular set of legacy customers, both NS1 and NS2 nameservers were both hosted in the H1 data center. This was an example of EPIC FAIL on the part of The Planet, one which they remained basically silent about while the 3,000 customers hosed by this oversight were still without websites.
• They did not post photos of the crispy data center. Seriously, guys: pics or it didn’t happen.

But there is one more thing they didn’t do that was a complete no brainer. Let us assume that several thousand people were on the phone, screaming for their boxes to be rescued from the embers and transported to the nearest operating DC. Let us also assume that there are only a certain number of boxes The Planet can fit into the racks in Dallas. At that point, you either take the customers who make you the most money, or knowing that you’re going to lose a boatload of customers one way the other other anyway, you take the customers who are in a position to do the most damage to your reputation.

They should have located the servers that host b3ta, the world’s most awesome and snarkiest website for nerds and geeks, picked them up, put them in a car, driven them to the Dallas data centre and prayed to the gods of DNS propagation for mercy.

But they didn’t. And three days later, b3ta is still in the “hosed” camp, without a website* and instead running an emergency forum, where the punters are predictably making “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire” jokes and creating graphics that will commemorate this event for far longer than The Planet’s lack of blog entries.

This is really not a group of people you want to fuck with.

A couple of weeks ago I took the early morning train up to Dublin to renew my accidentally expired passport. The US Embassy in Dublin is open for approximately 3 hours each morning, 4 days a week, so this meant getting on the very first train from Cork and I still barely made it before they closed for what is presumably a 21 hour lunch.

Entering the compound one might politely describe as The Ugliest Building in Dublin was a very bizarre experience. In the US, I’m used to armed police on the streets, metal detectors in schools and heavy security at shopping malls. In Ireland, none of that happens. So it is extremely disconcerting to find ones self in Ballsbridge, entering an already freaky compound through something that very closely approximates airport security complete with uniformed guards, a metal detector, an x-ray belt for my handbag, and the requirement to leave both my phone and my nail scissors at the checkpoint. I spent more than a moment wondering if I was being shielded from a potential hostage situation or actually be taken hostage.

Neither event came to pass and everyone was exceedingly nice, from the guards to the cashier to the lovely French woman who helped me complete my application. My new passport was required for our mortgage paperwork, so I was anxious to get it back as soon as possible and minimise any delays. When the form asked for my email address, I provided it willingly so that the consulate could have one more way of contacting me if there were any issues.

There was no opt in/opt out checkbox and no disclaimer or fine print of any kind, so I naturally assumed my email address would be used only for purposes pertaining to the application on which I provided it.

Today, three days after the prompt delivery of my shiny new passport, I received an email from wardendublin@state.gov - something long and rambling to do with absentee ballots and Minnesota. Here it is in all its spammy glory:

First of all, I have no idea what they’re on about, nor do I care. I have never lived in Minnesota and doubt I could locate it on a map if challenged to do so. I have certainly never voted in Minnesota, and voting information specific to Minnesota is irrelevant to me - as it is to every other US expat in Ireland who is from any of the 49 states not named Minnesota.

Second of all, and far more irritating, is the following:

• I have no idea what this list is. It is not identified in any way in the footer. The sender, likewise, is unidentified.
• I did not ask to be on this list, and at no point was I told that my information would be used for what amounts to federal spam.
• Most importantly, there is no mechanism provided for me to opt out of this list now that I’m on it.

I am, to say the least, irate. I have an immediate need to drop someone’s trousers and hand out a suitably painful, lesson-instilling spanking. I am absolutely positive that this practice must break a US or EU spam law, and I am old and crotchety and spoiling for a law suit.

I don’t want to write a letter to some dusty office in Dublin, Brussels or Minnesota; I want to haul someone into court and beat them up for their pocket change, because I am exactly that pissed off.

So tell me, dear interpipes, who do I sue? Seriously.

I need, very badly, an accounts assistant.

In short, I need someone to come to my house, plop down on one of our many, many laptops, and enter invoices, payments, receipts and expenses into the spreadsheet supplied by my accountants, then file them carefully in some sort of tabbed monthly notebook thing. If this person could also go through our pile of bills and make me write cheques and then actually drop them in the post as well, I will love them forever. I need someone to do this with more financial accumen and love for spreadsheets than I myself posses.

I’m looking for someone for about 2 hours a week, and I’m probably looking for a SAHM or UCC student who just wants to put Accounting 101 to work for some extra cash. I love telecommuting but for this, I need an actual human - preferably a capable, competent one.

We are currently located in Cork’s city centre off of Shandon Street, and will (hopefully) be re-locating to very near UCC this summer. The upside is that I am the very definition of flexible; I don’t care what day or what time you come and it doesn’t need to be the same day or time each week. Also, the coffee here is very serious and the kettle is always on. The downside is that I smoke and I’m not planning to quit any time terribly soon.

If you know anyone or you yourself are interested in this gig, please send me either an informal CV or just an email to sabrina [at] sabrinadent [dot] com. Thanks!

I’m sad to report in a follow up to my review of the Most Awesome Phone Ever that the mobile version of The Sims 2 has proven, on extended play, to be a huge but limited pile of poo. The limitations come from the very small mobile file size of the game, which means that you are restricted to one property, a cycle of just five jobs, no clothing or decorating options, and a set number of property extensions and goods you can buy. Pretty much the only unrestricted activity is the amount of sex you can have, and hooboy, have I been having a lot.

Here’s the thing: there’s not much to do in The Sims if the number of items you can purchase is limited to 10 and you’re chained to your own property. All you can really do is go to work, come home, and go through the normal routine of trying to keep your Sim fed and in dry pants.

This leaves a rather copious amount of spare time. And the only way to make time pass more quickly in The Sims is by shagging. Literally: you shag, the screen blanks, and three hours passes by in an instant.

In a desperate effort to escape the incredible tedium of the idle suburban life, my Sim leads a complex and free wheeling existence in which she married Ben, had an affair with Lorna, divorced Ben, and married Susan but lives with Ivan. You’d think two relationships and all the sex that goes with them would be enough to keep the girl occupied, but every day she comes home from work and places a booty call to Ben, the enamoured ex who just can’t say no, simply to get the day over with sooner.

Playing this game is like an extended re-run of my 20s, except without the booze, drugs or rehab.

The most frustrating part is that there appears to be literally no way out of this existence. The Sims is a game without end; there is no goal beyond continuation of life, but in the full game play version, when you get absolutely sick of a character you just cannot stand to play any more, you can always find a way to kill them off.

The traditional method for simicide is to remove all of the smoke detectors from the house and wait for a house fire. I am, however, far more vicious and impatient than that, and my preferred method for killing annoying children and irritating spouses is to chuck them in the pool and take away the ladder.

But on the mobile version, there is no death. You can starve them, cut them off from all human contact, and leave them in a puddle of their own waste, and they’ll still get up the next day to cheerfully face a brand new morning at Guantanamo.

Suburbia is hell.

Pat Phelan, who very kindly bought me dinner last night (and is, by the way, looking positively svelt these days, the bastard) asked a question on his blog today about filtering all those things we’ll broadly call stewardship offers. These are the people and organisations who want to solicit you to be a mentor, give you seats on their boards, or have you as their official or unofficial go-to guy for business and strategy advice. They do not, however, want to pay you.

I have to say that I am the original Girl Who Can’t Say No, so frankly Pat should take whatever I have to offer with regards to this question and chuck it directly out the window. I spend at least as much time doling out advice, contacts and expertise on things I’m not being paid to do as I spend doing things I am being paid to do — sometimes for clients, sometimes just for random people who have been referred in or wandered by. I have a terrible time turning anyone away, and I sincerely enjoy getting to meet, talk to and yell at a wide range of really fabulous people, but recently I’ve begun looking at things through the lifeboat analogy.

You’re on a lifeboat, with the Titanic sinking gracefully in the background. You only have so many people you can fit on the boat. Your family, your closets friends and your business are going to take up most of those seats, and that leaves only so many spots left over. With the handful of seats you have available, you then have to make what are frankly tough choices.

Do you take the strongest passengers, those with the greatest chance of making it, or do you take the weakest survivors, those who need help the most? Do you leave behind the people you think are most likely to make it without you, or do you leave behind the ones most likely to go under anyway? Do you invest your capacity in awesome business models or awesome people? Do you grab the folks nobody has ever heard of because you like them and see something good there, or do you pimp out and jump on board with the ones getting good press, good buzz and something that smells suspiciously like a pending VC offer?

However you decide to triage, the fact is that there will be some people to whom you simply cannot offer a seat. And the reality is that if you try to take on board every poor bastard waving his hand in the water, you’re going to sink. The lifeboat will go down in the form of a divorce, a heart attack or a receivership — and take everyone with it.

Were I Pat Phelan, I’d restrict myself to one of each: one Little Start Up That Could, one Next Big Thing, and one I’m Hitching My Star to This Ride Because It’s Good for Me, Never Mind Them. I don’t believe anyone can really truly nurture more than that unless it is their full time job. But because I’m a sucker, I’d maybe also book a day a month for everyone else who knocked on my door, to meet and talk and then walk away.

And most importantly, I’d start making the mountains come to Mohammed, because if my name’s Pat Phelan, I spend entirely too much time on planes as it is.

So the thing about new gadgets is that they almost always require new apparatus for carting them around. The annoying thing about new gadgets is that the carrying cases can cost as much as, and sometimes more than, the damn gadgets did in the first place - if you can even find them at all.

I’ve just plain given up on finding a sleeve for my sparkly new phone, and in terms of laptop bags, I very nearly despaired. If you’re a guy, it’s easy: head to Timbuk2 and order up anything that catches your fancy. That’s it - you’re sorted for whizz and Es. If you’re a chick, though, most of the options out there are enough to make you weep with the ugly.

Even the custom Timbuk2 bags, while very well intentioned, are bit misguided in their execution:

Call me crazy, but that just is not $210 worth of pretty.

Much better looking are the variety of laptop sleeves out there, which you can of course shove into the roomy bag of your choice. My standard for good sleeves is that they be custom sized to your laptop. If you’re a Mac owner, than the world is your oyster (but you already knew that, you smug Mac whore, didn’t you?)

Velvet Idole makes really well produced leather zip cases for all Mac laptop sizes, and considering how very stylish they are, €75 is a fair price. Fabrix Cases also makes Mac sleeves in some truly lush prints from florals to camos to business stripes, but for $50 they’ll make you one sized to your exact lappy dimensions:

If you prefer something a little more padded and just absolutely beautiful, you can buy one of the Tilly Moss sleeves I’ve been lusting after for almost a year. Again, they’re sized for Macs but for a mere €30, you can get one to snuggle your exact technological proportions.

Unfortunately, I am under strict instructions to by not just a sleeve but an entire laptop bag, preferably one made of armour. As recent events have proven, I am un-naturally hard on hardware, and if I could be forced to compute in a padded vault, my huband would probably lock me in there and just shove food under the door. Luckily, this isn’t a viable option, but buying a bag from Computer Fashions is:

These bags are hand made in a really fabulous range of Amy Butler fabrics, usually combing florals with dots or stripes. They come in two ranges: a narrow profile padded laptop messenger bag ($49.00), and a larger, deeper laptop/diaper bag version ($69.00). Both can be custom sized to your gear, and there are options you can add like key clips, adjustable straps and mobile pockets, too.

And one will by mine. Oh yes, yes it will.

So a couple of weeks ago I lost my phone, and while I enjoyed the momentary respite afforded by having nobody ring me, this is 2008 and a girl needs a phone. Over the course of a few retail trips, I had pretty much convinced myself to drop €400 on an iPhone, mostly just because I thought I should have one. But the iPhone, for all its wonders, has one major failing: it does not come in pink.

Which more or less explains why I instead walked out of The Carphone Warehouse with a Sony Ericson W580i Walkman™ Phone that cost, after trading in an old phone and signing up for the Meteor calling plan I wanted anyway, a grand total of €29. (Please note: I also have a new number - 085 702 8212.)

It is very, very pink. The front is pink. The back is pink. Slide it open, and the rear slide panel is practically fuchsia and glitters like a Barbie disco ball. The earbuds, too, are pink, as is the mic jack.

But my absolute favourite part is when you open it up, it has little pink rhinestones in between the numbers:

This phone is, in short, every 9 year old girl’s telecommunications dream. Given that I actually was 9 years old when I got my very first Walkman back in 1981, I’m enjoying the retro flashback. Back then, they were approximately the size of a paperback, weighed as much as a small child, and used this old fashioned music recording device called a tape. If you shook or dropped it, it would skip. Nowadays, if I want to randomise my MP3 playlist on this thing, I can just shake my phone and it mixes everything up without missing a beat.

I absolutely loved it even before I found out that dude, MY PHONE HAS THE SIMS ON IT. Okay, so it’s a lightweight and kind of lame version, but whatever: Sims! I has them! On my phone!

So anyway, despite new computers, new laptops and even new houses, as far as I’m concerned this is the best 30 quid I’ve spent in a long, long time. Sadly, our love affair so far as been torrid but all too brief: the phone refuses to charge. So tomorrow we’re going back to hopefully get that sorted, which is obviously critical.

Not because I’m desperate to take anyone’s calls, but because my Sims are waiting for me.

I’m pretty sure that the past four plus weeks will go down in my personal history as The Month That Shall Live in Infamy. Special highlights include:

• The kidney infection that was actually peritonitis;
• The dead workstation;
• The dead laptop;
• The lost mobile phone.

Now, I’m not normally one of those annoying PollyAnna “the glass is half full, clouds have silver linings!” people, but on the plus side:

• The list of dead things does not include me;
• New computer, woot!
• New laptop, woot!
• New mobile phone, woot!

Obviously, none of that stuff is free, but I can tell you that the new laptop I’m typing on is very shiny (literally - the screen is one of those reflective glass-like screens and it is cool), the new computer is both screamingly fast and gloriously stable, and the new phone that arrives tomorrow is very pink and has rhinestones.

These were all small cash outlays, however, compared to the kick in the ass purchase pending for May, namely a house. This has all been arranged at lightening-fast speed, and while we’re still waiting on the final loan approval, things look good; an offer was accepted, a deposit was paid, and hopefully it will all go well.

Everyone keeps telling me this is a marvellous way to spend several hundred thousand euros, and that few things in life can compare to the satisfaction of opening the door to your own home and knowing it is your door. I keep pointing out that when the door falls off the hinges and the roof caves in, it is still your door, but everyone seems happy to just gloss over that bit. Perhaps this is a secret conspiracy of the home owner cabal, sort of how new parents feel obligated to tell you that babies are absolutely marvellous and this is the best thing they’ve ever signed up to spend €20K a year on while getting 3 hours of sleep per night and secretly sobbing in the shower every day. But there you have it; we’re willingly joining the cabal and no doubt I’ll be telling you about how absolutely marvellous it all is in short order.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing that mortgage insurance premiums are not based on the luck of the insured. I’d never qualify.

After several weeks of behind-the-scenes action, I was delighted to see TwitterFone launch today. This was a slightly unusual project in that I did the design and provided mock-ups, graphics and copy for the whole flow from the home page right through the registration and confirmation process, but the actual coding was done by the TwitterFone internal team - and a very tasty job they did, too. Also very cool to see a site I designed on TechCrunch.