Probably Random

A stuttering start

February 19, 2008 3:12 pm tonkas Strategy

I thought the decision on what tools we would use for collaborating would be the problem, once we’d chosen all would be easy, I mean we were all involved in the decision process so it’s not like we’re forcing it on anyone.

I didn’t expect my main problem to be Google! having registered for the Google apps small business package you have to verify your domain. no problem upload an HTML file click the link to check it’s there, bobs yer uncle.

Hmm, no not quite. ‘sorry we are unable to verify your domain….’ what? are you trying to tell me after Google checkout couldn’t process our order (yeah we got an error there too ‘this page has been moved…’) we then register only to find out that Google of all people cannot read a simple HTML file which is in exactly the location they asked for? Well it seems not.

I checked their forum and it seems I’m not the only one (now I look like I haven’t done my research) everyone else posts their question and the nice people at Google fix it. but why does it take human intervention? I’m undecided as to whether to name the domain I’m trying to get working. I should just be able to say, I followed your instructions so you’d better do it right, not go in and fix it up by hand. If your product doesn’t do what it says, if your help is wrong then I’m having second thoughts.

Seth had this to say about communication which seemed to ring true with me.

The reason we chose these (google and clockingIT) were because of googles size, well theya ren’t going under anytime soon. and clockingIT being open source (and free) so we can run it. but now, the amount of time I have spent geting these solutions up and running would probably mean another of the solutions would have already paid for itself (until the day we can’t get your data out anyway…)

APOLOGY:
It seems google has now fixed the problem and my site has been verified, it just took a lot longer than they said it would… now it’s all going swimmingly…. well, i’m moving the MX records over the weekend so we’ll see!