Yahoo groups down next week

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

FYI from Yahoo Groups

- Helen

Yahoo! Groups will be unavailable for 4 hours from Monday, October 3rd starting

8:30 p.m. PST to Tuesday,October 4th 00:30 PST, due to planned maintenance.

[Guest guest]

So what time is that EDT? I know there is basically a 3 hour difference between east and west coast, but throw in standard time in the west and daylight time in the east and I'm getting confused - are we talking a 4 hour difference now or a 2 hour difference? ~ "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."--Albert Camus Sent from my VZW BlackBerrySender: aspires-relationships Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:45:50 +0000To: <aspires-relationships >ReplyTo: aspires-relationships Subject: Yahoo groups down next week Hi all,FYI from Yahoo Groups- HelenYahoo! Groups will be unavailable for 4 hours from Monday, October 3rd starting 8:30 p.m. PST to Tuesday,October 4th 00:30 PST, due to planned maintenance.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Those weren't my words. Those who read Yahoo posts off the web would see this

notice too. I was just passing it along.

Since we have members all around the world, best I can do for y'all is give you

this link: http://www.worldtimezone.com/ and if you want further refinement,

click on a coloured area it will zoom in.

- Helen

>

> So what time is that EDT? I know there is basically a 3 hour difference

between east and west coast, but throw in standard time in the west and daylight

time in the east and I'm getting confused - are we talking a 4 hour difference

now or a 2 hour difference?

>

> ~

>

> " Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be

normal. "

> --Albert Camus

>

> Sent from my VZW BlackBerry

>

> Yahoo groups down next week

>

> Hi all,

> FYI from Yahoo Groups

> - Helen

>

> Yahoo! Groups will be unavailable for 4 hours from Monday, October 3rd

starting 8:30 p.m. PST to Tuesday,October 4th 00:30 PST, due to planned

maintenance.

>

[Guest guest]

Hi , Liz and all,

Now that I have the physical and mental wherewithal to fully and completely " go

there " with this one (LOL!!) ..... for those who just want to know the bottom

line, scroll to the end of this post. For those who are bored, start reading

from the top

I, too, asked myself, " Why PST? North America is still on DST till the end of

October! Do they really mean for users to adjust it to PDT, and then calculate

what it means in their own time zone? Or was that a mistake? " In making any

sort of pronouncement as to exact timings for anyone on this board, I'd run the

risk of compounding an error myself.

I'm pretty sure that a machine generated that notice, a machine that has not

been touched by human hands since who knows when, and it does not know that most

of North America, and some of Europe, is on Daylight Savings time right now.

In a nod to their global subscribers, as opposed to, say (sorry, Bill!)

Californians .. and come to think if it, this notice would leave them scratching

their heads too .. the Notice Machine could have expressed the time in GMT or

the politically correct UTC. Most electronic message services' time stamps are

in UTC, plus or minus x number of hours, and adjust to your ISP's location.

However, this probably would not satisfy North American subscribers, as our

parochial sense of entitlement decrees that the rest of the world must adjust to

our units and standards.

So, to clear up confusion, and satisfy what Yahoo Groups perceives the majority

of their subscribers, the Notice Machine should have said " Pacific Time. " It

could crank out that message into perpetuity, it would be valid all year round,

and make sense .. at least to North Americans. But hey, you overseas members

just automatically " do the math " in your heads, right? I bet they teach you that

in primary school when you first learn to count and tell time, right? (please,

no one take this last part seriously ...)

But anyway, since I have never been able to reach a live human at Yahoo for

clarification on such things, all I could do is pass on the information, and

leave our good members to divine what they may.

The dusty Notice Machine's negligence points to the challenges that Yahoo, as a

whole, must be facing. Yahoo's market share has lost ground to all the up and

comers, and they have fired their CEO. Her mandate was to increase profit, and

though she did admirably in the short time she had, it apparently wasn't enough

for the shareholders. This makes me wonder about the future of Yahoo Groups,

which must be an increasingly unprofitable backwater in Yahoo's sprawling

empire.

Yahoo Groups' subscribers are an increasingly aging demographic, neither wealthy

nor Internet savvy enough to advertisers wanting to track our consumer

preferences. Except for occasional spam from a legitimate member whose email

address was spoofed by script kiddies, we don't even attract hackers anymore.

All we get is an occasional troll

This group's home may be getting creaky and long in the tooth, but it's safe in

relation to what's out there in the " brave new world " of the digital universe.

But, eventually, we may have to find new home. And that will be sad.

Getting back to our current " brain-itch " issue (leave it to us Aspies, eh? LOL!)

based on what the notice said, we may reliably assume the following:

1) Regardless of when the outage occurs, it will be four hours in duration.

Yahoo Groups has used this four hour maintenance window in the past.

2) For all of our ASPIRES family:

- If you live in Alaska, Hawaii, or French Polynesia, the planned four hour

outage will happen this coming Monday evening.

- If you live in the rest of North America, Central America, and some parts of

South America, it will happen between later, or late ,this coming Monday evening

and early Tuesday morning.

- If you live any place else in the world, it will happen this coming Tuesday at

some point during your day.

And finally ... a word to the wise: Sometimes Yahoo Groups are back online

before the four hours are up, but sometimes they experience intermittent

glitches that can run into days, LOL.

- Helen