Daily Cal Downtime Continues
*Update II* Mystery solved. I was checking dailycal.org (as apparently were a number of other people) and for whatever reason, that address had stopped working, and only the full www.dailycal.org would lead to the website. And yes, calling the Daily Cal would have easily led me to that answer, but then I couldn’t have posted all the comments from the Berkeley LiveJournal. *End Update*
*Update* I’m trying to open up the Daily Cal website and it isn’t working. Beetle says it isn’t working for him either. Are we the only two who can’t access it, but everyone else can, or are other people having trouble too? *End Update*
I figured that the Daily Cal would be down for a couple of days and then they would bring the website back, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I was hoping to get in touch with some of the higher ups at the DC to find out what the situation is, but alas, I don’t know who those people are and I can’t check (because the website is down). Hopefully one of the tech people or an editor will see this and can leave a comment letting us know what is going on and when the Daily Cal might return. [And if this post doesn’t work, I’ll call the office and see if I can get an answer.]
If I were Beetle, this is where I would make a comment noting that the Daily Cal has previously won awards for their online prescence.
Anyway, here is (mildly humorus) exchange from the Berkeley LiveJournal Community about the Daily Cal outtage. Anything not in quotation marks is me paraphrasing.
Original Post: The Daily Cal website is down. What’s happening? Will someone scan copies of the paper and post them online?
Daily Cal staffer: Our computers are all really really crappy. Techincal difficulties… Please bear with us.
Patronizing computer guy: “We have to have the most incompetent student newspaper staff in the states.” Lots of downtime, no updates… you guys suck!
Daily Cal staffer response: “we have brilliant tech people who are making do with some horrendously outdated equipment and programs on extremely limited funding” We’re an independent newspaper, and being a newspaper is really hard, so you should cut us some slack.
Patronizing computer guy responds again: I know community colleges that do better with less funding. (zing!) Perhaps you guys should look into using non-crappy software and a non-crappy server. “I just think it’s utterly embarrassing that we supposedly one of the best schools in the world, and no one has figured out this asinine problem. Obviously, nobody has taken responsibility for it.”
Random Passerby: “Well, at least Squelch is up. They have better news anyway! Mwahahaha.” [Sidenote: here is the online PDF of the most recent version of the Squelch magazine.]
Beetle: The Daily Cal website being down “also makes my job tougher. Although I suspect that the Daily Cal may prefer it that way.”
the main problem is that the paper upgraded to the information age during the era of mac OS/9, which, as many know, is what webster’s defines as “a pile of ass.” the daily cal’s tech staff is far from incompetent; the issue is that they’re basically dealing with replacing a tech system wholesale which was purchased in 1999.
Comment by rwb — January 30, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
Just more evidence how far Calstuff has fallen. The Daily Cal has been online since Friday. As for not knowing who the powers that be are, just call the office and ask to speak to the editor, Addel Iqbal. Oh my gosh, his name can be found in the print edition too.
Sheesh, I never thought I’d say it, but I miss Kevin.
Comment by Anonymous — January 30, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
In what sense has the Daily Cal been online since Friday?
Comment by Beetle — January 30, 2006 @ 5:03 pm
In the sense that on Friday I typed in dailycal.org and poof it came up. Just as it did on Saturday, Sunday, and today. I can’t get the print edition and its the only way I see it, so believe me when I say I am even more frustrated than you when it isn’t working.
>
Comment by Anonymous — January 30, 2006 @ 6:47 pm
Fascinating. It hasn’t worked for me since last Tuesday or so.
Comment by Beetle — January 30, 2006 @ 7:05 pm
#4: Are you seeing the most updated page? Press F5 to refresh, to make sure you aren’t just seeing the cached copy.
Comment by patr — January 30, 2006 @ 7:52 pm
It doesn’t work for me if I type it in the address bar, but if you search for it on google and click one of the subsections (Sports, Greeks 05) under the name in the search results, the website works.
Comment by Clifton — January 30, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
it’s working fine
Comment by guy — January 30, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Ohhh, I get it. dailycal.org doesn’t exist. www.dailycal.org does. It’s like the 1990’s all over again.
Comment by Beetle — January 30, 2006 @ 9:11 pm
Noon: Tuesday. Daily Cal website works fine.
Comment by Donald — January 31, 2006 @ 11:55 am
Look, you provide a free service here in your spare time, so I try not to be overly critical. But this is ridiculous.
A Web site going down — a Web site other than, say class registration or ticketline — is not a story. But, worst of all, it seems that no one considered picking up the phone and making a call. That’s pretty basic reporting. One could even drop by on the Daily Cal on the sixth floor of Eshleman Hall. You could walk up the stairs or use the elevator, an invention of around the same vintage as the phone.
If you were incapable of doing better, this would just be silly, but since you are capable of better, it’s worse than that.
L.L.
Comment by L.L. Taraval — January 31, 2006 @ 11:55 am
Yes, shift the blame. Always an effective strategy.
Comment by iliketapioca — January 31, 2006 @ 12:02 pm
anyone else wonder if BAMN is behind the daily cal web outage?
Comment by chet — January 31, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
No.
Comment by Donald — January 31, 2006 @ 1:19 pm
BAMN or the world can’t wait coalition is onto this I’m sure.
Comment by Anonymous — January 31, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
Good thing the FBI is monitoring them. I hope the feds get to the bottom of this mess and capture the domestic terrorists.
Comment by chet — January 31, 2006 @ 3:29 pm
BAMN is too pussy to do anything By Any Means Necessary, too pussy to be domestic terrorists. They’re grad students. Why would grad students do anything risky? Instead they employ middle school kids to rob stores and cause unrest.
Comment by Anonymous — January 31, 2006 @ 6:34 pm
Update III: CalStuff intellectual downtime remains in effect.
Comment by Anonymous — February 1, 2006 @ 3:24 am
a couple of days without online crappy campus journalism sounds fine with me
Comment by N.E. Body — February 2, 2006 @ 3:23 am
Here’s an article about the ACLU trying to learn about the Pentagon monitoring S. Shingavi’s on-campus terrorist group.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/02/BAGNQH1CHB1.DTL
Comment by . — February 2, 2006 @ 7:46 am
A Haas lecturer gets murdered and all we have on Calstuff is stuff about the daily cal website being down?
For shame….
Comment by guy — February 2, 2006 @ 11:34 am