Yahoo R.I.P.

Every now and then some purveyor or other throws a monkey wrench into the machinery, and you have to scramble around and find a new way to do something you’ve been doing perfectly well for years. The latest wrench-tosser is Yahoo. The Sailors have been using Yahoo groups since the dawn of computer time. Not only was there basic listserver functionality, but a built-in calendar and databases I could create for signing up for tournaments and places to store files. I chose Yahoo over Google because Yahoo's groups offered all this other stuff while Google’s didn’t. But in a fit of Google-envy, Yahoo has upgraded (?) its groups by removing most of this functionality, and seriously damaging the functionality it didn’t remove. There were so many mouse clicks to get anywhere, if you could even find where to go, that I threw up my hands in disgust. I’m not the only one. Response to these changes among users seem to be uniformly disgusted hand throw-ups.

So, over to Google we go. Google still doesn’t have that functionality built into its literal group software, but it does have Drive and Calendars and so forth, so it’s all there under the Google umbrella. And let’s face it, the Google umbrella is way more coin of the realm these days than Yahoo. I’m even changing my default email to my Google account (although that’s a process that I expect will take months). The switch from Yahoo to Google amongst the Hendronauts was very efficient; I think I got them all over in one day or so. Most of them already had Google accounts, so it was really no big deal. Getting the Speecho-American coach over won’t be quite so easy, as she uses email once a year whether she needs it or not, and always from a different address, but we’ll deal with that. She’s a great coach, just not much of a computist; give me the former any day.

Tonight is a true Forensipalooza. I’ve got people dropping off trophies, I’ve got the speech coach over for a parlay, and the debaters will be chezzing it up for their regular meeting. Quite a zoo, but at least it’s all one night, leaving the rest of the week free to not do any of those things. CP is en route to the good old USA today, so he can stop sending snarky responses about his new software from the UK and get back to doing it from American soil, as is his wont. We’ll meet up Saturday as I’ve said at Collegiate to go over things with the usual suspects.

And things are really beginning to heat up for the Pups. Way too many unresolved registrations. I want them to let me start haranguing people, but it’s their game so they keep sending out nice pleasant reminders instead of GET YOUR #(*&$%%%$ BUTTS IN GEAR, YOU MEATHEADS messages, which are something of a specialty on my part. Oh, well. Things will work out. They always do.