Fuck You Too, Barnes and Noble | Dark Hacker News

Fuck You Too, Barnes and Noble | Dark Hacker News

ohazi 11 years ago |

While I can sympathize with the author, this really has nothing to do with Barnes and Noble and everything to do with the consumer computing experience being watered down to the point where you no longer have any reasonable control over your device. The same thing could just as easily have happened on iOS or on Android, and the author would be just as fucked.

sswaner 11 years ago | |

The user should have a reasonable expectation that an app upgrade won't wipe data. Barnes and Noble failed to invest in enough quality (either design quality or quality assurance) to at least offer a warning that data would be lost.

However, as others have said - you should have had a backup.

ohazi 11 years ago | | |

But that's the problem... this isn't a reasonable expectation. I get that everybody wants their software to feel like magic nowadays, but a more realistic expectation is that programmers are human, software is buggy, and things are going to break every now and then.

If there's any chance that this breakage is going to be a problem for a user, then developers of the app (and the operating system!) should really be providing some way for the user to take preventive measures. This can even be done automatically, but it needs to be a little more robust than an "app updates shouldn't wipe user data" guideline.

This is one of the reasons you're not going to see tablets replace desktops/laptops with real operating system in the business environment any time soon.

javert 11 years ago | |

It has everything to do with Barnes and Noble: Apparently you can't get a person who is not reading from a script when you need help. That is a big problem.

ohazi 11 years ago | | |

He was taking notes on a device that isn't designed to save them in a standard format or let you back them up. Why does the rep's script have anything to do with it? His notes are gone, and there's nothing she can do about it.

EpicEng 11 years ago | |

This was on android, so you're right on that point. Sounds more like more poor engineering to me though.

arielm 11 years ago |

Losing weeks of work isn't pleasant, but I think your reaction is a bit over the top.

As a developer I know that even when you put in the time to bug test your app it can still misbehave, and as someone who's involved in managing a support team I think kathrine did a pretty good job considering she didn't erase the notes and she can't really will them back into existence.

I've lost plants of important data in the past because I only had it in one place, the lesson here is that when you have important data you really want you should keep it in more than one place.

Good luck with your novel!

javert 11 years ago | |

Politely, this is bullshit. If B&N's app is known to lose data regularly, B&N should be responsible for backing it up automatically. Otherwise, they should not pretend to store the data.

Moreover, I would not voluntarily do business with a company that doesn't provide actual answers in response to a support query. "Katherine didn't erase the notes" is not a valid answer: nobody erased the notes. Presumably, they are still there somewhere.

Scaevolus 11 years ago |

"Users don't care about files. We'll just store everything in the cloud!"

Depending on how long ago this happened (how much you've overwritten since then), you might be able to dump an image of your userdata partition and recover your notes.

http://extundelete.sourceforge.net/

Casseres 11 years ago |

That sucks, but I highly doubt a customer service rep knows what a .trash folder is or what shell access means. A customer service rep is just going to repeat what he/she has been instructed to say in that regard. It would be difficult, but if you managed to talk to someone who actually worked on the app, you might have had a chance.

WalterBright 11 years ago |

I've had to learn the bitter lesson of making backups, over and over. Bad engineering is only one of the endless ways to lose data.

shmerl 11 years ago |

One has to always back up important work. What if your hard drive just goes belly up tomorrow? You can lose months and months of work that way. If you value some information, just back it up. You can't rely on one copy.

gfunk911 11 years ago |

Sorry to blame the victim, but I'm gonna have to.

You took weeks of vitally important notes in the Barnes and Noble app on your Android Tablet? With no attempt at any point to save them elsewhere? I would find this to be an insanely bad idea even if I hadn't read this post

fleitz 11 years ago | |

You mean like people write notes on paper and they don't mysteriously disappear when you buy a new pen?

It's pretty standard to warn people of destructive actions.

istsehrgut 11 years ago |

This is just like the "OMG I JUST GOT HACKED AND AM MISSING MY LIFE SAVINGS OF 40 BITCOINS"

Turns out you ran remote viewing software on a computer that hadn't been updated, shared passwords between services and didn't back up anything.

Yeah... so you shouldn't store something so valuable on a medium you don't understand.