Last week, I was caught by captcha.  I couldn’t read and therefore failed a captcha challenge when trying to forward a blog post from within Google Reader to multiple recipients.

Just now the captcha death spiral happened again, but this time I think there’s a bug.  I passed the first captcha challenge and was presented a second, but, before I could type the second captcha challenge, it disappeared from the window and a new one appeared.  Ensuing was a fail spiral in which I was continuously presented with captcha challenges.  After each, the one I was never provided the opportunity to pass flashed briefly onscreen then disappeared.  Unable to attempt this elusive challenge, I was presented around 10 challenges in succession, interspersed with the one I wasn’t allowed to attempt.

I’m now locked out of my Google Account and cannot access Reader.  The last time, this lasted most of the day.

Fail.  :(

I’ve been forwarding a bunch of articles from my Google Account through Google Reader.  Subjected to captcha challenges, I failed to read a few properly and now am locked out of Google Reader (IP block) for an indeterminate amount of time.  Bummer.

The user experience here could have been better in two ways:

First, I knew I was having difficulty reading a few of the captchas — the text formatting was not clear to me — and I had no way to request a new captcha.  Nor did the challenge offer me different challenges — instead when I got one wrong it offered me another and then the same challenge I didn’t get right the first time.  These are best practices I’ve seen in other captcha programs that were missing (option to request a new captcha, presentation of a different one if one is entered incorrectly).

Second, the help page doesn’t set any clear timeframe for how long the IP block will persist, stating only:  ”Once the automated traffic has stopped, the ban on your IP address should be automatically lifted.”  As “network administrator,” I was given the option to submit a Web form to have the problem investigated.  I’ve done so and am now waiting . . . .

Luckily for me, I happen to know the head of product marketing for consumer products at Google and so have emailed her hoping for relief from this minor inconvenience.  :)

I’m in NYC.  I bumped into a couple Google folks — Google folks working on the Nexus One launch.  Sincerely, I congratulated them, knowing it was a big day for Google and imagining how much fun it would be to work on such a product/project.

Jokingly, I brandished my iPhone, teasing that I didn’t think I could switch.

Guess what?  They both had iPhones themselves — pulling them from their pockets to show me!

Coincidentally, today my brother just adopted Google Voice, his new “number for life,” although, luddite yet BlackBerry user that he is, I don’t imagine I’ll see him with an Android phone this decade.

Inspired in part by my colleague Adam Nash’s post on Google Reader, I made the switch a few weeks ago to Google Reader and have been entirely pleased with the clean UI and overall ease of use.

I’ve been using the Email function (see screen shot above) recently but, silly me, just fully realized that Google Reader is integrated only with Gmail. Lifehacker’s post on the integration characterized it as making it easy to share blog posts by email, and I agree that it is, indeed, easy — particularly if Gmail is your primary email application.

But I resent the forced lock-in to Gmail, especially because I predominantly use Yahoo for personal email. Bloglines and Feedburner, in contrast, allow the user to choose the “from” email address. I understand why Google would chose to integrate in this manner, but I don’t have to like it. The forced Gmail usage certainly fuels the Google is evil debate.