Just this week, as the dust settles after that huge service interruption at Skype, we hear that the Blogger and Blogspot features at Google, where blogs are hosted for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of users, also had a service interruption, after lots of lots of lesser glitches.

Why this happens may not be especially important in the scheme of things, but it’s worth mentioning. After first blaming Microsoft for the constant PC restarts occasioned by one of their Tuesday security updates affecting the login process, Skype attributed their problems to a “perfect storm,” where some software algorithm issue prevented millions of users connecting late last week.

Now it’s fair to say that Blogger users are getting their service free of charge. With Skype, you only pay when you make and receive calls beyond the boundaries of its PC to PC service, and then the prices are fairly modest. But these aren’t the first nor the last problems folks have had to endure.

Consider the stability issues with email at Hotmail — or whatever Microsoft calls it these days — and other services of that type, such as Google’s Gmail, Yahoo and others.

Of course, if you aren’t paying for a service in the first place, perhaps you should cut them some slack and accept the situation. After all, what should you expect to get for free? But it’s not that simple, because all these services attract millions of users, some of whom use them for business purposes. More to the point, there are value-added extras, which do carry price tags.

Add to this Apple’s .Mac, which was recently refreshed with extra storage and bandwidth, and now competes in many respect with lower-cost Web hosting services for your dollars — or whatever means of currency you use in your country. However, as many of you with mac.com addresses will tell me, you have found less than industrial-strength reliability there too, with occasional outages of varying periods.

I dare say that a lot of the people who write me for personal and business reasons provide email address identifying the above providers. On the surface at least, it seems like a good idea, because you are not tethered to the limits of your own ISP and can send and receive mail from around the world without having to switch outgoing (SMTP) settings and so on and so forth. If you decide to go to another ISP, you don’t have to send change of address notices to your contact list.

Indeed, I also seldom use my ISP for email, but in my case, my mailboxes are all hosted at our sites, and I have full control over spam filtering, mailbox size and access. Of course, I also pay more than you would at any of the above services for these privileges. At the same time, email is a critical part of my company’s business, and it needs to be as reliable as possible.

To be sure, perhaps you should move your business mail to a professional email or Web host that provides professional service for these features. It’s not that the costs are high. Many of these firms charge less than $4.00 to host your custom domain, email and whatever personal or business sites you wish to create. As your business needs expand, you can upgrade to virtual or regular dedicated servers.

It all comes down to this: Google and Yahoo and other huge Web portals want your traffic as a means to sell ads. That’s where they really earn their incomes, and even if you opt for a few paid services along the way, that’s not going to impact their bottom lines all that much. It’s somewhat different for the 1.7 million members of Apple’s .Mac, who pay $99 per year, or perhaps more for family packages and extra storage and bandwidth. That’s a pretty sizable amount of money, and it ought to be sufficient to enture superior reliability.

Of course, when it comes to Apple, .Mac is also a value-added product that integrates its hardware and software in a simple, unified fashion that are supposed to “just work,” although some would question the accuracy of that phrase. While still a consumer-oriented tool, you have a right to expect minimal service interruptions.

Skype also serves a business function, as part of the eBay empire, and it was purchased to provide businesses with a way to communicate with their customers as part of the auction and sales process. To be fair to Skype, service interruptions are quite rare, and the more common symptoms are sudden disconnects or perhaps distorted sound, which usually clears up when you reconnect.

I use Skype for business as well, as a networking tool to conduct interviews for my two radio shows. I also pay to make and receive calls from regular phones, and I expect high quality.

To be fair, even the dedicated Web host may run into network and server troubles on occasion. That’s the nature of the beast. In the end, it’s quite possible to get good service from the big companies, even if email, telephony and hosting aren’t their main businesses. But there are lots and lots of options out there, and if the company you’re using isn’t performing to your expectations, just take your business elsewhere.

Before every last one of you gentle readers delivers a collective, ear-shattering “yes” to that question, maybe we should look more carefully at all the possibilities. Could it be that Apple’s business strategy works best the way it’s being executed, even if we don’t like it very much?

To attempt to answer that question, let’s look at the way reporters approach a story. If they know something important is happening at a given date and time, you might look forward to a minimum of three stories. First about the event that’s about to happen, second about the event itself, and, finally, the summary with perhaps the reason for the event and its possible significance.

When it comes to an event staged by a company building consumer products, it has to be done judiciously. Harried, overworked reporters are already overwhelmed with invitations, and they have to pick and choose with care. But when a company gets coverage, it can be worth potentially millions of dollars in free publicity, and all without having to spend a dime on ads.

Now after years of being talked about as beleaguered and blamed for having but a tiny share of the PC market, Apple has apparently located the end of the rainbow, and found that huge pot of gold. Everything they release garners worldwide coverage, yet they are regarded as being quite as secretive as the CIA, and perhaps even more so.

Whereas a company like Intel or Microsoft will tout product road maps and, in the case of the former, actually meet their goals, Apple tells you very little about what it’s working on. When they do, there’s an important strategic reason. So, for example, developers need to have advanced knowledge about a major upgrade to the Mac OS. At the same time, the extra publicity doesn’t hurt, so Apple stages a huge gathering to disclose carefully selected details about the new system. In recent years, it’s been a part of the WWDC, which attracts thousands of Mac developers from around the world.

The campaign to introduce the iPhone was nothing short of masterful. After years of rumors about such a gadget, Apple removed the curtains and displayed their new creation, even before, it turns out, they made a deal with Cisco to use the iPhone name. Then again, perhaps that was deliberate, knowing that a little controversy over the rights to call the product by its preordained name would garner a proper level of headlines to keep up interest.

Indeed, a few days prior to the iPhone’s debut, people were seated in front of various branches of Apple Stores around the country, smiling for the newspaper and TV cameras and boasting of their intentions to be among the first to take one home. A few even promised to put their phones up for sale on eBay, hoping to attract a little extra income, perhaps to finance their own purchases and calling plans.

By the time the iPhone actually left the starting gate, both the Apple Store and AT&T could barely keep the things in stock, and people still couldn’t stop talking. Nor could the press, and the feeding frenzy reached a point where sales estimates were not only off the charts but way into the stratosphere.

When it comes to the next major revision to the Mac, however, you hear little or nothing until the shipping date arrives or shortly before. Whether the product’s arrival is announced with a special event or simply a press release depends on where it fits into Apple’s marketing plans.

The new iMac and updated versions of iLife and iWork was sufficient cause to summon selected members of the press corps to the Apple campus at Cupertino, CA to get a sales pitch direct from Steve Jobs. That, and a brief question and answer session, was sufficient to provide the media with fodder for several days of stories. A number of review samples were also supplied, but there are never enough units to satisfy the demand.

Besides, Apple is no doubt reserving a fair number of iMacs for product placements on TV and the movies.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t find out things about Apple when they have nothing to say. These days, you don’t just have to depend on Mac rumor sites either. The mainstream press often gets into the game as well. The more Apple says nothing, the more people talk.

The latest reports, for example, have it that Apple’s note-book sales are soaring to levels beyond what anyone previously predicted. It’s quote possible that the iMac will also add a substantial share to the total number of Macs moved this quarter, and perhaps some Mac minis will be sold as well, although Apple is doing its best, it seems, to keep that model a secret.

Through all this, Apple doesn’t have to say very much to keep things in motion.

I’ve been accused from time to time of creating strong and lurid headlines, in the fashion of a weekly “supermarket” tabloid newspaper. I’ll grant you that my headlines are apt to be strong, but they are always meant to reflect the contents.

You see, over the years, I’ve run various commentaries that fit into the “war stories” category, in which people talk about the horrendous problems they’ve encountered from time to time getting Apple to help them with a hardware or software problem. At the same time, despite the occasional pain and agony, almost every last one of these people will buy a new Mac when the time is ripe to replace that old computer, even a defective one.

It’s not that these problems are necessarily minor. If you look at Apple’s history of extended repair programs, you’ll see a serioius slate of ills, such as failing logic boards, power supplies, batteries and a host of other components. Software seems to require regular updates to set things right. On the same day iLife ’08 appeared, for example, an iPhoto 7.0.1 updater was ready to roll and iWeb has since had its own update to address various “point-zero” issues.

Here’s a very recent example of a hardware issue, a serious one in fact. One of my friends recently ordered a refurbished MacBook Pro direct from Apple. Since he was leaving the country on a two-week trip, he requested delivery prior to his departure.

Alas, the computer arrived late, and when he returned home, he opened the box to find the unit seriously damaged and inoperable. He phoned Apple, expecting quick resolution, and was told that Apple only accepted a DOA return within 14 days after the product shipped, despite the fact that he didn’t actually receive and open the package until after that date.

He fought and fought tooth and nail to gain some relief over the illogical nature of their position and finally realized he had to drop his press card into the argument. You see, he’s also a writer for a computer magazine, and intended to use his MacBook Pro to evaluate how the products he writes about function on an Intel-based Mac. Suddenly, they changed their tune, and agreed to a product swap. I’ll let you know when and if the replacement computer arrives, but I have to wonder whether this dispute would have been resolved had he not been a tech writer.

In the meantime, it’s clear that Apple’s support people don’t fully comprehend their actual support policies. Here’s how they are supposed to deal with broken hardware, as copied direct from Apple’s online store:

“An Apple-branded hardware product is considered DOA if it shows symptoms of a hardware failure, preventing basic operability, when you first use it after opening the box. If you believe that your product is DOA, please call AppleCare Technical Support at 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273) within 30 calendar days of the invoice date.”

In addition to defective products, it’s clear from some of the comments posted on The Night Owl that a number of you sharply disagree with some of Apple’s design and marketing decisions. Indeed, it’s fair to say that some product configurations seem to be developed by alien lifeforms, such as the hockey puck mouse that graced the early iMac. The flawed but beautiful Cube might fit into this category, particularly the fact that its touch-sensitive switch was so flaky that the mere pass of a hand containing a cleaning cloth to rid the thing of accumulated dust would cause it to drift off into sleep mode. You wouldn’t dare put your fingers too close, and I wonder how many kids did just that, the better to annoy their parents.

What about the iMac with the articulated arm, or the fact that early MacBooks and MacBook Pros ran a little on the hot side until Apple learned how to tame their cooling fans?

More important, consider how some of you are reacting to the new iMac’s glossy screen, the new aluminum-clad keyboard with built-in MacBook-style keys and other recent product upgrades. How could Apple commit such follies, when they are supposedly catering to the needs of their customers?

There are, by the way, also complaints about some of the more extreme eye-candy promised for Mac OS X Leopard. Until that operating system actually ships, though, I suppose this is best left in the category of a potential disaster rather than a real one.

Despite all these often downright annoying issues, recent surveys continue to suggest that more and more people plan to buy Macs in the coming months. So perhaps you continue to believe that, despite all its flaws, Apple still builds the best personal computers on the planet. But you still don’t love the company.

Over the years, I’ve complained about Consumer Reports and its reviews of personal computers, particularly Macs. It’s not because they necessarily print false information, but incomplete reports, simplified to make it acceptable to what they regard as a non-technical audience. But that also makes it extremely deficient and of little use if you really want to make a decision as to whether to buy a Mac or a PC.

So where do you find the product reviews on tech gear you need to make an informed decision on what to buy?

Well, there are all those print magazines you’re accustomed to, such as Macworld, MacLife (the magazine formerly known as MacAddict) and their online equivalents. They have been around for years, and gained reputations for careful research and attention to detail. They also promise to separate the advertising from the editorial departments, so content isn’t dictated by how many pages a company buys.

For the most part, I’ve been pleased with the quality of their work. I’ve found exceptions, of course, such as InfoWorld, which has published some printer reviews that I found totally unacceptable in terms of basic accuracy and objectivity. Attempts to contact the writers and get an explanation as to why they made such egregious errors resulted in one of the silliest attempts at stonewalling I’ve seen in quite some time.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.