Bogus Tech Support Phone Calls…

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A client of ours recently received a phone call (yes, scammers have made the leap to actually calling you) claiming that their server had detected an infection on her computer. This caller had a heavy accent and when pressed about who he was and what company he was with, he was extremely vague. He attempted to point out what files may have been infected on her computer by having her open her event viewer and he pointed out some errors and it was at this point, my client hung up the phone.

First and foremost, she wisely hung up on him. No legitimate tech company I know of, cold calls customers claiming to have seen an infection on a computer that you have and would attempt to help you over the phone*. It just doesn’t happen. Secondly, she has a reputable anti-malware program running at all times.

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WordPress and Backups

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When I acquired numerous bloggers as clients, one of the main services that I offered was regular backups of their WordPress blogs.  There are quite a few free plugins that will accomplish the necessary backups, but they never quite seemed reliable enough nor easy enough to not have to worry about them and some just weren’t being updated anymore.

There are quite a few online services that offer WordPress backup functionality but in all the ones that I’ve tried, only one really rises to the top – Blogvault.

Read more after the jump…

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An open letter to software companies..

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I open this posting for a couple of reasons, only one of which is important outside of myself.  Software/app companies frequently fall down with regard to customer service.  If you expect users to pay for your software, why would you completely ignore this rather obvious step?  

Customer support isn’t rocket-science, but with the lack of support I see from so many companies, you’d think it was harder than building the damn software in the first place.  Emails go unanswered.  Blog postings ignored.  Forum posts…well they’re forum posts.  I’m so tired of not getting proper support, I’ve decided to put together a list for you to peruse.  

If you aren’t interested in any of these, then don’t get in the business of selling shit to people.  Do not take my money if you never plan to support me for a reasonable amount of time after the purchase.  Seriously…

Warning, “salty” language ahead…

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Instapaper gets log-in behaviour right…

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I have to give kudos to Instapaper for handling logins correctly.  Let me give you the scenario.

I’m on a URL that I’d like to “read later”.  I have a “read later” button (just executes some javascript) in my Chrome bookmark bar that, when clicked, saves that URL to Instapaper, for…..wait for it…..reading later.  I need a read it later for read it later, but I digress.

Now, if I’m not logged into RIL, the site offers to let me either log in with existing credentials or create an account.  I log in using my existing credentials, then RIL saves the original URL and then sends me back to the original URL.  Can I just say PERFECT!?!

If I am already logged into RIL, then a dialog box pops up on the screen, while staying on the original URL, that simply says “SAVED!”…without ever leaving the original URL.

You’d be surprised how many websites get something as basic as this…WRONG.

BreezingForms and Joomla 1.5

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I still have quite a few clients on Joomla 1.5.  I recently had to accomodate a file upload scenario in which a customer could upload photos for editing in a Joomla 1.5 installation.

I chose breezingforms for a couple of reasons.  Uber customizable and very powerful.  But having said that, the documentation is surprisingly lacking.  The devs however, are fairly responsive in both the forums and via email.

The client had a need to let a logged in user, upload files.  But instead of just dropping the uploaded files in a directory that everyone has access to, which is pretty easy with Joomla, I decided that it would be safer and easier for the logged in user to upload files in their own folder.  breezingforms doesn’t do this by default, so it takes some finagling to get it there.

I wanted a folder to be auto-created based on the users name when they uploaded files.  The following code does this quite successfully.

I’m posting this here incase it can help someone else that’s using breezingforms.  Read the rest after the break…

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Voxtopia shutting it’s doors…

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Virtual phone number provider Voxtopia is shutting it’s doors.  They make it sound like it might be temporary, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

After a few years of dedication, hard work and tremendous focus on making Voxtopia the best Virtual Phone Number service around, we can no longer afford to keep the ship sailing. As such, we are forced to shut our doors until further notice. We hope you’ve enjoyed our service while it lasted and apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.

- The Voxtopia Crew

Reddit calls on Wikipedia to give up GoDaddy…

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This post over at Reddit, is calling for Wikipedia, arguably a very high profile website, to transfer their domain name from GoDaddy to someone else who doesn’t support SOPA.

Another user, veritasen, has come up with (or at least the first to post it) about creating a donation website to give all donations to Wikipedia, if they move their domain over to another provider.  I wholeheartedly endorse this.

Update 5:  AAAAANNNDDDDD GoDaddy no longer officially supports SOPA.

Update 4:  Wikipedia owner, Jimmy Wales, has just tweeted that he will indeed be moving his domain away from GoDaddy because of their stance on SOPA.

Update 3:  GoDaddy has a big shoulder shrug in response to the boycott.

Update 2:  Here are very specific steps you can take to transfer any domains you may have with GoDaddy to another company who does not support SOPA, which WITS pledges to do shortly.

Update 1:  User neilk, who claims to be a Wikimedia Foundation software engineer has this to say,

 

Hi guys. Wikimedia Foundation software engineer here. Our staff is tiny, so this means I sit about in the same room as the people who can deal with this.

I’m not speaking for that team, but I’m going to suggest you all be patient.

We have a rule to never make big changes to the website on Friday unless it’s an emergency. This probably goes double for DNS changes, which as any techie will tell you, often go wrong. And this is the Christmas weekend, so already much of the tech staff is traveling or taking a vacation day. And I think they’re sincerely hoping they aren’t pulled away from friends and family due to the site being unavailable. This is a terrible time to make a big change. For a site as big as Wikipedia this takes considerable planning.

That said, I know that a number of Wikimedia Foundation people moved some personal domains from GoDaddy the other day, including myself. The Foundation has already publicly stated that [1] SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia, and the English Wikipedia community is seriously considering a form of [2] sitewide blackout as protest, sometime in January.

Top 10 Awesome Customer Support Experiences…

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Well 2011 is almost gone and because customer support is so much a part of who we are, we thought we’d list the top 10 companies that have given us, the best customer support over the past year.  Except we couldn’t reach to TEN…seriously.  We deal with tons of companies on a monthly and sometimes daily basis and we couldn’t get to a top ten list.

So without further ado, here’s the top 3 in no particular order…

 

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