Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Customer service, where are you? Two of my favorite apps are screwing with my head, and no one cares.
Sigh.
Technology...can't live with it, can't run over it with your car. Particularly if it's software.
Lately two of my favorite and most-used apps are screwing with my head, and repeated emails to their customer service department have resulted in exactly NO response. Now, with one of the apps it's kind of understandable...it's an old legacy app that probably has one guy who works on it every third Sunday from midnight to 2AM.
But the other app? Major, popular, very much still alive app.
App #1: iBlog
iBlog is the desktop app behind my personal blog. It's a desktop app, which carries with it its own risks. I got this app as a freebie when I sigend up for .Mac back in 2003, and it's not exactly a currently maintained piece of software. Recently I went to go find my own archived post about September 11th, one I've republished every year on September 11 since 2004. And when I went to my archives I notice that my archives stop at 2006. Where is 2007? Where is 2008? Who knows. When did this problem start? Who knows. All the posts still exist, because I can google and find them, but there is no way to navigate to them, and I am pissed.
Emailed customer support on 09/11 and 09/13.
No response. No surprise. Hitting forums is next, but so tedious.
App #2: NetNewsWire
See now, this is owned by NewsGator now, and they are a big kahuna in the RSS reader world. This is not some abandoned app. And please note I said NetNewsWire" not "NetNewsWire Lite." I paid for the license all so I could try to synch between by desktop and laptop. That synching has never really worked very well, but OK, it's no tragedy. What is the tragedy is that the last couple of times I actually exited and then re-opened the app, it gives me a message that my "trial demo" is set to expire, um, today.
And when I try to re-enter my license key, which I still have, it's asking me for a username/password, which I'm pretty sure I did not have to have back when I bought this app. So, now I am avoiding closing this app for fear I won't get it back.
Emailed customer support on 09/10 and 09/13.
No response. Big surprise. And totally unacceptable.
Sigh and double sigh.
I'll say it again: Technology...can't live with it, can't run over it with your car. Particularly if it's software.
Technology...can't live with it, can't run over it with your car. Particularly if it's software.
Lately two of my favorite and most-used apps are screwing with my head, and repeated emails to their customer service department have resulted in exactly NO response. Now, with one of the apps it's kind of understandable...it's an old legacy app that probably has one guy who works on it every third Sunday from midnight to 2AM.
But the other app? Major, popular, very much still alive app.
App #1: iBlog
iBlog is the desktop app behind my personal blog. It's a desktop app, which carries with it its own risks. I got this app as a freebie when I sigend up for .Mac back in 2003, and it's not exactly a currently maintained piece of software. Recently I went to go find my own archived post about September 11th, one I've republished every year on September 11 since 2004. And when I went to my archives I notice that my archives stop at 2006. Where is 2007? Where is 2008? Who knows. When did this problem start? Who knows. All the posts still exist, because I can google and find them, but there is no way to navigate to them, and I am pissed.
Emailed customer support on 09/11 and 09/13.
No response. No surprise. Hitting forums is next, but so tedious.
App #2: NetNewsWire
See now, this is owned by NewsGator now, and they are a big kahuna in the RSS reader world. This is not some abandoned app. And please note I said NetNewsWire" not "NetNewsWire Lite." I paid for the license all so I could try to synch between by desktop and laptop. That synching has never really worked very well, but OK, it's no tragedy. What is the tragedy is that the last couple of times I actually exited and then re-opened the app, it gives me a message that my "trial demo" is set to expire, um, today.
And when I try to re-enter my license key, which I still have, it's asking me for a username/password, which I'm pretty sure I did not have to have back when I bought this app. So, now I am avoiding closing this app for fear I won't get it back.
Emailed customer support on 09/10 and 09/13.
No response. Big surprise. And totally unacceptable.
Sigh and double sigh.
I'll say it again: Technology...can't live with it, can't run over it with your car. Particularly if it's software.
Labels: customer support, iblog, netnewswire, newsgator
// posted by ElisaC @ 5:35 PM 
Comments:
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What version of NetNewsWire are you running? There's no way it should say anything about a trial demo unless you're using a version from last year. (It's free now: there is no trial demo.)
You can get the current version here:
http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/
You can get the current version here:
http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/
# posted by 
: 9/17/2008 8:42 AM
: 9/17/2008 8:42 AM
Thanks for commenting Brent. It says version 3.0.
I'll go ahead and download the free version, but seriously: it's awesome that you're on top of blog posts, but where is customer service, and why have a customer service email if no one is going to use it?
I'll let you know if I have continued issues after downloading new version...very strange thing out of the blue, I must say.
Thanks again.
I'll go ahead and download the free version, but seriously: it's awesome that you're on top of blog posts, but where is customer service, and why have a customer service email if no one is going to use it?
I'll let you know if I have continued issues after downloading new version...very strange thing out of the blue, I must say.
Thanks again.
I am sorry about the customer service problem. I will look into it.
In the meantime, though, the upgrade should do the trick. All that demo/trial stuff is completely gone from the application.
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In the meantime, though, the upgrade should do the trick. All that demo/trial stuff is completely gone from the application.
# posted by : 9/17/2008 6:44 PM
: 9/17/2008 6:44 PM << Home
