There was a review of a personal diary program, Day One, today on AppStorm, a site I visit from time to time.  It was an awful review lacking the most basic common sense.  This personal diary app stores data in plain text files that anyone can read:

The format is XML, but as you can see, I can view my diary entry 100% in the clear with TextEdit.

This means that anyone sitting down at my computer can open up my dropbox folder and view every single entry – even copy the file and view it on any other computer.  FAIL.

The reviewer didn’t obviously read over previous reviews of the product, and doesn’t address some longstanding concerns with the product.  For a product with a lack of connectivity, why bother?  If you’re going to use it for information you don’t trust to any other device/program, then for gosh sakes, the data has to be encrypted!  And the first commenter on the article says how features have been slow in coming…. that’s an important consideration too!

Really!

The bigger concern is really whether or not Envato properties are trustable – I’m becoming more wary that the sites I have questions about are owned by them.  They run a WordPress theme marketplace, and discussions with people having purchased themes there lean heavily towards not getting the help and support they expected or needed.

A copy of my comment:

I’m going to agree with Cal that the program doesn’t deserve a 10/10. Part of that is that literally the program seems to have some unacceptable shortcomings, like the absence of tagging, categories and um, /encryption/, and part of this is that if you are going to write a credible review for a program like this, you can’t review it exclusively of the desktop client, and the desktop client is very basic. I have 1.0 and there is no help file, no “check for updates”, nothing. This program really isn’t practically used exclusively of the desktop client, so it earns double the deductions for the missing required features of a journaling program.

In reality though, why are you reviewing any app so positively that is so void of any connectivity? Let’s adjust for reality: Developers are a dime a dozen and they come and go. This guy gets a job offer tomorrow and suddenly the app never gets any updates and people are stuck with their 2011 journal entries in this app, or worse yet, in a [RTF/TXT] document. How hard would it be to create an export to a format easily imported by any other program? Do you commonly use programs that have no ability to transfer data to any other program? If you had done your research you would have seen that there was a relatively longstanding complaint about the lack of export ability with this program, and it’s not clear what one gets with version 1.2 because all the developer wrote was “export to a text file” – I’d be looking for you to clarify that for me, the reader.

The fact that the app doesn’t connect to any other program in any other way certainly makes for a good private diary, but just how useful is that in the end if the idea is to put information in this program that one would not put anywhere else? Well, it would be possibly basically useful if it encrypted that presumably private information, but it doesn’t do that at all. I mean for gosh sake, I could password protect a word processing document…. And what format is it in now if it’s not actually encrypted, is it just sitting on text files for anyone to read who sits down to my computer where my dropbox is logged in all the time?

[5 minutes later] Well with 1.0, the results are fantastic! The file itself is stored in plain ol’ XML and viewable to anyone who wants to, with just a text editor. You can view a sample copy of a diary entry on my blog: http://robthecomputerguy.com/app-storm-day-one-review-fail/ ‎

As for iCloud support, I’m also in agreement with Cal on that one because haven’t developers had iCloud docs and access for at least 6 months now? I’m not totally sure that the delay in implementing that feature would be the developer’s or Apple’s fault – because as far as I can tell so far, iCloud is yet another iDisaster, the randomness of problems across every app, device and feature I’ve seen to date has been perplexing and a major downer.

As for features being slow in coming, that’s entirely relevant, and for you to ignore it is unacceptable. Could you not simply sit down and objectively look at whether or not the app met the basic [objective] requirements of a personal diary keeping program? You’re reviewing a product as opposed to the developer, but those considerations are important because on one hand the Developer could indeed be weighed down with Apple’s problems (and that’s relevant to all users, right?), but on the other hand at $12 a pop for the matched set, this Developer should be able to achieve a basic feature set appropriate to the app he’s selling – in particular, encryption, tags and categories are extremely important. Venture funding? Probably not. Some part time coding help? Gosh I’d hope so. The point is – because you clearly missed it – if the developer isn’t reinvesting in the program then it’s a high risk of take the money and run, and although you might disagree, the program is not even feature equipped enough to be rightfully considered beta software yet.

I’m sorry but more than the app, this review is a major and thorough fail.

You know, I’m becoming more wary of the Envato logo when it pops up on sites I didn’t previously realize were Envato owned. The more I look at Envato owned sites with a careful eye, it’s becoming a concern that Envato publications and properties are first and foremost concerned about generating revenue, and carelessly so: generating revenue /from volume/, and quality is just an afterthought. This review is honestly so over the top in giving any endorsement to this app, and it’s made me think AppStorm is simply not trustworthy for tech related information.

-rob the computer guy

Oh yeah, and markdown support?  Really?  Who is THAT appealing to?  If you’re making a simple app to appeal to the novice user, where’d you come up with that as some great feature?  Ugh.

Dear Lifehacker,

I think you showed us recently how to blacklist a site with a Google Chrome Extension.  I need a way to prioritize sites.  For example, whenever I search anything, if there are Lifehacker results that pertain to my search, I want to see them on the first page.  It seems that with Google reorganizing algorithms lately, I’m not getting Lifehacker results near the top of my search results and this is a problem, a very big problem.  And I think it’s a major downfall of Google that with all the information it has about me and my search and web histories, that it does not know what to prioritize for me in my search results. Is there a workaround to be had?

Thanks,

Rob the Computer Guy

What really galls me about Clear is how they act like people don’t call them all day long saying WTF is this dial up modem speed you give me in this crap device?

Then after I was told I would get a full refund, I didn’t get a full refund.

Well I had to pull out all the stops to get this remaining $18.  I mean these people are scammy beyond belief.

Sprint 4G service is from Clear – make sure you don’t use them either.  When you see WiMAX you know  “Clear” and stay far away!  What you don’t see is how I wait like 3 minutes for every single response from the guy.

Hello Rob. Please wait while we find a CLEAR specialist to help you.
Your question is: I canceled service and was told I would receive a full 100% refund, but I didn’t get a full refund

All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.

An agent will be with you in a moment. Thank you for your patience.

The next available Agent will be with you in a moment.

All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.

You have been connected to Larry H.

Larry H:  Hi, my name is Larry. Thank you for chatting with Clear! I will be more than happy to help you today.

Larry H:  So that I may assist you, may I please get the 10 digit phone number associated with the account?

Rob:  646

Larry H:  Thanks

Larry H:  As a security measure for this account, can you please verify your mother’s middle name?

Rob:  mary

Larry H:  Great! Thank you. Can you give me a moment while I bring up that account?

Larry H:  I understand that you have a question about the amount you received back after canceling. Is this correct?

Rob:  yes

Larry H:  okay

Rob:  I was going to try to upgrade the service and received additional equipment and sent everything back within a few days

Rob:  I asked for and was told that I would get a full refund. I live 1 block in the middle of 2 towers and could not get useable service

Larry H:  I understand. Can you give me a moment to review the account?

Rob:  ok

Larry H:  Thanks

Larry H:  How much did you get refunded to your card?

Rob:  15.79

Larry H:  And how much were you expecting?

Rob:  34.59

Larry H:  You were still charged for the usage while you did have the service.

Rob:  Clear offers a 30 day money back guarantee, which I was within.

Rob:  I was told that the service problems may have been becuase of the device I was using so I accepted another device, but it made no difference.

Rob:  There is no usage clause in the money back guarantee

Larry H:  We still have to charge for significant usage which you had. You transferred over 10 gb of data between 02/10 and 03/09.

Rob:  Doesn’t matter

Larry H:  Yes sir, it does. There is a clause that stipulates that we have the right to charge for significant usage during the trial period.

Rob:  I’m sorry but the whole point of the return was that you couldn’t provide data throughput above 1mbps

Larry H:  The Free trial means that you are not subject to Fees for ending your contract early or for restocking fees

Rob:  The return policy allows me to return the item for a full refund. The first month of service was free, on top of that

Rob:  Listen you get these calls all day long, just refund the balance

Rob:  You can also see that the usage was within the first few days then there was almost zero usage after that, the service was simply malfunctioning and not useable

Larry H:  And it was deemed by account services upon cancellation that your usage fell within the criteria defined by policy as Significant and therefore, subject to charge

Rob:  My brother is a lawyer and the last time someone like you fucked with me, he named the customer serivce guy on the lawsuit and made him travel to NYC to answer a complaint in Manhattan Court

Rob:  I was told at the time I canceled that beucase of my trouble I would receive a full refund

Rob:  The woman checked with a supervisor and confirmed no restocking fee and no usage charges, a full refund

Larry H:  Fine. If you will maintain a civil tone and not curse at me, I will make this right.

Rob:  I called you before the account was charged and you charged it anyway

Larry H:  But I do not appreciate being cursed at when I am being paid to help

Larry H:  I will take care of you Sir

Rob:  listen you’re already wasting a lot of my time I canceled the service and was told I’d get a full refund

Rob:  Because just to get to the point where you insist you’re going to charge me anything for this service that took you upwards of 10 minutes.

Larry H:  Sir, I just said I would take care of you

Rob:  ok

Larry H:  If you will treat me with respect and allow me to assist you, I will be happy to do so. I am a person just like you are.

Rob:  Listen we both know you get calls like mine all day every day and that you can’t possibly go home at the end of the day and think “I can’t imagine why all these customers call to cancel their clear service every day”

Rob:  So pretending like this is a real service that people can actually use is disrespectful from the get go.

Rob:  The appropriate answer from you is not to debate with customers calling, because you’re acting on behalf of the company and there are serious widespread problems with this service, I live on 25th st and on 24th st and 26th street there are towers and I could not get higher than 1mpbs for service, you know something is wrong with the entire system when that happens.

Rob:  So you’ll forgive me if I find myself answering you in a disrespectful tone when you are hired by a company to try to hold on to my heard earned money. I’m on a fixed income and was trying to support a new company offering a great product.

Rob:  All day, every day, people contact you to tell you that the service is not working. So please don’t offend me by acting like just the opposite is true and most of the calls you take are from people who love the service.

Larry H:  Actually, the majority of my chats are exactly that. You refund will be for $18.80

Rob:  And the two blocks I mention are short blocks in Manhattan. There’s obviously something wrong with the entire clear system if I can’t get a decent speed and it’s slower than 3G, you know?

Rob:  Thank you.

Rob:  Is there anything else for now?

Larry H:  I am not done processing this yet. Please give me a moment

Larry H:  I have submitted a refund request for you in the amount of $18.80.

Oy vey!

STAY AWAY from DreamHost. They use a proprietary interface that even their technicians don’t know how to use or troubleshoot. I had a terrible, terrible time dealing with them and after several weeks of going back and forth trying to get the hosting working. Not only do they not offer phone support, their chat support simply goes unavailable for hours at a time at various times of the day. I’m not even sure if they are really available 24 hours a day, but I couldn’t find any regularity to when I could not get chat available. Phone support is charged in 3 call packages for $30 and even when I signed up for one I couldn’t get anyone on the phone. Our problem ended up being a misconfigured server, after they insisted we couldn’t run basic software on the shared hosting, which it turns out we could have – but there’s really no way to know because the proprietary interface was undocumented. (They always try to upsell that dedicated server service, needlessly.) They were inept and didn’t follow up with us at all. It only added insult to injury that they never followed up with me and I had to keep contacting them back to report that the problem wasn’t resolved. Think about it, if your email or site isn’t working, how long will it be before you know, and what will you have lost in the meantime?

This article isn’t about hosting per se, but I approved the use of DreamHost specifically because of other LifeHacker articles touting DreamHost’s fabulousness. Never, EVER again. And because they use proprietary software, there was no way to transfer the site through a straight forward download/upload. This can be done in any hosting company using cPanel. I did a little googling and found the same problem with the utter inability to resolve problems because of proprietary software was eerily commonplace for Media Temple too. It’s not that I have had a problem with proprietary hosting software setups – I’ve had a problem with EVERY one, no kidding.

With HostGator at least you can get a person whose first language was English on the phone 24/7/365. Same for GoDaddy (although they are slow, and proprietary interface.) I’ve tested HostGator, and they will help you do ANYTHING. Other hosting companies have had no problem telling me I needed to hire someone to troubleshoot my problems.

I considered shortening the post, but if I don’t give you that thorough level of detail you wouldn’t understand how impossible it was to get DreamHost to solve a problem that because of their pretty software that was thoroughly inaccessible, undocumented and completely outside our control. The lifehacker community is placing overwhelming amounts of trust in DH and it’s 100% misplaced. You will have a problem sooner or later and if you never read this post, you would just think, “wow the internet is hard.”

I personally don’t do this, but why wouldn’t someone just use that same Google Apps account to make a Google site for a simple web page, or forward your domain name then to any free blogging service where you could put up something very simple? Or forward it to a flavors.me page as we already learned from Lifehacker Academy? (Oh, I like the sound of that!) If you forward with a temporary mask then the user wouldn’t even see the other domain name, right?

The user @androidhelpers said if I needed cPanel to move from one host to another then I wasn’t really a developer. And he tried to claim that DreamHost was no different from other hosts in requiring upgraded services for complicated installations.  Well, he’s wrong.  And not only that, he ignores the point about support just simply being unavailable at all for hours on end, with no explanation, rhyme or reason!  My follow up post:

@androidhelpers I know how to transfer sites from one host to another, thank you, the point was that it was horrifically difficult to deal with DreamHost on every possible level.  And cPanel transfers the entire account: email accounts, data in the email accounts, databases, and files.  Since so many people use cPanel, at this level of hosting it is much more appropriate.  Because there’s very likely going to be a point where the lack of service from DreamHost will necessitate your move to another host.

But that wasn’t the point about “proprietary” hosting software – the point is that if you search the internet for reviews and posts about hosting companies, the complaints where people went with their problems unresolved for weeks at a time were in my experience easy to find for DreamHost and MediaTemple and for what I could find, the situations were similar to my nightmare with DH: the employees could not figure out what the problem was because the software is unique to that host.  And that is an enormous, enormous problem.

There’s nothing persistent about WordPress, single or multiuser edition.  Every other host I have encountered has not complained about running WP multiuser in a shared environment.   Dreamhost is the only company trying to upsell – and they are constantly trying to upsell 24/7/365 for no good reason, and they were the only company offering shared hosting that claims to require a virtual dedicated server for a WordPress multiuser installation.

STAY AWAY from DreamHost.  They use a proprietary interface that even their technicians don’t know how to use or troubleshoot.  I had a terrible, terrible time dealing with them and after several weeks of going back and forth trying to get the hosting working.  Not only do they not offer phone support, their chat support simply goes unavailable for hours at a time at various times of the day.  I’m not even sure if they are really available 24 hours a day, but I couldn’t find any regularity to when I could not get chat available.  Phone support is charged in 3 call packages for $30 and even when I signed up for one I couldn’t get anyone on the phone.  Our problem ended up being a misconfigured server, after they insisted we couldn’t run basic software on the shared hosting, which it turns out we could have – but there’s really no way to know because the proprietary interface was undocumented.  (They always try to upsell that dedicated server service, needlessly.)  They were inept and didn’t follow up with us at all.  It only added insult to injury that they never followed up with me and I had to keep contacting them back to report that the problem wasn’t resolved.  Think about it, if your email or site isn’t working, how long will it be before you know, and what will you have lost in the meantime?
This article isn’t about hosting per se, but I approved the use of DreamHost specifically because of other LifeHacker articles touting DreamHost’s fabulousness.  Never, EVER again.  And because they use proprietary software, there was no way to transfer the site through a straight forward download/upload.  This can be done in any hosting company using cPanel.  I did a little googling and found the same problem with the utter inability to resolve problems because of proprietary software was eerily commonplace for Media Temple too.  It’s not that I have had a problem with proprietary hosting software setups – I’ve had a problem with EVERY one, no kidding.
With HostGator at least you can get a person whose first language was English on the phone 24/7/365.  Same for GoDaddy (although they are slow, and proprietary interface.)  I’ve tested HostGator, and they will help you do ANYTHING.  Other hosting companies have had no problem telling me I needed to hire someone to troubleshoot my problems.
I considered shortening the post, but if I don’t give you that thorough level of detail you wouldn’t understand how impossible it was to get DreamHost to solve a problem that because of their pretty software that was thoroughly inaccessible, undocumented and completely outside our control.  The lifehacker community is placing overwhelming amounts of trust in DH and it’s 100% misplaced.  You will have a problem sooner or later and if you never read this post, you would just think, “wow the internet is hard.”
I personally don’t do this, but why wouldn’t someone just use that same Google Apps account to make a Google site for a simple web page, or forward your domain name then to any free blogging service where you could put up something very simple?  Or forward it to a flavors.me page as we already learned from Lifehacker Academy?  (Oh, I like the sound of that!)  If you forward with a temporary mask then the user wouldn’t even see the other domain name, right?

…that takes a position that Facebook has any staying power. Remember when everyone was on AOL? Facebook is overvalued. Will it become myspace? Prob not. But, from a technical and sociological standpoint, Facebook is evil in that it attempts to create a parallel internet – and while I could write a thesis on this and probably will – Facebook is in some respects the dumb man’s internet as the dumb man’s internet, it misses the mark because it isn’t as easy as it could or should be.  In The Social Network, I was struck by MZ being adamant about it not being about making money with facebook.  The investment last month from Goldman Sachs is the death knell for FB… there has already been too much of having to answer to investors.  As I stare at the column of ads on the right, 3 out of 4 are ridiculous or offensive. The 4th is utterly irrelevant. I don’t see it on the positive trajectory…

Two other rather crucial points:  People move on to the next thing simply because it’s the next thing.  And for sure, people are already quickly exhausting of the internet noise that facebook generates.

I got an email lickety split (which is how we like our messengers, right?) from Josh and who was very friendly and I’m good to go! While he was emailing me, I entered my pickup request online. All very lickety-split!

So if you need a messenger and you need one now, I recommend them!

Oh and the price was right – cheaper than my previous place for sure.

Why don’t I use Yelp more often??  yelp.com

This is a letter I sent to Endicia’s CEO.  You know when you do business with a company resentfully?  When you wish you felt like you had other reasonable choices so you could take your business elsewhere?  Endicia is one of those companies.  Stamps.com is a lot better, and why they have not come out with a Mac version of their software I have no idea.

Dear Mr. Whitehouse,

I’m not exactly sure of this date but I believe in April of 2010 my debit card was reissued and as a result, when Endicia went to charge the old card on file, it got a declined message that caused it to shut down my account. When I called and updated the debit card on file, the account was restored. There was no mention of a credit for lack of service usage. Now while the employee politely explained that your system shuts accounts down for certain decline messages, it was clearly an error in how your accounting system works and needed to be changed. When an account is shut down, the service log and history are inaccessible, service is suspended, and I am unable to retrieve the data on my hard drive containing hundreds of shipments.

Well this apparently happened again last week, for which I figured it out last Friday night.

There are a number of problems with how all of this works:

1. You did not contact me in either of these instances to alert me to a billing problem with my card.
2. I can’t log in to update my billing information. To add insult to injury there were 13 people on hold when I just called. No way.
3. When you suspend service, you owe the customer a credit for service reflecting the time period for which service was suspended. As in, you’re not entitled to charge for service you didn’t provide!
4. There is no notification of the suspension of service sent to the customer.

There are some long standing problems that make it appear that Endicia is not moving forward as a modern business in implementing some commonplace and customer-friendly accounting practices in general:

1. You send me an email after you have charged my debit card and sorry man, but that’s not how it works. You send me a statement and tell me what my charges are this month and then you tell me that the charges will be billed and when they will be billed to the credit card I have on file. That’s how a “billing method on file” system works.
2. The receipt send is not clear enough. You should be confirming the $15.95 standard monthly charge in addition to the insurance charges (or possible other charges?) in the email.
3. Customers should be presented with a way to click to a report of the aforementioned charges so they can review the items. I think this is commonly referred to as “detailed billing”.
4. And no, checking the chronological activity log does not suffice.

People often do business with companies because they have to, and that’s sort of the case with Endicia. You’re a hassle – only occasionally but always unnecessarily so, and I keep desperately trying to find other ways to get my postage done from another company to automate my business, but so far, nobody is doing anything with Mac. I am a “resentful customer” – I use the service, recommend it to no one, am generating interest for other companies to come in and do a million times better, and when I can finally switch, I’ll never stop clamoring about how great thew guy is and how awful Endicia was for the most trivial things that ground my business to a halt from time to time. I hope you see why these problems that make me the resentful customer are toxic to your bottom line. I use social media and this letter is going on my blog.

Please tell someone to unlock the account so I can log in and update the billing method.

Robert Reale