Sanity Check

I'm looking for some validation here before I go too far down the path of anger and frustration. Please read the next few paragraphs - just a couple of minutes of your time. Or just the paragraph in red if you're really in a hurry. If you think I'm blowing things out of proportion then shoot me an email, post your thoughts here or just close this page. If you think I'm on target, please email anyone you think can help, whether it's advice or someone working at Microsoft. We can prove the "six degrees of separation" theory again and maybe spare some other sap from the frustration I'm experiencing.

Short story: I've Been working for the last three weeks or so to build a new Web site with Microsoft's OfficeLive. I even wrote a glowing article in the Snohomish County Business Journal about this great product. Come Friday evening all the magic stuff to transfer byteslaves.com to the OfficeLive (OL) servers had been done. The pages were all tested and - except for some content - we were ready to go.

Saturday morning problems showed up on the OL side. I contacted support and a helpful agent found some "behind the scenes" problems. More of this Saturday evening and another call to support and more behind the scenes work. I called it a night with plans to finish Sunday. Logged into the control center but could not access the Web design feature. "Technical difficulties - try later" said the message. Finally I calledthe supportnumber in my soeed dial. The woman I talked to managed to lock my accounbt by entering the wrong login information too many times. Can't fix that. I'm locked out for 24 hours. With no recourse.

I finally convince her to get a supervisor. Rules is rules he says. Try it again tomorroew night. More discussion and he finally agrees to open a troubel ticket. Twenty-four hours go by, I try again, still no joy. I also find I (and my customers) can't access my site using Vista and IE7. Great. Some even complain about XP. Locks up the browser. I call my speed dial buddies again.
I talk to a guy who tells me 1) he can't help, it's in the other department. 2) I can't talk to anyone in that department. 3) He can't give me a status. 4) There's no one that can give me a status. 4) There's no one I can call or write to with complaints about the service. I have to wait 24 hours. Excuse me? This is "support?"

Today, as I write this, I'm talking to my speed dial buddies. Oops. They goofed again. It's going to be ANOTHER 24 hours before I MIGHT have access. And still no status and no one else I can talk to. No estimate on when my visitors might be able to successfully visit my site.

I want to send a message to these folks that it is NOT OK to provide this kind of service to any customer. I know my problem will get resolved one way or another eventually. But if we don't make ourselves heard, who's going to hold big business accountable? They couldn't care less if I close my account. So tell me what you think I should do. Get your friends to weigh in. Help me rattle some cages.

OfficeLive "Support" - Day 2

Now anyone using Vista and Internet Explorer can't access the site. I call and I get a gentleman I'll call Dave (protecting the ignorant). He's the guy who sent me this email last night after I submitted an online ticket saying that I was upset that I couldn't access my page after their support agent entered my credentials incorrectly and locked me out for 24 hours. Here's what Dave had to say.

Unfortunately, as the previous agent stated, because you've failed to sign-in to the account so many times your account has been locked for 24 hours. In some cases we can unblock this type of restricted access; however, this is not the case with this particular issue. The only thing I can recommend at this point is to wait a full 24 hours before signing into your account. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you Sven, especially just before 'launching' your web site.

For your convenience, our support staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Please call us at 1-866-591-5483 for immediate support. If you choose to reply via email, please do not change the subject line so that we can directly reference your case.

Oh yeah, when I tried to reply the address line was blank. So tell me how this attitude fosters customer satisfaction and puts forth an air of customer service. As I type this the clocking is click over 24 - the number of hours I was told that must pass. And I still can't log in. I'm worse off than I was before I called yesterday. And the only thing I hear is "I can't help you and there's no one at Microsoft that will." What seems to go unspoken is that it really doesn't seem to matter to anyone there.

I suggested to Dave that perhaps someone should go to customer service training. Here I am writing nice things about them in a major local business journal and they're just blowing me off. Couldn't care less it seems. Hey Dave, if I got a bad burger at McDonald's I bet you theyd give me a new one, and maybe a sundae to go with it. I could surely write to a franchise owner or bigwig at home office. But not so at Microsoft.

Stay tuned. If they make this right I'll post that. But I will also let you know if they don't.

OfficeLive - Not So Hot?

I've been setting up a new site using Microsoft's OfficeLive. Over the last few weeks I've been able to build a site that looks pretty hot. I got everything pretty much ready, then the crapola hit the fan. Suddenly stuff quit working. I couldn't access the Web design portion of the site. Got a message saying there were technical difficulties and to try again later.

I called support several times, and they were very helpful. At first. But they've had to reset my password each time so they could access my account to resolve various problems. Today I went in to finish up the Web site and kept getting an error message saying I couldn't access my Web site due to "technical problems." Finally I called support and they, once again, wanted to change the password. Suddenly we find we're locked out. "Too many incorrect logns" they tell me. Huh? I was logging in just fine to the OfficeLive. I just could not edit my site. The support people tell me I'm locked out for 24 hours. WTF? It was working fine except for that one area. Somehow they screwed the pooch. But they're telling me I can't do anything to my site for 24 hours. No recourse. Some insincere apologies. But they obviously dont give a damn.

This is great reason to stay away from the Big Guys offerings. They look great on the outside, but not so hot hen it comes to delivering service.

Disregard my article about OfficeLive. Shiny on the outside, rotten on the inside. Support is totally unconcered with the end user.

Registry Tools

I was at a neighbor's house a couple of weeks ago, and there were maybe a dozen people sitting on the deck. One person asked me what Windows Registry cleaner I recommended. I was talking to a gentleman from Microsoft at the time, and we both looked at this person and said "none!"

First, if you aren't familiar with the Windows Registry you might want to check out the Wikipedia definition. Basically, the Registry is a hideously complex file that contains all the information that is necessary (and necessary is the key word here) for Windows to talk to all the hardware and software. The following is directly from the Microsoft Support site:

• WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

There are a lot of tools out there that claim to be able to root out and remove unused entries and to prevent unauthorized Registry entries. But how do these developers know what's necessary and what's not? I recently had a client who couldn't install the latest Microsoft service pack (SP3) on her XP machine. Seems the Registry optimization tool she was using had locked a couple of critical Registry entries.

In my opinion, Registry tools should all be looked at skeptically. I believe there are some that can dig out entries that no longer have prorams associated with them, but I don't think these entries really impact your computer's performance. What's your take?

Selling Out

I hate to admit it, but I'm finally giving in. I've seen so many sites cave in and start offering ads to their visitors. In my most holier-than-thou voice I have said "We'll never do that!" But now we are. If you visit the Byte Slaves Website, you'll find ads on every page. Shoot, we even have a whole Cyber Mall filled with various ads.

The thing that I hope sets us apart is that we don't get paid for running the ads. We only get paid if you click on the ads and actually buy something. That's called affiliate sales. We won't put up ads for anything we wouldn't buy ourselves. We are affiliates for online retailers like the NationalGeographic store, Top Selling Software at the Apple Store and even Uncover special offers and exclusive savings at Sony Style.

Yes, I did embed links to these various stores, but these are store I have personally purchased products from. Our employee's families and friends buy from these stores. These links offer discounts not available to you if you went to the site yourself.

Now for the ironic part: while I'd love for you to search through our Cyber Mall for deals (and I encourage you to do so), what I'm really trying to do is open your eyes to a whole new revenue stream. Yes, you to can sell products for national businesses with no out-of-pocket costs. Sign up at Websites such as Commission Junction and you can be offering your Website visitors discounts on products and services they want and need. And you get paid when they purchase!

Do you think this is a legitimate way to boost your income. Let me know your thoughts for and against this type of marketing. I'll even include one last link to another product I fully believe in...

Protect Your ID and Your Credit

I was surfing the news while eating some leftover spaghetti and saw this article on MSNBC. It really got my attention. It wasn't long ago that I switched my business account because my bank decided to implement "improved security." This security required that I provide mt debit card number, my PIN, and the validation code from my card. All on an unsecured connection. These are all the things I (and so many others) say NEVER to give out online.

This also brought to mind the article I read about credit card skimming. Seems ne'er-do-wells can use a palm-sized scanner to steal the coded information from your debit or credit card. They then use this information to create a copy of your card that they can use as if they were you. There are even scanners that can be put over the faces of legitimate ATMs or point-of-sale terminals (here's one exasmple).

My thinking? Use a credit card (NOT debit) whenever you know your card will be out of sight or suspect a terminal has been tampered with. You can contest a credit card charge. A debit card takes the money out of your account immediately and it can be a major challenge to get it back.

Is Your Wireless Network Dangerous?

The debate over the potential for our wireless toys to cause health problems in humans has raged since the first cell phones came on the scene a couple of decades ago. Personally I've wondered how it can be healthy to walk around with a source of electro-magnetic radiation clipped to my belt. But I worked in the cellular industry for several tears and the powers that be always siad there was no evidence that cellular emissions posed a health risk (notice the didn't come out and say it was safe, either). But then I'd sit down in front of my computer and my cell phone would start making some goofy noises come out of my speakers. Hmmm.

Now people are starting to ask the same questions about Wi-Fi. I caught this article in an e-newsletter today. It's not out-and-out proof that your wireless Internet will kill you, but it got me thinking. Again.

Look at all the sources of radiation that have appeared and proliferated in the last hundred years or so: AM/FM radio (and then a whole spectrum of radio from short wave to cellular and Wi-Fi), television, microwave and more. Maybe all this stuff just passes harmlessly through our bodies. But then again, when they give you a lead vest and hide behind a wall to X-Ray your teeth, you've got to wonder.

Find out more about different sources of radiation and what the mean to you here.