It's About Me

Archive for September, 2005

I’m telling you that right now I’m so irritated I could spit. I have tried to renew my domain with Go Daddy for the past 3 days now, and there is a bug on one or two of their pages which prevent me from being able to renew using any one of six browsers on my Macintosh system. So, I sent in a customer service report.

I reported the problem, the pages and the system I’m using, in addition to the 6 browsers I have at my disposal. The response from the first tech was:

******Thank you for contacting Customer Support. I sincerely apologize for any confusion or inconvenience. Unfortunately I was not able to recreate this issue on our end for either of these buttons. There are several things which could be causing the issue you are having. Please make sure that you do not have any Antivirus, Popup Blocking, or Firewall software which would be preventing the domain renewal interface from working correctly. Also make sure that you have allowed SSL certificates and cookies on your web browser and it is recommended that you are using Internet Explorer version 5.5 or newer. You may also need to clear the cache and cookies in order to clear out any previous settings issues in your web browser. In Internet Explorer this can be done in ‘Internet Options’ in the ‘Tools’ menu. Select the ‘General’ tab and then click on the ‘Delete Files’ and ‘Delete Cookies’ buttons. If this does not resolve the issue please provide us with a step-by-step description of where you encounter an error and provide us with a screenshot of any error messages so that we may investigate this issue further.*******

Note, that he mentioned IE 5.5 (not available on the Mac) and kept referencing IE. There was more to the post, but again it was all Windows based instructions on how to capture a screen shot.

I resent the request again stating I’m on a Macintosh and that the last version Microsoft created was IE 5.2. I also mentioned that creating a web site to only one browser standard was bad form and poor quality. Most of the dev world (where I come from) uses Firefox which is what I had been trying to use, but had also tried Safari 1.03 however none of the images display at all, and as far as I could tell they don’t use alt tags because I couldn’t tell what I was doing with the images gone.

The next tech sent another email stating:

*****Thank you for contacting customer support. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I am unable to see the last 4 numbers of the payment type, you would like to renew with. If you are still unable to checkout on our website, please be sure to see if there are any updates available for either of the browsers you are currently using. Maybe, you could also check your cookie settings to make sure that you are accepting cookies. Try to turn it to low and see if it let’s you past the page.*****

I’m not an idiot. I’ve done this before and I’m against forcing a user to upgrade any browser. Stupid response. I test in these 6 browsers and I don’t go backwards very far. I don’t upgrade to the latest and greatest because half the visitors on the site I create haven’t upgraded in years. I admit I got a little pissy in my response:

> It’s not cookies Jennifer. It’s not cache and it’s not some
> virus protection I don’t have installed. It does not work on any
> browser on the Mac Operating system. I use 6 different browsers to
> test with during design and development of MY websites. Are you saying
> that Go Daddy requires their users to download one particular browser
> just to use their site? Which one of these six would you like for me
> to upgrade JUST SO I CAN USE GoDaddy? Mac/IE 5.2, Mozilla/Mac 1.07,
> Safari 1.03, Camino 0.8.4, Firefox 1.06, Opera 8.02? To Jeffery: I am
> on a Mac. There is no such thing as IE 5.5 for the Mac so that is not
> a good solution to suggest. As you (should) know, building a web site
> with only one particular browser as the test is bad form, extremely
> poor quality and is not an answer/solution to the problem. I am not a
> new computer user. I am a very experienced web developer. I am not
> having a cache or pop-up issue. I do not have virus protection
> software on my Mac so there is no interference with any of these type
> of applications. There is a bug in your software. If you do not have a
> Mac system to test on, /then just say that/ rather than telling me you
> cannot duplicate the error. Of course not! You’re testing it in a
> Win/IE environment. Good grief! Buy a mini-mac and do some real
> testing before answering your mac users with solutions that ONLY apply
> to windows and IE. I have complained about the issue in Safari 1.03
> before. I can only assume that GoDaddy *does not* and *will not*
> support /Mac customers/.

Now. The response to my response was equally stupid to the first one. I don’t think I could have made it any clearer that I’m on a Mac or the browser products I use. I had also given them the last 4 digits of the card I think I have on file with them. Their response to the above:

*****Currently our website and services are optimized for use with Internet Explorer 5.5 or better. You should be able to use other internet browsers such as Netscape or Firefox, however we cannot guarantee full functionality of our website thru these browsers. We do apologize if this may cause any inconvenience. Unfortunately, the information provided does not match with the billing method on file for your account. Please provide the last 4 digits of the current billing method on file so that we can process the renewal for you. If you are attempting to use a new card, you will either need to complete this thru our website, or contact our customer support line. *****

I wonder what part of “there is no IE 5.5 for Macintosh” that they don’t understand. I also wonder what part of “your web site is broken for Mac users” that they don’t understand.

Good grief.

People will never fail to amaze me. I say that with a negative conotation, but it’s simply because I just expect good behavior from people. When they don’t act good, then I get shocked. Okay, not shocked. Stumped? Yeah, maybe that’s it. People you know, or think you do, people you talk to every day, or write to everyday in this case, simply reaffirm my belief that this world is going to hell in a handbasket.

It’s all around us, this bad behavior. Feeling sorry for oneself, blaming the system for every ailment even those self imposed. Pointing fingers rather than looking in the mirror. Criticizing others. The list goes on. It makes me sick the lack of self-discipline, motivation, drive and ambition some people have. And then again, others who live as if that’s all there is….greed.

There is a common ground. Those of us that work, pay our dues, are self reliant yet give freely to others without thought or malice. We live simply in this neck of the woods. We neither have too much or too little. Most of our possessions are meager, old and some are even worn out. We would like to have more, have had more, but we took it all for granted. We have been stripped of our former wealth and the carelessness of our ways. We lived beyond our means, aquired more than we needed, took those blessings for granted, and never once appreciated the luxury of having too much. Then…we got laid off from our well-paying jobs and started our own business.

I can’t say we’re poor. God has blessed us with only just enough. Not once in the last 4 to 5 years have our every need not been met. The operative word being…need. Oh, of course there are a lot of wants that we don’t get, can no longer afford, but we’ve stayed full of food, the air conditioning still runs, and so far…we can afford gas to get where we need to go.

I’m testing this new blog out. I’ve wanted one for awhile, but have never had the time to set one up. Considering I’m a designer, the stock template will have to go, and obviously there are a lot of settings that must be applied, but hey. It’s a holiday, I’ve gotten a lot of work done, and it’s almost time to fix my man and my boy some cornbread to go with the big fat juicy roast boiling on the stove.

I’m quite proud of this little thing. I hope it’s going to be fun. Much more fun in my personal time than lurking over at the shebeen newsgroup. Wow! What a terrifying bunch of folks. One thing is for sure….they sure like to argue.