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From time to time there are things in life that just make me stop and question the endurance of the human race on the planet. Especially with all the stupid people running around… I have, over the years, made thousands of profound observations. Unfortunately, most of them have been lost to the four winds. This is an attempt to write them down - for posterity. The trouble is, most people think things like this aren't very important. You see why I'm worried? Started August 19, 1999 May 30, 2008 - I have finally hit my breaking point.
I will cover just one particular issue here, to demonstrate the problem. About three months ago, I bought Office 2007. The first thing I noticed is a change of the internal format of "Word 2007" documents. Instead of saving them as "mydocument.doc", they are now saved as "mydocument.docx". Now, of course, after fooling around for a while, I saw where you could save them in a "Word 2000" format. This must be done so everyone else can read them. Since so few people have Word 2007, you always have to save it in the earlier format. Let's face it, Word 2000 is a fine program, usable for 99% of the things that 99% of the people need. Word 2003 is almost overkill. Did we really NEED more features in Word, especially the ones that would cause a new internal format? Most of the features I would liked to have added to Word would be those that make creating the document easier. They wouldn't affect the format of the final document. Those could have been added without having to change the final ".doc" file format, which makes 99% of the rest of the users of Word unable to read my documents. Then things got worse. I set up Outlook 2007 to read my email. I really prefer a good email "SMTP/POP3" type of client, rather than a web-based email system, unless I'm out of town at someone else's computer. I use Outlook Express on most of my machines, but on my "Main" machine, I have been using Outlook (ever since Outlook '98). I like some of the extra things you can do in that program, like scheduling appointments or tasks, the contact manager, the calendar, etc. Now, I receive quite a bit of email. I also subscribe to a number of html newsletters from various trusted sources. When I started using Outlook 2007, I began to notice strange looking email coming from places that used to be very nicely formatted emails. Sometimes, there was text missing, or the formatting was strange. Sometimes they were almost unreadable. Yet, if I received those exact same emails on another machine, using Outlook Express, it looked great - as it always had. What's up with that? I thought it might be the other machine??? I then configured Outlook Express on the same machine using Outlook 2007, and it worked correctly. Not the machine. I figured, since I had just bought Office 2007 (~$250), I was owed some support here. After some digging around on the Microsoft website (they seem to think a "FAQ" will solve everything), I found a support phone number. I called the number and spoke to someone in India. She tried to be helpful. In the end, she acknowledged that she was seeing the same results on her machine as I was, and she would escalate the trouble report to the next level. After about 2 weeks, I got an email from the support group that this behavior was "By Design", and all I had to do was use a not-obvious "Other Actions" drop-down menu and select "View in Browser". That would send the email on to my Browser, and it would be correctly formatted and displayed there. Say WHAT? This is BY DESIGN??? After thinking about this, I called support again and pushed on. The answer I then got was that the "Outlook 2007 Development Group" had decided to build their own HTML display processor, rather that use one from the (dreaded?) "Outlook Explorer Group", as the previous Outlook Development Group had done for all the previous versions of Outlook. Oh REALLY? THEN THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE HTML PROCESSOR IN OUTLOOK 2007!. The support person maintained that THEIR "HTML Processor" was designed correctly, and it was actually the Outlook Explorer Web Browser that was incorrect. OH REALLY? Well, they better tell the rest of the world about this, since all the emails that screw up with Outlook 2007 will look correct in Outlook Explorer, regardless of what tool was used to create the original email. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE! There seems to be an EGO problem within this "Outlook 2007 Group". I told the support person this was not a satisfactory answer, and that whatever was wrong in Outlook 2007's HTML code must be fixed. They were embarrassing themselves. They were embarrassing me - for supporting them for so long. He said he would pass my comments on to the proper group, and they would get back to me. They never did. It has been three months now. I've been checking for Office 2007 updates on a regular basis. No updates. I have re-opened the trouble ticket with Microsoft, and I'm now trying to get one of the "inner circle" to call me so we can discuss this. Wish me luck.
Here are some pictures of the bad formatting I'm talking about. After you look at these, please let me know what you think. Am I being too picky? Am I being unreasonable? The correctly formatted ones are from either Outlook Express or using that option within Outlook 2007 to use the Browser to view the email. All "badly formatted" are exact screenshots of what I see. No tricks, honest.
June 2, 2003
At Last! Something that pissed me off enough to write it up on this page.
September 25, 2001 I need to inform you, or anyone who will listen, about a company that is attempting to
become even more ruthless than the phone company. Their name is "Verisign".
Notice that their name also starts with "Veri" like the other company I love to hate,
"Verizon". Verisign currently manages the Internet Domain Name services. They used to
be known as Network Solutions.
The problem I am having is that I have about a dozen or so domains that I manage
from my small offices here. These are mostly charity, non-profit type web sites. I don't
make dime-one on any of my web sites. With the exception of DXCC, I have never
put anything for sale on any of the sites. These are information sites, with relevant
domain names to categorize what information is on the site. I have been paying
each year, out of my own pocket, to renew the DNS services for those domains.
This comes to about $400 each year. Since I am not rich, I decided that since I had so
many domains, perhaps I could get a "quantity discount". I called Network Solutions about
this, and their attitude was "No way, No how. Under NO circumstances. Pay us $35
per year for each domain. Period." I must admit, I was a bit disheartened by their
position. The person I spoke to was downright mean. Then, a few months later, I
received an email from a company that offered to register my domains for $9.95 per
year. Well, this was certainly a big improvement, almost too good to be true. So, I
decided to try one of my domains as a test. This was to see if this company was real
and not a spam-sham. Well, it worked! It was great. No problems at all. I was a happy
camper. I even waited a month until the charges appeared on my Credit Card to insure
it was really $9.95, etc. It was. So, I decided to move two other domains over. However,
when I made the request, the company had to tell me that their rate had gone to $11.95,
and they had changed their registration procedures, etc. It took a few days for this to
go through, and by the time it went through, it was beyond those domain's expiration date. My original
fear was that there might be a few days when the site went down until the new company
had their DNS records updated. However, about a week later, I received a notice from
Network Solutions that my request to have my domain transfered has been DENIED! They
claimed I was in payment default, and owed them $70. This was news to me. It seems, from
their point of view, once you have a domain with them, you then owe Network Solutions $35 each and every year, until hell freezes
over. If you don't renew, you are in default. And they consider that you owe them the $35.
The only way they would allow me to transfer the domain was if I "paid my debt" to them.
Then I could transfer the domain to this other company. Since the whole idea of using this
other company was to stop being raped year after year by Network Solutions, it's like they
wanted to screw me one last time before I went to the other company. So, I decided to screw
them instead. After 6 months, my domain was considered "Available", and I just registered
it as a new domain with the new company. Now, it has happened again. Another of my domains
became due. I decided to transfer it before it expired. However, about the time I should have
transfered it, planes hit the World Trade Center. I was so distracted for the next few weeks, I had
forgotten all about doing the transfer. It expired on the 21st of September. Their bill said payment was
due by September 28th. On September 20th, I transferred the domain. However, by the time
the other company processed my request, it was Sept. 24th. Still well within the Sept. 28th date. I thought. Sure enough, Verisign
again DENIED MY TRANSFER, claiming it had expired, and I owed them $70. If you own a
domain with Network Solutions, when they send out the renewal notices, they send you an
invoice for $70. Even though it is perfectly fine to renew for one year, they default to a 2 year
renewal. Some people, not paying attention, probably just sends them the $70. The first time
this happened, I called them and asked if I could just renew for a year. They said I could, When
I asked why it was an invoice for 2 years, she replied it was "just the way we were told to do it".
Today, I have noticed that they also traffic in names. They buy & sell domain names, many for
millions of dollars. Would you like "loans.com" -- $3,000,000 and it's yours. This is really creepy.
They are now taking payments for the new domain types - like ".biz", advertising to all of the
".com" companies that they could lose their domain to someone else unless they reserved
their domain with a ".biz" for example. Do you realize what's going on here? We could re-build
the World Trade Center with the money they will make if every .com has to also buy a .biz domain
name. And there are 5 other "new" names. And what business would want someone else to
use their domain name with one of those other domain types? This is greed, pure and simple.
This is the way the Mafia worked. They are using scare tactics. The function they are performing
is to keep a few hundred bytes of data on their DNS servers to allow the web browsers to locate
MY domain name servers to get the actual IP address of my web site. That's all. Why is another
company happy to do it for $12, one third of the price they charge? Remember, I am one of 50
million (or more) domains registered through Network Solutions. Just what does 50 million, times $35 PER YEAR, come to? That's 1.75 BILLION
DOLLARS -- and that's just the .com domains. How about the .org, .net and now the 5-6 other
dot-whatevers that will be implemented shortly? That's many BILLIONS of dollars, just to maintain a
database? Remember too, they also provide tons of other services. And I'm sure they are making
a terrific profit from those as well.
February 25, 2001 Sorry I haven't been keeping this "Crying Towel" up to date. There have been
many moments over the past few years where I have felt the need to contribute another
entry to this page with those kinds of questions that are too often found without answers.
Funny thing is, the most compelling reasons for adding to this page seem to be inspired by our continuing
frustration with "The Phone Company". It was called "Bell Atlantic" until a few years ago,
now known formally as "Verizon". Aside from my troubles with attempting to get
DSL service here (they tried for over a year and failed), the saddest thing is to see a
company that I had so much respect for when I was growing up turn into one of the
poorest run companies in the history of the world. This is sort of like admiring one of your
Uncles when you were young - you know - he was smart, wise, handsome, well dressed, went to
Church regularly and had 3 of the best behaved children you would ever meet. Now, a few years later,
he's drinking Ripple from a paper bag in an alley somewhere, and doesn't even remember
his children's names. This is The Phone Company. It is so very sad. They used to be
so concerned to do "the right thing" regardless of the cost. The customer was important,
and you really felt they were trying their damndest to provide the best service at the lowest
price possible. Now, customers are an inconvenience. The only reason for the customer
to even exist is to give them as much money as possible on a month-to-month basis. If
you can't do that, then they don't need you. Don't call them - they won't call you either.
Their technical expertise is also at an all time low. Their "customer support" people
know less about the way things work than their customers do. They lie. They exagerate.
They obfuscate. They deflect. They blame anyone and everyone but themselves.
My pulse is rising. Got to stop thinking about it before I go mad... But it's sooo sad.
Oct 28, 1999 The Phone Company. What a mess. I have a cell phone. If I am in an area that
doesn't have enough signal, they have an answering system that will take a message
for you. When you later get into a good signal area, you are able to retrieve the stored
messages. Here is what drives me nuts. When you go to listen to the messages, there
is no indication of the time (or date) they were recorded. They just call them "First stored
message", "next stored message", etc. No clue as to when they came in. Here's where
it gets really nuts. If you don't erase them after you hear them, they remain on the system
for about 2 weeks. When you next check your messages, they inform you that the message
that was sent at [time] on [date] has been erased. Now, since they didn't tell you the time and
date of the message in the first place (when you could REALLY use it), what earthly good it is
to tell you the time and date of the message they just erased? And, since they obviously DO know
the time and date of the message, why didn't they tell you when you first listened to it?
Aug. 20, 1999 Why is the phone company so hard to get through to when you need service, or
have a question? Especially when it relates to Internet activities. Haven't they yet
realized that the world spins 24 hours a day. Why would they shut down at 5:00 pm?
Part of the reality of a wired world is that there are no time zones.
Aug. 19, 1999 Who is the idiot at credit card companies that decided to put a copy of the card number IN BLACK right in the center of the area you are supposed to sign? As a result, your signature is very difficult to verify! More to come… |
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