Reviews by Cole » Internet

Our Responsibilities as Giveaway Hosts

Cole — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:40:53 +0000

You can’t join any review/giveaway blogger network without seeing someone express frustration because a giveaway winner has contacted her, demanding to know where her prize is. As giveaway hosts, we frequently act as a middle man between winners, and it makes us look bad when those PR reps and companies don’t follow-through. What’s more is we usually don’t have any power. All we can say is “I’ve contacted my person. There’s been no response” or something along those lines.

But sometimes bloggers go above and beyond to host giveaways out of their own pockets so what happens when those bloggers are the very ones who renege on their words. Now, I don’t want to call anyone out but today I hopped on Facebook to see that a blogger had canceled a giveaway and I was curious. I was thinking some company had backed out and was preparing to feel some righteous anger. I was surprised, however, to see the post that was basically summed up by “I didn’t get enough entries so I’m cancelling it. Woe is me.”

I clicked to see the responses, all of which basically equated so “I know how you feel.” And I understand. I’ve spent money shipping prizes. I’ve spent time promoting giveaways. I spend time contacting people to sponsor giveaways and I’ve been stumped when people didn’t enter my giveaways. I recently ended a giveaway that had very little interest and I was perplexed because it was the type of giveaway that I would have entered myself.

But it seems more than a little dishonest to me to start a giveaway and cancel it halfway through just because you’re not getting enough attention, especially during the busiest time of year for most people and the busy shopping time that has prompted thousands of giveaways. The site owner didn’t receive the feedback she wanted but everyone who had already participated was SOL and would see absolutely no return for their efforts.

That’s not okay to me.. but maybe I’m wrong so I pose these questions:

As a giveaway host/blogger, do we retain the right to cancel giveaways?
If we do retain that right, is not enough activity an acceptable reason or should there be a reason such as host backed out, emergency, etc?
How would you feel, as someone who had entered a giveaway that was canceled?
Do you find actions like that to represent the community/blogosphere in a bad light?

Absence of Cole

Cole — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:23:23 +0000

I haven’t been doing much on the internet lately. I sign on to check my e-mail and, if I want to reply, have to open Firefox in addition to Thunderbird because mom’s antivirus won’t let me reply. How lame, right? Then I hit up Lavish, Bijoux and a few other forums (if I remember) before signing off. Sometimes I catch Dez but I’m so tired because the only time I have to check is right before bed that we usually don’t say much. So if you haven’t seen me around your blog or community or in your e-mail that’s exactly why. My usual activities have taken a bit of a back seat because I’m doing stuff and sometimes just because I hate being on another person’s computer. I’ve had to cut out a lot of things I did when I just had time to waste (likes games or reading reviews like this adipex review) but that’s okay because I’ve learned that life goes on even if I don’t sign online. gasp!

Got a Plan?

Cole — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:31:48 +0000

Yesterday I posted some guidelines for companies who interact with review bloggers. One thing I mentioned was to act in a professional manner in all things because one person’s actions can say a lot (or little) about a company no matter how unrelated those actions might be to the actual business (or even if they’re “off the record”). Not only is it important how you present yourself to the consumer, but how you present yourself to those who are in a position to help your business is of utmost importance. That’s why it enver hurts to hire a business plan consultant if you’re not sure if your plan is enough to knock the socks of possible investors or loan officers.

Window Shopper

Cole — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:54:00 +0000

I do a lot of browsing for products online. I guess it’s like old fashioned window shopping. I don’t buy a lot, partly because of money. Partly because I like to look and I’m indecisive so actually buying something means the end of an adventure. There’s something about thinking there are endless possibilities. Sometimes actually buying something only goes to prove that the endless possibilities aren’t any good and I’m not one to take disappointment very well. I prefer to avoid it, if at all possible.

Shopping online provides more of this atmosphere than actual shopping, for whatever reason. I think that seeing items face to face often takes away something a little mystic and carrying something out of a store isn’t quite so fun as to ripping into a shipping box. The wait can be exhilarating.

The funny thing about all this, though, is that I don’t consider myself a person who likes to shop. I can’t just walk into a store and browse, I need a goal. But that’s how I am with everything, isn’t it?

Happy Groundhog Day!

Cole — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:10:00 +0000

I guess he saw his shadow which means 6 more weeks of winter. Never quite understood that. It’s also my little sister’s 6th birthday and she has decided she is a groundhog. LOL We played games on MSN way too late.

I then spent several hours uploading what content I do have from my websites hosted on 7and1.net which was exhausting.

My night is finishing up with some interesting news from PayU2Blog. They have decided their bloggers must choose between them and Izea services like PayPerPost and SocialSpark. The choice is easy for me – PPP has never paid me much. BLoggers have some time to remove Izea code; PU2B will start checking in the middle of next month but I already removed everything. Just a heads up.

Plug in and Profit

Cole — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:27:00 +0000

If you’re here, you might be wondering about making money online. You might have seen my review for a certain sponsor site or the comparison of inline text advertising I’ve used. I also plan to do a similar comparison for the banner/sidebar advertising services I have used.

But these don’t work for everyone. I can admit I haven’t seen as much revenue as I would like. If you’re in the same boat, you might consider an alternative like the one by Stone Evans. Stone Evans is the mind behind Plug in Profit Site, otherwise known as PIPS.

PIPS allows users to make money by combining at home business tactics with affiliate services. PIPS provides you with a free site and training you will need to manage your site which promotes other affiliates and at home businesses.

Whether money is a little tight after the holiday season or you’d just like to build up your next egg, the Plug in Profit Site might be the solution you’ve been looking for.

Proxy? Say what?

Cole — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:43:00 +0000

One of my favourite games to play is a cute MMORPG called Maplestory. In fact, I play it online with my sister pretty frequently. Unfortunately, when I was in Japan I could not. Because the company who created the game leases it out to different companies across the world who, in turn, create “local” versions of the game, I was unable to play the version I had started on. The game detected my IP and would not let me access it unless I played the Japanese version which comes with a whole slew of problems for someone like myself who does not read it.

I didn’t play for over a year because I didn’t know what or even if there was a solution to this problem. Eventually, I was turned on to the idea of proxies but didn’t know how to use them, or which would work best. I browsed list after proxy list but it was all Greek to me. Just when I thought I understood the whole process, I needed an IP address.

Of course, while I only wanted to play a game I loved, others use anonymous proxies for more malicious and sometimes just annoying purposes. As we all know, anonymity on the internet sometimes leads to immature behaviour such as harassment so I can understand why some people wouldn’t be the biggest fan of proxy utilities. That’s why IP2Proxy™ is such a great site. This web tool allows you to look up IP addresses and detect whether or not proxy software is being used to mask the original IP address.

IP2Proxy also offers a few tools for your website such as an anonymous proxy detection badge like the one below. This badge shows whether your visitor is behind an open or anonymous proxy.

Demos of web tools and more information can be found on the IP2Proxy website.

Time Warner Services

Cole — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:10:00 +0000

Since we’ve been in San Antonio, we’ve used Time Warner services for our phone, internet and cable. For the most part, the products work well but the customer service has been a little unprofessional. Luckily, we haven’t had a need to contact them.

Our products/services come in a bundled package for about $100 a month which isn’t horrible. It’s likely cheaper than if we tried to get comparable services individually and, for that, I cannot complain. However, I was disappointed when the serve was installed. The technicians who did the installation didn’t tell us anything about our services. Was long distance included in the phone plan? How do we use video on demand? Do we have three way calling or other features on the phone? Is there a download limit with the internet service? Does it comes with e-mail or webspace? While we could live without ever knowing the answers to these questions, it would make our service seem much better.

Let’s start with the good:

Caller ID on TV: When someone calls, their name and number show up on the television if cable is on, This is an extremely useful feature
Fast internet: While not the fastest I’ve ever used, it’s pretty fast
No downtime: We have not experienced any downtime with our phone or internet
No special phone: Our regular phone works fine with the
75-ish channels, including local channels: I know my parents had a hard time getting local channels with their satellite so it’s good to have them readily provided

Onto the bad:

Phone only works with electricity: Considering as we don’t use our landline so much, this isn’t the worst issue. However, in case of an emergency where the power goes out, the phone is useless.
Each phone must be connected to the digital modem: As you can imagine, unless you have a wireless phone or two, you can only use phones within a reasonable distance from the modem.
Cable takes a long time to load: After turning on the power and the box, it takes 5 – 10 minutes to load up so if you want to watch something, you have to prepare ahead of time
Cable graphics are awful: Seriously, they’re straight out of web 2.0 and look horrible. 10 years ago, our Charter cable graphics looked better. Get with the times Time Warner!
Cable has to reset at midnight: This makes sense to me but it takes a long time to load and sometimes lags. Also, it sometimes resets multiple times a night
Hundreds of crap channels.: I don’t need more than one Video on Demand preview channel. Nor do I need my guide to list any channels I cannot access. I’d rather not even see this listed.
Restart “Feature”: Some shows on some channels seem to have the ability to restart them. I see this as advantageous but have never been able to get it to work successfully. Maybe we can’t actually use it with our plan? Then get rid of it.
Ridiculous Remote: Too many buttons. It doesn’t work the same as any cable/satellite remote control I’ve ever used and it relies too much on strange buttons.
Program info seems to cut off: Sometimes program info/descriptions are larger than the box provided them and they cut off with an ellipses but I don’t think it’s possible to read the rest of the description.
System freezes/lags: If you some something too large, the screen freezes momentary. Or, if you scroll too fast, it scrolls further than it should.

As you can see, a lot of the cons have to do with the cable and cable box. I think an upgrade would solve most of these issues. None of these issues really interfere with our service, however. I am still a but disappointed with the information we were not given when our services were installed.

In the end, I haven’t been impressed with Time Warner and would hesitate to use them again or recommend them to someone else.

Neureal (EMC Webhosting)

Cole — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:41:00 +0000

I was going to start this with, “I don’t want to be mean in my review of Neureal, the webhosting company I’ve been with for years” but.. Let’s face it, I don’t really have many qualms about being mean.

The background is that I have been with this company for over 5 years (or is it 6) and I’ve hosted several domains with them, have had numerous hostees and owned dozens of subdomains myself.

My relationship with them started off a bit rocky if only because I was new to this whole owning a domain and needing hosting thing. At the time, they were also using some older hardware and software which seemed to be slightly problematic. However, everything was upgraded and for several years I had no issues with any of their services. I could likely count the number of times I was not able to access my sites on one hand and they’re all forgettable, save for one time when the server was hacked which may have been before the upgrades anyway.

Neureal has always used H-Sphere for its server management software, unlike many companies which use C-Panel. I have found it to be easy to use and fairly customizable. I cannot remember a time when it really did not meet or even exceed my needs. I was able to set up FTP users, databases and use several scripts provided by Neureal for searching and statistics. Within this control panel was a support center featuring help topics and support tickets. I almost never had to contact Neureal because of something wrong on their end; I usually only needed help with serve info when installing scripts or if I accidentally deleted a file (oops!) and they were always extremely helpful in their responses which often occurred in less than a day.

All was good for several years until sometime earlier in 2008 when I ran into a snag and submitted a trouble ticket. I received no answer and checked back sometime around the 48 hour mark to find that not only was my support ticket gone but that the whole trouble ticket system has been removed and, instead, I was redirected to the support center of EMC Web Services. Apparently, there had been some sort of merger or buyout which the new powers that be had failed to tell Neureal’s customers. Not only was my problem still not solved (and it was fairly important; I think I had accidentally deleted the CSS file for my site!) but EMC was not impressing me with its customer service either.

So I had to sign up for this new support center, resubmit my problem and wait. I think it was crappy that not only was my current ticket closed, but they did not take the time to import my old tickets for reference. Furthermore, the new support center is really lacking in features (like you cannot respond to tickets via e-mail!).

Eventually, EMC were so kind to let me know that they could not retrieve the file unless I signed up for their back up service, which I said I would. Of course, they never subscribed me and I was eventually able to fix my CSS file by piecing together older style sheets.

Since then I have had to use the ticket center several times. I usually do not get timely responses and have had to submit multiple tickets for the same, unresolved issue. The issue at hand only further relates to the low quality service I have relieved since Neureal became EMC.

A few months ago, I noticed I was getting duplicate e-mails in my inbox and reported it. They actually responded fairly quickly and said they would look into it was I received no more word after that. Frustrated, I let it sit because I did not want to deal with it but, not too long ago, I looked into it again. EMC said they had not responded because they could not duplicate the issue. Excuse me? That is no excuse to not respond. Please tell me that you cannot duplicate it and I will be happy to clarify, which I did.

So they worked to try to duplicate it and their solution was that these were spam e-amils being sent very quickly by a robot on some computer. However, I know the difference between spam and legitimate e-mails. Spam does look repetitive but it does not usually occur at exactly the same time. Furthermore, these were newsletters I had chosen to receive, alerts from sites like Twitter and Entrecard and even e-mails from specific individuals. I knew they had no idea what the problem was. Their solution was to create a filter within the web based e-mail client to reroute these messages to a different folder. Except, this is useless to a person who wants to use Thunderbird, like myself.

The plugin has done more for me than EMC ever has and it doesn’t even work all that well. EMC eventually responded that they had located the source of the problem. My files are on a server which is not using the most recent version of H-sphere and, since they have no desire to upgrade it, I can switch to EMC’s official services (I am still listed as a customer of Neureal) and manually move all my files over to a new location or pay them $75 to do this.

I let them know this “solution” was not satisfying, did not actually change the problem and installed a Thunderbird Plug-in instead to deal with the issues. It is not my fault they own a server and refuse to keep it up. I should not have to pay them for something they should be happy to do for me and they should apologize for the inconvenience rather than imply I am an idiot. Furthermore, were I going to move all my files to a different serve, it would not be with the same company who has provided me with such shoddy service since they took over what used to be a great hosting company (did I mention they still have not alerted their customers to the transformation? I am sure people were upset when one day Neureal’s domain redirected to EMC’s without warning!).

Honestly, moving is not something I desire to do. It’s a tedious, painstaking task and while I know I will survive it, I would prefer to not have to. In the mean time, I’m stuck with this mediocre company who obviously does not value my patronage and I cannot advise anyone looking for hosting to choose them. In fact, I would suggest anyone with them currently to look for a better host.

Helpful Hint: Do not do business with this company. At all. Period.

PayU2Blog Update

Cole — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:58:00 +0000

A while ago, I vented my frustrations about PayU2Blog and although my issues seem to have been ‘resolved’ I am still unsatisfied with their customer service. Still, I will continue to use them as long as they pay but not give a damn if sometihng should happen.

The resolution was not a happy one. I simply unpacked my computer and was able to log in with my old password which was saved in Firefox. I also had access to the e-mail with the password in it which was saved on my computer.

Fortunately, PayU2Blog seems to have taken my advice because there is now a form of sorts to reset your password.

The program had continued running while I was gone and I was able to pick right back up where I left off desipte the fact that I had missed over a month’s worth of jobs. I was not penalized in anyway.

Unfortunately, I never found any human contact and the experience still has me feeling like PU2B doesn’t care about its workers or customers. This does not give me much faith in the company. Alas, what can I do?