30 day money back guarantee

Someone in the forum has fallen victim to the responsiveness of trouble tickets.

How in the heck do I get my money back? There's no cancel option anywhere. I've submitted 3 support tickets. I've called. Still, no one has contacted me and my account still shows that my upgrade is good through next year. How long does it take someone to get around to support tickets?

I'm not sure if he/she has received a responce, but seeing that there's no further discussion on the thread would mean that the issue have been resolved.

Usually, it's easier to get the admin's attention if it's brought to the forums. There are volunteery mods there who are keeping an eye on things and they get direct contact with the admins. (note: tips)

References: Plain Text Editor bugs, BlogDrive Disaster, Never Expect Replies from BlogDrive Trouble Ticket, BlogDrive Forum, How To Get A Reply From Blogdrive,
Tags: BlogDrive, Support Ticket, Trouble Ticket, Customer Services, Forum,

Tila Nguyen - who is she?

I receive a termendous amount of hits for this page: Tila Nguyen - but I have no idea who is she? And most of all why is she so popular that she brings so much traffic?

Anyway, over there at wikipedia they explained:

Tila Nguyen (born October 24, 1981 in Singapore), better known as Tila Tequila or simply Tila, is a Vietnamese American glamour model and singer who is most notable by her appearances in automotive import magazines and films, as well as her impact on the MySpace community. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Ooo la la! Well, what can I say?

Photobucket To Partner With Blogdrive

It hasn't been decided yet, but I know some users who use both BD and photobucket will be really happy with this partnership. I'm not sure about the rest though.

The partnership will benefit all users but there are certain points to ponder about:

1. Do we have to log in again while using photobucket?
2. Would this cause confusion (as discussed on the tagboard) to new users?
3. WIth more storage space for images, less people are likely to sign up for BD's subscription services, true or false?
4. Is Photobucket working hard to stay on the top, now that there are many competing services and blogging services which offers image hosting for free?

These are just discussions, whether or not it will work out we'll have to watch.

References: Main Tagboard, Photobucket,
Tags: Blogdrive, Photobucket, Image Hosting, Partnership,

BlogDrive Server Performance

GrabPERF is a blog performance monitoring website. Basically it checks the quality of responces from different blog servers. The shorter the time of responce, the better the service is. Click here for BlogDrive server performance history.

BlogDrive's server performance isn't too bad. Good Job I must say!

The "Page not found" issues are almost fixed now, I think. Check the GrabPERF website.

References: BlogDrive Disaster, GrabPERF BlogDrive,
Tags: GrabPERF, BlogDrive, Servers,

Greasemonkey PTE Fixer

Instead of moaning of the problem over and over again, Xr decided to write up a GreaseMonkey fixer for the BlogDrive PTE Posting Dates problem.

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML ("user scripts") to any web page to change its behavior.

If you uses Firefox and have the Greasemonkey installed on your computer, You may use this tool. Download the script here.

Below are the details, note the explanation: Blogdrives gives the time based on configured timezone. However, when creating a new entry, "Current" doesn't mean anything. In those cases, the hours are set to local time. Think about it if the machine from which you edit your blog is not set to the same timezone as your blog.

// Blogdrive PTE Fixer v 0.2.2
// Copyright (c) 2006, Xr
// Released under the GPL license
// http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
//
// This is a Greasemonkey script. if you don't have GM, go to
// http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
// GM is an extension for Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/)
//
// Known bugs :
// - Blogdrives gives the time based on configured timezone. However, when
// creating a new entry, "Current" doesn't mean anything. In those cases,
// the hours are set to local time. Think about it if the machine from which
// you edit your blog is not set to the same timezone as your blog.
//
// Version history :
// 0.2.2 : Fixed date systm where "09" would be interpreted as octal
// Fixed date showing GMT instead of local time.
// 0.2.1 : Title is not lost anymore
// 0.2 : Moved to a better way of getting input field, fields are now selected
// depending on posted date / current date
// 0.1 : Initial script
//
//
// ==UserScript==
// @name Blogdrive PTE Fixer
// @description Allows Plain Text Editor to correctly edit dates
// @namespace http://xr.i-jeuxvideo.com/?cat_id=progs
// @include http://www.blogdrive.com/manage/blog_entries*
// ==/UserScript==
// Get the invalid <input> field.

I have not tested it, but looking through the codes it appears to be doing it right since it's well organised and written. Try it out if you uses Greasemonkey.

References: Plain Text Editor (PTE) bugs and issues, Dates of Edited Posts, Can't Change My 'Publish Date', BlogDrive PTE Fixer, Greasemonkey,
Tags: BlogDrive, WYSIWYG, Editor, Firefox, Greasemonkey,

BlogDrive Update Forum

Helpee have created a forum topic to report on what's going on behind the scene. This is an applausible action because now we'll know why we are experiencing difficulties accessing webblogs. At least we know it's not a problem with our own computer (a relief).

http://www.blogdrive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3137

I'm certainly happy to see that despite a sudden influx of spam to my blog (which is ten fold) basically because BlogDrive is now beginning to communicate with their users in a more formal way. Keep up the good work!

Currently, it's reporting the status of the technical problems with the server. It's been stickified and locked from posting by normal users. I certainly hope it'll be regularly updated with the ongoings behind the scenes. This benefits the users as well as Blogdrive.

Oh, btw I hate spam. Sigh.

*Updates: They have removed the forum topic and started a brand new blog for it. Read them here.

References: Blogdrive Update,
Tags: BlogDrive, Forum, Spam,

How To Get a Reply From BlogDrive

Continuing on my previous entry I'm going to tell you the best way to get a responce. But there's no guarantee because it's still up to BlogDrive admin to do it.

Common Sense

Many many trouble tickets are being send in by a large amount of BD users, hence it's obviously a lot of work for the admin to look at and then reply. To make things easier for them, some simple measures can be taken.

Before you send in a question, make sure you check if somebody have already asked the same issue in the forum. This would help avoid you from appearing stupid.

Make your message short and simple with proper English. If you were to write a whole long piece of nonsense and not addressing the main issue, your message would probably be deleted even before reading.

A little common sense goes a long way.

Having done all the above but still not getting a reply. It'll be time to blame BD for poor customer service instead of youself.

References: Never Expect Replies from BlogDrive Trouble Ticket, BlogDrive Forum,
Tags: BlogDrive, Customer Services, Forum,

Never Expect Replies from BlogDrive Trouble Tickets

I know I've always suggested to everyone that whenever a problem arises with their blogdrive they should send in a trouble ticket to let the authorities know about their problem. However, as far as BlogDrive's customer service is concerned, trouble tickets, or in other words support tickets are not to be bothered, whether it's a mojor bug or not.

Trouble ticket are meant to be a form of method for BlogDrive users to communicate with BlogDrive administrator whenever there's a problem. However, many people tend to misuse this service and often lead to giving the admins too much unnecessary work.

On the support ticket page, it's clearly stated that due to large amount of tickets received, they may not respond especially to problems with designs.

Due to the large number of trouble tickets received, we may not respond to all. Especially those which are in regard to Blog design, are obscure or trivial in nature. If you are experiencing a problem setting up or editing your Blogdrive account, or if you would just like to leave a comment, please fill out the form below. We will contact you as soon as the problem is resolved. Any information you provide here may be shared with others.

It's also stated that they will respond as soon as the problem is resolved. This makes a lot of sense when no trouble tickets (known) have been responded, ever. Because no bugs or other known issues have been fixed yet (that are of any concern). This goes back to things like PTE, Page not Found, and some others.

It's reasonable, just as stated they will not respond. Unprofessional. In a way. Sadly. Personally, I've send in many trouble tickets and have never once received a reply. Not once. Could be my memory failing.

Do you have a similar experience? Tell us about yours.


References: Plain Text Editor bugs, BlogDrive Disaster,
Tags: BlogDrive, Support Ticket, Trouble Ticket, Customer Services,

Windows Live Mail Beta

I recently received an invitation by Microsoft to try out their new product, Windows Live Mail Beta. It's a brand new interface of webbased email exploiting the AJAX application structure. It's Microsoft's attempt to compete with Google's now very famous Gmail.

In simple words, it's a new version of Hotmail.

Getting Started

First, an invitation. If you don't have one, there are some methods you can try to get them.

To use Live Mail, I have to go through a transition process between my Hotmail account and Live Mail. This transition process will move all my emails, contacts and everything into Live Mail account. So, it doesn't mean that you have to sign up for a new email account or anything. Microsoft promise that if at any stage, I would like to opt out of this beta service, I can. That's promising enough for me.

What's special about Live Mail?

Everything you have in Hotmail is available in Live Mail. Live Mail uses AJAX technology, similar to Gmail. AJAX is not actually a technology but a very dynamic interface utilising Javascript and XML, this gives the end user some very cool features and fast browsing without having to reload the page all over again.

Upgrading to Live Mail gives you 2GB of free space instantly. 8 times better than the regular 250MB.

The whole page is divided into three columns. One for major folders, one for the list of emails with subject lines and contact, and the last one to view your selected email. It is also possible to resize the columns according to your liking.

Right Click. You can right click on where ever you want to see a list of options. For example, right click on the "Junk Folder" and select "Empty Folder". Or right click on a email message, and a few options such as "Reply", "Delete", "Forward" and "Move to" will appear.

Drag and drop feature. Haven't tried it out but you are suppose to be able to drag inbox messages into Junk Email.

Calendar is available with dynamic interface as well though I haven't ventured into it but I'm positive it's gonna kick ass.

Beta being Beta have Beta bugs

Yes. Beta bugs are one of the things you have to expect when you become a beta tester. While the interface have still plenty to improve on such as user friendliness and all, it's no where near as happening as Gmail.

One of the things that Live Mail promise is speed but even after utilising AJAX, speed isn't what they have. I suspect this may be caused by too much client side programming.

For example, to write an email. Inserting a contact is not easy, it is very slow due to a special feature that calls up similar email contact that is suppose to be smart enough to know who are you writing to. But it's filter go through the process over and over again that it lags behind. This incident occurs for the body part as well. Spell check is a wonderful feature, but it's very slow.

There are always a delay in whatever you want to do. It makes a http call in every click and every key you type.

Conclusion

It's still in the beta process and working hard to impress the beta testers. I have high hopes for this product. But whether or not I will move back to hotmail is definitely not going to happen. Well, maybe for the Calendar feature.

*Updates: It appears it's easy to sign up for Live Mail, just go to their sign up page and do it on your own.
**UPDATES: For those who would like to know how to cancel this service, click here.

References: How to get a Live Mail Invitation, LiveMail Ideas, Live Mail Signup, Live Mail Blog,
Tags: Live Mail, Beta, Hotmail, Gmail, Microsoft, Google,