Here's a short story about how not to treat your customers.
On Monday, I noticed that certain files were missing from my web host (which I also use to host this blog). Most importantly, all the work I had done over the last three weeks on my current freelance web project was gone. After sending several e-mails and waiting for most of the day, I finally received a response:
Hello,
We are currently upgrading all of our servers and moving them to another Data Center. You will probably notice some strange issues with e-mail, mysql, php dynamic pages, etc. These upgrades will be done by the end of the month. If you continue to have issues on the new server please contact us with the specific issues. Most of your issues should subside after being moved to the new server. Thanks.
Regards,
Technical Support David Abrams Technical Support Manager
So, let me get this straight: This was a planned upgrade, yet you sent me no warning beforehand that my files were going to be affected? Then you let me know that the problem "should" be fixed by "the end of the month"? And you can't even offer an apology for the fact that I can't use a service I'm paying for?
I called, and after waiting on hold for half of my lunch break, I got through to Mr. Abrams, who is as pathetically classless on the phone as he is via e-mail. He was obnoxiously sarcastic, and continued to fall back on informing me, "The server is functioning perfectly," despite the clear evidence to the contrary. He finally admitted that other customers were missing files as well, but that there was nothing he could do about it at the moment because the upgrade was still in progress - but far from apologizing, he acted incredulous that I couldn't wait a few days.
Needless to say, I'm done with them. It was a hassle to switch hosts, but this blog is now running off the new one, and the rest of my stuff soon will be as well. Bye bye, Simplehost. I'm sure I'm not the only customer you lost this week.
A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.
"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.
Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.
If this kind of thing can happen now, imagine how screwed Bush is going to be if and when the Dems take over this November. It'll be like a feeding frenzy.
Just when I was starting to forget how bad Wal-Mart was for the country...
...they're nice enough to provide a pretty clear reminder:
In a clear victory for Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), a federal judge on July 19 struck down a Maryland law that required the world's largest retailer to provide more health-care coverage for its employees in the state. The decision marks a significant setback for government officials and others who have been pressing Wal-Mart to boost the benefits and wages that it pays to its 1.3 million U.S. employees.
The Maryland state law was passed in January and was scheduled to become effective on Jan. 1, 2007. It required nongovernment employers with more than 10,000 workers to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits. While other large employers in the state, such as Giant Foods, met that threshold, Wal-Mart did not.
Wal-Mart battled against the legislation for months, first through lobbyists and then via a lawsuit against the state filed in February. The suit was filed by the Retail Industry Leaders Assn., a trade group representing Wal-Mart and other big retailers. In his decision on July 19, Judge J. Frederick Motz of U.S. District Court in Baltimore found that the law violated federal law regulating employee benefits, specifically the Federal Employment Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA]. 'The act violates ERISA's fundamental purpose of permitting multi-state employers to maintain nationwide health and welfare plans, providing uniform nationwide benefits and permitting uniform national administration,' he wrote in the decision.
Haley Joel Osment was hospitalized early Thursday after he apparently lost control of his car while heading to his Los Angeles area home, authorities said.
Osment, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as a boy who could see dead people in 'The Sixth Sense,' was driving a 1995 Saturn about 1 a.m. when the car collided with a brick pillar and flipped, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Greg Sisneros.
Because there's something really fishy about a famous actor driving a 1995 Saturn.
President Bush cast the first veto of his 5-1/2-year presidency Wednesday, rejecting legislation to ease limits on federal funding for research on stem cells obtained from embryos.
"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life of the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our society needs to respect, so I vetoed it," Bush said at a White House event where he was surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos that were not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.
"Each of these children was still adopted while still an embryo and has been blessed with a chance to grow, to grow up in a loving family. These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said.
That would be a great argument if it were valid and relevant, rather than misleading and irresponsible. The thing is, there are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States, and a large percentage of them are going to end up getting thrown out. Only the ones that are on their way to being disposed of would be used. No matter how many times the scientific community points this out, there's a group of people who from some reason choose to cover their ears and go "LALALALA, babykiller, LALALA".
In the end, the only difference Bush's veto will make is that it will take many years longer for medical science to produce cures and/or effective therapies for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal injuries, and other ailments. By then, millions of people will have died from conditions that could have otherwise been treated. But hey, at least a few embryos got a hassle-free trip to the trash compactor.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans’ international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.
...
Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that the president would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.
“It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?” asked Specter, R-Pa., referring to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
“The president of the United States makes the decision,” Gonzales told the committee hearing, during which he was strongly criticized on a range of national security issues by Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel’s senior Democrat.
Um, that doesn't answer the question, so I guess it's time to subpoena the big kahuna himself. Right? Please?
Rivers Cuomo says that, for now, Weezer is 'done.'
Cuomo, the band's bespectacled songwriter and frontman, told MTV that while he remains in touch with his bandmates, 'we've never mentioned getting together.'
'Really, for the moment, we are done,' he said. 'And I'm not certain we'll ever make a record again, unless it becomes really obvious to me that we need to do one.'
And this day started off so good. I want to go home.
I find it most extraordinary: The heartless had a coronary! But like my mama always said, "Never speak ill of the dead." So though Ken Lay away did pass, I'll beat no dead horse, nor this ass.
Based on this clip, I already know I could never watch this show - the judges are absolutely unbearable, and not only because one of them is David Hasselhoff. But this girl is unbelievable.
They're back, after not posting anything new since May 22. The father of the Brothers Chaps died in April, unexpectedly I think, and it looks like any updates to the site since then were just some old stuff they had lying around. Also, I guess the father was more involved in the site than most people knew, even though he's never mentioned in any of the credits. In any case, it's great to have HSR updating again.
"Some people say that I must be a terrible person, but it's not true. I have the heart of a young boy... in a jar on my desk." - Stephen King
About Me
Name: Matt Dana
Location: Rochester, New York, US
Web developer (both full-time and freelance on the side) living in sunny Rochester, NY. Married to a kickass lady-type. I spend far too much time in front of a computer, but I love building web sites (not that you could tell from looking at this blog... actual design coming someday) so it's fine by me. I also drink beer.
