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James Martin
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Andrei,
First off, I would like to thank you very much for actually answering the initial question this afternoon. As I think you will agree, it was a very simple question with a very simple answer. With the revised value to search for it was easy to find the relevant sections of the code, and were we still going to be using it, it would have been very simple to make the changes.
Secondly, I'd like to point out that I do *not* do things out of spite. I posted here in hopes that someone might have a suggestion, and felt that I needed to explain why I didn't want to go with what looked like the ideal solution. Frankly, I think that thread is pretty much a text book case for how to drive away a potential customer that's TRYING to justify the purchase.
This is an inappropriate forum to discuss this (I apologize to the RT mods, and please feel free to delete the thread if you think it appropriate), but as you choose to represent me as having been unreasonable, *spiteful* and overly demanding and I have apparently been banned from your forum, we cannot discuss it there. I never *did* get an answer to the question, Erik dismissed my request for clarification out of hand, and, as your own post this afternoon demonstrates, the initial answer was not usable, as I politely pointed out. I DID ask followup questions, repeatedly, and politely.
I appreciate your time and effort, and I too am quite disappointed at the way everything turned out, as I believe that you have quite a nice product line (as I said repeatedly). I'm sorry that your own post wasn't a lot sooner as it's really all I was looking for, a quick simple answer to a quick simple question. I was *never* asking for customization or any of the other extreme things Erik accused me of, I simply (and politely) asked for confirmation that the relevent file did not change from the 1.0x version to the 1.5x version of the product.
I think if you read everything I posted, you'll see that I went to pretty extreme lengths to remain polite and tried to keep things positive and civil. I even posted back when I found a different solution so that it wasn't an issue left hanging open. As it so happened though, we're in a situation that buying a copy of your RSS Image Factory product was my next step, unfortunately, my exchange with Erik, and the fact that he *deleted* a thread where I asked an unrelated question about the overlib offset problem (where I also posted back to thank you for your time but not to worry as I had found another solution, again being polite) left me quite uncertain about whether I would be able to get any support on the *paid* product should I purchase it. You site states that there are no refunds and that purchasers should try the product in the demo first.
Fair enough.
But there *is* no demo for that product, and given my experience of the support thus far I think I had understandable concerns. I politely explained the situation, and my interest in purchasing a license for the paid product and *asked* for some help in believing that support was better for the paid products? A simple assurance that the email based support was more responsive would have been sufficient to be quite honest as I really was looking for an excuse to give the rss Image Factory a try.
Please understand, while I totally understand the time limitations imposed in supporting free products, that support is also a way that prospective customers measure the support that they can expect to get if they DO buy a paid license. My question was very simple, politely phrased and easily answered (as you later demonstated), I was in no way asking for heroic efforts "customization of the code" or installation assistance of any kind.
My examples late in the thread regarding support were in response to Eriks post of:
"If you want to customize the product is your bussiness. You can do that, but not on our cost and time. You mistake the term of support with somebody staying and giving lessons about the code. I dont think there is a software house in the world offering something like this."
In NO way was I asking for anything that extreme, so I simply pointed out that almost every company that I have done business with provides basic support with making the product work in the customer's particular environment. Nothing extreme, but basic questions are answered.
The reason I kept discussing it was because I *WANTED* to buy your product, I think it might very well be the best solution available for what we are trying to do. I asked Erik to *please* give me a reason to believe that support for the paid product would include simple questions such as what I had just asked and been unable to get an answer for.
As you said, it was a terribly big fuss over a small issue, and frankly I honestly wish it had never happened in the first place as now I'm stuck trying to make something else work in place of rssImage Factory, which I still think is probably the best product for the job.
::shaking head::
Man... I can't believe how much time I wasted on this issue.
James and Susan
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