I just wanted to provide some information for those that are viewing, The Way I See It... on the web. I have made some changes with my blog; like the obvious, a new design format. I also provided a social toolbar, so you can follow, friend, or like me and my services and products; you will notice it at the bottom of your browser. I have added a very easy to use timeline archive, developed by the fine folks over @Memolane; and I will be cleaning up the archive, clearing out the trash, and editing to fit the new format. You can still find the original blog feed @Blogger, but I have added a new blog feed @tumblr; while I am redirecting the way the feeds travel, the feedburner feed should remain as it is; there may be a few bugs, such as repeat information until I finish redirecting the blog feeds. Both blogs will remain active, as they offer different advantages, while maintaining a uniform look and feel. I will be making some other integrations and things may be a little messy around here for awhile; if you receive my blog through your email, or reader, the changes you see should remain minimal, other than more activity and social interaction. I hope you enjoy the new look, feel, and interaction of the new/old blog @The Way I See It...
..@greyeyesgabriel
4.06.2011
Memolane facebook bug persists!
I tried to post this as a reply in the support forum at MemoLane; however, they useGetSatisfaction(<---won't let me tag them, go figure), which would not allow me to post to the memolane support forum. I have had nothing but a bad experience with GetSatisfaction on many platforms that I develop on and have yet to gain any satisfaction using their service; including the inability to delete my company accounts with them, but then how can you provide support for multiple platforms that you know nothing about? Outsourcing your support to a Forum company that restricts the voice of people that seek to assist others in the community that aren't receiving help from either GetSatisfaction or the company they are hosting. What kind of message does that send to customers? What kind of support does it provide when when select people can't even post their issues on the platform because they have been banned and blacklisted by the support forum that your company chooses to use. Everything below was the comment that I tried to post to the thread linked above; there is a long list of developers that have been banned from this community that misleadingly calls itself "GetSatisfaction!"
So sad; I had the same issue; after trying everything suggested here, including clearing my cache and restarting my browser, I was unsuccessful at removing the facebook feed and profile picture from this app; even after removing the app cookie from my facebook profile. Memolane must have my facebook profile saved to their cache, because it still displayed both the profile photo in every view, as well as the feed in whatever privacy setting was set before removing the facebook widget. This seems to be a rather serious privacy issue involving the integration with the facebook API. I would start by checking the data entered into the app registration on the facebook developers website; then see if facebook changed something in their format that would change how your app reacts with facebook; if it's nothing on facebook then I would go through the source code looking for missing semicolons or exclamations. Just a trouble shooting suggestion from another developer; also, I would suggest putting an input field for profile image control; if image hosting is an issue then you could provide a by URL hosting from such services as Photobucket, Flickr, Picasa, and maybe even an editing integration with Picnik or Photobucket; but at least an URL hosting image control feature would be nice for people to honestly take you seriously as a privacy service.
Unfortunately I could find no other option other than to delete that account; and then signed up for another account under the same email address, it worked just fine. The profile with the facebook bug was deleted and I was immediately able to sign up for a new account. As unfortunate as it is, this type of thing happens during the development of new and innovative services; which memolane displays on their service with the little "beta" tag. I hope that you find my information both useful and postive; I like and will continue to use the memolane service. I am sure that with this issue being over a month old that memolane is working on a fix to this issue; it is a small annoyance but not a vital flaw, for that matter it could be a virus. Good luck and happy coding!
*since I couldn't GetSatisfaction on the Memolane support forum; I am trying to ensure that Memolane is aware of this issue, especially since this thread is listed as answered as if the suggested fix worked; which we can all clearly see is still persistent even after over a month of the original post on the bug. I did fix the problem, even though it required starting all over; which is a quick and easy process on Memolane. I still find Memolane to be a great web application which has great potential; especially as they grow and integrate more services...just wait and see what I do with it!
my GetSatisfaction profile: http://getsatisfaction.com/people/greyeyesgabriel
my Memolane profiles: http://memolane.com/greyeyesgabriel
**Edit: April 8, 2011
I have received word from the support staff at Memolane on this issue and I am updating this post with good news. I have provided the reply below which explains the timeline for fixes and improvements; I am impressed with the excellent response from the support staff that actually answered my post on the original facebook note; something that would have been ignored by some of the more popular start-ups. I strongly recommend the Memolane service for your feeds. Below is the not comment that I received from Meghan @Memolane support:"Thank you for sharing your feedback about the profile picture bug. We are working on a fix for this bug that will address the issue of defaulting to a Facebook profile photo and the caching problem that is not keeping profile photos current with the services on your lane.
1) We will be changing the default hierarchy to put Twitter at the top, so that your default profile picture will be your Twitter profile photo when you add a Twitter account to Memolane.
2) Your profile photos will be synched with the online services you currently have added to your lane. When you remove a service, the cached profile image link will be removed as well to ensure that we are not pulling images from services that are no longer affiliated with your Memolane account.
We are planning an interface update that will allow you to choose your own profile photo, but that will not be available immediately. So, in the meantime we will be offering this solution, which we think is a much-needed improvement, until you, the users are able to choose your own profile photo.
I’m sorry to hear that you have had a negative experience with Get Satisfaction. We are eager to hear from all our users who want to share their feedback. You are always welcome to e-mail us directly at support@memolane.com with any questions or feedback. The profile picture question has been updated with a new comment concerning the progress of our fix to that bug and the improvements we are planning. Please let me know if you have any other questions."
I am looking forward to it and thank you for responding. As you can see, Memolane really cares about the satisfaction of their customers; I only wish that I could say the same thing about Eric Suez and the Get Satisfaction team; take note GetSatisfaction, this is how you deal with unsatisfied customers; not by blacklisting them from your platform!
4.03.2011
Why Google is #1
source: greyeyesgabriel facebook notes
I am getting rather fed up with start-ups that offer great features on a free platform; only to restrict those features a year or two later when their user base grows, in an attempt to drive more people into paid platforms. I am seriously considering moving all of my main websites to Google Sites; not only would my sub-domain be associated with the largest web company, ensuring indexing by Google; but it would also allow me to use my Google Webmaster and Google Analytics codes without paying a hosting company hundreds of dollars a year just to be able to claim ownership and track my own websites. If I want to make it a social platform, all I have to do is add in Google Groups to the integration. I find it interesting how many people look at Google as a threat and want to take them down; yet Google started as, and still remains to be an open source community where you can find any information about web design and development, tutorials for coding, software, and just about anything else you need to know; as well as development tools all for free. Everything Google touches turns to gold; YouTube, Feedburner, Android, and the list goes on and on. Google is even developing cars that drive themselves with much success; no wonder people want to take down the Google giant, they have become the largest by providing resources and information for free!
I am getting rather fed up with start-ups that offer great features on a free platform; only to restrict those features a year or two later when their user base grows, in an attempt to drive more people into paid platforms. I am seriously considering moving all of my main websites to Google Sites; not only would my sub-domain be associated with the largest web company, ensuring indexing by Google; but it would also allow me to use my Google Webmaster and Google Analytics codes without paying a hosting company hundreds of dollars a year just to be able to claim ownership and track my own websites. If I want to make it a social platform, all I have to do is add in Google Groups to the integration. I find it interesting how many people look at Google as a threat and want to take them down; yet Google started as, and still remains to be an open source community where you can find any information about web design and development, tutorials for coding, software, and just about anything else you need to know; as well as development tools all for free. Everything Google touches turns to gold; YouTube, Feedburner, Android, and the list goes on and on. Google is even developing cars that drive themselves with much success; no wonder people want to take down the Google giant, they have become the largest by providing resources and information for free!
Smaller companies just can't compete while offering their great features for free; they begin to struggle to please investors, or pay for exccess bandwidth, and begin to try to push their free users into paid platforms, then the free traffic leaves and the focus becomes getting the paid customers to pay more; this is what ends up leading to the failure of great startups with solid platforms. This is why I am pleased that I don't have investors involved in my startup; I would rather succeed or fail on my own merit without investors that have sunk millions of dollars into my platform expecting immediate returns, that's just not how it works in the real virtual reality! It takes years to build a platform, while earning the trust of your customers; the last thing a company would want to do is betray that trust and go back on promises made when they had first started with their fresh ideas and eagerness to take over the world, or at least the virtual world. Companies like Webs (formerly freewebs), Ning, and other resource providers for webmasters have fell victim to this type of practice and now some of the newer companies that were startups only a few years ago are making the same mistakes; there is a reson that all of these "free" developers flocked to your site in the first place, mostly because you offered the most control for those hidden codes that developers depend upon to show the search engines ownership and provide developers with the analytics data that they require to know where their traffic is coming from and other statistics that are vital to the development of our websites and networks.
The value is not in your features and what you can provide; the value is in the control of the website. As a developer, if I can not claim ownership of the site within my Google Webmaster account; or if I can't track my traffic to my website, then your service just depreciated to the point of me looking for a new service that will allow me to have that control. It is a slap in the face to me for you to say that you get to own my creative work after all of the time I have invested in developing it on your platform and telling everyone I know about your great service! Yes; I have severed ties with companies because of this type of practice, but at least I know that if I go with Google, it will be the last time I will ever have to move my hosting because of coding issues and ownership. Perhaps these startups need to remember who it was that made their service so popular in the first place; it's those developers that joined your free platform that told their friends, who told their friends, and so on; it's called viral advertising and it is the oldest form of advertising on the planet, also the most dependable and profitable. If you earn the trust of your customers, then you earn a client for life.
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