Here’s a simple example of a final value fee calculation for an auction-style listing:

• You sell an item for $95.00 with a shipping cost of $5.00.
• Your final value fee on the item cost is 9% of $95,00, which is $8.55.
• Your final value fee on the shipping cost is 9% of $5.00, which is $0.45.

It’s the same thing as: item cost + shipping cost * 9%, which equals: total value * 9%. No wonder they aren’t charging an insertion fee any more; they simple raised rates all around. Then add on PayPal fees (~5%), which means eBay nearly takes 15%. Some seller are paying 20%+, WOW!

Just thought I would rant a little to spread the word around to all you unsuspecting eBay sellers…

Immediately I emailed support asking for a refund. But they said, “after your return has been processed by our office, you will receive a refund in the amount of fifty percent of the production cost of the returned glasses. We do not reimburse for shipping and handling. So, I asked if I could exchange? Again they repeated that it was my fault and should have read the sizing instructions, which I did! Additionally I had already ordered from them before:

The brown case and pair to the right are from an older ZenniOptical.com order; IMO when their quality was much better. Look at the cases they give you now, about half the size of the original. They really cram them in there. I digressed a little didn’t I? As stated they didn’t care I am a repeat customer or the fact that they glasses I got for myself were bought as spares and dirt cheap. Why would I scam them over $15? Additionally, of the four I bought these were the cheapest! Oh, the photographic proof of their mislabeling/sizing:

No more buying them for me, especially after what I just went through. I know it’s only $15, but its the principle of it all… how easily they took my money but can careless if they made a sizing mistake. So, be careful if you are thinking about ordering from them. Oh, by the way I’ll be keeping them because it just doesn’t make sense: $15+s/h, return for 50% ($7.50)-s/h costs(3.75)=3.75. That means I paid $12 and some change for their sizing mistake and end up with nothing!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

-Thuan

But this post is not about there servers randomly going down. It’s about another bad customer service experience I had with GoDaddy support. Every time I asked for the support expert (ha) to check to see if something had gone wrong on their end he said, “nothing has gone wrong, your site is scripted wrong.” Even after explaining that I had not touched my site in ages and the other was install by GoDaddy… he continued to disregard any my suggestion/queries has to what might have gone wrong.  In the end all I wanted was the sites up and not to point a finger.

I even started a post on their forums and without surprise other users have been experiencing the same problems for 30+ hours. Honestly they could have just checked and might have found/suggested something like “please try restarting your application pool?!?!”

http://community.godaddy.com/groups/web-hosting/forum/topic/sites-down-1/

It gets worst they edited any (if not) all the comments on the forums that made the server failures their fault. Again saying it’s our fault. Big time, NO NO!!!

After writing this I will still keep the sites mention with them because moving the sites will be such a hassle and their prices are one of the lowest for Windows hosting. But as for future sites and any potential customers they might have had going to them from me… the count is now ZERO.

So if you are considering GoDaddy web hosting. Be very very careful.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

-Thuan

Admittedly, it has its ups and down. To use the line as a fax number, I had to tweak the system a little. If you are using any Voice over IP type of system, you should really give Ooma a try… it’ll save you hundreds of dollar a year! Whatever you do though, don’t buy their Telo headset. It’s a piece of junk that has little features, low volume, and poor clarity. (Update: If you get the Telo headset, you get the instant second line… free.)

Ooma support seems to be outsourced and utterly useless. They’ll just repeat what is on the Ooma website. If you have any problems with an Ooma go to their forums, you find your answer there. Oh, BTW, I have had to RMA my first one already because I stopped work after two weeks.

Long story short, Ooma is great when it is works. There is a small learning curve and once you have it set up right, everything will be great.

One more thing, there are two versions of Ooma, the Hub and Telo. The Telo is the later version and looks slicker, but comes with an annual tax of approximately $11.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Procedure Forum_AA_StatisticsSiteUpdate, Line 64
Invalid column name ‘IsPrivate’.
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Procedure Forum_AA_StatisticsSiteUpdate, Line 78
Invalid column name ‘IsPrivate’.
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Procedure Forum_ForumUserViewsUpdate, Line 0
Invalid column name ‘LastForumsView’.

This is because the table columns were changed without updating their relevant stored procedures. After looking at the stored procs and the table structures, it seems that:

IsPrivate is now PublicView &
LastForumsView is now LastActivity.

Changing the variables mentioned temporarily fixed my problems.

HTHs,
Thuan

DNN/Providers/HtmlEditorProviders/Telerik/Config/ToolsDefault.xml

I suggest that you only comment out the tools that you don’t want, you might find them handy later on…

If you look within the DNN/Providers/HtmlEditorProviders/Telerik/ folder you will also find the EditorOverride.css file. Which I found I needed to edit because by default the editor used the same “imaged background” and “centered” properties the site used.

Finally, if you find that you don’t like Telerik’s RADeditor, you can always revert back to the original FCKeditor via the web.config file…

find:
<htmlEditor defaultProvider=”TelerikEditorProvider“>
… change it to:
<htmlEditor defaultProvider=”FckHtmlEditorProvider“>

Happy Coding,
Thuan

To be frank, if I were forced to sign up for a new account I would rather use Meebo. Meebo is another popular AIO IM platform, their thing is that you don’t have to install anything; all you need is an Internet connection to get going with them. Still a new account is required if you want to see all your clients in one place.

But after some searching, I found Pidgin. Pidgin, the universal chat client is exactly what Trillian 3 was and my new favorite AIO IM program. Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. It is simple to use and light on resources. So, if you are on the hunt for a new chat client.

Give Pidgin a try…

“IM all your friends in one place.”

Okay, I feel better now.