Please note that the InvisionFree IRC has moved to irc.freenode.net #invisionfree
We feel that FreeNode provides a more professional working environment and will be working in the coming weeks to legitimize the IRC channel as a supported point of contact for InvisionFree staff. Stay tuned.
Some of you reading this post will be doing so through the newest syndication method for my blog and others: Planet InvisionFree. In creating the Planet, we had a few goals in mind:
The Planet was also created because I’m lazy. But we don’t talk about that one.
So if you’re reading this via Planet, welcome! You’ll get to know the InvisionFree staff better. If you’re not reading via Planet, go check it out! The variegated personalities here are sure to entertain you.
Remember that our postings may not represent the view of InvisionFree as a company and that each staff member is solely responsible for his or her writing. Enjoy!
I had my AIM address set on “Allow friends only” for a couple days. I just set it back to normal… in less than 10 seconds I had someone who hadn’t read my rant. Sigh.
It’s frustrating when people ask support questions with another motive in mind. For example, we get lots of tickets asking for a backup of their forums “so it’s safe”. When told that InvisionFree backs up all user forums so they don’t have to, they persist in asking for a MySQL dump “just in case”. Huh uh. Guess what they want? To switch hosts. Well me laddies, there is a little charge for that. Apply Conversion multimod and move on.
It really has been fun working the other side of the tech support table these last few years. Interesting to pick out the little quirks inherent to tech support that you then see when getting help from other companies’ tech teams. What you need to realize, whether you’re calling, writing, typing, whatever, is that the support people (usually) don’t know you from Adam. What they will know, however, is what you’re trying to hide, because they’ve seen the same trick 1,000 times before. Whether that means you broke your motherboard by plugging a card in backwards, or want a database dump, they’ve seen it. Just tell them what you really want, and more likely than not, they can still help. Promise.
(Note: this mostly applies to InvisionFree users, but might apply to you too. I just needed a place to put it.)
So, you think that because I make my IM addresses publicly available, that I want to talk to you, eh? Well, let’s run down a set of criteria for IMing or otherwise harrassing me. My IM addresses are some of the easiest to obtain of all InvisionFree or ASO staff… I do this because I want to be available for those that really need immediate help. Let’s talk about what to and not to do.
Please note that if you don’t immediately identify yourself, where you come from, and why you’re IMing me, you’ll probably get blocked. It’s not that I don’t like you… I just get waaaay too many spambots, support requests, etc. to do anything but block, block, block.
And so we begin:
Read the rest of this thought »