brentashley

If you have ever used Groove, you will know that it regularly pops up a notification that there is some new version of a widget or installation helper. You click ok and it grabs it and installs it into your Groove client.

I got one of those notifications last Monday (a week ago today). As is normal, I clicked ok on it, however this time it downloaded a much larger package than usual. It wasn’t until the package finished and required a reboot that it finally came up and told me that I had upgraded from my paid version 2.5 (paid at 2.1 but upgraded to 2.5) to version 3.0, and that I had to either enter a valid 3.0 key or accept that I would now be limited to 3 spaces (I have 5 active spaces) and that various essential features would start to disappear over the next month (file replication for instance) unless I converted my new “Trial” software to a full license.

No problem, thought I, I’ll just contact Groove and have them right this for me, tell me how to downgrade and still use my data.

I consulted their site to get support. I have a login, but I could not find any indication how to actually get support. See if you can tell how to get support for a problem like mine (without paying) from this page: http://www.groove.net/index.cfm/pagename/SupportOptions/

Finally, I used the problem reporting link that I managed to get to from Groove’s help menu and submitted my query from an online form.

After 24 hours with no reply, I sent an email to support@groove.net.

After 24 further hours with no reply, I sent an email to sales@groove.net.

On each of the emails I stressed that I had yet to even receive an acknowledgement of my contact with them.

It has now been a week and I have still yet to hear from them. Not a sausage.

Here is a quote from their support page:

Outstanding customer care is yet another way that we seek to gain your trust in us as a company that can meet your needs. Our support team excels at resolving your issues quickly. Every inquiry is tracked and managed so we can resolve your issues effectively.

I see no evidence of any of the above assertions.

Groove has been a great tool for me, but I’m now looking for alternatives. I can’t consider it a critical tool in my business with service like this. Could you?

What’s up, Ray? I’ve never had any reason to be disappointed till now.

Update
90 minutes after my blog entry, a support message arrived (does someone have an rss search feed that takes higher priority than their email?) detailing how I can uninstall version 3.0, reinstall 2.5 and then restore from an archive.

Being that my last Groove backup is part of a drive image backup, this would entail at minimum a day’s work that could have been avoided had I been presented with a dialog box that clearly said “You are about to upgrade to version 3.0 – Are You Sure?”

I really had consciously decided not to upgrade to version 3.0 until I was ready to and would have declined the offer had it been clear to me.

Clearly, the simplest way out would be for me to pay the $25 or $50 to upgrade (oops – just looked it up. It’ll be $150 to upgrade to the professional edition. not sure what the filesharing edition does but I’d likely lose functionality from 2.5 Standard). I might well have done that a month from now, but I can’t imagine myself doing so with my back against the wall. I suppose that’s stubborn of me but I think I have a point.

I don’t normally just blog an odd link but this takes the cake.

This story is a perfect example of what leads me to tell people that because I married an English girl, I live in a bilingual world.

Test Entry to try nofollow.

Rick Klau reports that Barack Obama will be on Letterman on Friday night.

Rick also points out that Barack is the #2 candidate for the Democratic leadership race for the 2008 Presidential election. I assume Hilary Clinton is #1.

Both of these people are outstanding candidates to be sure, but I can’t help but wonder that with conservatism momentum having won the day this time around, whether the next election is a bit of a precarious time to be breaking ground with the first black or female presidential candidate. I guess we’ll see how it evolves.

Blogging dynamo Joey deVilla, Accordion Guy managed to get his dream job at Blogware after the blogger get-together I hastily arranged last year when Doc Searls was in town visiting the folks at Tucows.

Now Joey’s getting married to fellow blogger Wendy the Redhead, which will undoubtedly be a big todo in the blogosphere.

Good on ya, mate.

William Gibson quotes John Cleese:

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness.

With dubya’s drop in the polls, I’m betting this ever-so-opportune October Surprise will come to pass. Just you wait and see.

Is there any limit to the depths to which dubya’s campaign will stoop to get its way?

I saw the Cheney/Edwards debate last night.

Although I anticipated Edwards to come off as a ineffective, a tingly-smile Ted McGinley with no chops, he did extremely well. He’s articulate and can think on his feet, and he didn’t shy from laying in the punches.

Cheney was as I expected – party line, on the attack on perceived weaknesses, lots of repetition.

One thing I haven’t seen anyone comment on is that as the debate went on, Cheney seemed to me to be making less and less eye contact with the camera, the moderator and his opponent. His body language appeared to me to be that of someone who knows he’s not giving the straight goods.