Julian Melo – SEO, Wordpress Consultant & Web Dev.
Ranting
AVOID AVG 8.0 AT ALL COSTS!
I hate to use caps in a title, but this time I’m forced to. Whatever you do, avoid AVG 8.0 which was released yesterday (2/28/08) . For that matter, avoid AVG altogether. I installed AVG Antivirus Network Edition on all the workstations at a clients’ and everything started to crash. EVERYTHING! Servers and workstations. I can only blame myself for installing a brand new version without testing (bad, bad mistake). I’ve used AVG extensively in the past, and I’ve never encountered any problems. As a matter of fact, I prefered using AVG because of its easy to administrate (install, monitor and update all the clients from the server) and because of its small footprint on the systems. My second choise has always been Bitdefender, and only because it costs about twice as much as AVG, but now it is my only choice.
Again, avoid AVG 8.0, at least until they get their act together. I believe they rushed version 8.0 out the door and therefor delivered an extremely buggy program. I can’t trust company like this anymore. It was nice to know you, AVG.
My new favorite antivirus is Avast. They offer a free version, but it really shines when you buy More >
What’s up with Paypal?
Ever since Paypal redesigned their whole interface I’ve been having all sorts of issues. First of all, it is almost impossible to change your address. In my case, I needed to add the apt/unit number on the second line of my address. I tried several times, after adding new credit cards/deleting credit cards, but nothing worked. I finally gave up and decided to contact support via phone. After being on hold for about 45 minutes, the service rep (with a very heavy Indian-accent) added my aptartment number.
The second issue I’ve had with them is trying to obtain another debit card. The last step on the website just takes you back to the main profile page. I contacted support via email, and 2 days later I was told that they had ordered the card manually for me, but it never arrived.
I came across these issues about 2 months ago, right after they added some web 2.0 spice, and they still haven’t been addressed. In my opinion, Paypal just jumped into the new interface without fully testing it, and they still haven’t fixed all the bugs. Rather disappointing for such a huge company (they’re owned by eBay, after all).
More >
My First Mac Rant
I’ve been using a Mac Book Pro running OS X Leopard as my main PC for about 2 weeks now, and my goal was to adapt without Windows (either via Parallels or Boot Camp) using native software. Browsing, well Firefox and all the plugins I use work in OS X. iTunes? Well…iTunes. Video/Codecs? VLC. FTP? Cyberduck. Office 2007? Well, there’s Office 2008 for Mac.
Everything seamed like a smooth transition until I started using Word, Excel and Entourage. Everything looks different. Tool bars and menus are totally different from their Windows counterparts. It is not easy for Mac-switchers as it is, getting used to not having a taskbar, jumping icons and what not, but why oh why does Word for Mac have to be completely different from regular Windows Word? Why is Entourage the complete opposite of Outlook? I mean, its the same program in essence that does the same stuff, but these having different UIs is confusing and just plain stupid. If Adobe can do it with evey single Creative Suite program Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) why isn’t Microsoft doing it?
My guess is that Microsoft doesn’t care about Mac-switchers and they aren’t the core target. They care about providing Windows-Word like More >
Almost switched Web host today…
Let me give you a bit of background on this. About a month ago we started Dumbfiles, which we host on Dreamhost, which has been wonderful to us for over a year. The problem is that we’ve experienced a ton of issues with our service lately and this might hinder Dumbfiles’ growth. So we started looking around for other hosts (which by the way, is awful, all the review sites are paid, if you know of any non-biased review, let me know).
We looked at Hostgator, but of course, they’re known for suspending accounts for excessive CPU usage out of the blue. We looked at MediaTemple, but they don’t provide the bandwidth we need. And finally we stumbled upon Site5. $18 a month gives you 10 TB of bandwidth and 1 TB of storage. THAT IS TWICE WHAT WE’VE GOT WITH DREAMHOST!!!! Surely there had to be a catch, but I couldn’t find their Terms of Service, so I headed over the their sign-up page. I started filling out all the usual stuff, and as I was about the hit the "SUBMIT ORDER" button, when I decided to check out their TOS (which is located here). This is what I More >
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