Nobody Cares about Tech Support

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Look, I’m sure that the new Microsoft Edge is a fantastic web browser. I’m looking forward to trying it someday.

But Microsoft, I have a piece of advice for you: if so very many Windows users are googling “Can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge” that you feel the need to utterly own that search result by making it the title of your FAQ... maybe just don’t force it on Windows users to begin with?
 
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Microsoft doesn't let you permanently defer "updates" of anything else in Windows, why do you expect this will be any different? Especially when we had that little kerfuffle in the '90s about them not letting you uninstall a browser.
 

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Look, I’m sure that the new Microsoft Edge is a fantastic web browser. I’m looking forward to trying it someday.

But Microsoft, I have a piece of advice for you: if so very many Windows users are googling “Can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge” that you feel the need to utterly own that search result by making it the title of your FAQ... maybe just don’t force it on Windows users to begin with?
In fairness, if it weren't for Edge (or IE before it), I'd have no way to install Chrome. At least, not on Windows.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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It will never go away. We still call it dialtone and dial telephones were already rare and obscure before 3.5" floppies even existed.
 
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It will never go away. We still call it dialtone and dial telephones were already rare and obscure before 3.5" floppies even existed.
You just made a young Japanese child cry.
 
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Newly unsealed and partially unredacted documents from a consumer fraud suit the state of Arizona filed against Google show that company employees knew and discussed among themselves that the company's location privacy settings were confusing and potentially misleading.
 

bubblesort

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In fairness, if it weren't for Edge (or IE before it), I'd have no way to install Chrome. At least, not on Windows.
I'm getting into windows development more lately, so I'm kind of brushing up on WPF and looking into .net core, and UWP and all that, kinda deciding what direction to go in with my C# studies. Without getting too technical, it looks to me like MS is rebranding everything and moving in cross platform directions at panic speed right now, because they either ignored, or under-served the cross-platform market for too long. It doesn't shock me that they are falling back on pushing IE on everybody while they are doing that. It's an old tactic for them. I get the feeling they might try bringing back silver light, and that will be a lot easier if people use their browser again. I think that ship has sailed for the foreseeable future, but you know, I think that's what they are trying to do right now.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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The inhabitants of some remote village in the UK have been experiencing bad internet connection every day after 7 am on their cable modems. It only took the cable company 18 months to find the reason why, but they found it: a shabby second hand TV set that was not shielded enough for radiation interferences.

This TV set belonged to somebody whos habit it is to turn it on every morning at 7 am - which in turn turned off the fast internet for the rest of the village every day.

A good piece of detective work; on the other hand this village will be getting fiber optics later this year.

 

Casey Pelous

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... I get the feeling they might try bringing back silver light ...
:ROFLMAO:

Unless this is a joke, you really don't get Microsoft culture.
 
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Casey Pelous

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I've been having a bit of a misadventure with some "whiteboard animation" software known as "Doodly." This craptastic piece of junk was, it seems, specifically created to remind me that anything that advertises "Easy! Fun! No technical skill needed!" is going to be neither easy, fun, nor useful.

My first run-in with their "support" team involved the out-of-the-box software's refusal to continue playing the audio track of the project being created beyond the end of the last animation added. This is positively crazy-making when you are trying to sync animation with pre-recorded sound. How does one know how long to make the "scene" if one CANNOT HEAR THE SOUNDTRACK? The workaround is quite cumbersome, involving adding some arbitrary amount of additional time to the end of the scene, playing the soundtrack, then pretty much guessing at how much of that extra time to remove to make a decently precise edit. For someone used to "accurate to the frame" video editing, this has serious effects on my blood pressure, but, okay, it's a fairly short project. Maybe there's a fix?

I asked tech support if there was a way to cause the soundtrack to play. I was assured there was not, and got hints that such a bit of technical wizardry was beyond the ken of both the platform and the skills of the greatest programmers in the world. There were also some implications that perhaps my skills were "too advanced" for the software, which I took to mean, "Idiot woman, you are doing it wrong." Considering I've been editing video since it involved physically cutting two-inch wide video tape, I think there's a chance I know what I'm doing in this realm. (You'd detect the sync pulses on the tape with iron filings. What a mess!)

I was invited to post a request for the feature on their "Here's where our users with time on their hands and zero knowledge post stuff for free that will be completely ignored by any developer with half a brain" forum. I declined, and informed them that if they wanted help with features, I was available on a consulting basis and to have someone with spending authority contact me.

After much back and forth and requests to "close the ticket" (which .... just to annoy them, hell no) and more hints that my expectations were wildly unrealistic, it turns out there's a freaking setting in the program called "stop playback when both animation and sound end." I informed them of this. They now wanted to close the ticket. I told them no, the only person closing this ticket would be me, since I solved the damn problem. (I have sensed that "close the ticket" is the sole function of Doodly support. Too bad.)

Next, a drag and drop feature went wonky -- the mouse would not release the thing that was dragged. I sent support a video of it doing it.

Their somewhat language-mangled response, and I quote: "In any case that this doesn't happen on your end, please try to close Doodly, restart your computer then try again.

Please let us know if you continue having trouble. "

*blinks*

"restart your computer"

"WHERE THE HELL AM I? 1983? SHOULD I BE ROBBING A 7-11 AND BUYING ALL THE MICROSOFT AND APPLE STOCK I CAN GET?" :shakefist:

Annoyingly enough, rebooting DOES solve the problem.

I gotta hurry and finish this project so I can get my money back for this junk.

And yes, I have noticed that the name of the program is a dead giveaway.
 

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I am totally imagining you throughout that conversation.

« Doodly « 😂
 

Soen Eber

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I've been having a bit of a misadventure with some "whiteboard animation" software known as "Doodly." This craptastic piece of junk was, it seems, specifically created to remind me that anything that advertises "Easy! Fun! No technical skill needed!" is going to be neither easy, fun, nor useful.

My first run-in with their "support" team involved the out-of-the-box software's refusal to continue playing the audio track of the project being created beyond the end of the last animation added. This is positively crazy-making when you are trying to sync animation with pre-recorded sound. How does one know how long to make the "scene" if one CANNOT HEAR THE SOUNDTRACK? The workaround is quite cumbersome, involving adding some arbitrary amount of additional time to the end of the scene, playing the soundtrack, then pretty much guessing at how much of that extra time to remove to make a decently precise edit. For someone used to "accurate to the frame" video editing, this has serious effects on my blood pressure, but, okay, it's a fairly short project. Maybe there's a fix?

I asked tech support if there was a way to cause the soundtrack to play. I was assured there was not, and got hints that such a bit of technical wizardry was beyond the ken of both the platform and the skills of the greatest programmers in the world. There were also some implications that perhaps my skills were "too advanced" for the software, which I took to mean, "Idiot woman, you are doing it wrong." Considering I've been editing video since it involved physically cutting two-inch wide video tape, I think there's a chance I know what I'm doing in this realm. (You'd detect the sync pulses on the tape with iron filings. What a mess!)

I was invited to post a request for the feature on their "Here's where our users with time on their hands and zero knowledge post stuff for free that will be completely ignored by any developer with half a brain" forum. I declined, and informed them that if they wanted help with features, I was available on a consulting basis and to have someone with spending authority contact me.

After much back and forth and requests to "close the ticket" (which .... just to annoy them, hell no) and more hints that my expectations were wildly unrealistic, it turns out there's a freaking setting in the program called "stop playback when both animation and sound end." I informed them of this. They now wanted to close the ticket. I told them no, the only person closing this ticket would be me, since I solved the damn problem. (I have sensed that "close the ticket" is the sole function of Doodly support. Too bad.)

Next, a drag and drop feature went wonky -- the mouse would not release the thing that was dragged. I sent support a video of it doing it.

Their somewhat language-mangled response, and I quote: "In any case that this doesn't happen on your end, please try to close Doodly, restart your computer then try again.

Please let us know if you continue having trouble. "

*blinks*

"restart your computer"

"WHERE THE HELL AM I? 1983? SHOULD I BE ROBBING A 7-11 AND BUYING ALL THE MICROSOFT AND APPLE STOCK I CAN GET?" :shakefist:

Annoyingly enough, rebooting DOES solve the problem.

I gotta hurry and finish this project so I can get my money back for this junk.

And yes, I have noticed that the name of the program is a dead giveaway.
Are you being required to use it? What kind of client would force you to use, say, notepad instead of Word or something similar?
 

Argent Stonecutter

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Are you being required to use it? What kind of client would force you to use, say, notepad instead of Word or something similar?
*twitch*

I'm more annoyed at a client forcing me to use Word, and would prefer to use Notepad and raw HTML. The ".doc" file is a cancer.

On at least one occasion I've used a plain text editor and raw HTML and just renamed the file to ".doc" before sending it.
 
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Casey Pelous

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Are you being required to use it? What kind of client would force you to use, say, notepad instead of Word or something similar?
I am being required to use it by my:

1) Being too deep into the project to switch platforms and, let's face it,

2) My deep and abiding cheapness thriftiness .....

The superior platform -- coming soon to a computer near me! -- is considerably more expensive.

These whiteboard animations (with the hand that is supposed to look like it is writing on the board) are all the rage at the moment because some guy did some research on something and it was 15% bigger, better, longer, lower, wider, and more fun for the whole family. Or something. (A year from now someone will attempt to duplicate the study only to find that the Hawthorne effect is still alive and thriving.)
 
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DOCX 4EVAH!
 
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Soen Eber

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Used it for years, still use it occasionaly.
 
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Soen Eber

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I am being required to use it by my:

1) Being too deep into the project to switch platforms and, let's face it,

2) My deep and abiding cheapness thriftiness .....

The superior platform -- coming soon to a computer near me! -- is considerably more expensive.

These whiteboard animations (with the hand that is supposed to look like it is writing on the board) are all the rage at the moment because some guy did some research on something and it was 15% bigger, better, longer, lower, wider, and more fun for the whole family. Or something. (A year from now someone will attempt to duplicate the study only to find that the Hawthorne effect is still alive and thriving.)
 
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