Unlike many Developers, I don’t offer web hosting.  This has occasionally cost me some business, because many people look for “One Stop Shopping” when they buy a website.  Of course I offer to help them set up a relationship with a competent Host, and I do all of the configuration work necessary to get the site up and running.  Sometimes that is not quite enough, and the reasons are varied:

• We don’t want to write another check/carry another credit card automatic withdrawal
• We don’t want to deal with the Host, they are a bunch of propeller heads who don’t speak our language
• When something bad happens, the Developer gets better service because he has a relationship with the Host

Since any Host will accept yearly payments, point one isn’t all that strong.  While some smaller Hosts can be hard to talk to, most of the larger ones have realized that they need to handle the simple support needs of their small accounts in order to keep those accounts.  As a result, first tier support at many of these Hosts is not too bad.   In all fairness, the last point can be legitimate, but in my opinion,not for the right reasons; most Developers really don’t maintain their own web server, they lease one from a large host, install a website Admin panel, and start selling sites.  So the Developer talks to the Host when something goes wrong, not the Client.  Good?  Not really.

Let me suggest a different perspective on the situation, based on my experiences with digging more than one Client out of a deep hole:

• When your Developer is between you and the Host, YOU can’t talk to the Host.  That’s the good news right (see above)?  What if your site goes down/ is hacked late one Friday afternoon, and your Developer just went away on a week’s cruise (yes, it really happened)?  What then?  You don’t even know who to call, and if you did they would not help you.
• How about this one; you don’t make any changes for six months, then discover that your Developer is “out of the business” and moved out of the country? You have no access to the site, your email system, payment system, nothing.
• Your Developer is just too busy to deal with you right now, and no, he won’t let you bring someone else in

Ultimately, while it may look very convenient at the outset, it is too risky to let a third party completely control access to your website.  When your Developer/Agency controls all access to your site, it can be very difficult to pull away.  Even worse, when you have to try to convince a Host that you really do own that website when they have never heard of you, it can be truly horrible.  So don’t get yourself in that situation, ask the people who are helping you build your new site to help you set up hosting, and keep control yourself.  At a minimum, know how to log in and change your access password.  If you have one Developer vendor you always work with, fine, but if you shop around make sure you change your access password combo every time you finish a project.  I’m serious about this, many websites are hacked because the password had been around too long, and too many people knew what it was.

Take control of your website.  Keep a relationship with your Web Host.  Know what to do in an emergency.  It’s good for business.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Microsoft has now begun a serious effort to kill off Internet Explorer 6.  No issues there, this elderly (+10 years) browser is not secure, and comes nowhere near supporting modern standards.

About 3 weeks ago, Microsoft announced that they would start updating old browsers as part of silent automatic update vice Windows Update.  Many Windows users understand the difference, for Windows Update a small balloon appears in the bottom of the screen announcing that updates are available.  The User must agree to take the update, and many people just don’t want to be bothered, so they ignore the advisory or close it.  This is where Microsoft traditionally put the browser updates, which makes it one of the reasons that there are so many vintage versions of IE out there.  With Automatic Update, for most systems when the User shuts down an alert appears that says “do not turn off your computer, installing update 1 of 14″ or some such.  Bottom line, with Automatic Update, you are “accepting” all of the updates Microsoft is giving you, and they don’t tell you what those updates are.  That said, I like Automatic Update, and heartily endorse it for all Windows users.  Automatic Update is where you get the security updates that help keep your system safe.  If you are running Windows without it today, thrust me, you NEED to turn it on.

So, back to our saga, Microsoft will start including a browser update in Automatic Update.  If you have XP, you will get IE8, if you have Vista or Windows 7, you’ll get IE9.   You’ll turn your computer off one night, the next day you have a new browser.  This will certainly drive down usage of IE6 at high speed, maybe even eliminate it in some areas.   Hooray!  Web Developers everywhere are calling it the greatest thing since we learned Godzilla could fly.  No longer will we have to support IE6!  Huzzah! (Huzzah?)

As a user of IE, you might not have the same perspective.

Firefox and Chrome users are used to getting forced updates periodically, it’s just part of the experience.  The difference is, these smaller upgrades make change happen gradually.  Users barely notice it the difference in their Chrome/Firefox browsers.  Not so with the IE change, now we’re potentially talking about turning off an XP system running IE6 one night, and coming back to IE8 the next day, an upgrade of two full versions.  While Microsoft assures us that Preferences will be preserved, that’s only part of the package.  What about all of those toolbars that made browsing easier?  Gone.  Helper objects?  Gone.    The User will barely know what they are looking at, let alone know how to get anything done.  It’s going to be brutal.  The User will not be happy.

But wait.  Microsoft has an answer for this also.  The rollout will be gradual, and will start in Brazil and Australia.  Great idea, do it first in two backward third-world countries populated by savages, far enough away from Redmond they probably can’t go there in large numbers and start burning down buildings.

Um, Third World?  Savages?  Turns out that there are 194 million people in Brazil.  According to internetworldstats.com, about 67 million use the Internet. Seems those Savages are rather well hooked up.  The fascinating site ie6countdown.com claims that usage of IE6 is around 1.4% in Brazil, so that gets us roughly 94,000 people who are going to get converted from IE6.  For Australia we’ve got 17 million Internet Users, with IE6 usage also at 1.4%.  So about 23,000 people will suddenly make the switch.

Gosh Steve, that’s only about 110,000 people, give or take, who will go through this agony, not a lot in Internet terms.  But what if all of them call YOUR Tech Support line at the same time?  And this is, after all,only the beginning.  We’ve got a few more countries to go.

Bottom line, while I support the effort to eliminate IE6, I think the guys in Redmond will need to do more thinking about this.  It’s not going to go well.  Not like this.

A few days ago, the folk at Microsoft baked a really nice looking cake (pictures are all over the Web) celebrating the “death” of Internet Explorer 6.  “Death” in this case means estimated usage in the United States has dropped below 1%.  Any way you look at it, this is a good thing, developers like me have spent a lot of time supporting IE6 as the standards for web development move way past it’s capabilities.  IE6 was first released 27 August 2001.  Ten years is a long time for software like this.  So good riddance.

Unfortunately, this good news announcement may be a bit premature.  This 1% is still a lot of people, many of those apparently corporate users tied to old network structures.  Real customers, not Earl and Ma out on the farm.  And IE6 still has over 25% of the base in the People’s Republic of China.  Whether or not these are legitimate copies of IE running on legitimate copies of Windows, we’re talking about the largest emerging consumer market ever.  IE6 is not dead enough yet.

The only way to really eradicate this kind of pest is through a concerted team effort.  As an Open Source LAMP developer, my relationship with Microsoft has been spotty in the past.  This time I’m getting on board.  I have added code to my home page at http://www.sitetuneups.com that advises Visitors if they are running IE6 and offers an upgrade link.  You won’t see it if you are running a current browser.  I’m also officially ending my support for IE6.  I will not include such support in any contract.  The trash-burner Dell CPU I have kept all these years for IE6 testing will be re-purposed or sent to it’s final resting place.  Over.  Done.  Goodbye IE6.  I’m out.

If you have a website and you want to join this drive, you can copy the code from the IE6 Countdown Website and add it to yours.  If you need help installing the code, contact me through the Site Tuneups web site, I’ll do what I can to help.  Let’s try to push the 1% to zero.

I usually provide quite a bit of technical support during a website development.  Even after the job is done, I try to be responsive to former Clients (your best source of New Clients).  Since most of my clients are also in San Diego, the call is cheap,and it is nice to stay in touch.

Often I can’t really help, especially if a Client is having a problem with a service provider, such as their web host or Internet Access Provider.  Most people do not understand that these providers by and large will not talk to me, for the very real reason that I might be a hacker trying to hijack a website.  So I tell them that they are on their own, and give some basic advice.  Typically, a long silence ensues.  I know that they would rather have their teeth pulled out by clumsy robots than call Tech Support.

So I say something encouraging “Come on, you can do this” and they come right back with “Easy for YOU to say, you are a techie like them”.  While that might be true, it isn’t really relevant.  I think anyone can get results from Tech Support, and I think the vast majority of Tech Support people earnestly start every day intending to provide quality service to people who are not Techies.  So here is my Guide to having a quality experience when contacting Tech Support.  Note that a lot of these steps are taken BEFORE contacting Tech Support.  If you really think you “don’t have time for this” then you are in for a life of technical disappointment.  So read on….

BEFORE you call Tech Support, follow these steps:

1. Can you duplicate the error?  By that I mean, can you document a set of steps that will produce the same error every time?  Write those steps down.  The first thing  you tell the technician after a brief description of the problem is “I can duplicate this error, here are the steps”.
2. Record EXACTLY any error messages you receive, including any obscure looking error code numbers.  If you can, copy the complete error message and paste it into NotePad or similar, or take a screen grab if you cannot do anything else.
3. Do what you can to help yourself.  Look on your Provider’s website for a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) or some sort of knowledge base.  Run a Google search on the exact error you are receiving.  Sorry, but no matter what it is, you probably are not the first person to have this issue.  If something looks good to you, and you try the proposed “fix” be sure to document what you did, and what the results were, such as is there a new error, or is the system behaving differently, but still not performing.
4. Look up any pertinant access passwords.  If you are having problems with email, have the passwords for ALL of your mailboxes available.  Similarly, look up any account numbers relevant to this provider.
5. If you talked to another professional, and took some/all of their advice, document what you/they did.

NOW, armed with your documentation, you are ready to contact Tech Support.  The questions becomes “How”?  Many providers offer a choice of email, chat or telephone.  There may also be a formal trouble ticket system.  For myself, when a trouble ticket system exists, I use it, even when I am in a hurry, especially if I don’t think Tier 1 Support can solve it (more on this later in this post).  Often my issue gets kicked upstairs and solved in a few hours with just the one submission.  So it actually saves me time.  My second choice is chat, because the Technician’s instructions appear in front of me on the screen, and I don’t have to ask the Tech to repeat something.  My last choice is the telephone, unless it is something really minor, and I’m pretty sure I won’t get put on hold.  Use what works best for you.

So you have made your choice for a contact method, BEFORE YOU START, understand who you will be dealing with.  A bit ago I referred to Tier One Tech Support, the person who first picks up the telephone, or answers Chat, or deals with the email/ticket queue.  With minimal training, and usually a pretty good tech support database system on the screen in front of them, these worthy people can help with issues on the Client’s computer such as email access, password recovery, virus sweeps of a website, that sort of thing.  These folk probably solve 80% of all issues, and chances are one of them can solve yours, so don’t try and intimidate your Tech into sending you to someone “who knows what they are doing”.  Their performance is graded on how many issues they can solve, as well as how many calls they let through to Tier Two Support that could have been solved at the Tier One level.  Tier Two support costs your Provider a LOT more money to maintain.  For an Internet Service Provider (ISP) these Tier Two individuals are usually Junior to Mid-Level Systems Administrators with the power to make configuration changes and the like.  They don’t work cheap.  As an individual, it is unlikely that you will ever deal with Tier Three, unless you yourself are the Administrator for a dedicated system that your Provider is maintaining or similar.  Now, guess who makes the decision that your problem is worth sending to Tier Two?  That’s right, The Tier One guy you want to ‘diss.  So calm down, use your indoor voice, and make the contact.

Now on to that final step, and I’ll bet you know this is coming….try to leave all of your various frustrations out of this.  Describe your problem, detail the steps needed to duplicate it and explain what you have done so far without questioning the Tech’s parentage or the honesty of his/her company.  You will get real respect for your professional approach and the fact that you are trying to help yourself.  Do what you are asked to do, even if your Tech sounds like they are perhaps 12 years old.  Chances are you will be pleasantly surprised at this person’s personal commitment to solving your problem, and even happier with the end result.  If you don’t get what you want on the first try, be polite, but persistant.

And yes, even though I am a “techie”, this is exactly what I do.  Good Luck.