Geek rant ahead

I'm a geek...more hardware than software (Eric of ericandangela.com is more the software guru). I'm always looking for ways to improve my websites.

My pilot website uses recaptcha to block spammers from leaving comments on my website. This also makes regular users not want to leave a comment. This morning I was listening to an audio podcast from Twit.TV (Net@Night) and they mentioned a new commenting system called Echo. The system allows users to login via an account held elsewhere. For example if they had a Facebook account they could click a link and instantly be logged in via their Facebook login. Simple. Once they left a comment they could post the comment and a link to my blog on their Facebook wall. How cool! I went to the software website, signed up, PAID MY $12 and installed it. I then spent an hour trying to get it working.

After the first 10 minutes I visited the support area. This is where I started to get really pissy.

I expect a free plug in to have limited support or support via a community system. For a paid plug in I want a real human from that company. Getting that real human seems impossible. I searched the community system and found several people who had he exact problem I was having...for days...no answer!

After an hour I fixed my own problem.  I was then advised (via a popup box) that "due to the large number of comments on your site you will need to email your wordpress admin username and password to...." WTF? I'm not giving anyone my admin username and password. That's just silly. I don't have more than 150 comments to migrate over. That was the last straw...asked for a refund. Looking elsewhere for a different commenting system.

October 1-7 will be spent with my mother in law, sister in law and one of my nieces. Should be interesting. Not sure what we are going to do with them beyond a visit to The State Fair of Texas. During the visit we will eat lots of fried foods including:

2005 Most Creative Viva Las Vegas Fried Ice Cream
2005 Best Taste             Fried PB, Jelly and Banana Sandwich
2006 Most Creative         Fried Coke
2006 Best Taste             Fried Praline Perfection
2007 Most Creative         Deep Fried Latte
2007 Best Taste             Texas Fried Cookie Dough
2008 Most Creative         Fried Banana Split
2008 Best Taste             Chicken Fried Bacon

Good times will be had. I am sure Haley, my niece,  will be screaming with joy from all the sugar and grease.

Just two months to go until I reach my 2nd anniversary of being hired by my airline. A few things will happen.

1) I will get a pay raise to $36.25 an hour (sounds like a lot but that's on a 75 hour A MONTH pay scale!)

2) I will finally get 24 one way buddy passes per year

3) Well...that's about it.

My little netbook case is too small for me to travel with at work. I need more pockets. My previous bag doubled as my man purse. Gotta find a solution.