I’ve ended up writing something like this too many times since I’ve been blogging. Like what? I mean this ‘Welcome Back’-type entry after an enforced layoff.
There have been three notable gaps in my output since I started Dangerous Thinking… all because of Radio UserLand 8.
The first, if I remember correctly, was due to a bug that UserLand duly fixed. The second was because my laptop failed to shutdown properly. I never did get that installation to function properly again. So, for the sake of my peace of mind, I moved RU to another machine on my home network.
And everything was just cool…until we had a power cut and three Windows 2000 machines were left in various stages of mangledness (from having to run Repair, to needing a complete reinstall), a Wireless Access Point needed completely setting up from scratch, and half of the ports on our hub were not working until I switched the thing off and on (can you really reboot a hub?).
Needless to say, RU wasn’t working properly after the power cut.
That’s OK, we all say. RU is a paid-for piece of software from a proper software company. There’ll be technical support.
Wrong!
Here’s the level of technical support I received. Not very impressive is it?
You’ll notice 9-day gap whilst I waited for UserLand to respond to my posting – actually, I didn’t wait, I got fed up and e-mailed Lawrence Lee myself. But in the end, with no more technical support forthcoming, I voted with my feet.
I didn’t pay my $39.95 for another year’s flakiness and rubbish support courtesy of UserLand. If you haven’t got the hint yet, UserLand, you can stop sending me renewal reminders.
So here I am using Movable Type on a new host – that’s a story I’ll relate soon, as I want to thank Paul Makepeace publicly for his help.
I hope to have all my Radio-based data imported into MT soon, but I’m waiting on the goodwill of those with cleverer heads than mine before that old stuff finds its way back online.
I’ll miss RU’s integrated News Aggregator, but my recent dry runs with MT have made me very impressed. It feels solid and well thought-out, and it runs faster over the Web than RU did locally or over my 100Mbit LAN.
I’m hopeful that I won’t have any more enforced breaks from blogging.
I’m glad to be back.
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