I understand the secrecy part, but, really.. It causes issues. You *need* to get external beta testers who know and understand SmugMug to hammer away at new features.
You know I love you guys, but.. Secrecy doesn't scale well.
Its supposed to me a dropdown all the way across, but I have links appearing all over the place, and everything takes you to the smugmug help page, including the smug logged in toolbar. I'm looking at it with ie7, btw.
Can you post a picture. Your site looks totally normal to me in IE7. Thanks.
I understand the secrecy part, but, really.. It causes issues. You *need* to get external beta testers who know and understand SmugMug to hammer away at new features.
You know I love you guys, but.. Secrecy doesn't scale well.
You don't use beta testers as you want to keep what you're doing a secret. So, when you do launch the new features, no one outside of SmugMug has tested the feature. That's what I mean by secrecy. Get beta testers. Use NDA's, whatever.. Just get people outside SM to test this stuff before it's released.
I've offered multiple times to beta test. Chris has even said a few times that he would at least look into it...
If your custom domain is set to www.wolfsnap.com and you go to www.wolfsnap.com it works. BUT, if you go to wolfsnap.com, this morning you only get the smugmug homepage! You're not resolving wolfsnap.com as equivalent and forwarding to www.wolfsnap.com as you've done since this upgrade.
It WAS working just fine.. Now when I go to WolfSnap.com, it opens photos.wolfsnap.com which isn't the desired behavior. WolfSnap.com -> www.wolfsnap.com.
Going to a subdomain vs. the www site seems odd, and in this case, different than what it was doing, and not desired.
Cant get into directories
I can bring up my page (www.nelsonphoto.smugmug.com) fine and go into the directory fine, however when I click on any gallery it takes me back to my main screen. I hope this will be fixed soon as I need a couple photos in there ..yeah I know waiting till the last minute.
You have your custom domain forwarded to your SmugMug address. That is not the correct setup. I have removed the custom domain from your SmugMug control panel until you get it fixed. Having it in there was causing you not to get to your galleries.
What you need to do is go to your domain host and turn off the forwarding. You need to then setup the CNAME and A records for the domain.
In a nutshell, to set up the CNAME correctly you need the following: Point a www CNAME record to domains.smugmug.com and an @ A record to 208.79.45.23. Do not use your full domain in the CNAME unless the domain host tells you to. If you do, you will end up with www.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com or something similar.
Do not put in the yournickname.smugmug.com address as the destination no matter how tempting that may be. Do not use forwarding or redirects either. None of these will work correctly.
You may find that you will need to edit or delete any existing www or @ records if there are any for your site. It will take 24-48 hours for the changes to propagate around the internet.
Once the domain resolves correctly, you can go to your SmugMug control panel and enter the custom domain on the settings tab. That is all there is too it. If you have problems, please let me know.
If you are stuck, send me your domain host UserID and set the password to something temporary like SmugTemp123. I will log in and make the changes or check the settings for you. When I am done you can reset the password.
It seems that there is a lot of downtime and users are (rightly) upset.
My best hosting experience ever (not photo hosting but generic web hosting) was with a company called ICDSoft (I used to have a SM account and am considering joining you again, but hit the server problems just as I filled in the registration form). They provide detailed maintenance plans as well as availability data. Check out: http://www.suresupport.com/maintenance.php [note that even events that are unlikely to cause problems are listed!] http://www.suresupport.com/network.php [this emphasises the fact that they have nothing to hide]
I think SM should do something similar. Of course doing this will not help unless reliability of services is restored, but it will help to convince people they're buying services from a professional company. I suggest that you provide details (not just about 8 September but about the past few months), explain what kind of problems you are facing (in the light of the problems listed on the support blog, I don't believe this was a one-time issue), and what you plan to solve them, along with a deadline. If a failure like 8 September comes up again, you'll shortly see a huge drop of load on your servers...
It seems that there is a lot of downtime and users are (rightly) upset.
My best hosting experience ever (not photo hosting but generic web hosting) was with a company called ICDSoft (I used to have a SM account and am considering joining you again, but hit the server problems just as I filled in the registration form). They provide detailed maintenance plans as well as availability data. Check out: http://www.suresupport.com/maintenance.php [note that even events that are unlikely to cause problems are listed!] http://www.suresupport.com/network.php [this emphasises the fact that they have nothing to hide]
I think SM should do something similar. Of course doing this will not help unless reliability of services is restored, but it will help to convince people they're buying services from a professional company. I suggest that you provide details (not just about 8 September but about the past few months), explain what kind of problems you are facing (in the light of the problems listed on the support blog, I don't believe this was a one-time issue), and what you plan to solve them, along with a deadline. If a failure like 8 September comes up again, you'll shortly see a huge drop of load on your servers...
Good luck,
Kofa
I'm pretty sure if you read through our status blog we have nothing to hide - but what I hear you saying is make it more obvious somehow?
I think SM does well to communicate, it is just that the issue happens too frequently for some customers.
R. Leonardo www.RobArtPhoto.com Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
Andy, I think we hit the post button at the same time!
R. Leonardo www.RobArtPhoto.com Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
I'm sorry, I didn't want to imply or suggest you were trying to hide the truth from your customers (of which I hope to soon become one again!). I just wanted to express my belief that in times of such technical difficulties publishing explanations and a detailed plan of actions is very important.
Your CEO's post is about admitting failure and apologising, and also sharing some information on plans ('Scheduling two major maintenance windows, taking the site completely offline, redoing the network from scratch'), which I do believe are important. I hope we'll soon see more plans and their results, so apology will be less needed. :-)
While I was with Smugmug, I was amazed by the nifty features (cropping from Javascript etc.), and do miss some of the more obvious but very well done features (I usually edit pics on the computer, so image enhancements, while nice, are less important to me than being able to edit tags/captions in batches, a feature that I think you had right from the beginning and one I really liked and currently, not being a SM user, miss). I'd like to say thanks, and wish you good luck in making SM an even better site. Right now, 'better' would probably mean 'more reliable' for most folks, given the already rich feature set.
What concerns me is that those 2 major maintenance periods of 8/11 and 8/13 where Smugmug was taken offline were intended to make major network upgrades which would improve system speed and reliability. I thought it was a great idea to take the entire system offline and get that job done. However the desired outcome of system reliability does not seem to have happened so far. At this rate it is highly doubtful that I will renew when the time comes. After all, I do pay for this and system reliability is one of my expectations.
Comments
http://www.myblueplanetimages.com/Other/My-SmugMug-Site-Files-Do-Not/8229580_zGv3x#619273871_8MMeA
and
http://www.myblueplanetimages.com/Business/Smugization/9171203_7Jms4#624447221_Uve5X
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
they still don't show up. I tried different browsers, different galleries, cleaning cache....am i missing something?
You know I love you guys, but.. Secrecy doesn't scale well.
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
We're aware, David. Thx!
Smug since 2006
SmugMug Help
PhotoscapeDesign
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I've offered multiple times to beta test. Chris has even said a few times that he would at least look into it...
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
Malte
If that could happen, I'd like to become a beta tester too
Think I got it--Thanks for looking
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=141253
and also my update, here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1192614&postcount=15
#s 2,3,4,6,7,9 fixed
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Should be fixed David.
Smug since 2006
SmugMug Help
PhotoscapeDesign
Should be fixed.
Smug since 2006
SmugMug Help
PhotoscapeDesign
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
Going to a subdomain vs. the www site seems odd, and in this case, different than what it was doing, and not desired.
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
I can bring up my page (www.nelsonphoto.smugmug.com) fine and go into the directory fine, however when I click on any gallery it takes me back to my main screen. I hope this will be fixed soon as I need a couple photos in there ..yeah I know waiting till the last minute.
You have your custom domain forwarded to your SmugMug address. That is not the correct setup. I have removed the custom domain from your SmugMug control panel until you get it fixed. Having it in there was causing you not to get to your galleries.
What you need to do is go to your domain host and turn off the forwarding. You need to then setup the CNAME and A records for the domain.
In a nutshell, to set up the CNAME correctly you need the following: Point a www CNAME record to domains.smugmug.com and an @ A record to 208.79.45.23. Do not use your full domain in the CNAME unless the domain host tells you to. If you do, you will end up with www.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com or something similar.
Do not put in the yournickname.smugmug.com address as the destination no matter how tempting that may be. Do not use forwarding or redirects either. None of these will work correctly.
You may find that you will need to edit or delete any existing www or @ records if there are any for your site. It will take 24-48 hours for the changes to propagate around the internet.
Once the domain resolves correctly, you can go to your SmugMug control panel and enter the custom domain on the settings tab. That is all there is too it. If you have problems, please let me know.
If you are stuck, send me your domain host UserID and set the password to something temporary like SmugTemp123. I will log in and make the changes or check the settings for you. When I am done you can reset the password.
--Doc
http://help.smugmug.com
Dear Support Heroes!
It seems that there is a lot of downtime and users are (rightly) upset.
My best hosting experience ever (not photo hosting but generic web hosting) was with a company called ICDSoft (I used to have a SM account and am considering joining you again, but hit the server problems just as I filled in the registration form). They provide detailed maintenance plans as well as availability data. Check out:
http://www.suresupport.com/maintenance.php [note that even events that are unlikely to cause problems are listed!]
http://www.suresupport.com/network.php [this emphasises the fact that they have nothing to hide]
I think SM should do something similar. Of course doing this will not help unless reliability of services is restored, but it will help to convince people they're buying services from a professional company. I suggest that you provide details (not just about 8 September but about the past few months), explain what kind of problems you are facing (in the light of the problems listed on the support blog, I don't believe this was a one-time issue), and what you plan to solve them, along with a deadline. If a failure like 8 September comes up again, you'll shortly see a huge drop of load on your servers...
Good luck,
Kofa
http://smugmug.wordpress.com/?p=412
is an example of our CEO posting a detailed update - I expect more of that, too.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I think SM does well to communicate, it is just that the issue happens too frequently for some customers.
www.RobArtPhoto.com
Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
www.RobArtPhoto.com
Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
I'm sorry, I didn't want to imply or suggest you were trying to hide the truth from your customers (of which I hope to soon become one again!). I just wanted to express my belief that in times of such technical difficulties publishing explanations and a detailed plan of actions is very important.
Your CEO's post is about admitting failure and apologising, and also sharing some information on plans ('Scheduling two major maintenance windows, taking the site completely offline, redoing the network from scratch'), which I do believe are important. I hope we'll soon see more plans and their results, so apology will be less needed. :-)
While I was with Smugmug, I was amazed by the nifty features (cropping from Javascript etc.), and do miss some of the more obvious but very well done features (I usually edit pics on the computer, so image enhancements, while nice, are less important to me than being able to edit tags/captions in batches, a feature that I think you had right from the beginning and one I really liked and currently, not being a SM user, miss). I'd like to say thanks, and wish you good luck in making SM an even better site. Right now, 'better' would probably mean 'more reliable' for most folks, given the already rich feature set.
Cheers,
Kofa
I didn't think that at all - thanks for your posting!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
http://wildworldphoto.net
http://photostuff.org
window - will it be used?