Avoid Bludomain

RustingInPeace

I had the bright idea that I would order a nice Flash site to serve as my front end in place of the customization I did to my smugmug site. I ordered from Bludomain last week and have got nothing but a hole in my checking account!

It is impossible to get any response other than a canned auto responder. Smugmuggers learn from my error. Avoid Bludomain like the plague!

xris

And keep in mind that by making your site Flash dependent (that is all content being only flash accessible rather than just the odd attention-getting sidebar or banner) you're limiting access to only those folks who use Flash. Lots do not.

~Jan~

I've heard too many bad things about them, too, which is why when I upgraded to an all-flash site I used this FABULOUS company: www.portfoliositez.com.

That being said, friends of mine w/ Blu sites say that trouble tickets are the way to go. Try one of those if you haven't. It's too bad the company is bad...they have gorgeous, cheap sites!

RustingInPeace

~Jan~ wrote:

I've heard too many bad things about them, too, which is why when I upgraded to an all-flash site I used this FABULOUS company: www.portfoliositez.com.

That being said, friends of mine w/ Blu sites say that trouble tickets are the way to go. Try one of those if you haven't. It's too bad the company is bad...they have gorgeous, cheap sites!

I tried everything to get their attention. Short of hopping a flight and sitting in their lobby! These people have the WORST customer service that I have ever seen. And I have been around, you know.

I guess these people just have not figured out that all business is "people" business.

glhphotos

Blu seems to have a real mix in those who support or hate their service. On the other photo site I frequent (Fred Miranda) there have been a lot of discussions of Blu. If I was guessing I'd say that this past week many of their staff were likely to have been at WPPI and the shop may have been pretty empty. If they also happened to have had a lot of interest at WPPI they may have been overwhelmed and be behind. I would also think that they would be working on the pages of those they met in person and who are active in WPPI before working on an order they received over the web - just a guess on my part - they may just be slow. There are a +lot+ of Blu developed sites. Personally I think they all look pretty much alike and am not overly fond of the cookie-cutter approach. However Blu seems to be pretty easy to implement, once they respond to your order, so if you don't have the time, inclination or funds to maintain a custom site they offer an alternative. The thing that seems to get their attention is when you email one of the main people directly and not just their "Help" or "Order" desk. Look at their site to find those names and try that approach.

Moogle Pepper

xris wrote:

And keep in mind that by making your site Flash dependent (that is all content being only flash accessible rather than just the odd attention-getting sidebar or banner) you're limiting access to only those folks who use Flash. Lots do not.

Well nowadays Flash is becoming more and more prevalant in computers as it is one of the preinstalled package items. I believe that there are some that have HTML.

They do look nice and "flashy." And always wondered where two wedding photogs I been following made their sites ...

xris

Moogle Pepper wrote:

Well nowadays Flash is becoming more and more prevalant in computers as it is one of the preinstalled package items. I believe that there are some that have HTML.

They do look nice and "flashy." And always wondered where two wedding photogs I been following made their sites ...

But do we want Adobe to own the i-way?

Flash is cool. It's good for attracting attention and such. But what's the advantage to making your site DEPENDENT upon it? Why not just use it in some places on a page while still allowing non-Flash users access to your info? I don't get it?

Moogle Pepper

xris wrote:

But do we want Adobe to own the i-way?

Flash is cool. It's good for attracting attention and such. But what's the advantage to making your site DEPENDENT upon it? Why not just use it in some places on a page while still allowing non-Flash users access to your info? I don't get it?

very true.

Scott_Quier

xris wrote:

And keep in mind that by making your site Flash dependent (that is all content being only flash accessible rather than just the odd attention-getting sidebar or banner) you're limiting access to only those folks who use Flash. Lots do not.

Riding piggy-back on this, it used to be said that search engines (google, yahoo, etc) had/have difficulty crawling flash sites. Is this still the case? I don't know, but I'm sure someone here has either an educated opinion or real information

~Jan~

Scott_Quier wrote:

Riding piggy-back on this, it used to be said that search engines (google, yahoo, etc) had/have difficulty crawling flash sites. Is this still the case? I don't know, but I'm sure someone here has either an educated opinion or real information

This is true. Search engines cannot "see" flash in the same way that they can see HTML and CSS. You get around this by having HTML splash pages, and adding text w/ keywords to that page. Since switching to flash, my SEO rating has not gone down at all; in fact, it's gone up because I added my blog to my domain and Google LOVES blogs.

CherryChick

Me and a friend of mine have just created a personal portfolio using readyphotosite.com It's flash website software. Great design, easy to update and maintain. And it's quite user-friendly.You shouldn't be so sceptical about flash. Today, it's pre-installed on the majority of the computers, so there shouldn't be any troubles visiting flash websites. I understand you being pissed cause we've had some misfotunes when creating our own website. However, in case you like flash there are solutions available, and once you find the one that suits you, you'll know that flash is cool. Good luck!

Richard

Whenever I see a discussion between two new members about some product or service, it smells like spam. Just sayin'.

CherryChick

Richard wrote:

Whenever I see a discussion between two new members about some product or service, it smells like spam. Just sayin'.

I'm sorry it looks like spam to you. I didn't mean to spam. I was just interested in the topic cause I've run into the same problem trying to create my own website. Just wanted to share the experience. My apologies once again. :cry

Scott_Quier

CherryChick wrote:

Me and a friend of mine have just created a personal portfolio using readyphotosite.com It's flash website software. Great design, easy to update and maintain. And it's quite user-friendly.You shouldn't be so sceptical about flash. Today, it's pre-installed on the majority of the computers, so there shouldn't be any troubles visiting flash websites. I understand you being pissed cause we've had some misfotunes when creating our own website. However, in case you like flash there are solutions available, and once you find the one that suits you, you'll know that flash is cool. Good luck!

With the increasing popularity of 64-bit O/S systems and 64-bit browsers, flash is becoming more of an issue. Adobe has yet to release a 64-bit aware flash product. To see flash presentations on a 64-bit machine, you have to be running a 32-bit browser, like FireFox. Something to be aware of, at least for the near future - until Adobe finally wakes up and smells the coffee.

emeraldrose

Scott_Quier wrote:

With the increasing popularity of 64-bit O/S systems and 64-bit browsers, flash is becoming more of an issue. Adobe has yet to release a 64-bit aware flash product. To see flash presentations on a 64-bit machine, you have to be running a 32-bit browser, like FireFox. Something to be aware of, at least for the near future - until Adobe finally wakes up and smells the coffee.

interesting i must be behind on the computer times lol didn't know there was a problem.

wadesworld

Additionally, Flash is not available on the iPhone.

Adobe and Apple continue to have talks about it, and presumably one day it will be, but there are significant issues to sort out.

linandjirsa

Hidden Charges
I love how the price says $50 for some templates but if you decide not to go with their hosting, they add another $50

Don't they know that people don't like hidden charges or surprises?

JoiJoi

Jquery and Ajax is a better approach to me to reach a broader audience, it not just about browser having flash, flash has had a lot of security issues, you have to address the SEO part for it, the history for it is non-existent unless using swfaddress and the # tag
If you make the math of how much you will spend a month over the course of a year and tally it for a template website, you can just hire someone to do something customized for you.