Daily rant

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Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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  • nigelta Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 2:30 pm #129868

    I don’t know how anyone else feels but for me there is NO official support with the membership at Joomlart. There are hundreds of problems being quoted but as yet I haven’t seen any of them answered by a Joomlart designer/programmer.

    Its as though we have all been thrown into the same room with the instruction “get on with it”

    This is support? I don’t think so. There is some good support from more knowleagable members but mere mortals like myself shouldn’t have to rely on that.

    Teline II is for sure a great looking template and has great potential, but that is as far as it goes. Why is everyone posting problems on this forum on a daily basis? Its because the bugs are being highlighted but not being fixed by Joomlart and released as new in my opinion.

    Why not open the private forums up to non club members and see if the new customers increase? or would that just be financial suicide? Most likely it would be the latter 😉

    Remember Hung – we are not here to fully develop and debug the templates, thats what we pay your company for. So unless you want the word to gradually filter through about the lack of support and kill your otherwise excellent company – and it surely will! Then I would kindly ask you to raise your game with this issue and give people the level of support thats promised in the advertising blurb.

    OK, rant over, soapbox put away. Back to sifting through code :((

    questbg Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 2:40 pm #254684

    Ah, I love a daily rant … just to clear my head a bit! 😀

    I think this topic goes much deeper, and I’ve seen many people (even in my short time here) leaving and going elsewhere due to the lack of ‘official’ support.

    I’m in the same boat as you nigelta, totally new to Joomla and totally new to the Template. In fact, if it wasn’t for some ‘regulars’ here (Cornelio, VisiGod, and others), I’d have probably ditched it by now.

    I think the trouble is, not enough staff at JA and the pressure of releasing two templates per month. For me, I’d be happy with 1 template per month and much more support.

    However, I see also see the side of ‘developers’ and acknowledge they possibly want as many templates available as possible for their web design work and the possibility of gaining new clients thanks to a new template.

    Maybe us ‘mere mortals’ could have one template per month (available, say 6 months later) but more support, but the ‘developers’ get two templates and less support (let’s face it, these guys can hack the code themselves, whereby I can’t)!!

    😀

    A really difficult issue. For me, despite any lack of ‘JA’ support, I love Teline II and I’m determined to get the thing working for my needs. Plus, thanks to some other users here that are a bit ahead of my, it’s starting to happen.

    There you go, Rant of the Day No. II over! 😉

    cgc0202 Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 4:05 pm #254706

    There is no question that we all have our frustrations. The issue is that if you go to other companies, it is not much better.

    I left Joomlart actually since early February and have not participated in the forum nor looked at the templates for months — it turned out, I did not miss much until JA Teline II came. I am not sure if you have looked at other templates companies. I did look at a few but not extensively.

    I opted to join Gavick Pro, just for 4 months, because I sound a strategy not to be invested too much in each template company:

    It does not make sense to stay long term with the quality of support. Get your desired template but not expect more.

    Gavick Pro has a good a more versatile template system including very innovative modules. The Gavick Pro News Portal is more innolvative, versatile and flexible to create more unique templates for each site than the original JA Teline. It has its own problem too that can be annoying, I had to work around it. Now, with JA Teline II, this template features leapfrogged any offered by Gavick Pro, right now.

    The thing that I realized, even before I joined was that templates created by different templates companies follow a certain style. However, when you look closely, there is not much difference from the clones created before and after. It is only once in a while that a company makes templates that stand out.

    I spent a great deal of time last night, doing a simple statistics on Joomlart templates usage by its customers. I used the current viewers to each template, total threads and total postings and use these as indicative of the interests in specific templates. I did not see any data for total downloads, that would be interesting.

    I was astounded by the numbers (%) that I found — only a few actually generated much interest.

    I have been studying this for a few years now, but I have not found a good template all those years. I need good templates but I do not have the finances to pay $20-40K to pay a good designer what I wanted — that is how much some corporations pay.

    Anyway, what we collectively experience is that we are not likely to get the support from Joomlart or any Joomla template company for that matter. I have bought quite a few extensions, but the support are more dismal than Joomlart.

    The thing though is this: As pointed out above by Chris, the JA Teline series, with the latest JA Teline II being the runaway favorite of customers based from the statistics I have analyzed. Expect the same from other companies to make similar good templates for specific applications.

    What is clear though from my analysis is that you cannot expect any company to make high quality templates month-after-month.

    Since I joined, I have espoused different models, like modular basic templates and unique modules and extensions to develop more unique templates for each customer — apparently that is not the business plan that is followed by templates companies, from what I read.

    But we need more. To create a website, each of us need more than just a template, Joomla and the Joomla extensions, as you must realize by now. For example, a reliable webhosting service is even more critical, and so are other stuff — new developments like mobile computing can alter how we present information to our target audience.

    We can rant daily if we want, and it is sometimes good for the mind. But, if the problem remains, what good would it do us in the long run?

    My suggestion is that we accept the capabilities and limitations of companies like Joomlart, Joomla and other commercial companies. At the same time, we must find more tangible solutions to the predicaments we face.

    There is a word from my native language called “Saranay” — meaning help; a more appropriate term is “Bayanihan” — meaning helping each other in Filipino, the lingua franca in my country.

    This I think is what we must consider, that our common interests should bind us to collaborate and work towards the realization of our goals. For example, in this case, initially how to eventually have good templates that will evolve in time, and grow with us, and the technology of the time.

    This cannot be solve in the Forums of Joomlart, even if it is the most well-intentioned company in the world. it must be a collaboration that must come from us. A collaboration where the spirit of “Bayanihan” reigns, and we help each other (and not just a smoocher) because that is how together we can overcome our individual definciencies as we share our own talents and strenghts in order that we realize our indiviual goals.

    Cornelio

    Heng CHeong Kum Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 4:32 pm #254715

    This is an interesting topic, I joined recently as Developer. I actually don’t know much about coding, but I am trying to make use of it to speed up the time I need to develop a website for my Joint Venture Web. I don’t actually sell those web, or build web for my client, but merely I have business interest in all the web that I am going to build, so to say, the more template the merrier.

    But, of course I do need support when I hit a brick wall, as I am not a savvy programmer/coder. I turn to the internet for most of my problems, and I truly hope that I could find the answers to my problems in this forum. I am a better marketeer than a web builder, that is why I rely much on the templates.

    Just to share my experience:
    We also have 6 license (to build 6 websites) from http://www.storesonline.com from USA, mainly for e-commerce site, there have very fast reply, 24 hours customer service (via chat). But the template they got is truly limited (about 30) and mostly are lousy looking. Configuring it is I can say tougher than setting up Joomla/Joomlart templates. You will also never get modular module to add in. Worst, the community of the user had a forum for in-group support, but are really c*cky (those moderators there). Their chat support is only about whatever is in their system, if you are trying to get assistance for something that you need where the system haven’t got that feature, you can forget about it.

    So, I really hope that I had paid and join the right community here, and the members, moderators, owner will be kind enough to help out each other’s problems.

    nigelta Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 4:32 pm #254716

    Hi Cornelio

    My rant is simply due to frustration at the lack of official support for a product that doesnt work as advertised and I like to get things off my chest from time to time :-[.

    When a template is released, it should work as shown, being fully tested and debugged before that release. I personally didn’t join Joomlart because they release 2 templates per month, more because I wanted one of their templates for a particular project, as I suspect most people do.

    You are correct in saying that we should collaborate to sort issues out, but shouldn’t those issues be concerned with customisation of the said template and not issues with aspects of the template core? Thats where my problem lies. I have managed, with help from some other members to do this.

    My problems now lie with the template itself, the lack of documentation and the lack of support from the developers themselves. After all, it would be a much simpler procedure if the developers did get involved more, after all, its they that would be able to answer any queries without digging through reams of code don’t you think?

    cgc0202 Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 5:45 pm #254730

    Let me take a real situation in business. Waltmart is the largest retail service in the world, they are quite efficient too even if they pay their workers dirt cheap. The bottom line is that because of its revenue — what Walmart says goes. Big companies change their ways because that is how Walmart wants.

    How is this relevant to us? You are not the first one to rant or abuse Joomlart and Joomlart staff, or for that matter vent your frustrations. I have been there, and I read gazilion forums threads saying the same thing, since I joined.

    So, why did nothing happen? Because we are venting our frustrations as individuals. Plus, personally, I learned a long time ago that simply ranting is not the best strategy. It is better to make your judgment. Can you or can your work with Joomlart? What do you want Joomlart to do for you? Stuff like that

    If the negatives are more than the positives, $70 is not a lot of money actually – that may be how Joomlart think of you.

    So where does the Walmart analogy come in? Obviously, we do not have the “hundreds of billions of dollars that Walmart can spend. But think of it this way:

    1 individual => $70 paid to Joomlart for regular 1-year membership
    10 => $700
    100 => $7,000
    1000 => $70,000
    5000 => $350,000
    10,000 => $700,000
    and so on.

    You get the picture? The power in numbers

    Joomlart is not really that big of a company. I did the math and they do not earn more than $2million a year, unless they have other ventures apart from templates.

    If there are 1,000 of us; and we go to Joomlart and demand, we will buy your template if it comes bug free — well tested, has a well-wrtten manual, etc. We can demand because for a small company, $70,000. It is unlikely that Joomlart will not listen.

    Heck, with that much money, we can hire a good a good programmer to write a program better than JA Teline II and contract the preparation of a Manual that would be understood by everyone if it was written for one with no background in scripting or programming.

    In theory, we do not have to depend on Joomlart. But, in reality there is no reason why we should not consider their products, if they produce templates like improvements beyond JA Teline II.

    Just imagine if there are

    5000 members => $350,000
    10,000 members => $700,000
    20,000 members => $1,400,000

    With that much resources, if we band together, we can do more beyond just templates, because as web site owners, we need more to create good websites.

    We can even bargain with Joomlart, or any other company to provide us with exclusive templates better than what they offer now. And, why should we limit our choices to those available from Joomlart? Why don’t we shop around for the best, and pick those we want from different sources? There is no stopping us, as a group to do that. This is a more difficult proposition if we do it, individually.

    If there are individual “developer” pricing, maybe we can collectively bargain for a discounted individual developer pricing (It would be unfair and unethical I think if we demand a company developer account for all of us — because Joomlart staff are still human beings with real children and other family members too support.

    Ranting is good,but only go so much. It does not achieve much if the target of our frustration is insensitive to what we want them to realize.

    What if there is a better way for us to achieve what we want from Joomlart, so that we can spend more productive time to do what we really mean to do — create good websites, for whatever reason we want to do with them?

    That must be our focus, and we could realize these better and faster if we unite. We must go beyond our frustrations, our anger. It is not enough that we identify the problem, we must collectively find ways also for solution that are practical.

    What I hope to impart also is that there is power in numbers; but collectively we must not abuse such power that we may achieve. Above all, we must be true to what makes us human beings and live by those rules.

    We must not become, if we are in a position to be, like Walmart or other companies that would crush whoever get in their way, or pay their workers wages that would even allow them to buy decent health insurance.

    Cornelio

    nigelta Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 6:19 pm #254748

    Very eloquent Cornelio but I am sorry to say this – you sound like the apathetic British (of which I am one) as you seem to accept this level of service as reasonable. Walmart or any company of that size really isn’t such a good comparison for a number of reasons, mainly due to the size of the company.

    To say “thats the way other template clubs operate” is just going to ensure the continuation of poor service and support. The major problem with the web in a lot of cases is anonymity, the people you deal with in most cases are just words on a screen and as such there are not many avenues that customers can go down to sort out their grievances.

    Unfortunately I don’t have the knowhow to produce templates because if I did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What I can do though is to raise my issues on this forum in the hope that someone in an official capacity can read and respond to them.

    Unfortunately by answering my rant you are just going someway to prove my point don’t you think?

    Just an observation, I run a small company or two but if my level of support drops to the low that Joomlart seem to find acceptable then I really would go out of business in no time at all.

    My comparison to the British attitude isnt meant to be an insult either Cornelio, just a comparison and I apologise if you feel otherwise :-[

    nigelta Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 6:21 pm #254749

    Just a thought, maybe a few of us should join forces and produce a site that goes someway to solving different Joomla issues 😉 It may be better to use wordpress or something though :p

    cgc0202 Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 7:37 pm #254758

    Well, English is not my native tongue, so I do not think I explained myself very well. I spent three summers in England, but I cannot say that I have absorbed enough to understand the English psyche. I had good experience there, except for that late summer almost when I was drenched with too much rain so that I decided to escape to continental Europe for a change. I even considered living there.. I did meet quite a few Englishman here in the US though, but I do not think they may be representative of an Englishman or woman. It was in academic settings, so it was more collegial and informal, especially in the US.

    Anyway, if I explained myself well, and you read up to the end, I used Walmart as an example of what power can do, and also how onecan abuse that power — the latter being something that we should not.

    I am not accepting Joomlart nor their policies.

    If you have read my postings in 2007, and early this year, I had been very scathing of their policies. During my first week as a member here, I must have antagonized most of the Moderators because I was quite direct in telling them that they are not giving me good advice, so I will not do what they told me. One even wrote to me in private that I should be more “nice”, but I am not one to mince words when I mean what I say, and say just what I mean — to borrow from Lewis Carroll.

    I even left here since February even if I paid for a years’s membership because I did not consider worth my time, to be frustrated just $70. I paid Gavick more than that. I came back only because of JA Teline II, not because I expect much from Joomlart staff. So that’s my perspective — not apathetic, as you say.

    I do not know when I realized that I have to learn to pick my battles, some are just not worth it. And, trying to reform the ways of Joomlart is not one of them.

    When I fight for a principle, it imust be for those that matter, and they must be for noble reasons — like not giving up your humanity to achieve an end. Anything else is a distraction.

    Reforming Joomlart is not one of the causes I wanted to champion. I know there are better ways to do it, with and without Joomlart. That is where I focus my effort. I am already making contacts with a few people to see if we can explore better alternatives — that is my focus now, without completely closing my option in what Joomlart may be able to offer.

    If I explained myself well in the previous post, then you would have understood what I meant. But, apparently not — I was not a good communicator — especially if you thought that it was written because of apathy. I would not attempt to dissuade, even so.

    Cornelio

    cgc0202 Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 7:39 pm #254759

    <em>@nigelta 60467 wrote:</em><blockquote>Just a thought, maybe a few of us should join forces and produce a site that goes someway to solving different Joomla issues 😉 It may be better to use wordpress or something though :p</blockquote>

    We are trying to do that actually, but not just Joomla. There are more tools that we need to address, if we want to create good websites.

    Cornelio

    nigelta Friend
    June 19, 2008 at 10:16 pm #254778

    <em>@cgc0202 60478 wrote:</em><blockquote>We are trying to do that actually, but not just Joomla. There are more tools that we need to address, if we want to create good websites.

    Cornelio</blockquote>

    Well if I can help with that in any way Cornelio, count me in. If not then let me know when it kicks off and I will be one of the first to sign up for sure 😉

    questbg Friend
    June 20, 2008 at 5:13 am #254844

    I think we have to certainly accept, that no amount of ranting will receive the dedicated attention of the mods and programmers here to fix everything. That seems evident from the lack of response on the forum to people’s complaints!

    I think Cornelio has this one right … let’s stick together, keep pushing forward and sharing our knowledge and bug-fixes until we all have working sites.

    However, it’s highly frustrating that I paid my 70 dollars to download Teline II as it suited my needs. Now I find that it wasn’t (and isn’t as yet) ready for release. Now I (and others here) seem to be doing the work of JA by de-bugging the template for them, even though I paid for what I thought would be 100% tested and functional.

    Cheers
    Chris

    cgc0202 Friend
    June 20, 2008 at 5:25 am #254848

    <em>@questbg 60577 wrote:</em><blockquote>I think we have to certainly accept, that no amount of ranting will receive the dedicated attention of the mods and programmers here to fix everything. That seems evident from the lack of response on the forum to people’s complaints!

    I think Cornelio has this one right … let’s stick together, keep pushing forward and sharing our knowledge and bug-fixes until we all have working sites.

    However, it’s highly frustrating that I paid my 70 dollars to download Teline II as it suited my needs. Now I find that it wasn’t (and isn’t as yet) ready for release. Now I (and others here) seem to be doing the work of JA by de-bugging the template for them, even though I paid for what I thought would be 100% tested and functional.

    Cheers
    Chris</blockquote>

    Sadly Chris, the software industry seems to consider acceptable the release of buggy softwares. Microsoft is one of the biggest transgressor.

    In this regard, I provided the solution to victortopper’s request:

    add module
    http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/add-module-2/

    he stated that it was what he wanted. However, he did not understand my detailed explanation. He is trying to find you and possibly explain in French what I posted there.

    Cornelio

    Cornelio

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