Effutio » Chatter

Noahs Classifieds Review – DO NOT BUY IT

Neil — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:19:56 +0000

I decided to start a classified ads website for my local area a few months ago. I searched Google for a couple of days and couldnt find software that was quite right.

I found Noah’s Classifieds and although I was not totally sold buy their website and demo of the software, I did find the recent feature of a bridge to Wordpress very interesting and useful. So having found nothing better I decided to purchase the latest E-Commerce SEO version at $199.95 and the Wordpress Noah Premium Widgets at $49.95 (I believe the actual bridge is free).

So having just spent $249.90 I was eager to get started. The email arrived from Steve (the owner) with the script and plugins etc, it also contained a link to a video guide for installation.

I watched the installation and carried it out without to much bother. So I had a Wordpress installation with a Noah installation in a sub folder. I then initialised the premium widgets/plugins and the bridge. I then set about getting used to Noah (as Im pretty good with Wordpress I thought I would leave that until last), this I found was no easy feat. The admin is poorly laid out, illogical and clunky. The code is also not the best Ive seen, a lot of use of tables and inline styling. It also feels like it hasnt been built from scratch, more like its been adapted from something else.

Anyway having fiddled around with it a bit I decided to make a start on my Wordpress theme. Upon trying to log into the Wordpress admin area I found I couldnt. It threw an error and gave me no access. I asked Steve for help and he couldnt understand my problem and why I was having difficulties and told me to simply start again. Install Wordpress then Noah then initialise the bridge. I did this and it seemed to work until I tested out the functionality of the bridge and widgets.

The bridge hardly functioned at all; I created an account in Wordpress and tried to login to Noah with those details….it didnt work. I also found out from another Noah user that the bridge only works one way! So it only works if users register through Wordpress…well it didnt even do that for me, but even so releasing the bridge in this state seems like its only half done.

So obviously I looked to Steve for support and found none, he simply replied “nobody else seems to have these problems”. Which is obviously a lie as there is numerous people unhappy with the software and Steve’s lack of support, he replies to your emails quick enough if you are interested in buying Noah but as soon as you hit any problems you will be lucky to get a reply!

After countless attempts to get it working, contacting Steve (to get no reply) and visits to the ‘cleverly’ called Norum which is the owners forum (which also uses a horrible forum script, thats slow, clanky and looks rubbish) that is rather sparsely populated and you will need to wait for a reply if you get one at all. Steve also doesnt support his product through the forum, he lets other Noah customers do the work for him.

It got to the point where I was so annoyed with everything I asked for a refund, to which Steve replied with an email basically saying that nobody else had any of my issues and that other noobs to the software manage fine and so its my fault. Doing his usual and not addressing the issue raised. I pushed the matter further and now receive no feedback whatsoever.

I thought I would check the terms and conditions on the Noah website and found these two lines:

“REFUNDS: Payments made to Noahsclassifieds.org are final and shall NOT be refunded under any circumstance.”

“REFUNDS: Payments made to Noahsclassifieds.org are final and shall NOT be refunded under any circumstance. Unless you elect for a 30-day Money Back Trial Period.”

I dont remember an option for a 30-day money back trial period when I made the purchase….funny that!

I suppose its my own fault. If you look at the Noah website, the checkout system, the forum. Non are particularly good and well designed so why would the classifieds script be any different. I hope by writing this review that people looking to purchase a classified script will avoid Noah like the plague and realise the lack of support should you run in to difficulties.

Im currently looking into other options and think I found a good alternative which I will write a review on when I have tested it. Still Im angry that I have wasted over £150 on rubbish that I no longer want to use and have no hope of getting a refund for.

UPDATE: I have found a really good out of the box classifieds software called ikiclassifieds. Its very easy to setup and has excellent admin customisation options. It also boasts excellent adsense and banner ad integration. You can set top ads (featured ads) and homepage placement ads payable via Paypal. Overall the site is excellent with phpBB included. I havent customised the code too much as I havent felt the need to, everything is almost perfect straight out the box…a highly recommended bit of software. Support is slightly slow (think the time difference effects it) but so far so good, they have answered all my comments etc. I also think its quite new so cant wait for updates!

UPDATE: Please read all the comment before purchasing iki. There may be a better option for you like using Wordpress and a custom theme like Classipress or Classifieds Theme.

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Christmas Shopping – Doing it online!

Neil — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:03:42 +0000

OK so if you are anything like me (a man) then the thought of jostling in crowds in town centres is about as much fun as fighting off a bunch of savage, knife wielding, bobbit feminists whilst being naked!!

So of course the solution is to do it all online….which I do. This is of course not a new concept and would have thought that any man who hadnt thought about doing all their Crimbo shopping online probably deserves to trawl around shops being beaten to the best deals buy a wiley old Grandma. The rest of us however are smarter than that……so where do you shop online? I’ll give you my top five online stores below:

1. Well Presented Gifts
My number one site for some cool, unique gifts is Well Presented Gifts. Why oh why I here you ask, well for a number of reasons. Firstly they are cheaper than most if not the cheapest for the products they sell, not only that though is that on certain products you can get free gift wrapping! So you dont even need to wrap the damn things, Just stick’em under the tree and your done. Being pressed for time and a bit of a lazy sod this is perfect for me….I use their online shop…easy….they wrap it for me….easy. They will also send it to any address you want which is great for the relations scattered across the country. EASY! Definitely my top site for reliability, ease of use and extra freebies like wrapping!

2. Prezzy Box and Fire Box
In jointly at number 2 is Prezzy Box. Well actually I never used to like it due to the design, it was always a bit cramped and busy. Its still pretty busy but is sporting a nice new colourful look which I like. There are some really good products on there and a lot to browse through. One of the main things I like is the easy way in which to search for gifts. They have a ‘Gift Wizard’, which asks you 6 questions about the person you are buying for and it displays results to suit that person…again saving you time and frustration. Cool time saving tool if in a rush. Not the cheapest shop online though.

Pretty similar to Pressy Box is Fire Box, even the designs have become closer. Fire box is really awesome, it has so many cool products which you dont really need but want them all the same. Also has some cool search features….check out the ‘Randomiser’ and see what you get. Again its pretty expensive….I sometimes look for ideas there and then do a more in depth Google search to find a better deal (sorry Firebox…but you are a bit pricey).

3. I want one of those
Well I guess this is the big daddy of online gifts shops. Its first in Google but 3rd on my list. Ahuge array of stuff to look at your bound to find something for under the tree and in the stocking! I also like the “Things we didnt know” widget at the bottom of the hiomepage and they have a cool blog too.

4. Dot Com Gift Shop
Only just found this site and it differs from your ‘Fireboxs’ and the likes. It is a bit more grownup and has a nice selection of ‘homey style’ gifts. My girlfriend assures me that the “Retro-Spot” category is excellent and I am to buy it all.

5. Zavvi
Just the best place to get your games, DVD’s, CD’s and Books. Definitely one of the cheapest around but also one of the quickest deliveries Ive seen, especially since its posted from Jersey. i have literary ordered stuff late one day and got it the next. They are branching out into other areas and now sell products relating to Health and Beauty, Electronics, Clothing and loads more. Worth a gander for sure.

So thats my top five. Please feel free to add your favourites using the comment form below (unless you are a savage, knife wielding, bobbit feminist).

Funny – Unethical Companies

Neil — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:08:26 +0000

Well I recently wrote a post about CreditSafe and MarketSafe being horrible, unethical companies (Read it here).

Anyway I checked my analytics account and that post has had quite a few visitors each month, so I checked on Google for the key term “Unethical Companies”, sure enough Im there on page 2. I also noticed that this blog seems to get no traffic from Yahoo at all. So I did the same search there and noticed one of their ads on the right hand side (Google has the same one I just didnt see it).

I thought it was so funny for some reason I burst out laughing and thought I would write a wee post about it and show the snapshot of the ad (to the right).

Im not a huge fan of eBay and they have sailed close to the lines of being unethical in my experience (I class Paypal as being eBay too). But I didnt realise they have started selling unethical companies…..and who are the scum bags that are buying them. NOTE TO SCUMBAGS: I did a quick search for “Unethical Companies” on eBay and zero were listed….HAHA

Simon Amstell – Do Nothing

Neil — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:57:39 +0000

My girlfriend and I watched every episode of Buzzcocks when Simon was at the helm. So when we heard he was coming up to our home town of Perth we were very excited. However come the beginning of August I had completely forgotten about it…luckily my birthday is at the end of August and my girlfriend bought me tickets for the show in Perth Concert Hall on 2nd November.

I wasnt exactly sure about what style and format Simon would entertain us with. That is I knew it would be clever, sarcastic and razor sharp but having never seen any stand up from him I wasnt sure on the delivery and content. Mr Amstell did not disappoint! Infact he exceeded my expectations.

Not only was he funnier than a fart in classroom full of 10 year olds but he was truly profound and left me with a philisophical feeling I had forgotten I could have. He was inspiring me to think in the moment and follow thought processes I had abondoned for work commitments and fretting over the future.

Im unsure if all my fellow audience members were thinking and feeling the same as me. Most I think appreciated his openness and well linked, flowing humour but I marvelled at his vulnerabilities exposed, then analysed in a genius like fashion only to be topped of with a large helping of humour.

For me at least he made it impossible not to like him, even with his ‘God Brain’ arrogance (a man after my own heart), spikey sarcasm, and confident awkwardness; all of which could put some people off.

I can honestly say its one of the best stand up perfomances I have ever seen and if you really listen to what he talks about you should take more than laughter away from the show. It seems true what they say that a good stand-up comics have high IQ’s. I only wish that my ‘God Brain’ was planet sized like Simon Amstell’s. Oh well….

When there is nothing that can be done…..do nothing!

Bank of Scotland Straightforward Overdraft Fees

Neil — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:43:09 +0000

Bank of Robbers

I recently revceived two letters from the Bank of Scotland both of which informed me of the same changes to be applied to seperate accounts.

The title read thus; “Important news about changes to your Bank of Scotland Current account” it should have read something like this; “We have thought of a new way to screw more money out of you”

The changes are to the overdraft fees. Bank of Scotland are no longer charging a debit interest rate but will be charging a pound a day for every day you are in your overdraft (for overdrafts upto £2,500)! At the moment I am charged around £12-13 per month for being in my overdraft all month, with the new system I will be charged more than double that at around £30!

What really yanks my noodle is the robbing bastards are trying to make it sound like they are doing me a favour by saying; “At Bank of Scotland we’re committed to fees that are clear and simple to understand”.

So not only are they trying to pull the wool over my eyes, pretending to do me a favour but they are insulting my intelligence by saying I cant comprehend a simple interest rate and it must be simplified for me!!!

These new overdraft charges I feel are purposely made to penalise people like me, who live in their overdrafts, the very people who are probably struggling to cope financially and should be aided not made worse off. Yet again the banks find away to penalise the poorer ranks of society.

Of course all Banks will be looking for ways to wangle that little bit extra from everybody after their almighty f*&^ up. They screw up, losing billions of pounds, we the tax payer foot the bill and we are thanked by increased charges masked with PR smoke blown out these jumped up bankers arses! And what can we do……not much really, change your bank maybe? Well they are all just as bad. Phone them up and complain maybe? Hah…if you can be bothered waiting 20 mins on the phone to do it! No there isnt much that can be done which is so frustrating, just write a rant on a blog nobody cares about.

Bank of Scotland a friend for life? Aye right

My letter from was from Mike Regnier, Director, Personal Current Accounts.

Well all I can say Mr Regnier is if this was your idea I hope you sleep well at night with the knowledge that you are robbing the damn people that have bailed you out and keep you in business and your slippery mitts quaffing champagne.

UPDATE:
Well I have spoken with my feet. After banking with Bank of Scotland my whole ‘banking’ life I have now transfered all my accounts over to Alliance and Leicester aka Santander. They offered me 0% interest on my overdrafts for 1 year and there after the charge 50p a day for being in your overdraft with a cap of £5 per month (this is even less than the interest charged on my overdraft by HBOS BOS). Also they do not charge for the simple use of having a business bank account. Indeed I have always found this strange that banks feel the need to take a cut of every process that happens in a business account…..doesnt seem fare, aparantly Santander think so too.

My sister too feels put out by Bank of Scotland and she has transfered to Alliance and Leicester. Alliance and Leicester also offer a referral insentive. If you refer somebody and they take up their current account then £25 each will be your reward.

So I hope that any Bank of Scotland customers reading this speak with their feet and jump ship for a better deal. Dont stand for their shoddy new charges. Please do not feel “loyalty” to them…they havent to you! After all its business! And they just arent running theirs very well so try somewhere else.

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Lost Position on Google Local Search – Disappeared from Google Maps

Neil — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:17:33 +0000

Well Im sure Im not the only one but my listing has disappeared in Google Local Search results.

Ive got quite a few businesses listed but only one ever got displayed for some reason? The listing that appeared was for the key term “Web Design Perth” and my website www.webdesign-perth.co.uk was the one displayed (although I have two others business websites listed which dont appear?) before I added this one it was www.thepathwebdesign.com that was displayed. It had been displayed no problem for over 1 year in a prominent position.

I recently added another business to my Local Business Centre account and now nothing shows up. No listings are displayed anywhere in the local results!!

Because I am no listed prominently in the proper organic listings I rely on the local results to get a bit of traffic! I dont think anything I have done anything that would cause this to happen but if anybody has any ideas why my listings have been dropped please use the comment form below and share.

I have noticed that there has been some recent Algorithm changes and now Google has introduced ‘Place Pages’ which display more information on the buisiness and take away the need for the user to actually visit the website, I think this will detriment the businesses and web designers. The business will suffer because the user might not visit the website to get the latest info and deals, plus if you run Google Adsense then this could reduce your revenue (and Googles, although it will offset because more people are staying on Google and clicking as they go). Obviously web designers will lose out because business owners will say why do I need the expense of a site when Google lists me front page with all the information I need. So now its an even harder task to talk them around as to why its a good thing, and it is!

Well Im a bit pissed off anyway, if Google are going to drop my sites from Local search the least they could do is put them on page one for the key terms I want……where is Google CEO’s phone number again…phone him and get him to sort it personally for me…

Any thought about anything above anyone?

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Opencart – Possibly the best open source shopping cart software!

The Path Hosting Launch

Neil — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:01:20 +0000

The Path Hosting has been launched and is offering half price deals on their packages. The Path Hosting offer unlimited bandwidth on all packages with the cheapest starting from just £1 per month! Packages can be bought in Linux or Windows too!

If you have a Wordpress website the Basic plan is perfect for you. With Unlimited Bandwidth at only £12 for the whole year!!

The Path Hosting use the latest servers from Dell Super Servers and operate on a Gigabit network. Servers are based in the UK and The Path Hosting offer unrivalled support as you can phone them directly, use their ticket system or email them directly.

For more information and to sign up before their half price offer expires go to: The Path Hosting

PS3 Slim Review – Is skinny better?

Neil — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:09:32 +0000

Well the PS3 Slim is here……well it was bound to happen, they have to pedal their wares a bit more before the PS4 is launched!! Plus its a proven technique with the original playstation, PSP and Nintendo DS.

So is it any good and what are the specs?

Well it is supposedly leaner and meaner. The slim PS3 is 32% smaller, 36% lighter and consumes 34% less power than the original PLAYSTATION 3 models. So its most definitely leaner but where is the meaner? It comes as standard with a large 120GB hard drive!

…..what is that it…..no other differences……no upgrade on speed or graphics?

It appears not. The PS3 Slim is more or less the same as the later full fat PS3’s its just lost a few pounds but got a bigger stomach OR IS IT?

UPDATE: Well recent report suggest that the CELL CPU inside the PS3 Slim is actually new according to PC World. The original CELL CPU was based on 65nm technology and the PS3 Slim now sports a spanky new 45nm CELL CPU. This new CPU may even offer more performance. This means the PS3 Slim could be snappier as well as using less juice.

Engadget picked up a report that the new PS3 Slim actually supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream output now.

Like the lastest PS3 consoles the PS3 Slim is not PS2 backward compatible (boooo). It is also rumoured that Sony have also stripped the ability to install Linux on the PS3 Slim. Hopefully one of my readers can let us all know.

This wont affect the average gamer but is bad news for boffins who build Linux clusters with PS3 consoles. On the other hand, I am pretty sure somebody will figure out a hack to install Linux on the PS3 Slim.

In conclusion I think I will stick with my (in my opinion more advanced yet older) 60GB version which plays PS2 games; I still love it even if it is fat! Below you can buy the PS3 from 3 different places (top 2 are UK and bottom is USA):

If you love the skinnys and have your heart set on it you can buy a PS3 slim here with free game from Amazon: Sony PlayStation 3 Slim Console (120GB Model)

Or you it can be bought with a free game from Argos here:
PlayStation 3 Slim Console with 120GB Hard Drive.

Or for my USA readers a good deal can be found using this link:
(In Stock Now!) Sony Playstation 3 Guitar Hero Aerosmith Bundle (PS3 Slim 120 GB + GH Aerosmith + ezJam Wired Guitar + Gold Optical Cable)

Important Info on PS3’s that play PS2 games:

As the PS3’s harddrive can be exchanged with another drive easily, there is no real way to find out if a 60GB console can play PS2 games.

The best way to check the compatibility is by looking at the model number:

If it’s a CECHAxx number, then the console has a hardware PS2 chip built in and has the best PS2 compatibility, but is a NTSC console.

CECHCxx models are the 60 GB PAL model for Europe, wich uses a PS2 software emulation, that isn’t fully compatible.

The CECHBxx and CECHExx models also are able to run PS2 games.

All other console models are unable to play PS2 games.

Creditsafe, Marketsafe; Unethical Companies That Should Be Avoided

Neil — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:35:53 +0000

If you receive a cold call from Creditsafe (ASA Creditsafe – www.creditsafeuk.com) or their sister company Marketsafe (www.marketsafeuk.com) please just say you are not interested and hang up the phone. If you let them speak the salesperson will aggressively sell you their services for the “low” price of £800, you can however haggle them down to £150 if you show complete disinterest! Thats a good deal I hear you cry, well no think about it. What does it tell you about them as a business and the service the offer if they devalue it so quickly? Plus if they can sell it at £150 then thats what they should do instead of ripping people off that pay £800.

Now if they create an account for you (or you do it) and they phone you to take you through the login process, do not do it! They will tell you just to click their terms and conditions confirming you have read them, this means you have entered into a contract with them. If you decide from this point that you do not want their service they will send you threatening letters and take you to court, stating that you have digitally signed and entered into a contract with them.

So please do not log into their system and agree to terms and conditions.

Creditsafe and Marketsafe operate an “easy in, hard out” style contract, its easy to agree to it and difficult to get out of. There are loads of cases online about their “auto renew” policy. Basically if you do not write to them explaining you wish to opt out of their auto renew system they will just go ahead and charge you for the next years service. It has been documented on a number of forums online that the company will sometimes increase the renewal cost by up to 10 times what was paid in the first year! Scary.

Check out the thread about Creditsafe/Marketsafe on money saving expert’s forum here: Money Saving Expert Forum

The service they offer isnt even that great, you can achieve a similar service yourself for free, its called Yell.com! You can find just as many business contact/leads by searching Yell.com (for free) as you can with Credit Safe! The Credit Safe database is also innaccurate as its supposedly tells you if a business has a website through their system, as a web designer I thought this would be useful but upon cross checking their database with my own searches online I found that the seriously need to update their database!!

Anyway I cant recommend enough you STAY AWAY FROM THESE COMPANIES! It will only cause you stress, if you are interested in their services perhaps look at their competition or look for free ways to achieve the service!

Creditsafe and Marketsafe suck and sail close to the winds of being a scam, using bully tactics to sell and retrieve funds.

Please feel free to comment below and share your experiences with the company! I have no doubt most will be complaints but Im sure the Creditsafe staff will be on saying how great they are as they do on every other blog and forum Ive seen. Check out the links below in one of my comments to see other peoples complaints. Definitely a company to avoid, just dont put yourself through the hassle.

Just to alert people also here are some numbers they may call you from: 08708500660, 07772 393720, 029 20 855175

These numbers may have changed by now and they do withold their number to. If one of the above numbers calls you do yourself a HUGE favour…dont answer. Or better yet tell them to get lost as you have read Effutios review!!

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Will everyone stop talking about Twitter!

Neil — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:26:22 +0000

OK that’s it Ive finally had enough! This rant has been brewing and indeed people closest to me have had to endure it consistently up until this point. So hopefully this will get it all off my chest never to be spoken of again (mmm doubtful). As you can see I have also vented my frustrations on the Twitter bird…ahhh makes me feel a little better.

Twitter………..what a complete load of pants that’s been jumped on by every celeb with a PC and no common sense. I mean come on what real use is Twitter providing apart from keeping the sad celeb chasing stalkers updated with the next piece of uninteresting news, take P Diddy (IAMDIDDY) for instance when he says: “let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!!!!!!!”

Wow….deep. And hes not the only one writing pointless rubbish cluttering up Twitters nice website that surely no sane person cares about. Nope your every day Jo is writing crap too like; “brushing my teeth” while part of me wants to applaud their multi-tasking skills, the other wants to wrench the brush from their tweet typing grasp and ram it down their throat in a heroic attempt to get rid of the crap spewing forth onto Twitter!

Twitter is producing the human equivalent of static noise; a perpetual stream of annoying noise that makes no sense!

OK, OK maybe some people have got some interesting things to say but how much good stuff can you cram into 140 characters? So what real use does Twitter serve? I mean it only became popular once ‘celebrities’ started using and talking about it! Of course its good to have an outlet to keep people updated about gigs, events, thoughts etc its called a blog! Where one can choose to write more than 140 characters if one cares too (what forward thinking). Hurrah!

But to the real crux of the matter; why oh why is everyone yapping on and on and on and on about it! Its a never ending stream of Twitter this and Twitter that, with everyone jumping on the band wagon. People talk about it on the radio, on the TV, its in the news, I get 10 bloody articles about it in my email everyday! WHY? Its just not that great! It hasnt brought any real good or usefulness to the world. So please here my plea stop talking about it so much and let Twitter die its enivitable death sooner rather than later!

Microblogging on a Twitter-like scale is the scurge of the internet and a complete waste of web space. RIP Twitter Bird

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