No More Canned Responses, Please.
Back in 2007, my MattRefghi.com domain served primarily to power my solo development experiments. Behind the scenes, it was hosted by 1&1 Internet – the price was low, which was necessary at the time. All was well in the world of 1&1 web hosting for a while, until I eventually encountered a problem when uploading PHP files to my server. When I ran the files on MattRefghi.com, they would fail – but on my local development machine, everything was working as expected.
Eventually I called their tech support team to see if something was wrong with their configuration. The agent helped me resolve the problem, but in the process of doing so, he started modifying my PHP files – without even asking me. During the call, I didn’t really think much of it, particularly since the code I had uploaded wasn’t very important to me. Ultimately, the agent’s PHP tampering helped me figure out the problem; however, after the call, I realized that his behavior was a very big concern. Had my source code actually been important, I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to get their eyes on it, let alone edit it. After a while, I contacted 1&1 to report the encounter, and express my concern in their practices. The agent that received my report was sympathetic, and assured me it wouldn’t happen again:
The issue that you reported is actually beyond the rules of 1and1
already and as tech support, we are not allowed to alter anything from
the customer’s files or account. We can assure you that if anything
like this will happen again, we will take further measures. That is
generally the reason why we do not support scripting issues. I would
like to apologize for this issue.
However, it still marked the end of my business with 1&1 – I couldn’t risk my code being comprised. Apology or not, their hiring practices produced at least one agent with insufficient training.
Seeking more stability and a trustworthy host, I went ahead and signed up with Yahoo Web Hosting. It was more expensive, but it had something important – a big name I felt I could trust. Surely, Yahoo would have better practices, and I would be safe to code away as I always had. To be fair, this was the case – I never felt my security was at stake when I was with Yahoo. I instead encountered a different type of problem: I couldn’t figure out how to map multiple domains in such a way that they all used my MattRefghi.com web hosting, without revealing that to the end-user. After multiple attempts at solving the issue on my own, I decided I would e-mail their support team, and see if they would be able to help.
Below is one of the most frustrating conversations I’ve ever had with a support team, to the point where I felt the need to describe my problem as if it were meant for a child to understand. Before we get started, I want to highlight that there are many long e-mails included in this post – some are offered as text, others as images (to preserve formatting). Typically, whenever I show a Yahoo e-mail, feel free to read the first couple paragraphs, and then skim through the rest. Now that you’ve been warned, here’s the first e-mail I sent to Yahoo:
When I originally signed up for web hosting with Yahoo, I only bought the domain: ‘mattrefghi.com’. At that time, this was all I needed. I now have my blog hosted by Yahoo (WordPress), which is in a ‘blog’ subfolder – I see this when I’m connected via FTP.
To access my blog, I can use the following address:
http://www.mattrefghi.com/blog/I currently have it set up so that when I type ‘http://www.mattrefghi.com/’, it brings me to a page that says:
‘mattrefghi.com is currently experiencing difficulties – come back later.’ (I added this page just for testing).
Adding ‘blog’ to the URL, and pressing enter, brings me to my blog.This is great… all working as expected.
Thing is, I have two other domains: ‘.com’ and ‘refghi.org’.
When I forward ‘chameleoncore.com’ to point to ‘mattrefghi.com’ using masking, I get the page I expect:
‘mattrefghi.com is currently experiencing difficulties – come back later.’
…and ‘chameleoncore.com’ is in the address bar. Great.
Now… if I add ‘blog’ to this URL, it throws me back to the same page, but keeps the ‘blog’ in the address bar. Huh?
I can even put some random junk in there and it still keeps it and throws me back to the ‘technical difficulties’ page.
This isn’t what I want.Ideally, I’d like to be able to do the following:
Create a folder called ‘chameleoncore’ via FTP, such that typing ‘www.chameleoncore.com’ will bring me to the ‘chameleoncore’ folder by default.
If the ‘chameleoncore’ folder has a subfolder (ex: ‘projects’) on the FTP server, I want to be able to access that subfolder via the following URL:http://www.chameleoncore.com/projects/
…while ALWAYS reflecting the current directory.
I realize this would work fine if I had chameleoncore.com as my main web hosting domain – but how can I accomplish this in my situation. When I signed up, I just bought mattrefghi.com, not knowing what my business name would be. I still don’t have that name, but the ‘chameleoncore.com’ name is somewhat related, so I wanted to try setting up the site using that domain.
Any help in this matter would be appreciated.
- Matt Refghi
As you can see, I provided a wealth of information to assist the support agent. I thought it would help ensure that my problem got solved quickly.
Hello Matt,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Web Hosting.
I understand that you want to forward your domain ‘chameleoncore.com’ to
a sub directory in your ‘mattrefghi.com’ account.Mathieu, I greatly appreciate that you have forwarded your concern to us
and given me a chance to assist you with this matter.To create a subdomain, you must already have at least one subdirectory
created in your Yahoo! Web Hosting File Manager.To create a subdirectory:
1. Sign into your Yahoo! Web Hosting account.
2. Click on the “Manage” tab.
3. Click on the “File Manager” link in the “Tools for Managing Your
Site” section.
4. Click on the “Create Subdirectory” link.To create a subdomain:
1. Sign in to your Yahoo! Web Hosting account.
2. Click on the “Manage” tab.
3. Locate the “Web Hosting Account Details” section.
4. Locate “Subdomains”
5. Click the “Manage” link
6. Click on the “Create Subdomain” button.
7. Type in the subdomain you would like.
8. Select the subdirectory you would like your subdomain to be
associated with, then click the “Submit” button.Now when you type in your subdomain, the index file inside of the
associated subdirectory will be automatically loaded into your browser.For more information on subdomains, please see:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/webhosting/subdomains/
You can set up domain forwarding from the Domain Control Panel.
1. Log into your Yahoo! Domains account with your Yahoo! ID and password
by clicking on the “Sign In” link at the the top of the page:http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/
2. Click the “My Services” tab, then click on the Domain Control Panel
for the account you wish to edit.3. Click the “Forward your Domain” link.
4. Click the “Create Forward” button.
To set up masked domain forwarding to any URL:
5. Select the “the web site at” option.
6. Enter the URL of the site to which you wish to forward your domain.
Select the masked forwarding option and click the “Submit” button.7. Do one of the following:
* Select the option to include keywords and enter your keywords
separated by commas in the field provided.* Select the option to not include keywords. (You can always come back
and add them later.8. Click the “Continue” or “Submit” button.
9. Click the “Return to Domain Forward Page” button.
Regardless of which option you choose, your domain forward will appear
listed along with the details. Keep in mind that it may take up to 30
minutes for your domain forwarding to take effect during which visitors
will see the original domain and not be forwarded.We believe this solution should resolve your issue, if it still
persists, please call us at 1-866-800-8092.Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.
Regards,
Bradley
Yahoo! Customer Care
For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:
Their initial response started with an assumption – the agent, Bradley, felt he understood my problem, and provided me with lots of information about the solution. I have to admit, the instructions provided were very clear, but the e-mail, as a whole, felt like a giant form letter - and more importantly, his assumption was incorrect. He did not correctly understand my problem, and I didn’t blame him for that – it was a tricky problem to describe. In response to this, I decided I’d write my reply as clearly as possible, while illustrating how his solution didn’t work.
After writing that e-mail, I was pretty confident they would understand what I was saying. I spent a lot of time on the formatting, making it clear beyond a doubt, and then even added color coding and smileys to convey what worked, and what didn’t. The smiley part made me laugh, but I figured if was going for clarity – I might as well crank it up to 11.
Hello Mathieu,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Web Hosting.
I understand that wish to hide your Yahoo! Web Hosting account domain
name “mattrefghi.com” from your website URLs.I greatly appreciate that you not only forwarded your concern but also
shared your thoughts about the feature you’re requesting.Mathieu, I regret that this feature is not available through Yahoo! Web
Hosting. Also, we do not have an estimated date as to when it will be
available. Currently, the feature which you wish to have is available
through URL rewrite function, unfortunately not supported by Yahoo! Web
Hosting.We are always looking for ways to make Yahoo! Web Hosting more useful to
our users and continually receive lot of great feedback. It is through
these comments and suggestions that we are able to make improvements.We will be sure to keep your concern in mind to improve our service.
Moreover, I’ve also passed your comments on to our development team for
further consideration. We always have something on the drawing board,
and many of our best new features have been suggested directly by users
like you.You can also forward your precious suggestions to us at the following
address:hosting-suggestions@cc.yahoo-inc.com
Your cooperation and patience will be highly appreciated in this regard.
We value you as a customer and look forward to serving you for years to
come.Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.
Have a nice day!
Regards,
Maggy
Yahoo! Customer Care
For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:
Despite the clear formatting, color-coding, and smileys – another Yahoo agent (Maggy) replied, wielding her own incorrect assumption. Now, it’s the approach I have a problem with – I wouldn’t mind her being wrong if she expressed her uncertainty somewhere in the e-mail. If you, the support agent, are not entirely sure that you are providing me with THE solution, don’t act like you are. Instead, she behaves as if it will solve my problem, and leaves it to the form letter to tell me I can reply, if I need further assistance.
So I reply again, and you can tell my patience is low by the last words in the e-mail:
No more canned responses, please. I’m a developer – I’m not clueless.
Then, another reply:
Hello Matt,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Web Hosting.
I would be pleased to assist you further.
Matt, it is not possible to switch Yahoo! Web Hosting for one domain to
another. Let me clarify the reason and basic difference between Yahoo!
Domain and Yahoo! Web Hosting.With Yahoo! Domains plan, you register a domain which is your web
presence. You cannot host webpages under Domains plan but you can always
forward this domain to any URL.Under Yahoo! Web Hosting plan, you get your own webspace to host
webpages. Once your Web Hosting order has been placed with a particular
domain name, it is not possible to make changes to your domain name.
During the sign-up process, we make sure to confirm your selected domain
name several times to ensure that the correct domain name will be
registered and then DNS information is propagated across all servers in
world.Matt, you cannot transfer the hosting services from one domain to
another but you can always upgrade your Yahoo! Domains plan to Yahoo!
Web Hosting.Steps to upgrade your Yahoo! Domains account:
———————————————–1. Log into your Yahoo! Domains account with your Yahoo! ID and password
by clicking on the “Sign In” link at the the top of the page:http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/
2. Click the “My Services” tab
3. Click the “Change Plan” link for the account you wish to upgrade.
4. Select from the upgrade options displayed by clicking the “Choose”
button or click the “Add New Service” link to get more information about
all of the Yahoo! Small Business products.
5. Decide upon a product upgrade and complete the order process.NOTE: If you do not wish to keep the website with domain name
“mattrefghi.com” or do not want to host website under this name, you can
downgrade the service to Yahoo! Domains plan, free of cost.To downgrade your Yahoo! Web Hosting account, follow these easy steps:
1. Log into your Yahoo! Web Hosting account with your Yahoo! ID and
password at:http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/services
2. Click on the “Change Plan” link for the domain in which you wish to
change.3. Enter your Yahoo! ID password
4. Click in the “Choose” button of the plan on which you wish to
downgrade. or click on the “View all of our plans.” link to view more
services that are available to you.5. Proceed through the remainder of the checkout process to switch
services.Note: Please be aware that you are actually switching your existing
service plan. Some services that you currently enjoy may be unavailable
to you depending on the service plan selected. Please make sure to
carefully read the plan descriptions for each service option.Matt, I hope this email will assist you in right direction.
Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.
Regards,
Shelby
Yahoo! Customer Care
For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:
Shelby? Alright… for the first two e-mails, I didn’t question the fact that there were two different agents. But, three? That’s getting excessive – seems like e-mails are just being randomly assigned to an owner each time I contact. It’s almost like they want their agents to “take a shot” at a solution, without opening a dialogue to ensure it is correct. After all, if their guess is right – they don’t need to have more communication with the client. Of course, if multiple e-mails are sent, each agent must read the whole history to see what didn’t work, so it’s an approach that taxes Yahoo over time.
Furthermore, this conversation was a strange case where even if I spent time making my e-mails abundantly clear, it didn’t seem to improve the experience. The agents still continued to take shots at my problem, most of which proved incorrect. In fact, because of this, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if you told me that Yahoo’s support system was fully automated, where the software actually replies to client e-mails. The only clear proof against this, to me, seems to be the Shelby e-mail, where the fist few paragraphs seem pretty human.
In the end, Shelby’s e-mail provided me with the confirmation that I needed – Yahoo requires that you buy web hosting per domain that you purchase. Can you guess what my next reply was?
I would like to cancel my web hosting plan, but still keep my domain registrations with you.
How would I go about doing that?
When Gaming Handles Invade Real Life
Having been a gamer since my teenage years, I’m pretty familiar with representing myself in a virtual world. While some games offers customization of an avatar, the most common element is usually a username, also known as a gaming handle. When other players encounter you in this online world, they know you by your handle, not your real-life name. Over the years, I came to realize that my online personna could sometimes find its way into the real world, with undesirable results.
Photo by bpsusf
The first situation I’m going to describe revolves around the handle. When creating gaming handles, I now know to exercise caution, as the name may be seen in a context that isn’t… appropriate. I have personally experienced this before, and it is both and amusing and troubling tale. At one point in my life, I went in for an internship interview, and when the interviewer arrived, he pulled up the electronic version of my resume on his laptop. I couldn’t see his screen, but after a few moments, he looked up, and said: “ToadLurker?” It took me a couple seconds to realize that yes, I heard correctly. ToadLurker was my gaming handle, but I didn’t understand how it had anything to do with my resume. I confirmed the name as my own, and asked him where he saw it. It seems the file’s properties actually contained the author name, which, by default, seemed to be related to the Windows logon name. This is where I learned a very valuable lesson – despite the gaming, your Windows account should always be based on your real name. Also, the handle should be something that you can show to an employer without being embarrassed. Certainly not something that you’ll want to do, but I feel it to be a good rule of thumb.
Photo by Umberto Salvagnin
Similarly, it is important to resist the temptation of using gaming handles as usernames for non-gaming websites. Recently, as I was using a finance-related website, I realized that I could not remember my username. I had to call their support line, and the agent eventually told me my username: ToadLurker. Registering with that username was obviously a mistake (rarely use it -hence why I couldn’t remember), but it was pretty awkward to hear that on the phone, and have to acknowledge that it was, in fact, your username. You’re also probably wondering what ToadLurker is, and to me, that’s the amusing part. To a random person, it doesn’t sound very good – it almost sounds like ToadLicker, suggesting I like to lick psychoactive toads to get high. Even if they don’t think this, the word “lurker” doesn’t really inspire trust in anyone.
Along the same line, by the way, don’t register on websites using an e-mail address that is too embarassing to show to a potential employer. I used to live with a guy that had an e-mail called operationpimp@providerhere.com. Just keeping that e-mail address around is a risk to his reputation… what if it accidentally was seen by an employer? I used to have a good laugh imagining what would happen if he actually sent his resumes using that address.
Finally, to put an end to your wondering, I’ll explain how I came to adopt ToadLurker as my gaming handle. It goes back to my earlier gaming years, where I played Starcraft, a real-time strategy game, most of all. I really liked one particular unit, called a Lurker. Lurkers burrowed into the ground, and stayed there, awaiting enemy units. When enemies would walk near burrowed Lurkers, they would be immediately attacked by spines that pierced through the ground. The Lurkers themselves remain burrowed, making them great ambushers. I always liked that concept, so it found a way into my gaming handle.
Photo by Chase N
The Toad portion actually started at SOAD, which is an acronym for System of a Down, a band I listened to at the time. SoadLurker was therefore my first draft, and I kept it for a while. A few years later, I began playing Battlefield 1942 with a clan, regularly. During one of our league matches, a shoutcaster decided to broadcast our match. He was essentially watching the match, and behaving as a regular sports commentator would. After the match, the team got together on an audio chat program, and listened to the shoutcast together. At one point during the match, the shoutcaster noticed me doing something in the game world, and tried to pronounce SoadLurker a few times, with little success. He decided it was too hard to read, so he asked his wife what she thought. Her suggestion was to just call me “Toad”, as it was simpler. Upon hearing that, the team had a good laugh, and I decided that yeah, why not call myself Toad?
That was, of course, a very long time ago. At this point in my life, I’m very supportive of the idea of using real names as gaming handles. They’re much less likely to lead to awkward situations like the ones I have experienced.
Reducing E-mail Spam by Eliminating Public Listings
I’ve been using Gmail as my e-mail service provider for a few years now, and due to their excellent spam filters, I’ve been able to ignore the continuous stream of junk mail hitting my mailbox every day. Despite their efficiency at identifying and hiding spam e-mails, I remain genuinely concerned about keeping my e-mail address hidden from the public view. E-mails that are publicly available are easy targets for spambots, which are automated programs that scour the Internet for e-mail addresses. Once “harvested”, these addresses are sent junk mail, spam.
by Allan ReyesSometimes, however, it is desirable to have an e-mail address visible to the public – to do so, a special approach should be taken to protect it from spambots. For example, you can use services like reCAPTCHA Mailhide, which challenges viewers with a CAPTCHA before it displays the full e-mail address.
Curious about whether or not my e-mail was “out there”, I decided to look into it. Below, I explain how you would go about checking for public references to your e-mail address, and how future slips could be prevented.
Google Your E-mail Address
Try searching for the e-mail address using Google. Search engines scour the Internet for web pages, rather than just specific elements in the page (like e-mail addresses). They do so through programs called crawlers, sometimes referred to as spiders. If they have indexed a webpage that has your e-mail address mentioned, you’ll be able to find it in the engine’s search results. The important fact here is this: if you can find it using a search engine, you can safely assume that a spambot would be similarly capable. It is therefore important to remove any references to your e-mail address – in doing so, you’ll be making it a little bit harder for spammers to target your address.
To do so, try launching a Google search for your e-mail address, using this format:
“you@youremailprovider.com”
The double-quotes will tell Google to look for that exact string, which will limit the number of false positive search results that are returned. If you get no results with the double quotes, try removing them.
After running the search, if you spot search results that actually have made your e-mail address publicly visible, you’ll need to try and remove them. In my case, when I did this, all the hits were sites that I could log into, and then remove my address. If you’re lucky, it’ll be that simple. Otherwise, you might have to contact the site owner to get it removed.
Question How Websites Use Your E-mail
To avoid getting into potentially complicated situations, it is worthwhile to spend some time determining how websites intend to use your e-mail. An e-mail is almost always requested when registering, but the uses vary. It could, for example, just be used to contact you to activate your account. Or, it could be used for a multitude of things, including as a publicly viewable piece of information. Take the time to check FAQs, site forums, or even contact the site owners if there are doubts – this could prevent an increase in spam received.
Sometimes, however, it isn’t as straight-forward as them displaying your e-mail address- sometimes certain sites will indirectly expose your address. I’ll give you an example… consider Google Profiles. By default, the URL that points to your profile looks something like this:
http://www.google.com/profiles/114973454253911341512
You can, however, choose to have your username appear at the end, like this:
http://www.google.com/profiles/youruseraccount
This is naturally better for search engine optimization, and it also allows you to memorize your profile link – but it introduces a flaw as well. Looking at that URL, I know that the e-mail address “youruseraccount@gmail.com” exists. It has to, that’s how Google accounts work – they are based on an e-mail address, so there is no doubt about what the username portion is. If I know that, then I can deduce that there must be a spambot out there that is smart enough to exploit the same flaw. Even if no spambots are currently exploiting this, I’m pretty sure one eventually will. Thankfully, though, Google has explained the feature very well on the settings page – reducing the likelyhood that someone would enable it unknowingly:
To make it easier for people to find your profile, you can customize your URL with your Google email username. (Note this can make your Google email address publicly discoverable.)