Gripes about Netsurfer Digest

On December 6, 2001, the email newsletter Netsurfer Digest wrote the following about this web site:

Venting about Microsoft's latest and not greatest is not only healthy, but wise: as you read other people's comments and discoveries, you can learn more about your own software and equipment. As expected, most of the recent gripes at this gripe collection concern WinXP, but nothing is ever totally spared here. The entries fall into two distinct categories: sour grapes, often posted by the utterly clueless; and serious information, generally taken from or in the form of links to the mainstream computer press. The second category is obviously the most useful, but the gripes of the clueless are worth reading for their humor (and if you don't get it...). Our reviewer has a gripe with this site: it has incredibly dense text and is hard to read. This is the world of hypermedia.

This web site is not about venting. Rather it exists to provide balance. With the exception of Stephen Manes and sometimes Walter Mossberg, the mainstream media hardly ever focuses on the day to day problems with computers. That's what I do. I don't rant and rave, but document and describe problems. There are no expletives here and every gripe has a date and notes the version of the relevant software. I do agree with the rest of the first sentence that these gripes can help you learn more about the hardware and software you're using.

Characterizing most of the recent gripes as being about Windows XP is not true. Certainly there are many gripes here about Windows XP, but it is only one of 68 topics with more topics to come.

My gripes are not sour grapes. I continue to use many software products despite a long list of gripes with them. Norton Anti-Virus and ZoneAlarm for example are indispensable. I've recommended them many times. This is explained on the "about" page of this site. The reviewer must not have read this page.

I don't think I'm utterly clueless, but then again, if I was clueless, I wouldn't know it would I? That someone would consider me clueless says more about them than it does about me. To further my point, the reviewer felt the only "serious information" on this web site comes from the links and extracts of articles in the mainstream computer press. Too often the mainstream computer press focuses on the pros (think Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch). I do the cons. Of the many "thank you" emails I've received, none was about an article in the mainstream computer press. All have been about problems I've had using software that I solved and documented and someone else had the same problem.

The Windows XP page, which the reviewer focused on, is not a typical page because all the information there comes from articles in the mainstream computer press.

I'm not sure, but I don't think the reviewer realized that all the gripes are mine. This web site is the work of one person.

One thing is true, this site does sometimes have dense text. The Windows XP page is perhaps the worst example of dense text because I have no first hand gripes with it and therefore no need to illustrate anything. One reason for the dense text is that I like wide margins. Web sites with four words per line and 4 inch margins are annoying. Another reason is that there are no ads. I pay for this web site out of my own pocket. Finally, I only use pictures when necessary to illustrate a point. Some pages, such as ZoneAlarm, have many pictures.

As for the gripe that this site is hard to read, it's not clear if this refers to the font, my writing style, or the wide lines of text with few pictures. For the most part, I do not specify a font on this site, it uses the default font of your web browser.

I don't know who wrote this review for Netsurfer Digest. The person never contacted me before or after writing their review. After the review came out, I emailed them to make them aware of this web page.

December 16, 2001. The next issue of Netsurfer Digest (dated December 13, 2001) included the following:

CORRECTIONS

A Gripe with Our Article on Computergripes

Michael Horowitz, the guy behind Computer Gripes, doesn't exactly agree with our assessment of his Web site ("Computer Gripes", NSD 7.41). As you might expect, he posted a gripe about our gripe of his gripes. He makes some good points.
http://www.computergripes.com/NetsurferDigest.html

March 17, 2002. Netsurfer Digest was a free newsletter for 7 years. As of February 2002 it costs $20 a year. Subscribers had their newsletters converted to trial editions of the paid newsletter in which you could only read the first sentence of each story. Today, after getting a few of these trial editions, I tried to unsubscribe. I couldn't.

Like many people, I have quite a few email addresses. A good newsletter will tell you in the body of the newsletter the email address that it is being sent to. For example, the Langa List by Fred Langa does this. NSD does not, so when it's time to change a subscription the first problem is what email address to use. I checked the headers of the email message and the only address there was my real one at my real ISP. Other email addresses that I use are set up to forward messages to my real ISP.

As per their instructions, I tried to unsubscribe at this web page, by entering my email address. I didn't work. The web site said that I was not subscribed using that email address. Catch-22.

I emailed them for help at subscriptions@netsurf.com and they found the subsribed email address quickly.