As a professional web developer and SEO I get asked for website reviews sometimes: this post is a paid review of the Manager Assistant website.
Generally when I’m doing an overview of a website I look at 3 main topics:
Usability and Accessibility
This is important because accessible sites are normally search engine friendly, and usable sites get longer visitor stay time and happier users.
People sometimes worry about this interview question where you’re asked what your weaknesses are. If you read the interview advice books, half of them will tell you to make something up that’s untrue but can be turned into a strength, like “I’m a perfectionist, which makes it hard for me to finish things, but I’m also a workaholic so I’ll be here 90 hours a week to make sure I do”. What a load of rubbish. The other half of the interview advice books are even less useful.
So what do I do? Well I try and stick to my guns as a blunt straight up guy, with a dash of irony and self-deprecating humour, but don’t be confused - this is my straight up real answer.
This is the question where I’m supposed to come up with faux weaknesses that I can turn into strengths for you, like that I’m an obsessive, perfectionist, workaholic.
Well, actually I’m not a perfectionist or workaholic. Not sure about obsessive.
One weakness I do have is that I tend to be bluntly honest and sometimes that offends people. On the other hand, oftentimes people really appreciate the honest approach and lack of bull.
Your mileage may vary.
So I went and did The Right Thing - y’all know what I mean - looking up the almost impossible to find “report a bug” link, submitting a fairly well structured and constructive post. And received the usual brick to the head Form Letter reply.
Dear amd,
Thank you for contacting PayPal, my name is Lisa. After
reviewing your email I understand you are enquiring
about the donation buttons on the website.
If you have an issue with integrating PayPal on your
website and are in need of assistance, please open
a Merchant Technical Support ticket by following the
steps below:
1. Go to https://www.paypal.co.uk/.
2. Click on the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom of
any PayPal page.
3. In the ' Merchant Technical Support' box, click
on the 'Merchant Technical Support' link.
4. Please fill in the form and all the required fields.
Alternatively you can click on the following link:
https://www.paypal.co.uk/IntegrationCenter/ic_contact
-support.html
or go to
http://www.paypal.co.uk/integrationcenter
Please let me know if you need further assistance.
Sincerely,
Lisa
PayPal, an eBay Company
Original Message Follows:
------------------------
customer subject: Donation button code generator
is broken: 5302
I've documented it at
http://amdsoft.com/2006/07/18/paypal-creating-a-
donate-button-and-error-message-5302-solved/
Your code is generated as:
PKCS7-----
">
The problem is the line break. Fix it to:
PKCS7-----">
and everything works fine.'
Damn, I hate these things. My housemate works in support (not at Paypal) so I must ask him about it sometime, but it appears to me that they have about 3 different form replies and use a magic 8 ball to pick the appropriate one. I look forward to the wonderful, magical day when blogging scales to fulfill all customer service needs. Hey, it might even happen!
Fantastic effort here by Switchmedia to ensure their good name is tarnished forever more in Ireland. They decided sending legal threats to boards.ie would ensure their reputation is upheld.Of course, pissing off some 50,000 potential customers is not the best PR strategy. This is an era of communication and data retention - the internet does not forget such threats.
It’s too late for Switchmedia. Businesses take note: your conduct is being watched, do not slight the community.
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