Why did I open a support desk?

Emails get lost.  That is the truth of the matter.  I get thousands of spam emails in each day, and as good as my spam filters are, I still miss some emails.   I don’t EVER want to miss your email.

So yes, I am still available by email, but if it is IMPORTANT or URGENT, then we need a way to make sure you can get a hold of me, or my staff, 100% of the time.

That is why I setup a ticket based support desk.

Where is my support desk?

To get support you can use this link.

How it Works

It’s pretty simple actually.   Use the link above.  You open a new ticket.   Either I, or someone on my staff will reply to your ticket as soon as possible.   The system will send you an email when we have replied to your ticket.  BUT, you may log back into the system at ANYTIME to read our reply to your ticket.  So even if you don’t get an email from our system (because emails do get lost) you can still log in and check for a reply anytime you wish.

Nothing get lost this way.

What it looks like

What is CAPTCHA?

A CAPTCHA or Captcha (pronounced /?kæpt??/) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human.

Why did I remove the Captcha?

I removed the captcha from the support ticket area to make it easier for you, the user.  I know it can be hard to read those letters sometimes.  This can be especially true for people with poor eyesight.

I do think that the one I have is one of the easier ones to use, because it does NOT warp the letters, it just puts some colored lines behind them.

But in the end, I removed it to make life easier for everyone.

Less than a week later, chaos breaks out.

Someone, from this IP address:  91.214.45.223 opened several THOUSAND support tickets.

This was obviously an automated computer ran script which did this.   All of the tickets that were opened were filled with various kinds of SPAM.  So many tickets were opened that we have been completely overwhelmed with trying to close them all.

It would be nice if our support desk which came from Frank Haywood, supported some kind of mass delete option, but it does not.  So each ticket has to be opened, viewed, and then closed by hand.  Like many of Frank’s products, there appears to be no further development of this product since the day it was released.

So we will probably be purchasing new support desk software in the future.

CAPTCHA IS BACK

So in the end, I have had to put the CAPTCHA back onto the site.

Just like locks on a door, you have to do this to keep the bad people out.

Sorry for any inconvenience.