Some misguided people here (not the newbees – they don’t know better – but people who have been here for a month or more) seem to think these forums are a great place to complain about the Live, or WD in general. For those of you who are new, trust me – it’s a waste of time to do so here. You can’t get better service – you can’t “threaten” WD or advance your agenda, or do anything more than frustrate folks here who are trying to help. However, sometimes it IS nice to vent, so I thought I’d start this thread (because I, too, have my own frustrations). Feel free to add to it (maybe we can even get Bill to make it sticky – while it sounds odd, it wouldn’t be disiningenuous for WD to do so).
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I hate, hate, HATE that WD doesn’t make it clear these are user-to-user forums. Indeed, they seem to go out of their way to imply they aren’t. While it’s true that from time to time Bill (the forum admin) and perhaps one or two others (Guy, and I’ve never seen anyone else but it’s possible) post a message, Bill isn’t a tech guy and Guy never offers anything besides “we’re looking into it.” It’s more than misleading – it gives hope that perhaps WD does have an official presence here, and that what people complain about might actually make a difference (as far as I can see this is anything but the truth).
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On that same subject, I really think WD *should* have an “official” board, or at the very least an official forum inside these forums. Someplace that only the tech folks can post answers (so it would have to be modded very carefully) but, more importantly, someplace the tech folks really did frequent. While users here such as Rich, Tony and Grant are very knowledgable and helpful in the extreme, they don’t know all the answers and can only guess at some of them. Plus they are here totally voluntarily and can not show up (or leave) at a moment’s notice (trust me folks, there have been times lately I feel like doing just that – I know, good riddence from some of you).
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I am as frustrated as any of you that (insert your own bug here) the thumbnail issue hasn’t been fixed yet. Yipes, this has been around for, like, ever (which is why I came to this board in the first place. I’m even more frustrated that it’s not considered a priority. With each new firmware release I look at the dozens of things addressed and most of the time ask myself “why the heck was THAT done?”, particularly now that I see people asking for so many things. It’s almost as if WD doesn’t pay a whit of attention to the problems people are facing, and their firmware releases are totally marketing driven. Hey, I worked in the industry for decades, and I understand the pressure the market people put on the tech staff. But the tech staff has to at least *listen* to what the users are asking for.
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On THAT same subject, I think the WD marketing people are fools – they want to advertise the Live as the be all, do all box that only raises people’s expectations unrealistically. If you are willing to live with the Live’s limitations it’s a pretty fantastic piece of equipment, but that means you need to understand what it can and can’t do. And what it can’t do is a whole lot of what it promises to do – I wish they’d stop promising things.
Feel free to add to this thread – hey, complain about ME if you want. (I just found out I can ignore certain people by clicking on their name in these forums and setting it up in my profile, so those that really make me mad are now VANQUISHED!)
