Not Again !!! Alamode

[Richard Carlsen]

Barbara

Sounds like your files are getting too big for you ISP to handle via email.

You should do a search of the BB on resetting the size of your files (if .pdf) to make them smaller.

Also you may need to reduce the size of your photos. A photo of 25 to 40kb is big enough for our purposes of reports. If you are not reducing the size of the photos, you could be using extremely large photo files and thus making your reports way bigger than necessary.

If you use QuickPix to download, you can do it at the time of downloading from the camera.

By making the photos smaller, your report will get a lot smaller and your ISP should be able to handle it.

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

I use Day One/Nova so my following suggestion may or may not help. Go to Start, then Settings, then Printers. Is Adobe Acrobat Acrobat PDF printer listed? If so, then making adjustment to that printer might help. Click on properties, click on setup, adjust your settings for that specific printer. Click on Compression Options. I have Compress using JPEG high and Compress CCIT Group 4 checked.

Create a test file, check in Windows Explorer how big that file is. Then do the above, check in Windows Explorer to see if the size of the file changes. The first time I tried this, my file size was cut into one third of the original size. Which made a smaller package to send through email and me, my ISP and client was all happier. My photos when I take them in my camera with a 640x480 setting are around 30-60KB, I don't have to make any other changes to the photos or files or in Day One.

 

[Stephen Page]

:idea: Barbara,
if you're having timout problems, try this (from th Outlook help file)

"I received a server timeout message.

You need to make the e-mail server timeout setting longer. Do one of the following:

Change the server timeout for a POP3 or IMAP server

On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.

Select View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
Click the e-mail account you want to change, and then click Change.
Click More Settings, and then click the Advanced tab.
Under Server Timeouts, move the slider toward Long.
Click OK, click Next, and then click Finish."

HTH

Stephen

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

You all make me glad I do commercial work and don't work for mortgage companies.....I have never emailed anyone an appraisal, ever. And if I did, I would print the report to my .pdf driver. Then I would boot out of the appraisal software and email with the file as an attachment. If that doesn't work, then I'm screwed.

 

[dbiggers]

Barbara, considering the fact that you're even having "timeout" troubles sending PDFs using Outlook, completely outside any influence of WinTOTAL, isn't it possible that our techs were correct? If it was an a la mode problem, your PDFs in Outlook would have sailed through with no issues at all. But since you're having connection quality problems sending large files from BOTH WinTOTAL and your standalone Outlook Express software, it's simple logic that the ISP (your connection) is indeed to blame. It can't be the recipient mailbox being limited to small files, because that never results in a timeout during transmission. It can't be Outlook, since WinTOTAL doesn't use Outlook and it doesn't use the same server your Outlook does. And it can't be WinTOTAL, since even Outlook is failing via a different server and different method than WinTOTAL uses. That leaves only two things -- your physical connection, or your ISP. Which is exactly what our techs told you.

I know it's frustrating to have any problem when you're busy, but maybe it would help to not rush to immediate judgement that it's got to be our fault. Clearly, it wasn't.

Jeff, I know you like to think this is a la mode tech support, but the fact is that WinTOTAL simply does more than other software -- by far -- and is used by more people -- by far. This case was a classic example. We automate the EDI transmission and receipt process so we can do things for appraisers which can't be done manually, but then as soon as anything anywhere in the Internet connection goes down, people assume it's got to be us (even when we properly tell them otherwise). Maybe that's because we're the only ones they can get ahold of on the phone -- even a 20 minute wait during the busiest time of day is trivial compared to the multi-day callback delays from our competitors, or from virtually any ISP, or Microsoft.

Dave Biggers
CEO
a la mode, inc.

I know that all the "non Alamodes" are really tired of seeing these posts, but I need some input !

Sorry, I can't help since I have run from Alamode. But I have been thinking of asking Wayne to change the name to the Alamode Technical -Hardware/Sorftware Group. 8)

 

[BarbaraNJ]

Mr. B:

:!: :!: WRONG AGAIN :!: :!:


There is no issue with Outlook Express or file size. I have sent pdf appraisal reports recently with no problem. The problem I had in the past was indeed a "timeout" setting problem which I was able to fix on my own. One of the people who responded to this thread recommended increasing the timeout and his comment reminded me that had been the problem in the past.

Ironically, I fixed the problem on my own. I only wish I could tell you how. One frustrating evening, I opened "technical help" and "system utilities".
There is a window with a right and left list. The right-hand list has about 15 items. I double clicked on each, it asked if I wanted that catagory "fixed", I clicked on "yes". I closed the window, left the program. Ran disk defrag, shut down the machine and restarted.

The problem WAS NOT MY COMPUTER
The problem WAS NOT MY (OTHER)SOFTWARE
The problem WAS NOT MY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

THE PROBLEM WAS WIN TOTAL SOFTWARE


Although I was initially very frustrated with your technical "support", having first waited on hold for 8 minutes, hanging up, calling again and waiting for 22 minutes before being able to speak to a technician, and having the tech PREDICTABLY blame my service provider, I will compliment your employee Quinn Berberet.

After I hung up in frustration, Quinn was persistent in attempting to contact me. He called a few times, and emailed me. He responded to all of my email questions and tried his best to figure out what was wrong.

I believe that when you see complaints in this forum, you are seeing the result of the frustration of continually hearing that there is NEVER a problem with your software.

Keep in mind that my most recent problem occurred suddenly. I was able to send EDI at 5pm. When I tried to send more at 6pm, I had no success.
The next day, I was able to send three reports. Twenty minutes later, no reports would go through. This persisted for almost a week. Before and during the problem, I changed Nothing, added Nothing, did Nothing different from what I have been doing for "years".

Rather than point your finger at everything else, I would think that you would Love to have the ability to fix a potential "bug" that hasn't shown up till now, before it starts to become widespread.

Should I wait for confirmation that wintotal isn't perfect ??

To all of my Forum Friends----Thank You All for posting your suggestions. I will tell you that even if the suggestions may not have been applicable for this problem, they will be useful another time. Having all of you as back up is invaluable. Kudos also to Wayne for starting the Forum.

Barbara Polito







T

 

[dbiggers]

Barbara, your own statements above pointed out conclusively that it was happening outside of WinTOTAL. I'm not "guessing", I'm simply going on the basis of what you said. And when those types of connection problems occur, they always seem sporadic and sudden.

There's no "magic" to WinTOTAL being able to send a message -- it connects to a server and sends it using standard Internet protocols. Likewise, Outlook does the same thing. When they BOTH fail, using two different servers, then it's not either one of the programs. It's the connection.

And Barbara, I've been the most vocal owner/manager in the industry in in terms of saying "Yeah, we screwed this up, we'll fix that, we'll add this". Don't even try to suggest that my company and I don't admit when we make a mistake -- we do it all the time, publicly, because we know that it's silly to pretend that anyone is perfect. Frankly, appraisers are the worst at that -- when was the last time you saw an appraiser post out here that the underwriter was right or that the lender wasn't an idiot, and that they themselves screwed up? (Or that they made a mistake and blamed the software prematurely...?) I can't think of a single instance. But you'll find numerous posts from me saying that about policies, products, or situations of my own company. Fortunately, this isn't one of those cases.

Of course, the reality is that you don't see any of the other CEO's out here at all even trying to defend or admit fault in issues related to their software. They know it's futile to try to tell an appraiser that they're wrong, no matter how concrete the evidence. (Of course, that's also why lenders are tired of working with appraisers, and why appraisers can't even form a single effective professional organization like Realtors, lawyers, accountants, doctors, etc. Until appraisers wake up and stop being so combative, hostile, and inflexible about EVERYTHING, even with each other, neither of these issues will ever be addressed and the industry will argue its way into irrelevance.)

Dave

 

[Alan Simmons]

dbiggers:

Let me start by saying that I have never even seen your software. I could not make an informed statement about it if I wanted to. I am however someone that does shop for software. I am always looking to improve my lot and given the right reasons I would leave my current provider. I also do appreciate you posting to this forum and find them informative.

That having been said, this is how my software company would have handled the situation.

Barbara posted to the forum that she has a problem with my software. I immediately have one of my tech guys contact her to fix the problem, my software or not. Barbara posts a reply about what a great company guy I am for taking the time to help her. Alan is impressed and orders a demo because he is also impressed.

I did not order any demos this week.

 

[dbiggers]

That's exactly what we did.

Dave

 

[Willie]

dbiggers, I think what Alan is saying is that AlaMode did everything right, but fix it, which is the only important thing to appraisers, as you know. I don't use your software at this point, but do appreciate that you observe and respond to complaints. That is impressive.