Ham Radio Deluxe and Radio Operations Center Software

I love HRD and plan on purchasing, but the website looks pretty funky to me, some type of problem. Internet Explorer 9, Windows 7.

 

Me two. Website is not good for most.

W4PC Quote; "Sounds like it something on your end, it works with Chrome, Firefox, IE 7-9-8, etc etc."

I am on the paying end, your end is the one that needs fixed.

Sorry I brought it up.

 

What about the ones who have already purchased HRD?
Where and for how much can we purchase ROC?

73 de Tony, KD4K

 

Tony, Im talking that over with Mike and Randy now.

Don, you haven't paid, but the link works.. don't get it... when you click on add to cart, does it not add? Also, clear your cache.. sometimes browers act up when the cache gets messed up by a bad cookie.

HUF: It's apples to apples. They are both ham products.. did you get your 520 for free? Didnt think so.

 

Some of the complaints about the web site are quite legitimate..

The shopping cart pages had lots of broken images but that seems to have been (mostly, see below) fixed in the last few minutes as I was typing this to give some more details.

At least one problem stills remains. If you add to the cart and then hit "Complete order. Pay by credit card", Internet Explorer displays a scary error message asking "Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?". That's because, even though the page URL is https, some of the images are being delivered with plain http. Firefox doesn't give an error for that. I don't know about other browsers. That page still has broken images.

It doesn't mean it's insecure but it doesn't give a good impression either.

 

Oh the secure stuff is due to the screwy way netsol handles its https:// and CGI script images.. if you hit NO (which means you want to see the http content), you'll get the files (which arent missing, just didnt show up).

And all they are is box pictures.. you guys arent serious that because it's not showing up some jpg files, that the whole company sucks?

My god, we're not Microsoft and even their site isn't flawless, and they have about 32,000 more people that us. Try finding an old KB article on there and get a 404.

Ham being too picky with some of their own? Nah, never! LOL

 

You wouldn't expect Yaesu or Kenwood to give away their products. Why insist that software developers do so?

 

I didn't say that. I was just pointing out some technical problems after you told someone "the problems must be at your end".

I don't think so. People are always being warned to "be careful online". They shouldn't have to decide whether or not a confusing error message is significant or not. They probably trust you but browsers give those error messages for a reason. They can indicate that the site has been hacked in some way.

Most hams are quite accepting of ham web sites that look like they were made in 1995 but most people get nervous when the eCommerce part doesn't look or feel right or starts doing weird things.

 

I did get some jacked up text and boxes on the pay link. Mostly after I made the payment. I use Firefox. You guys do have some web page problems, dead links, formatting, etc. I guess that it would help your image to fix them. However, I do know you guys have been blasted lately and may be defensive.

 

Tony:

Kan

http://www.hrdsoftwarellc.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?pid=5

AEA

http://www.hrdsoftwarellc.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?pid=4

 

First impressions mean a lot to many people. These days, many people think if the website for a company is bad that they must not care about their product either. That is a shortcoming on your part and not on your customers' part. Perhaps if you looked at your website from their eyes, you would see that.

If you want to be considered professional, then you have to look professional.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Microsoft is a huge company with a multitude of products and thousands of employees; it's much more difficult for them to keep up a website with hundreds of thousands of KB articles (which do expire from time to time when the problem is no longer relevant due to product EOL, et cetera). Your company consists of a few people which realistically means someone can at least fix up the website to look semi-professional and fix errors.

A small amateur radio-related company with a poorly designed website and pointing the finger for their problems at others? Nah, never.

If a lot of people are complaining about your website, you might take a look at it. As someone who makes some of his living as a professional website designer, I'd say that you need to work on the website. It does look amateurish--and not on a good way. If Network Solutions is screwing up your website, perhaps you should look at another host that has their stuff together and doesn't jack up your website due to their lack of ability.

I have a ham friend who was very interested in purchasing HRD tell me that he didn't trust your company because your website kept messing up on him. He also mentioned that if the website was this bad, he wondered how badly written HRD was. Now I know that's a false assumption but don't anger your potential customers with off-the-cuff remarks just because they point out problems in your website.

(Now if you could just build some basic functionality into HRD, such as being able to modify the comport settings, that would be something else. All the fancy features in the world won't help me because HRD doesn't offer a simple function that all of your other competitors, free and commercial, do. Don't feel bad, I told the original author about this problem with the comports and got blown off.)

Perhaps if you focused on some of the more basic issues with your program and website, you might attract more customers. You know, "bees to honey" and all that. I don't mind paying for a well-written and well-supported program myself. Yes, I have done and continue to do software development both professionally and personally and I can understand hams being overly frugal to a fault. But there's real problems when you're blaming your website host for problems you should be able to handle yourself.

73,
Sean
KD5COL

 

Sean,

Are you talking about parity, stop bits and 8/7 bits?

 

I dont think there was a question in the announcement.

 

I think we are getting away from the topic. Ham Radio Deluxe is an amazing piece of software and it is not only getting better, it is integrating with other software and hardware to become a single full desktop. Personally, I bought the software shortly after it came out, not only for the support, but for "future-proofing" what I see as a necessary addition to my shack. Bonus was the recently released of a manual. Yep I am "cheap"; I want hardware and software that I will use time after time so my dollars have a high return on investment. HRD extends the use of my current rig, integrates a logging function and allows me to access digital modes in one package. In short, I save time, frustration and enjoy our hobby alot more becasue of it. While the purchase decision is an individual one, I rather see the discussion surrounding specifics, not generalities.
Scott KD4EBL

 

Wow!!!

I am NOT a programmer, but at least I know where this is in HRD. It's pretty simple to modify com port parameters, though once set I rarely need to change anything.

.............Bob