New DVD/Download "Build a Traditional Windsor Rocker" with Elia Bizzarri

[Joe Beaulieu]

Hey Mike and all,

The suggestion to try another browser shouldn't be seen as a condemnation of Safari. I work in this industry and my company lives and dies by browser compatibility. Every browser manufacturer has to release updates so that their software will work with the variety of apps and plugins on users machines. It is a rapidly moving target. We have an entire QA team at my place whose job it is to simply test that our software works with all browsers and with every iteration. Unless a web site is exceptionally vigilant (and I an not saying PWW is not) the changing needs of browsers can easily trip you up. I can tell you that most of the techs at my office have moved away from Safari in the last few months, but I can also say they likely will go back at some point. It's a revolving door. Chrome is the most widely used browser right now in our experience. This is due in part to Google mandating some certificate changes that are coming to fruition now.

My point if that all confused you is that having two or three browsers installed on your machine isn't a big deal. I would suggest it for anyone.

I hope this helps.

Joe

[Mike Holbrook]

Joe, I understand the argument for having different browsers. I use to run several. I believe the issue with PWW's parent company, however, may have to do with their hardware and or software. Quite a few posters on SMC have had continuing issues getting downloads from PWW for years. I don't think all of the issues I have read about over years all have to do with a single browser. I don't think the issues I have had over the last year or two all relate to a single bowser either.

I spent quite a few years in a previous life working with custom software, configuring/installing & running computer systems and designing and installing data communications networks for an Equifax owned company. I am currently working on a new web site for my small home based company, which I hope will work on multiple browsers and multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, all PC's...). Past experience and the fact that PWW's customer support staff has been unable to explain what their own system was doing leads me to think there might be some sort of issue that the coding staff does not see in their more limited testing of their software and hardware.

All the issues I have researched occurred during heavy traffic dramatically slowing or halting a download. Whatever software is handling these downloads does not seem to know what to do when the download takes longer than "expected". I did some of my own testing, using Safari, downloading from PWW, Lost Art Press and other places. I am surmising that since I have never experienced this issue, using Safari, for other types of downloads that the issue is unique to PWW downloads. The PWW software does not provide any kind of indication that their download is working. On my computer I simply get a file with an extremely long, incomprehensible file name. I was able to monitor download progress from the Apple download monitor and see actual estimates of download times and progress. It appeared that confronted with heavy traffic the PWW downloads would simply stop with no further notice. When I clicked on a PWW file that started as a download but never finished I repeatedly found a html file instead of the video. I also found that if I signed out of the PWW system trashed the old file and called back during slower traffic when the download could finish quickly I could succeed. The entire process of figuring out what is going on is made much more complex because the download file names on the PWW downloads make it all but impossible to figure out what they are. Admittedly I can not prove or fix these problems, all I can do is make PWW aware of continuing issues and how/where they occur.