Monday, June 2, 2008

www.shadowdepot.com - The Shadow Depot

I wanted to let everyone know about my experience with this website http://www.shadowdepot.com/ (The Shadow Depot) They sell everything that is "shadow". (a Shadow is one of T-mobile's smart phone that runs Windows Mobile 6. For more information check out www.T-mobile.com)

This blog is not about the T-mobile Shadow. It is about the POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE That I personally experienced with the www.shadowdepot.com (The Shadow Depot)

Here's What Happened:

  1. I placed an Order on Saturday May 31, 2008 at 7:44 am Central time with The Shadow Depot's website. (www.ShadowDepot.com)

  2. At 7:45, I Receive a confirmation email from The Shadow Depot's Support Email that says that they have received my order and at the bottom of the email it states:

    "If you have any questions regarding your order, please don't hesitate to call our support team at (866) 627-9765 or email support@shadowdepot.com. For the latest status of your order, you can view the order status online. "

  3. At 8:30 AM, I found another item on their (The Shadow Depot) website (a more expensive item) that would do the same thing that my first item would do and a little more.

  4. At 8:33 am I sent an email to the http://www.shadowdepot.com/ support (as directed by their receipt) stating that I would like to change my order. This was again on SATURDAY MORNING!! - before my "order was processed"

    Copy of the email below:


    I’m sorry I just saw this item
    HTC 3-in-1 USB Adapter for T-Mobile Shadow

    http://www.shadowdepot.com/htc-3-in-1-usb-adapter/73A75A3571.htm

    is there a way to cancel my original order and replace it with this item ? since I know it has not been shipped out?

    Thank you in advance for any help!
    Scott Robertson



  5. Monday June 2, 2008 8:45 am, I received an email (from The Shadow Depot) stating that my order was processed.

  6. Monday June 2, 2008 at 2:01PM : I receive another email (The Shadow Depot) stating that they could not change my order because it had already been processed. (Two days after I sent the request to change the order)

    Here's a Copy of the email:


    Hello -

    Because your order has already processed, we are unable to add/delete products, change, combine or cancel it. We also cannot change any billing or shipping info either. Orders are processed at the bottom of every hour, between the hours of 9am-5pm EST Mon-Fri.

    Once an order has been processed, the credit card has been charged, the UPS shipping label has been created, and the packaging list has been sent to the warehouse staff. In most cases, your order is packaged within 10 minutes of being processed.

    We apologize for any inconvenience, and we hope that in the majority of cases, our faster processing times work to your advantage.

    Please Note that Emails are answered in the order they are received, if you need more prompt service we recommend you call our customer service support team toll free at: (888) 599 8998
    Patrick Frank



  7. I of course, email the following:
    I understand that .. however, My email was a few minutes after my order on Saturday and before the order was actually processed on Monday at 8:45.

    The order was not processed until 2 days after - I sent my email. Plenty of time for you guys to cancel that previous order and plenty of time to call me to tell me to place a new order. Or even email me this information.

    This is very poor customer service. Had my order “been” processed before the I sent the email I would say that this is very acceptable. However, The fact that the order was placed. And before the order was shipped (and even 2 days before my order was actually processed) I sent an email as directed by the The Shadow Depot reciept, asking to change my order. I would imagine that this would have been a pretty simple request.

    I will not buy anything in the future for my phone from you guys and I will tell everyone I know who has this phone about this experience and the poor customer support.

    Very poor customer service.

    Thank you for your time,

    Scott Robertson


  8. I also call The Shadow Depot's Customer Service Phone Number and I talk to the "The Shadow Depot Customer Support Supervisor" who tells me that I should have called first thing on Monday morning if I wanted to change my order.

    I state that the confirmation email clearly says:

    "If you have any questions regarding your order, please don't hesitate to call our support team at (866) 627-9765 or email support@shadowdepot.com."

    It does not Say just to CALL It states to Email or call!


I WOULD SUGGEST NOT DOING BUSINESS WITH THE SHADOW DEPOT, IT DOES NOT HAVE GOOD CUSTOMER SUPPORT



The "supervisor" then tells me that I can just refuse the delivery and place a new order. I would be charge two times for shipping (since shipping is not refundable) and also during that time My Credit card would have been charged for two items ... and yes I would eventually get refunded for the first item (minus the $5.95 shipping)however, it should have never shipped out in the first place! So for one $15.95 item I would have paid $12.00 in shipping. To me this was not a valid option.

I was also told that he doesn't have time to read each email he gets on Monday before shipping out orders from the weekend. I would think that that before I ship anything on Monday morning, I would look at my "support" email to make sure that there were no emergencies over the weekend with any order.


What is your take? Please comment below!

So before you buy anything from www.shadowdepot.com Please remember my story!

I did buy my new item from another vendor. It was 2 dollars more than what The Shadow Depot was selling the same item for however, it was worth paying to avoid their horrible customer service and for the peice of mind!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

June 1

Well it's been a few weeks since I typed out a blog. I've been busy with two separate clients. Each of these clients had some type of "emergency"

The first client host their website at another service provider. I simply write code and put it on their server. I am not paid to administrate this server as they pay their host for that service. About 2 weeks ago their website was hacked and the hacker comprised the data that was on the server. So this client could not function and their business was dead in the water!

The hacker inserted some malicious code into the database, so when the records were displayed it would make a call to another server and try to execute some Java-script code. Of course, this caused the application to fail as he inserted this code everywhere!

I had to restore the database back to the previous state. This is a Process. I have to restore a back up. Then I have to to see what transaction took place between the last back up and the attack to make sure that no data was lost. The first time I did this process it took me about 4 - 5 hours.

Of course, once I restored the data the site was hacked again with in hours so I had to do it again! All and All I had to restore the data 5 times and in the end I had the process down to about 2 hours!

After, that I recommended that the server be moved behind a firewall! At the time of the hacking the server was on a DMZ with no security what so ever! EVERY PORT WAS OPENED!

I also recommended a a reinstall of the OS to remove any of the hackers programs that might still be installed somewhere on that server!

I had to spend my Saturday restoring that servers data and setting up their application on a new server.

Total Time was 22 hours for everything. Of course, at the same time I have 6 other projects that I am trying to work on as well!

Then, I had another customer who had a bit of a minor emergency. I really can't go into details about this one. So to make a long story short I had to write a "coupon" application and a back end manager to check out the coupon activity.

This took me about 20 more hours to complete.

So with the extra 40 hours of unexpected work I had no time to work on my normal projects. So I've been spending my time catching up on my work load so that I can get everything back to normal. It's been two weeks and I'm still not caught up!


Web hosting Houston

Friday, May 2, 2008

Search Engine Optmization Client

On monday I took over a website's SEO (search engine Optimization) This client sell replacement windows in Houston TX. So I targeted the following for him
Houston Windows

Windows Houston

Houston Replacement Windows

Replacement Windows Houston

Houston Window


Check out his site at http://www.renwd.com


Today is friday and he's already on the first page for houston replacement windows
http://www.google.com/search?q=houston+replacement+windows&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1 and it's only been 5 days since I took over!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Search Engine Optmization Process

The other day, I was asked "How do you get my web site on the first page of search engine results?" I told them that Search Engine Optimization is a process. It's not simply putting meta tags on your website and magically you will be on the first page of results.

The process I use is pretty simple.

Step 1: Select Keywords - This step is pretty simple. I start by going to Google's Keyword Suggestion tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and typing in a generic keyword. Once I get the results, I will select my keywords based on which keywords have the highest search volume. I usually do not like to target any more than 5 keyword phrases per page. Yes, you can target more if you like however, the more keyword phrases the more content you will have to develop.

Step 2 - Content Optimization - This step is actually two part. First, copy writing. This is the process of making the copy on my website filled with the keyword phrases that I selected in step 1. (I suggest that you target your keywords and write the content before you start creating any web pages.)

Content is the most important element on your website search engine success! Your website should also be at least 5 pages deep. The more pages of content the better! I also like keeping my copy on each page to about 100 - 150 words per page.

Next, I will then create my html with the following html tags: Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description. While there are more tags that add to the SEO equation these are the only ones that really put any time into. Each of these html tags are also filled with the keywords that I selected in step 1.

The next part that is very important is the H1 tag. This is the main header tag. This should be at the top of the page directly after the body tag and should also include all the keywords I'm targeting. I then usually make my menu navigation using h2 tags with a href links to the sub-pages and the text that contains keyword phrases for those sub pages.

Step 3: Link Building - This is when I go and find other website to link to the website that I'm targeting. This is probably the most crucial factors to have a successful search engine campaign. DO NOT JUST GO OUT AND SIGN UP FOR THESE 'LINK BUILDER'

This is also very important USE YOUR KEYWORDS IN YOUR LINKS. When you exchange links with people, it is important that the links to your website also include the keywords that you selected in step 1. For example if you are targeting 'widgets' then your link should have 'widgets' in the text of the A tag. so the code would look like widgets


Step 4: Check Ranking - Once Step 2 is completed you can then start watching the results! I use GOOGLE'S webmaster tools to monitor my website performance. If you are not familiar with Google's Webmaster tools I suggest that you visit : https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ From this website you can see if there are ANY ISSUES with your website. This includes errors in your html tags and if there are any pages missing.

Google's webmaster tools also allows you to view what keyword phrases your website has been displayed. So if someone searched 'widgets' and my website was displayed in the results I will know! If someone then clicks on my website it will tell me what keywords people clicked to get to my website!

There are a lot of good tools at Google's Webmasters Tool so if you've never looked at it I HIGHLY SUGGEST LOOKING IN TO IT!

Next is Statistics! I use GOOGLE ANALYTICS to track all my website Activity. This includes how people came to my site. Using this tool, I can tell you how many people found my website from the Search engines. What keyword phrases they clicked to get to my website.

If your website sells something, Google Analytics will even track how much each keyword phrase has sold. For instance it can tell me that 5 people who searched for 'widgets' purchased X number of products for a total of $xx.xx. This is great for measuring the ROII (return on internet investment as I call it... I know it should be ROI)

Now that's it! That is the big secret process on how to come up on the Search engines!

Web Marketing Houston

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Christian Toys

Last year, I developed a website called Alphabet Alley - Christian Toys. They are a Houston based Christian Toy Manufacturer.

They create wooden christian Toys, christian games and magnetic Christian Toys

For more information check them out at www.Alphabetalley.com

and as always don't for get to check out Houston web design and hosting project

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Great Media Center Experiment

I upgraded my Home Theater!! I've been experimenting with Microsoft's Media Center for about two years now. The last Media Center Computer was a P4 2.0 with 2 gigs of Ram. While this Machine runs and functions, at times it is slow to respond.

I setup a new computer as my new Media Center in my home theater. The specs are as follows:

  • Intel Dou Core 1.8 gigahertz

  • 2 Gigs of RAM

  • WinTV-HVR-1600 Video Capture Card (Media Center Kit - includes Remote and IR blaster)

  • SIIG SoundWave Optical 5.1 - Sound Card

  • Diamond Stealth ATI X1550PRO PCIE 512 MB Video Card

  • Microsoft Vista Home Premium Version

  • 1 Terrabyte of storage - USB


I strongly suggest that if you are going to setup a Media Center PC use these as your min requirments. This machine runs Media Center flawlessly.

I moved the previous Media Center Computer to the "Kid's TV Room". The kid's Media Center has everything! I setup their tv shows to record in "My Recorded TV". I setup the "DVD Library" with all their Kid's movies. I also uploaded their favorite music and a few gigs of pictures. This allows them to watch slide shows of them themselves while listening to their favorite song!

I shared the "Recorded TV Folder","DVD Library Folder", "My Pictures Folder" and "My Music Folder". I did the same to the new Media Center.

I setup my Laptop's Media Center and I added those shared Directories to my "Library Folder". This allows me to view the "Recorded TV", "DVD Library", and "My Music" from those computers via my Laptop or any other computer in the house.

What is also cool ... Is that my 1 Media Center Remote Control can control both my Home Theater and my Kid's Room TV and devices! This one Media Center Remote controls : DVD Player, Volume, Satalite Dish, music player and everything in one spot on both systems!

This is the FUTURE of Home Theaters.