Comments on: TiVo’s updated support pages not friendly to non-IE browsers

By: megazone

megazone — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:03:21 +0000

Most rewards programs have some points expiration – it is probably to motivate people to build up points and not just slowly bank them over years. I know each month I get an email with my current points status (two actually, I have two emails registered), so it shouldn’t have been a total surprise.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:07:33 +0000

Been out of town for a while and just returned only to find out that my tivo points expired on Feb 1 and they won’t honor them. I think this is a really bad customer service choice. I have referred many to tivo and it will stop now. So much for keeing your customer’s happy. I guess Tivo is now like every other large company they couldn’t give a crap about those who were there in the beginning.

By: stile99

stile99 — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:45:34 +0000

Alas, in the world of “outsource everything”, companies are increasingly becoming unable to maintain a web presence. When your ‘coders’ are barely more than script kiddies, then this is what you get. A bunch of crap that barely displays in the crappiest browser ever, and won’t even think about displaying in a real browser.

As you mentioned, it really isn’t difficult to adhere to well-documented standards. It is actually much more difficult NOT to.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:52:46 +0000

I agree completely, I was part of the Web Accessability Initiative working group that created the WAI recommendations for access.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:38:07 +0000

If you go to TiVo.com and click on Contact Us on the left, it goes to: http://www.tivo.com/5.9.asp

Down at the bottom center is ‘Webmaster’, which goes to: http://www.tivo.com/5.13.asp?messageType=web

Which is a web form.

That’s what I used. It emails on the backend, since I got a similar ‘Out of Office – the mail has been forwarded’ reply.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:25:52 +0000

Heh, I thought you might pop up. I know you have, shall we say, strong feelings about the use of JavaScript.

By: megazone

megazone — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:24:19 +0000

So far it looks like it is just the support area of the site and TiVo Central Online still works. There have been some quirks with TCO in the past, but I’ve never had it actually stop working for me in Firefox.

By: buran

buran — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:47:20 +0000

Responding to myself:

I used webmaster@ and got an out of office autoreply telling me to send to webteam@ — so I did, along with a brief note attaching the autoreply and a note that I’d sent it there originally as per http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt (in case they wonder how I got the address).

By: buran

buran — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:19:05 +0000

I have referred to the guide online instead of digging out my paper copy a number of times. Now I can’t even get the link to load. (For future reference what’s the URL to the PDF? How damn hard is it for them to just have a damn direct link!?)

How do I submit a complaint? All I can find is a funnel to forums, knowledgebases, or “call us”. And I will not call. I hate to use the phone. Being hearing-impaired is a perfectly legit excuse. How did you do it? It’s obviously possible…

or should I just follow RFC and use webmaster@ ?

By: mackys

mackys — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:04:14 +0000

…that ticks me off like using some insane level of broken JavaScript instead of a simple tag. GRAR! NERD SMASH!!

By: shadeofnight

shadeofnight — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:40:05 +0000

Does this mean that they can no longer say they offer TiVo Programming from the web, when all the main web browsers will no longer work with their site? I have not used IE in years, and have no plans to.

This means TiVo is no longer a legal web site in my mind, and that is a shame.

By: watermelon80

watermelon80 — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:33:07 +0000

I’ll have to agree with you here. I found it shocking and disappointing that it doesn’t work with Safari or Firefox. Having javascript disabled virtually makes the website non-navigable.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:04:57 +0000

So much dependency on Javascript also means the site is not accessible to the handicapped. This means people with poor sight (they do listen to TV, by the way) or hearing will have issues accessing the site. Recently advocacy groups have started suing companies which do not make their websites accessible in a test of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Target has recently been sued as their online store is not accessible with a screen reader.

Companies really need to consider all the people who they serve. Not just the majority of Windows/IE users, but users who also have issues and special circumstances beyond a choice of OS and browser.

By: emarosan

emarosan — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:22:53 +0000

I just tried in Safari, no go (not a surprise after I looked at the code excerpts.)

I totally agree with you on the being angry part. I just went on a rant about standards compliance myself yesterday, and IE’s crappy support. It just makes designing so much harder =/