I love allmusic.com.
It is like a God to me.
So, imagine my reaction when I see a banner on allmusic reading "Brand New Allmusic Arrives in 3 Days: New Content, New Features, Great New Design." (if you haven't guessed it yet, the answer is "near orgasm")
And imagine my swell in my anticipation (and my pants) when I heard rumors of the new allmusic offering samples of it's music - the only thing needed to turn this wonder of a website into what was quite possibly the crowning acheivement of all western civilization.
Now, if you will, imagine my anger, outrage, melancholy, astonishment, distress, disapointment, and suicidal depression as I discovered that this great new world (all I had hoped for and more... oh so much more) was one which I was locked out of.
Much to my dismay, I was unable to search for artists, albums, styles, instruments, time periods, moods, or any of the other wonderful things now made searchable to the majority of the allmusic using public.
I was also unable to visit artist, album, etc. pages by clicking on their picture or text links. (a feature readily available to even the most casual of visitors, yet kept from me, a loyal fan) Listening to samples was entirely out of the question.
I tried registering an account, hoping that perhaps, in their haste to get the new site up and running by their deadline, they had forgotten to mention that membership was required to do all of the things I had mentioned. Still - nothing.
I checked all of my settings on internet explorer, and when I found their working order to change nothing, I changed them to the lowest possible security setting. I disabled all security features on Norton Internet Security. This changed nothing.
Seeing as how I couldn't think of any other ways to improve my situation, I wrote a friendly e-mail to allmusic themselves, asking, essentially, "what gives?" A week went by without a response, and I was begining to become irritated - my withdrawl from the site's lovely services begining to take a serious toll on my well being. I checked the site's FAQ for the forth time to see if I had missed anything and found that a new paragraph had been added, stating that others had experienced the same problem as mine and offering an explanation: allmusic was optimized for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, and the problem was likely caused by browser incompatibilty.
"That's strange," I thought to myself, "I have Internet Explorer 6.0." Still, just to make sure, I downloaded four additional browsers, none of which proved to be the golden key I was looking for.
I wrote allmusic again, this time in a slightly more angry tone, and received this automated response within a few days:
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:28 AM
From: "AMG Response"
To: bokonon2501@fastmail.fm
Subject: A Message From allmusic.com Regarding Your Feedback
We suspect that your problem with login, search and links is caused by a browser incompatibility issue. The new allmusic.com is optimized for Internet Explorer for Windows 5.5 and above. We continue to make modifications to increase the compatiblity of the site with the other major browsers - Mozilla, Opera and Safari. While the site is not optimized for Mac, basic functionality will work using the Mac Safari browser. IE for Mac, however, is unfortunately not supported and may not permit logging in, clicking on links, or search functionality.
We have had a handful of reports of difficulties using the site through IE for Windows. We have invariably found that the cause is individual computer settings There are three potential solutions that users have reported have fixed their problems:
1. Adjusting your security settings. We have had a number of users tell us that they discovered their problem was caused by having "disable advertisement in your page" setting enabled in their Norton Security program. Could this possibly apply to your situation?
2. Making allmusic a "trusted site"
1. Open Tools -> Internet Options
2. Click the Security tab
3. Click Trusted sites
4. Click Sites button
5. Type in www.allmusic.com, click Add
6. Click OK
3. Make sure your computer is set to accept cookies (Internet Options/Tools/Privacy)
Best Regards,
AMG
As I explained before, I had done all of these things prior to writing to them, and so replied with this:
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 8:20 PM
From: bokonon2501@fastmail.fm
To: "AMG Response"
Subject: Re: A Message From allmusic.com Regarding Your Feedback
Thank you for responding to my request for assistance, I appreciate your help, but unfortunetly it has done me no good. I have taken all of the advice you suggested in your e-mail (most of it before I even contacted you) and then some, even going so far as disabling all internet security and/or bringing all security levels in IE (I have version 6.0, if that's important) to a minimum. I have done the same with four other browswers: Netscape (v. 7.1), Mozilla (v. 5.0), Mozilla Firefox (v. 0.9.2), and Opera (v. 7.52)... all to no avail. There's the possibility that the problem lies with my firewall, which has caused a few problems in the past, so I'll be sure to check on that ass well. Regardless, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could suggest any other possible sources for the problem, as anything that might help is worth trying.
Thank you,
XXX XXXXXXXX
I'm still waiting for a response to that, but in the meantime, I'd like to ask if anyone else has had a similar problem and how or if they solved it. I have some ideas in the works regarding a hunger strike, and if that fails, lighting their HQ on fire... but I'd like to hear yours.
P.S. After re-reading the e-mail I sent to them, I've become worried that I won't receive a reply. This is not because I was angry or violent or harsh, but merely because of this sentance fragment: "I'll be sure to check on that ass well." Damn you spell check. Damn you. |
