Goodbye RocketPost, Hello again, Ecto!

Neville Hobson and I were on the same wavelength, today. [Update: I see Lee radiated the thought yesterday from Australia... are we all joined at the brain?]

I've been mentally composing this post about why I am dropping the utterly abominable Anconia RocketPost as a blog-post editor. But I see Neville Hobson has beaten me to the punch. In fact, he beat me to the punch weeks ago in a post I (to my bitter regret) did not notice.

I installed the demo version of Anconia RocketPost when I saw Lee Hopkins get so excited about it. At the start, I was pretty happy with it. For one thing, it was WYSIWYG, which Ecto wasn't; for another, it just felt easier to use. I was a little disturbed that it never seemed to be able to download all my posts from the server, but I decided I could live with that since I never touch the old ones.

RocketPost also had one other problem: inexplicably, it would start a cycle to install Microsoft Office Premium, whatever that is (I have Microsoft Office Pro). Clicking "cancel" let me move on, but it was disturbing.

What possessed me to buy the damned thing when the trial expired, I'll never know. Cheap, for one thing (Neville says he paid $99, but my CC receipt says $29). I liked it, for another, except for the quibbles I've mentioned.

So I downloaded the "paid for" version, and my life went to hell. Crashes, lock-ups, faulty screen painting, utterly inexplicable error messages. More and more as the days passed. Not one -- not one -- of my pleas to customer support has ever been acknowledged, much less answered.

Finally, in frustration, I decided to uninstall the whole thing and reinstall. It seemed to uninstall. But, when I reinstall, I'm told it must uninstall every old version and then install -- and then it tries to do this, and collapses in a heap of exhaustion.

Now, I've been around computers since 1980, so I know how to really uninstall -- delete every trace of registry keys, etc. But where Anconia RocketPost is hiding theirs will forever be a mystery to me, because the damned thing simply will not install again.

If you are tempted to try Anconia RocketPost, do yourself a favor. Go get a beer, instead. Because you'll need a case of beer if you install it.

[Clarification: No, Lee, this will not imperil  your FOACADRC.]

Technorati Tags: Anconia, RocketPost, Ecto

Posted by Allan Jenkins on April 9, 2006 at 09:27 PM in Blogging, Social Tools, Technology | Permalink

Comments

Allan, the $99 I suckered up for was for the version that lets you write to multiple blogs.

You've described much of my own experiences, too. And after I wrote my post today, I saw that Lee has now given up the ghost with it as well.

The combination of this crappy application and the developer's zero response to support requests adds up to a scam, in my book.

Posted by: Neville Hobson | Apr 9, 2006 10:25:59 PM

I could be considered biased, but I think this is sad. If you put software out there and take people's money for it, you need to provide good support. Jeez, even for free products you need to provide good support.

This is also ironic because the person responsible for RocketPost has been quite eager to jump on people's cases for misrepresenting his product.

Let me say that if you e-mail info AT qumana you will get a response. If you don't, e-mail me and I'll see what I can do.

Posted by: Tris | Apr 9, 2006 10:49:16 PM

I intend to try Qumana; if only to be able to guide clients.

Thanks for stopping by, Tris.

Posted by: Allan Jenkins | Apr 9, 2006 11:03:40 PM

You're welcome Allan. Let me know if you have any questions or need assistance.

Posted by: Tris | Apr 10, 2006 12:52:52 AM

Hey there,

I was looking for a Desktop Client also and tried out several and found one that I feel is better the ecto.

You can check out my post here - http://www.idano.net/wordpress-desktop-client-search-15.htm

Posted by: Dan | Apr 10, 2006 5:22:43 AM

Allan,

Thanks for this posting. It pretty much answers the question "should I buy RocketPost or not?" This blog plus the email exchange below with RocketPost helps me click "uninstall" with ease.

Email question to SALES
I am evaluating a Pro license and was wondering where I might read more about "templates" I checked the FAQ, Help file, and knowledge base and came up empty. Currently my menu's are grayed out. What does this feature do? Thank you!

RocketPost answers, 9 days later:
What is your question regarding templates?
Best regards,
Kaushal S.
Anconia Support

Posted by: Mark Hollander | May 14, 2006 10:42:18 PM

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