Hey, Kyle. If this is your first post, welcome to the forums. GOTD says it's the e-mail provider and they can't do anything about. They've posted their explanation on their blog. If you've never seen it, the links are on the right hand top of the giveaway page. There's also an RSS and a twitter option that they mention on the blog.

Again, the email arrives 24 hours too late -- this time for "Extra DVD Ripper Professional."

Thanks, ibwebb, but you're giving me too much credit. I agree with folks that there are some people, especially over in the comments section who I wish would get "502 Bad Gateway" ever time they try and post their drivel. And I understand that many people who talk about people being ungrateful are referring to boobs like that. I'm just advising caution to the good people here. Not everybody's complaining because they're freeloading complainers, just because some of them are. So the problem isn't really yours, it's just frustration, and I was just as guilty at being negative. I also agree that those you mention and, as you say, many others here are generous above and beyond the call of duty.

My impression peering through the fog is that GOTD is maybe a little overloaded and also maybe afraid to acknowledge there are a few, from my perspective only minor, bugs so as not to spook developers. To any developers reading this, the bugs are truly minor. GOTD is a great service.

Thanks for the kind words. However, you're being too hard on yourself. Like I say, it's just reasonable frustration. Glad we could come to an understanding.

@ watcher13 n ALL:

Yep, I applaud you completely in everything you say. How hard can it be to make an announcement that it is ending the email part and shut it down? I can say with all honesty that my biggest problem is just that.. mine. I need to sort it out before I jump in. I agree with you completely in everything you say and the ones that I mean to try to jump in on the most are to protect WhiteRabbit, Reverse, Wizz and the like that are not getting anything but the occasional 'Thank You' for what they are doing. I do appreciate the few things few things that the Mods/Admin do, but you are right with all your facts. I am sure that if they are turning away new people to the site then they are turning away possible companies that might offer freebies. All in all it is a business and it should be run with a bit more professionalism. I honestly hope that perhaps our misunderstanding on each other draws more attention here and gets something done. Unfortunately, I don't think it will. It really seems that GOTD is it's own beast and eats and sh*ts as it pleases... where it pleases. We will see how it goes...

Best Regards,
ibwebb

P.S. BTW "it's free!" is the answer that everyone uses to protect GOTD's every mistake and there is a point when it just isn't enough! I hope that the staff here sees that before it is too late.

You didn't offend that much, Ibwebb. I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot. Look, I'm making the following points, generally, not directed at you personally. And, everybody please understand that I think GOTD is great, but I also think that GOTD sometimes makes it hard on themselves.

1. If e-mail doesn't work, fix or dump it. Then there's no concerns about it. It's unrealistic to expect new visitors to assume that the e-mail service is going to be erratic. It's more than logical to assume that if GOTD offers an e-mail notification service then it's going to be timely. I for one, have no ambitions to shoot myself in the foot. By the same token, if you're going to have a blog to notify patrons of important matters, you ought to use it. Don't wait till one week after you failed to post a game to post you're not going to have a game for awhile. And why start a forum (or, to a lesser extent, a comment section) with a principal purpose of getting feedback and then make it a big mystery whether you're engaged with it at all? The most feedback we get here is if Bubby or Whiterabbit enlightens us, and that's often after they've had to zip off a feedback message to the staff to find out what's going on.

2. Giving away free software doesn't answer all complaints. Whether anyone likes saying it or not, GOTD does get paid, is a professional endeavor, and therefore asking for professional competency just isn't a sign that you're ungrateful. No I'm not entitled to anything free, nor are developers entitled to exposure to me just because they want it. They need to do something to make themselves stand out from the crowd, and THAT, not charity is the real reason we get free software. I'm fine with the system myself, but I completely understand those newbies who get frustrated and telling them they should be quiet and be thankful just isn't going to, as the Dale Carnegie motto goes, "make friends and influence people".

3. I sometimes think GOTD are the ungrateful ones, at least regarding this forum, though I'm not personally offended. We forget that we in this forum often run interference for GOTD and if we weren't here to help a lot of folks they're would be a lot more deserting the project. After all, our solutions, like using the RSS feed, aren't solutions, they're workarounds. In other words, ways to make due with something that isn't working the way it should, often the way it was promised to work. To exaggerate, why should I have to make lemons with lemonade when I was promised filet mignon? I would CERTAINLY not include myself, but there are a few members of the forum that more than earn their free software, no matter how you look at it.

Finally, my point about GOTD can be summed up this way: it doesn't matter whether I b**tch or somebody else b**thces about me b**thching. These kind of inconsistencies don't hurt me or my critics, they hurt GOTD. And I think they might even hurt it just as much or more than the idiotic, negative feedback we get over in comments from that handful of trolls that DO need to be told to "sit down and shut up, you ingrates", though it wouldn't do any good. I think these glitches can drive away downloaders, just like all that "noise" can drive away developers.

My point on legitimate new visitors asking questions is: telling them that they should be grateful with free software or wondering why they haven't thought of using a workaround, like downloading from the a foreign language site when the server's overloaded, JUST ISN'T FAIR.

Again, no offense intended, Ibwebb. You're right, not being a big gamer, I've been insulated from wasting money on a game that doesn't live up to it's hype. But my disagreement with certain things that are kind of par for the course here are the kind of things I mean when I say there are certain things we don't like to talk about here. Sorry for the lecture, but the good news is: that's the whole laundry list, so you probably won't here much more from me on this. Every cloud has a silver lining.

@watcher13 (and anyone else):
First, my apologies for not getting back sooner; you can say I got caught with my computer down. Anywho, I was not talking to you like a child. Do not assume my tone if you do not know me. I do joke and tease frequently and sometimes it is mis- taken. I do owe you and apology since I missed your previous post; for that I am sorry. I honestly was trying to point out an easy solution and the benefits of GOTD instead of staring at the downside. That whole lemon to lemonade thing. Though, I believe you may be the first person to have never bought a program/game only to find it not to be what you hoped and set it aside.. not everything has a demo.

For the most part I applaud a lot of what you had to say in your comments. The staff here is either slim, underpaid, or both. There are a lot of issues that go unanswered here. Yet, if you are going to rely or wait for them to be taken care of then you are going to miss a lot of give aways. My post was also suppose to (but apparently missed) say that this is something you need to take in your own hands and handle. If you look back this has been brought up a number of times and the same answer is given each time. There are select threads that are watched, read, monitored. I believe that this goes back to the staff problem of before.

Things here change on a whim. Game Giveaway of the Day went to weekends only with little of a word until someone that knew someone finally got an answer. Then it comes and goes without a word. Honestly, if you were someone that didn’t read the forum (I didn’t even look at it for the first 6-8 months) this site looks very mismanaged and rude. There is almost never anything outside the forum to let new people or clients know what is happening. Again, I can only chalk this up to being short staffed since I cannot imagine that any company (or what-have-ya) would do this on purpose.

Again, Best Regards and Apologies to anyone I offended now or before,
Ibwebb

Yes, zapata, this is the correct place for your post.

To you and the others posting about problems with e-mail notification (or any others). Don't confuse a lack of response here by the PTB with a lack of interest in your problems with the sites. I have seen many times in the past that problems/suggestions discussed here have been quickly (though silently) dealt with or put right by the people in charge at GOTD.

Just because they choose not to participate in the dicussions, it doesn't mean they are ignoring the problems.

I received the alert for Wondershare DVD Ripper Platinum a day late!

Please correct this problem. Have been receiving the email too late for download!

Been going on for about a week.

If this not the correct place to make such a request would someone please tell me where to send my suggestion.

Thanks.

Decided to post again, to clarify for new visitors. This post is NOT intended for Ibwebb. Just wanted to tell our new members that sometimes here, and in the comments section, a lot of people post complaints which are frankly stupid and childish. And a lot of loyal visitors to this project post to tell them that they're being stupid and childish. Unfortunately, some well meaning people believe that all criticism of GOTD, not just the stupid and childish, could drive developers away and kill the project. So they, again not Ibwebb, I take his post as an honest disagreement, will post to tell people to sit down and shut up. As I posted a few months ago, there are certain topics here that GOTD veterans would rather not deal with, since they don't have any control over them anyway, and so we don't talk about them. Kind of like embarassing relatives. No conspiracy or gag order; we just don't talk about them because we have no solutions and would rather focus on the plus side of the project.

Sometimes I make the mistake of talking about them. It's not a mistake because I shouldn't, it's just that it's likely going to fall on dear ears, anyway. If someone takes you to task for criticizing GOTD, remember sometimes it's just that there afraid if anybody says anything bad, GOTD will fold. Personally, I'm not afraid of that.

Ibwebb, please do not talk to me like I am a child. If you will go back and look at my post you will see that I acknowledge the opinion you expressed. However, I think you are a little unclear about the bottom line. The bottom line is to keep the developers happy. But, that cannot be done with out keeping the downloaders happy. Everytime some veteran here or on the comments page dismisses the concerns of new visitors as being the "whining of ungrateful children" (in quotes because I've seen similar words here and on the comments page more than once) then more and more leave in disgust. Part of GOTD is meant to give HONEST feedback to the developers on their software and part of the stated purpose of these forums is to give GOTD honest feedback on the project itself. Unfortunately, I partly put it the way I did because I'm a little dissapointed that GOTD doesn't seem to be engaged much in this forum. One of the moderators, notblocklox (though he might not agree with me that it's a problem) in another thread said he was too tired to answer all the threads - not posts, THREADS - that had sprung up complaining about this problem. Wouldn't it make more sense for GOTD to deal with this, maybe abolish the e-mail, than just let it go on and on?

I'm sorry, ibwebb and anyone else who feels the same way, but whenever I see someone post the equivalent of "sit down, shut up, be content, and stop whining" I'll consider posting in favor of constructive feedback, which, again, is supposed to be part of the principal purpose of this forum. If constructive criticism bothers you so much, maybe YOU should practice your breathing. By the way, I don't expect I'll be deleting many, if any, programs I paid $40 for because I discovered they were substandard. Though not as good as GOTD, that's what demos are for. Besides, the whole purpose of the project is to get someone to buy software from these developers sooner or later, anyway. If not, they don't exist and GOTD doesn't exist.

I know any problems with GOTD are very minor in the bigger scheme of things, but a lot of harm has been done over the centuries by those 3 monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

@watcher13 : RE: "For my money, I hope GOTD will become a little more engaged on these issues for the sake of having as many satisfied customers as possible."

First off.. you know it is free. You said it yourself. So unless you are sending them checks your 'money' consists of about a 10-20 second wait for the site to load.

@ ALL: Don't go into a rant about how they get paid.. I am sure they do get some money, but nothing compared to the money you would have paid for what you have received. Think of just one $40.00 download that you got and hated enough to delete. Now would you have rather have wasted the few moments of your time or the $40.00 to buy it and find out. Not to mention the incredibly dedicated members on here that spend their own time to not only find MORE freebies for people; they also seem very willing to find that 'free answer' when someone says they need something and would like a free way to get it (free and legal I might add).

I personally suggest that if it is so taxing on you to type it in to check then add a button to the top of your browser (on one of the toolbars). It not only makes it faster, but will help remind you to go look each day. BTW I know that it isn't taking any of you more than 30 sec to check the site since my computer when down and I am forced to you this P2 until the other is fixed. You all need to try and relax and take a breath. Breathing is VERY important.

Thats my 2cents,
Best Wishes,
ibwebb

Good question, FreeDove. I did a long semi-rant on this in another thread. In the year I've been coming here, I've noticed that GOTD is occassionally lax in dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. Maybe they're understaffed/overloaded. Most of the loyal members are willing to cut them a little slack because it's such a great project and we're getting stuff for free. But I understand the frustrations these glitches cause. For my money, I hope GOTD will become a little more engaged on these issues for the sake of having as many satisfied customers as possible. For example, if you're GOTD and e-mail is unreliable, why not save yourself the headache and do away with it? I'd definitely take Bubby's advice and sign up for the RSS feed. Generally, I'd take Bubby's advice, regardless. (Don't get a big head, Bubby.) For the moment though, my advice is to expect a great project, but approach it with some patience. I'm afraid you're going to have endure the occassional glitch.

FYI, for much of this week the e-mail message has referred to the previous day's giveaway (which had already expired). I've been checking the home page on my own, else I'd have missed some useful programs.

Why aren't the people who are in charge of GAOD responding to any of these messages?
They could at least let us know that they are trying to work it out. The programming should be set to send out the emails correctly for all time zones that are involved especially in the USA.

Check their calender on the home page it is wrong...
Checked the paper calenders even. lol
Think they may need to check it out themselves.

Same issue. Started approx. four days ago and receive at 3:00am next day. Mail deivery via 1and1.com. Spilt milk is spilt milk which usually means we should clean it up. Suggest look at schedulers and back-ups may be hitting heads and causing sporatic issues in execution delays. Could even be deadbeat email list (suggest confrim script every 6-12 months to autopurge). Have one person aware of changes to syncs, backup, and generally all network timing issues. Usually done by different people in larger environs which means anything can go amiss.

Your efforts are always appreciated by all even when we whine.

I been having the same thing happen and it just did again today. The email for the newest down load(dvd ripper/encoder) is dated for 0450 am this morning( its 0750 now) and it says its all ready expired... been having this problem for about 3 weeks now. any ideas whats up?

TO BUBBY

I just tried to sign up for RSS feed (I don't know what that is, but Bubby said to do it....:-)...) I get a window which says:

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

A CDATA section was not closed. Error processing resource 'http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/feed/'. Line 186, Position 25

<description><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/box-novapd...

What do I need to do????
Janet

Let's us all just forget the emails, and just check the site daily.. that should solve this problem!

mine was late too and really wanted the Wondershare DVD Ripper
darn what is happening?? I check my email every day
looking for give a way.. but it is too late..
it just came in but has expired..please get it right as I relly needed that programe

Arrr it happened again with emails, I have also set up the RSS Feed and still they can't get it right and Yes I have checked the site today before anyone tells me to.

I have been getting email notifications for ages (years?) and this week is the first time I got all my email notifications a day late! I very much would have liked the Wondershare ripper! I came to Goatd yesterday and only found the previous day's entry (perhaps it was too early--I'm on GMT+2). But usually the day's offer is there for me in the morning here. Any way to get the Wondershare offer?!?!

Janet

Same here. My e-mails from GotD come in at 3 AM the day AFTER the giveaway. It's been about a week or so.

same here, I have missed every single give away for the past several days because the email comes in after the give a way is over. I hope this gets fixed because I really wanted some of them

Like vinylted it has happened to me for the past week. Before that no problems. What to do? DVD Ripper again plse?

This problem has happened to me today for the very first time, very frustrating because I really needed the Wondershare DVD Ripper. Please, please give us another chance to get it GOTD

This has been happening to me for the past week, giveaway arriving a day late so I just miss out... if a glitch how do I fix it?

Thank you BuBBy; I have now set up the RSS Feed and all is OK at this time.
Regards, Raymond.

@kaman -

Wrong-O bubby! It's never happened before so it's a glitch

http://tinyurl.com/dmf6jc

and most recently -

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/5001

@Suze - Thank you (your check is in the mail).