Download Links & Work
As you may have gathered I recently set up a new AIS selling a downloadable product, looking at my stats I could see that people using hotmail, yahoo and gmail email addresses generally didn't seem to be downloading their purchase for a few hours…
I got kind of concerned and made some tests, and the emails all seemed to arrive OK - slightly slowly maybe, but not overly so…
Today, I decided to clear this up once and for all, so I emailed a buyer who used gmail to ask if the download link was received; Here's the reply;
The email to my gmail actually came quite quickly. I'm at work now and won't download until I get home to my home PC.
Of course - why the heck didn't I think of this - becuase I'm able to download anything at work (as I work for myself). People in offices obviously can't download stuff due to filters and firewalls and whatever. And of course people use throwaway email accounts all the time for checking webmail…
Can't believe that I did not consider it - perhaps I've been working for myself for too long and have forgotten what it's like to be bound by rules and constraints.
Comment by Anonymous — December 5, 2005 @ 4:13 pm
Totally unrelated Burt,
But did you notice that according to my google search bar thing your blog has lost its PR4 status today?
Not sure if its just me.
Cheerz
Jamez
Comment by Gary B. — December 5, 2005 @ 4:27 pm
Still showing a 4 for me, but I ain't bothered…PR is pretty much a crock of BS, I think…
Comment by Sarah — December 6, 2005 @ 8:07 pm
ahhh yes the constraints of working in an office. I've worked for myself for over 4 years fulltime now and for the past year I took on a part time, now contract job with a company in Cardiff. Being part of IT I do get to bypass most filters and can pretty much get away with a lot but everything I do is still logged and could be viewed if it ever needed to be including emails and pages visited. Even when I VPN in from home, once I'm on their network I'm bound by their filters!
It's strange, being your own boss means you have the freedom to theoretically do what you want, yet for most of us it means working longer hours, taking on more stress and probably doing less personal stuff online and off that we would normally do as an employee!
PS. Pagerank is definitely just a little green image to make companies go loopy over.