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devParticipant
Thanks, Susan. It has been a couple of years since we (or clients) bought commercial themes as we have been developing them via the Cobalt Dynamik Web Builder. This has worked well in the markets that we design for. But we are expanding our service into other markets and will need to have a good collection of themes we can recommend to our clients... or give the a list and let them choose what they want on their own.
Looks like we're going to have to make (update) the list ourselves so if any of you are theme vendors and want to be on our list send us your company name and your URL via our contact page here.
Thank you.
September 30, 2016 at 3:08 pm in reply to: Is there an exhaustive list of Genesis theme vendors out there? #194048devParticipantThanks, Brad.
I've written them to see if they have a vendor list of all the themes they show.
Too bad there isn't some kind of "Genesis Theme Developers Assn." that had such a list that we could point our clients to?
We want to give our clients as large a choice as possible... and we're just too busy now make the list ourselves!!! (Trying hard not to reinvent the wheel here!)
Thanks again.
devParticipantThanks for the follow-up note. Here is what I heard today from the host-ISP:
===========================
I apologize for the ongoing problems with this. I think we may have just resolved the issue though. There is an automated resource usage monitoring program in place on the shared hosting servers. In part, the system enforces memory usage limitation on processes. By policy, scripts on shared hosting are only allowed 64MB of RAM usage. However, we generally don't enforce that until they are much higher, typically around 256MB in size. When the limit is exceeded, the underlying php5.cgi process itself can be automatically ended. That in turn causes mod_fcgid to not receive proper CGI output back from PHP, which then causes Apache to return the 500 status error.The new web account is running on a newly released FreeBSD 10 operating system build. In doing some testing with the PHP processes for the account, it looks like FreeBSD 10 may be reporting the usage a bit higher due to kernel settings than the prior FreeBSD releases did. Our admins are currently checking into that, but, anecdotally, it appears to be the case. If that is proven to be the case, the resource usage monitoring system will be updated system wide to account for that.
========================I knew it was not on my end!!
Thanks again.
devParticipantThanks for the info but my client won't qualify:
Paid content is not currently available to all content partners. To be eligible to create paid content, you must own a channel with at least 1000 subscribers and reside in one of the supported locales.
It looks like Vimeo might have something she can use:
devParticipantBraddalton, et. al.:
Could you do this by giving all your pages and posts a class like "internal-page-post" and use this class in CSS like:
.internal-page-post { background: white !important;}
There might be more classes to add to the above selector, but would it work? Or is code the only/best way to do this?
Most of you folks (especially braddalton) are better at CSS than I will ever be!
devParticipantBluehost is now owned by Endurance International Group (EIG.) I won't say anything that they might sue me over but you should Google both... and maybe you will understand why you are having issues. We won't do a site for any client on BH or GoDad or HostGator... because other clients have had so many issues with each.
Let us know how it turns out.
devParticipantWhere are you hosting this?
I think the problem you MAY be having is that you are running Apache as "nobody" being the owner and when that happens often any rewrite (especially an update) will cause a the permissions of those files to be reset.
See if your host can use fcgi and/or "sudo exec"and let you run Apache as (under) your own user name and that would (maybe) fix the issue.
I don't know of any code in WP (and surely none in Gen) that would re-write the file permissions. That is on the host side and for the to tell you otherwise, tells me that they do not know what they are talking about.
If they can't fix this, then consider moving to a different host. We use pair.com but there are lots and lots of good hosts out there.
devParticipantThere might be something here that will help you:
devParticipantSummer I understand your POV. I do.
I won't re-post mine as it is spelled out in the blog-link in my previous posting.
I do want to politely and with civility disagree with TWO items you brought up.
First: We have been doing websites for people (mostly book authors) since way before 2007... more like 1996... straight HTML, Front Page, Cold Fusion... and we first used WP in 2005. (I started in the computer industry in 1974 working for Ross Perot's EDS. I was about 26 at the time. So while I'm not quite over the hill, I can sure see the top of it!! 🙂 )
Of course IBM, Oracle, IDMS, and all the other large vendors had (huge) yearly license fees... but their clients (large, rich, corps.) found that the value was there... to say nothing about having no alternatives.
It wasn't until 70s and early 80s that mini-computers started to chip away at the mainframes... and had much more favorable license and support terms for customers... to say nothing about how much cheaper the boxes were.
Then, of course, the micro-computer (does anyone call them that anymore?) revolution hit with the IBM PC (after a flurry of CPM machines (anyone remember the Osborne or Kaypro?)) which brought businesses the ability to install an array of cheap computers without huge yearly fees and rather low cost (and often free) software. (Anyone remember Wordstar, Borland, DBase, etc?)
Anyway, have you thought about why Automatic has not instituted yearly license fees on WordPress.org products? I know why, but it would take a lot of electrons here for me to explain it, and I don't think anyone would care anyway. But do think about it.
As for the tired old argument that "This is good for you because it allows our company to stay in biz" my retort is that CB and SP have been highly successful with their "free forever" licensing TOS. I fail to see how they would go out of biz if they didn't change their pricing platform. But I can see many ways how they could go out of biz if they do... same for theme and plugin developers.
There are two issues that these companies have to overcome:
- Web shops like ours have only so much money that they can budget for tools... themes, plugins, etc. They are not going to buy 100 themes and pay yearly fees on all of them. And they are not going to buy so-called 'pro packages' for say $500 each and then pay half that EACH YEAR... to 10 theme companies... and 20 different plugin vendors.
- It is not easy to sell the idea to small clients that they have to pay $2000 for their website with a theme and ten plugins that together will require them to pay $50 EACH a year... $550... making it $2,200 over a 4-year site lifetime. (And I'm terrified to try to SELL that to them... and I'm a much better salesperson than most... I've been doing it for thirty years now!)
Second: I'm not complaining. I'm simply stating my viewpoint that those of you who own/run web design shops, should think through how these industry pricing changes (I call them 'money grabs' 🙂 ) will not be beneficial to YOUR biz... and that of your clients. Please understand that just because a vendor says "This is good for both of us" ... most often it is only good for them.
I know many of you are young and have not had a lot of business-ownership experience... so take this advice from an 'old dog' who has been running businesses since leaving his only full-time job (at EDS in 1980:)
"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton (Founder of Walart.)"
devParticipantThanks, Andrea.
I don't know why I didn't (don't) get SP email since I get email about one-off sales, Rainmaker, etc., unless maybe I inadvertently unsubscribed. How/where does one sign up? (I thought all Pro customers were automatically signed up.)
Also go have a look at other WordPress theme companies and take a tally how many have a one time fee and how many have recurring charges.
I think everyone is aware of the changes, and I've written widely on the subject... you might be interested in this missive http://bit.ly/1PFFG20 I wrote and updated not too long ago.
A company can spin and rationalize every pricing plan but if the customers either can't afford it, or don't like it... well they look for something else. Just take a look at new-found interest in graphic software to 'avoid' the "hated" Adobe rental scheme of Creative Could... lots of people in the graphics sector are trying to see ifPixelmator, Affinity, Gimp and others will work for therm . And take a look at all of the 'new' interest in Libre Office in response to Microsoft's Office 365. (I own a book publishing company (Adams-Blake Publishing) and so I'm recent on the issues with these two vendors.)
I tend to think that the theme/plugin industry has not thought through the concept of "hostage ware" all that well. Adobe and MS can get away with it because there are not many alternatives in their class of product. But Genesis and themes and plugins? It is an entirely different situation... and for a company so loved by its clients, it will be interesting to see if that love persists when people who never filled out a support tix and how never need any new functions, are forced to pay for an update because WP 4.x or 5.x broke their framework or theme.
You ever hear of "New Coke?" Coke basically said "We don't need to do market research... they love us so much they will drink/buy anything we put out." Fail!
Same with Tide detergent (the fragrance was changed.)
How much do you know about what is going on in the pharma industry now?
Have you had Cable TV for a number of years and see how well they are loved by their customers?
Maybe Copyblogger can pull this off, but they sure have not done a good job so far. Their whole campaign has been built around arrogance... "We're so popular that our clients will pay us whatever we ask, no matter how often."
Bottom line, I've not heard one world from the company about how this is good for me... their customer.... which tells me that... they don't really care.
YMMV.
devParticipantI know it because Brian Gardner said it was. I take him at his word
As President Reagan said: "Trust... but verify."
devParticipantI have owned the Pro Plus pack for a number of years, so I’m grandfathered in
How do you know that for sure? Have you seen that in the license docs or TOS?
I hope you are right, but the pessimist in me says that very rarely these days do companies do what is in MY best interest... they do what is in THIER best interest.
Maybe I've just been dealing with drug companies, cable TV companies, cell phone carriers, and both Microsoft and Adobe for too long!! 🙂
devParticipantIt is kind of strange. SP and Copyblogger excel in marketing... teaching it used to to be one of the 'services'' and with Rainmaker it kind of still is. Thus, I would have thought they would have worked out an elaborate campaign to reverse their current policy and 'sell' the new "recurring component" plan.
Maybe they got a lot of pushback from customers via some other venue because I've not seen a lot of opposition to it here... except from me and one other person. That also surprised me.
I thought a lot of owners of small design shops would oppose this... but I'm obviously wrong.
It won't work for us... I just can't sell my partners and the board on encumbering lots of dollars to annual license fees for very little value-received... given that we have other options... although perhaps less convenient in the short-run.
I'd hate to abandon the Gen platform (if they don't grandfather us) but with so many changes happening to the WP ecosystem (the new API and Calypso (Javascript/React, etc.)) that maybe we'd end up on a different platform anyway... with or without "recurring components" (I wish they would not use obfuscate it with 'sales-speak.' Call it what it is... an annual license fee... honesty is the best policy. Tell customers the truth and they will love you. Lie to them or try to spin them and you become as disliked as Adobe and Microsoft... as well as almost every drug company.)
2016 will be an 'interesting' year for all of us, I'm sure.
devParticipantSite says "Down for Maintenance" so I is hard to be of help.
My guesses:
1. The JetPack CSS is brought in after the theme CSS and is thus overriding some of your changes.
2. You are using some kind of WP caching plugin which is causing issues.
[editorial] I seen no value in caching for sites that are NOT high volume... like tens of thousands of hits an hour. [/editorial]
devParticipantI think that the move to "recurring components" (a.k.a. yearly fees for perceived value) is going to hurt both sides of the industry.
Web design shops like ours do not want to pay these fees... and just because a theme or plugin vendor says in a blog or web page that the license is 'lifetime' it is difficult to know if this is going to be true down the road.
Second, we used to buy lots of themes and plugins... but we obviously only have so many dollars that we can budget to pay "recurring components" so instead of buying 50 themes a year, we are now buying three or four and developing our own with the Dynamik Web Builder (which by the way is also going down the "recurring components" road and so we are re-thinking that platform as well. Thus, the vendors that we would buy from who now expect us to fork over year-over-year fees for little or no (in our opinion) value-added, have lost future sales from us.
But here is the crux of the issue. The vendors say that we should pass these fees on to the client. But few if any of these vendors are selling to our market nor do they 'know' our clients.. Let's assume that the "recurring component" of Gen is $50 a year, and that the "recurring component" of a theme is $40 a year, and that we use five plugins each having a "recurring component" of $30 a year. The vendors assume that it will be simple to sell a client on the idea that they should pay $240 a year to keep their website current with security updates, etc.
If you have clients paying you $5K to $10 per site, the yearly fees are not a big deal, but our market is clients paying from $800 to $1800 for their site... and they are not going to even consider a $240 "tax" in order to keep current. They will see it as 'ransom.' How do I know this? Simple. I asked a whole bunch of them, and they all said "Build me a site without any "recurring component" costs.
We are told that we will be "grandfathered in" and insulated from the "recurring components" on DWB and Gen. But I looked at the license docs and TOS docs of both and have not found any wording that contractually obligates either company to do that. It may be there, but I've not found it.
I suppose we could buy so-called "lifetime use" from each vendor but we have no assurances that we will continue to use their theme or their plugin or their tool... or that the vendor will even be around next year, much less in three or four.
I don't know how this will shake out for other shops, but one thing I'm sure of is that all of us will be taking a very, very hard look at each product and will do a detailed analysis as to whether we think the total investment for a theme or a plugin over a site-lifespan of four years is worth it... for us or the client. In some cases I'm sure it will be, but not for all that many of the themes and plugins that we use.
We are very 'technical' and we can write our own themes... but we don't because it is more cost-effective to just buy them (for clients.) But when a $50 theme turns into a $200 theme (4 years x $50) maybe it isn't that cost-effective anymore. The same goes for a plugins.
And with so many changes being made to WP... the new API... as well as the admonition to "Learn Javascript, deeply" from Matt M., it looks like we may have more options in the near future, than we we have now.
devParticipant3rd party themes are really not the issue here as we are talking about SP. I wrote a blog about the move to recurring fees and how it hurts the business of developers and will ultimately hurt that of the vendors as well.
An Open Letter to Theme and Plugin Developers: Why I Can't Buy Your Products Any Longer
It got a bit of discussion when I published it.
Disagree if you wish, but please do it with civility, thank you.
devParticipantAs I remember Genesis and SP's Pro package was not free... we paid a considerable amount of money for it.
I expect that the software I buy today will work tomorrow without me paying an annual license fee for that privilege. I have no assurance of that with SP anymore.
I do not mind paying for support if I need it and I don't mind paying for new features if I want them. But to be assessed an annual fee so that should WP make a major update that breaks Genesis, I don't have to pay whatever ransom SP decides to charge in order for the site (and those of all our clients) to come back up.
If you like to pay license fees, well than you will be happy with the new SP paradigm I'm happy for you. Please allow us to take an opposing view without your pejorative implication.
Our company has been around for 25 years, we're mature business people (in our late 50s and early 60s,) we work hard, and we don't believe we are entitled to anything except good service and appreciation from the vendors we support.
If that is 'entitlement thinking' then so be it.
devParticipantThanks for that info.
I love how they call it a "recurring component" instead of a "money grab."
Notice they don't say how much that 'component' is going to be.
I guess they can make it anything they want... they can start it off small and then do what the drug companies have done... raise it by a 1000% or more... overnight.
Say what you want, and they will spin it since they are masters of marketing... but the 'recurring component' is not in YOUR best interest... and when a company uses 'sales-speak' instead of plain English, you can bet that you are being screwed. (You ever notice how the insurance industry calls it a 'premium' and not a 'price?' The stock brokers call it a "load' and not a 'cost.' )
Guess what a 'recurring component' is.
To me this is a case-study on how to lose your customer's trust and your super-great reputation... overnight! SP was the BEST... now they are just like all the others.
devParticipantSusan, I have no doubt that they would fix the framework. But it would not be in their best interest to give it free to all of those customers who had chosen not to pay the annual fee. It would be in SP's best interest to basically say "pay up" or "No soup for you!"
Yes they would get some bad press out of it... but if the drug companies don't care about their rep and if the health insurance companies could care less about what you think of them... and we all know how much the cable TV outfits care about us... where is it written (at least at the moment) that SP will care?
I think that if SP adopted a policy saying that "We guarantee we will support your version of Gen so that it will always run with the features you currently have" it would go a long way in 'selling' 'us' their new plan.
In the announcement on the link cited earlier there is no mention of current Pro license holders being 'grandfathered in' so I can only assume that we and other Pro owners will lose unlimited support after Jan. and we will have to decide if we want to put ourselves in a 'hostage' position. I don't know about others, but my partners and our board would not permit it and we'll move on... but I don't know where.
I sure didn't see this coming. And Happy New Year to you also, SP!
devParticipantI see that 2.2.5 is on the 'update' page in the site's admin area. Who will be first to give it a try and report back? Won't be me, I've had enough excitement for one night and morning!
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