Hello Folks,

I have been having issues uploading pictures to my folders in Kodak Gallery website , at www.kodakgallery.com ever since Kodak Gallery upgraded their website.

I have been using Kodak Galley with Linux for at least 7 years and never had any problems until their recent upgrade.

I have written to Kodak with my issue and they basically gave me a canned response to clear my cookies and so forth.

I am guessing, they are using active-X or some other plugin that causes Firefox on Linux not to browse for your pictures in your folders on my desktop landscape on my pc.

If I use Windows-7, the Kodak Gallery works great. Basically Kodak Gallery redid their website that allows customers to upload up to 200 pictures at once versus 60 maximum in the past. Its supposed to be faster, but for us Linux users, its a longer process, because the browser literally hangs-up and freezes.

Anyone a lot smarter than me knows what is going on....?

Another Linux user suggested I switch to Picasa. Do you think Kodak has made a dilberate attempt to block Linux users from using there site, thus forcing users to switch to Windows-7 ....?

Thanks I appreciate any feedback.

I did do a search prior to posting this topic.

Thanks d-1

A work around is by switching over back to their classic site:

http://classic.kodakgallery.com/Signin.jsp?

I do not use the Kodak gallery here, but I find it very unlikely that they intentionally made changes to thwart Linux users. That kind of thinking is paranoid in nature. Kodak is a corporation, in business to generate profit. As far as I know, they have no stake in Microsoft or the Windows operating system. It would not surprise me to learn that they use Linux (or perhaps Unix) on their WEB servers. The most likely scenario is that their WEB development team made some change on the site during the upgrade to better support Internet Explorer 8, that caused your troubles. Their WEB development team are probably all Windows people, and it never occurred to them that they were effectively blocking their Linux using customers. I think your best course of action is to follow their direction, then reply informing them that clearing your cookies did not fix the problem.

In this case, I suggest you inform them that you use Firefox on a Linux system, and that you do not want them to provide support for Linux, but that you do want them to provide support for Firefox. If they have made a change to their WEB site that makes it depend on Windows, they should want to know that, and they should want to fix it.

Please post back and let us know how you go . . .

Well Ernie, Here's the problem, I sent them a detailed email explaining my issue and I could tell from what I received , that it was a canned response. It just seems to me, that support in general has gone south. It seems people and corporations set-up barriers to make their jobs easier, thus the customer or consumer becomes the enemy. You have to be really persistent to get through with a specific issue.

I may take your advice and call their tech department. You would think with the advent of high tech emails, texting and how quick information travels nowadays, that problems and issues would get resolved a lot sooner, but unfortunately its the opposite....

As for the paranoid comment, I can assure you Linux is viewed as the enemy in the eyes of microsoft. I have never really researched to see who sits on the Kodak board, nor microsofts.

d-1

I understand why you feel as you do, but as stated above, Kodak is an organization with one single objective - that of generating as much profit as they can, at the smallest expense possible. Unless Linux threatens Kodak directly, they would have no motive.

Microsoft on the other hand should fear Linux because we certainly do pose a threat.

The greatest likelihood is that the tech support agent that handled your report took the course of least resistance. By sending a `canned´ response, he (or she) could get the job done with the smallest possible expenditure of time or effort. I have worked as a technical support agent, and I can attest to the fact that a great deal of pressure is put on them to handle as many contacts as possible each day. By doing a quick cut-and-paste, then clicking on send saves the agent a lot of time at the keyboard and significantly improves call time. I worked for Convergys on the AT&T@Home project providing support to Internet users. In spite of the fact that the in house training program stressed quality over efficiency, once agents get on the support floor and begin fielding calls, they very quickly learn that their true objective is to get the customer off the phone as quickly as possible, whether they fix the problem or not. Each agentś performance is measured with a variety of metrics, but the one that inevitably carries the greatest weight is call time because it can be related directly to cost.

Sadly, this makes sense from the corporate perspective because technical support involves a considerable expense, but generates little or no revenue. The first (and often only) real obligation of any corporation is to their stockholders, and stockholders expect a return on their investment - period. Technical support is provided to compete for your business, not necessarily to keep it. Because companies and corporations exist to make money (as evidenced by the fact that if they do not, they close), they have little or no motivation to do anything that is not directly associated with achieving that goal. Like it or not, this is a flaw of the free enterprise system. When big business is left to its own devices, we get the Enron and Worldcom scandals. Governments must legislate ethics, because business will not act ethically unless doing otherwise negatively affects their profitability.

Contacting Kodak´s technical support services will make for an uphill battle. I may have mis-spoke in my earlier post. Contacting their technical support service will most likely make for an uphill battle at best. Since your issue is with the WEB site, address your communication (e-mail) to the web-master of the site. Check the WEB site for a contact address. Failing that, try sending an email to webmaster@kodakgallery.com - the worst that will happen will be that you get a bounce message if the site has no webmaster email address.

Thanks Ernie for your well written post, I will once again write to their web-master and see if I can get better results.

Thanks, Again,

d-1

Dear Kodak Webmaster,

RE: problems uploading [Incident:091020-000688]

This is my second time writing to you in an effort to hopefully resolve the issue of being able to upload pictures to the "New" Kodak Gallery site.

I am using Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091106 Mandriva Linux/1.9.1.5-0.1mdv2010.0 (2010.0) Firefox/3.5.5, as my web browser.

For some reason the browser does not see the photos as I browse for the photos, .jpeg or it just simply locks up and freezes, whenever I try to upload a a singe picture.

I have to either load pictures on a flash drive and use a Windows based PC to upload them or revert back to using the www.classic.KodakGallery.com site on Linux.

Is there anyway you can correct this issue, what plug-in does Kodak use to correctly upload the pictures?

Can your Tech department create a fix for this issue I am experiencing on Linux?

Thanks,

Customer

________________________________________________________________________

Dear Customer ,

Thank you for contacting the KODAK Gallery Customer Service Team.

We wanted to let you know that we've just received your message. A Customer Service representative will respond as quickly as possible.

While you're waiting to hear from us, we recommend you visit our Help section at http://help.kodakgallery.com. By entering a keyword or phrase, you can find information about our service, products and promotions.

If you wish to update any of your account information, please go to the following page:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/AccountOptions.jsp

The Gallery makes it easy to get KODAK Prints featuring KODAK Perfect Touch Processing, as well as personalized Photo Calendars, Photo Books, Cards, Archive CDs and more. Visit the Gallery Shop at http://www.kodakgallery.com/StoreOverview.jsp to get started!

----------------------------------------------------------------
The KODAK Gallery Customer Service Team
http://www.kodakgallery.com/

Here is their Reply I received today,

I did try to email the webmaster, but it bounced back on me as undeliverable.

Pretty much the same response I received on October:


Response
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dear ,

Thank you for contacting the KODAK Gallery Customer Service Team.

We've just received your message and a Customer Service representative will respond to you as quickly as possible.

While you're waiting to hear from us, we recommend that you visit our HELP SECTION at: http://assets.kodakgallery.com/A/help.html.

By entering a keyword or phrase, you can find information about our service, products, and current promotions.

TO UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION, please go to: http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/myaccount.jsp

The Gallery makes it easy to get KODAK Prints featuring KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Processing, plus high-quality, personalized Photo Calendars, Photo Books, Photo Cards, and many more Photo Gifts.

To get started, visit the GALLERY SHOP at: http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/index.jsp

----------------------------------------------------------------
The KODAK Gallery Customer Service Team
http://www.kodakgallery.com/

O.K., then the cost / profit syndrome is far more pervasive at Kodak than I would have believed. The problem is that they lose sight of what it was that made them successful as they struggle to survive in a bad economy. If this is all the help you get (or the only type of help), then maybe it is time to find another similar service. The one good thing about an economic crisis is that inflexible, unimaginative organizations fail, so those that survive are better and stronger than before . . .