If You Ask in the Next Ten Minutes

But if you’re reading this, I’ll bet you’d like to know the difference between Thesis and Genesis, right?  Just send me $27 and I’ll tell you.  But seriously, as any of you know, you can’t just try these before you buy.  This is a bit off-putting for those of us who are used to either entirely free open-source stuff, or at least free trial versions of stuff.  Woo Themes, for instance, offers a bunch of freebies that are high quality, and that really give you a chance to put them through their paces before deciding to lay down some cash on a premium theme.  Thesis and Genesis deal with this by giving a money-back guarantee.

So I did buy Genesis after researching and trying LOADS of frameworks and themes, but I did manage to try Thesis without paying!  How?  The old-fashioned way.  No, not stealing it.  I got hired to work on a site that had it already.  What better way to do a test-drive?

I’m going to keep it brief, as there are some really good comprehensive reviews like this one that already do a great job in being exhaustive and accurate.

Mr. Wonderful

Seeing the many well-publicized antics of Chris Pearson, the developer of Thesis, initially turned me off.  So I approached Thesis with some reservations.  Apart from his personality, when I looked at the Thesis site, there was very little detail about how the tech support worked, which concerned me.  ”Members only” made it sound like it might be all volunteers, which is not good enough if you’re shelling out money, IMO.  And I couldn’t ask a quick question on the forum, because I hadn’t bought it.  I have, however, read elsewhere that this support is very good.  So they’re just not good at advertising it.

And now to the good stuff – as I began to use Thesis, I found that I didn’t need tech support anyway, which was important: because since I didn’t buy the software, I had no access to their forum.  But they do have some documentation available to non-owners, and with any framework, documentation of hooks is paramount.  After reading that and some tuts, I was on my way, and got everything done just fine.  I’d say this is about a tie between the systems… I was able to do what I needed with a bunch of CSS and a moderate amount of PHP code.

For Those Who Loathe Code

More goodness – I would say that the person who cowers in fear at writing code will prefer Thesis.  The admin panels are full of options that will allow you to do lots of things without touching any CSS or PHP code.  I love writing CSS, so this is less of a selling point to me, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to have quick access to so many appearance features.  Genesis has some quality panels in its admin, too, but it’s much more limited, and assumes that the user understands CSS well.  In the Thesis site I was working on, the designer got as far as she could with the panel, but she likes everything custom, so I had to make all kinds of CSS changes and structural changes, neither of which can be done without writing some code.  But if you can get by with a fairly standard set-up and your client isn’t too obsessive-compulsive, you may get by cranking out a site with Thesis not having written any code.  But that’s not typical in my experience.

Another thing I enjoyed with Thesis is the setting that gave “instant full width” to the design.  Upon a closer look, it looks like what they did was to have a bunch of CSS already written for both full-width and smaller-width designs, and what that magic button did was to simply activate a class that turns on all the full-width CSS.  Very clever and clean.  Suitably impressed, I went back to Genesis and I realized that although they don’t have the Magic Big Full Ass Width type of button, they do have handy classes on their standard markup for handling it – just a less showy implementation, and again, relying just a bit more on decent CSS skills.

Such a Deal!

One place where Genesis does clearly win, though, is pricing.  Both frameworks come with lifetime updates, but Genesis costs considerably less than Thesis.  Also you have an option to buy every Genesis child theme that they make (and any that they make in the future).  You can also get the Genesis framework by buying one Genesis child theme.  Thesis offers the framework for unlimited sites, or for a single site.

Having listed some Thesis perks, I will say that Genesis has been a real pleasure to work with.  In its quieter way, I’ve been able to easily handle anything I’ve needed to do with it, and there are a host of free Genesis WordPress plugins to enhance it even further.  The documentation is very helpful, albeit with fewer code examples – their stance is that you should look at the scripts themselves to understand the more obscure hooks and filters, which I find a little questionable.  So it does take more of a coder to get at every little part of the system, but will reward you if you examine it carefully.  I prefer this approach to that of other paid frameworks, which is to cram every possible feature into huge admin panels, which can slow down your site’s performance.  Since I don’t need the extra admin features of Thesis, I have what I need with Genesis, and won’t be buying the extra system.  I should also add that although Thesis has a hefty admin panel, it still comes out with good performance numbers in benchmark tests I’ve seen on some sites.

Temperamental Soloist

Another thought that occurs to me is that Thesis development is pretty much a 1-man-show, so if something bad happens to Mr. Wonderful, or the ever-mercurial developer suddenly decides to tell everybody to stuff it, I wonder what would happen to Thesis.  Genesis doesn’t have a huge staff, but have more hands working on their code, so this may be less of a concern with them.  That’s speculating, of course.

All in all, both frameworks are very good.  It’s almost a tie.  For me, Genesis wins.

It's rumored that the engineer was distracted while comparing Genesis and Thesis

Not a Syracuse chain restaurant, but Yummy!

In recent years I have eagerly anticipated the Taste Of Syracuse.  Food is my thing, and in June the many festivals make Syracuse more exciting.  But this time around was somewhat of a letdown.  Most of the usual eateries were represented.  There was a distinct absence of fancy restaurants, though.  OK, I’m a food snob, but to me, it’s fun to get a small sample of what a fancy place is making so that I can decide if I want to splurge for a full meal.  None of that this time around.  I wondered about that – usually there are at least a half-dozen or so higher-end restaurants at the event.  Maybe the terms for having a booth have changed.

The most commonly overheard buzz was that the “Bang Bang Shrimp” should be tried.  That’s well and good, but that was for a chain restaurant.  Not a horrible thing, but certainly not truly local.  I would have to assume that some local TV station must have planted that idea in people’s heads.  It was interesting to see how powerful the media is in that way, obviously getting a mention on local news is commercial gold.  But we have good food here, and some creative people, so it’s too bad they apparently didn’t see fit to mention some of the local places.  Then again, some of the best cooks in town were not represented at all, so maybe it’s a moot point.

I would have put this post in ChusOnChow.com, except that I wanted to talk about the music, which is the other thing I’ve enjoyed so much over the years.  The venue for the main event isn’t the greatest, but the price is right, the weather is usually good, and they tend to get some excellent national talent.  A couple years ago I was dazzled by the fine show that Dickey Betts put on, and accordingly, I was very interested in hearing his ex-bandmate Greg Allman this year.  The atmosphere can be really electric as scads of people you never see all year are all around you having fun.   On Friday, I had heard some impressively out-of-tune vocals at one of the alternate stages.  It seemed like karoake, because they were bringing up one singer after another with the same band.  It left me wondering of the singers were just not cutting it, but I’ll be charitable and hope for their sake that the problem was having inadequate stage monitors, a very common live music problem.  Maybe someone thought this would be like having American Idol here – that show’s influence has become omnipresent, unfortunately.  Either way, I had hoped that the music would improve on Saturday.

Fast forward to the next night.  I staked out a couple square feet in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, and the show began just about right on time.  Greg’s voice sounded great, and when the band started, the first thing I thought was wow, that’s a nice slide-guitar tone, and the piano player sounded good and bluesy.  All very good.

After a few more songs, they were still sounding fine, but my attention started to wander.  When it’s an outdoor venue with a mainly rock and roll crowd, with pretty much everyone having to stand in cramped quarters, it would seem that you don’t want to let the energy level get too low.  But they did a few too many slow numbers for that scenario, I thought.  A tune like Sweet Melissa is great, but better as a break between more energetic tunes at a rock show, at least to me.  I also noticed the number of instrumental solos per song was a little high.  As a professional musician, I know that too much soloing is usually tedious for listeners.  I’ve certainly been guilty of that myself.  I thought it was unnecessary to have two or more solos in each tune.  If you have lots of them, they’d better be great, and frankly the soloists eventually started to repeat themselves.  Greg is a seasoned veteran, and I think he would agree.  He also had a guy do lead vocals for several tunes that were OK, but that seemed like standard blues filler. So I wonder if he’s still in recovery from his operation, and has to take it easy.   Then again, I’m guessing the drunks in the audience were less concerned about all that than I was.

His guitarist is very good, and I especially enjoyed his slide playing.  When he plays standard electric guitar, though, he really, really loves his BB King licks.  He’s not the only one, I and thousands of other guitarists have been inspired by (and have used) BB’s phrases for years, yet I would rather listen to BB playing BB.

I hung in there for an hour, standing in place, being jostled around and inhaling second-hand smoke, hoping for my favorite Greg tune, Whipping Post.  I finally heard one too many “just OK” tunes, and bailed out.  I never got this feeling with Dickie Betts’ show – even his unfamiliar tunes had been hot.

The next day I looked for Mark Bialczak’s review, wondering if it had “just been me”.  He wrote a very favorable review, and his relentlessly upbeat enthusiasm for music here is often a joy.  I’ve been the benefactor of it myself.  So maybe it was just me.  And wouldn’t you know it, Greg apparently did Whipping Post after I left.  That said, between the show and the less interesting food offerings, I probably won’t be as excited about going to the Taste of Syracuse next year.  At least I’ll have the memory of that Dickie Betts show on that great night.

I had previously said that it’s easier to make complex menus with MODx.  But with the appearance and improvement of  WordPress Custom Menus, WordPress is catching up fast.

Note as of 4/11 – now MODx comes in two versions, so this has muddied the waters a bit.  Evo is the well-established previous version, and Revo is the newer version with nice stuff like better multi-site support, auto-updating of plugins, more stuff for programmers, etc.  I’ve added a few notes about Revo below.

Feature	MODx	Wordpress	Winner
Blogging	very simple blog using Ditto with Evo, limited functionality. Revo has a scheme that looks more attractive, and well, more blog-like. It still takes some work to set up, unlike WP.	State-of-the-art, built-in comments, archives, categories, tagging, and much more	WP
Templating	Extremely strong and flexible - almost infinite, MODx beats any system I've used in this.	very flexible, somewhat more work due to need to accommodate bloggish structure	MODx for speed of building, but WP has MANY more free themes available. To code a WP theme, it takes somewhat more time than making a MODx theme.
Custom fields in content	the TV (template variable) makes this incredibly flexible, almost any type of content can be stuck anywhere.	Custom fields available. Some php coding required. Widgets can sometimes be used for this.	MODx, but WP has pretty much caught up.
Editing	Tiny, FCK, others available	Tiny, FCK, others available. This implementation is prettier, and more plugins available.
Plugin variety and quantity	very good	enormous, many many developers, pre-built stuff for almost anything. Caveat: sometimes a plug-in won't work with a particular theme. It's also worth remembering that many plugins can only be set and updated by the super admin.	WP. One thing to remember: plugins, while great, may vary in quality and reliability. Coding skills are helpful for fixing or modifying them. You are now reading the output of one of the best WP plugins, WP-Table-Reloaded!
Permissions	good, using document groups and more by using ManagerManager plugin. can be quite difficult to set up, though. Revo has a brand new scheme, and it's still tough to use.	very good, very granular if using plugins.	WP. If you're looking for permissions to be the most important part of your system, you're likely to be unhappy with either system, unless you are willing to put in the work.
Document structure	uses flexible folders paradigm. Revo, it should be noted, has changed the interface, although the folder idea is still there - personally, I don't like it much yet, and prefer Evo's interface. Hardcore programmers seem to love it, though.	Pages used for static pages that go in menu, Posts for bloggish "latest news" content
Updating system	pretty easy, download/upload, run the update. Revo has now introduced the auto-update for plugins (not the whole system) - it's still beta-ish, but is often excellent.	extremely easy: now WP itself, themes, and plugins all updateable and searchable through admin!	WP, with caveat that plugins are a bit more sensitive to WP upgrades
Photo handling	Maxigallery for Evo is very flexible, some work to set up and more to template. Maxi is not available for Revo - there are a couple Revo galleries in development, but they're still very new and rudimentary.	many plugins from super easy Auto Thickbox plugin to enormous NextGen gallery. Some WP galleries may not work with certain themes.	WP
Multimedia handling	some plugins available, some work to set up	many plugins for audio, video, etc.	WP
Ecommerce	some plugins, can set up manually with Ditto for small site, 3rd party Foxy Cart for more functionality with a quality shopping cart.	various plugins, nothing bulletproof. WP-Ecommerce has a lot of features and is widely used, but I've always found it very buggy. Fortunately, other competitors are emerging all the time.
SEO	can be done with TV's per page	good plugins available	WP
Security	updates usually available pretty quickly if problem found.	issues updates fast, but WP is much more popular, so it's a much bigger target.	MODx
Content management	extremely flexible	can be used as CMS, somewhat limited due to bloggish structure, yet many are using WP for content management now.	MODx
Moving sites	very easy for Evo. Revo has introduced a bit more complexity that can trip you up, but it's still good.	somewhat less easy due to fewer relative file paths. beginners often have trouble moving WP sites.	MODx
Hello, Michael, just showing a merged cell example! I merged all four, but you could do fewer as well. Cheers!

Spam emails are annoying enough, but then he started to phone me.  I finally managed to speak to him and told him that I didn’t want phone calls.  He fought me a bit – you know how salespeople can get  – but he finally relented.  Problem solved, or so I thought.

Just today I got an email from a fellow, let’s call him “T”, who was supposedly my new “Sales Engineer”.   I simply deleted it.  To a very small degree, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Big mistake.  After getting the email today, I noticed that I had a voicemail.  It was the very same “T”, who lead his pitch with “I know you don’t want be called, but your email bounced..”  That’s all I would listen to before deleting it, and I was very angry by this time.

This type of outmoded, moronic high-pressure sales technique is something I’ve written about elsewhere in this blog.   You can almost hear some clueless sales manager hounding these newbie salespeople saying “don’t take no for an answer, keep calling again and again, it’s a number’s game, sell, sell, sell, if you don’t meet these numbers you’re fired!!!!”  Or maybe T himself is an imbecile, maybe having read the book “Keep Calling, Whining, Hounding, Spamming, and Not Listening, Until You Make The Sale!”  He’s the type of guy phone number blocking was invented for.

Nowadays, when you go to business school,  it’s well-known that the old foot-in-the-door technique no longer works.  They have you establish a relationship with a potential client based on respect – that way, you have a chance to have a lifelong client.  Sweetwater did not get this memo.  I had no idea that buying something from them would get me a stalker who would not be removable with an Exocet missile.

I tried to deal with the company rationally and politely, giving them another chance for my business.  At this point I’ll simple delete my account with them.  There are other good alternatives for music gear, such as Zzounds, AMS, Musician’s Friend, and many more.  I normally wouldn’t do any pimping for those other companies, but Sweetwater is striving to alienate me as much as possible, so that’s what they get.

Sweetwater Sales: FAIL

Update: One day after writing this article, I receive a note from a manager at Sweetwater.  He was very contrite, and assured me that I would not be receiving unwanted phone calls.  He added that it was not Sweetwater’s intention to treat customers this way.  I applaud him for being helpful, and I will now be willing to consider Sweetwater again when shopping for music gear.  I’m reasonably confident that I won’t be getting the foot-in-the-door treatment anymore – we’ll see.

On a side note, it’s great to see that my blog is highly visible.  Nowadays publishing on the web has become the most effective way to get results from customer service problems. I’m fortunate to have this resource – the technologically-challenged will often not have as good a result going through traditional channels, and I would say that this applies generally, not specifically to this company.

Though I do express my opinions pretty clearly, I don’t usually write something that’s this nasty.  But when a problem keeps recurring, I might lose it! Fortunately, this rant ended up having a happy ending!

Gibson has been a venerated guitar brand for many years.  I have played great Gibson guitars in the past, but I’ve never been able to own one.  My only real beef with them is that their prices are astronomical, so when I was playing electric guitar for a living, even if I wanted one, no way.   But frankly, I do like to see companies called out when they treat their employees like dirt.  Before the web, companies could happily keep all this secret.  And yes, obviously this is one side of the story, but the overwhelmingly negative reactions are pretty compelling to me.

By the way, it was fascinating that the company that famously breaks guitars has a ranking on Glass Door almost as bad as Gibson’s.  To enjoy some dirty details and get your daily dose of schadenfreude, check out this page at GlassDoor.com.   Or just enjoy some choice titles by people reviewing the company:

• “failure on all fronts”
• “sick culture that stifles the company”
• “Nero fiddles (or picks) while Rome burns”
• “Don’t think your experience will be different”
• “So much potential, but stuck in a stagnant state of fear and intimidation”
• “Corporate management exemplifies best efforts at mediocrity”
• “Just don’t work there unless you have no other choice, and even then, always be looking for any other job”
• “Worst Corporate Culture Ever…and That’s Being Kind”
• “Mommy Dearest? Oh, Just Gibson Guitar”
• “It would be the best place ever if HJ wasn’t there”
• “Get your Prozac ready”
• “STAY FAR AWAY FROM GIBSON!”
• “Run as fast as you can…in the opposite direction”
• “Only take a job here if you have nothing to lose”

And obviously someone will chime in and say, “my experience was fine”, or “these are all crybabies”, or “they should be happy they have any job” as if that should refute everything other people have said.  Uh huh.