Dumping Relusi and Munius - What Do You Think?

My previous post: Relusi - Serious Problem - Brausch Resource (Link) Directory - I have come across a serious problem with the James D. Brausch Relusi Link Exchange Software.

That post outline a problem with Relusi. Someone else reported to me a similar problem with Munius.

I had not looked at my Relusi directories for my sites for a couple of days. After fixing the data file corruption reported, I had 200 links approved and confirmed for one of them. For another site I had 83 links approved and confirmed. Looking at them today, they are corrupted again. The corruption starts at link 69 on one and link 68 on another.

Just took a look at yet another directory: That had a different number of links to start with, and it is also corrupted starting with yet another starting link number.

Anyway -- I have had Relusi and Munius installed for 8 or 9 months. As far as I can tell, THEY HAVE NOT DONE ME ANY GOOD AT ALL in building traffic to my sites.

Are there ANY success stories out there for those using either of those products?

I am thinking of dumping them as being more trouble than they are worth. What do YOU think? Comments are open.

Update 2009-06-18: I have long ago dumped both Relusi and Munius -- P.O.S.

Relusi - Serious Problem - Brausch Resource (Link) Directory

I have come across a serious problem with the James D. Brausch Relusi Link Exchange Software.

This software, aka the Relusi Resource Directory software, is comprised of a set of PHP scripts that you upload to your web site server. Underneath that is a "data" directory which holds the links as individual files, and two additional files - status summary files. One of these status files holds the moderated status (not reviewed, accepted, rejected) for each individual link file. The other file holds the confirmed status (confirmed, not confirmed) for each individual link file. (Confirmed status means that the link requester has provided a legitimate e-mail address, to which the software sends a message requiring the requester to respond to it so that the link will show in the directory when it is confirmed.)

The problem is either that the data directory is easily or inadvertently subject to hacking, or there are serious errors in the PHP script coding that leads to corruption of the moderated status and confirmed status files in the data directory.

I have no idea what, specifically, the problem(s) is/are. I have a couple of suspicions:

One is that there is perhaps a problem in the code for the feature that supposedly allows a submitter to delete and/or update his listing. Perhaps that screws up other listings and/or the status files.

The other is that spam submittals (submittals not in the proper format in each of the submittal form text boxes) may screw something up.

In any event, I have noticed several times that the status of link submittals I have previously accepted have mysteriously reverted to "not reviewed" status. And this is not just one or two submittals, but dozens. To fix it, I have had to download the summary files, edit them back to accepted and confirmed, then upload them again. This is faster than going through each submittal individually. I have had to do this several times.

Now, if instead, you just go through each link request to accept they still may not be confirmed status if the confirmation file was also corrupted.

Because of these problems, I started keeping a record of the last good post number, and its subject, so when I went into moderation, I could see what is happening.

This post is already too long, so, bottom line, just one example:

I have a Relusi directory that has 228 links confirmed and accepted, a couple of days ago. Today, 133 of those links had been reverted to "not reviewed". It turns out that the confirmed script was also, unbeknownst to me, corrupted. That directory now has only 97 confirmed and accepted links.

That really pisses me off. First, I have lost a lot of links, and second, my script to get rid of spam links now deletes good links, because of the corrupted data directory status files.

For some time, I thought Brausch had some good stuff. In actuality, none of his stuff that I have tried, with the possible exception of Artemis Pro has turned out to be worth a crap.

Update 2009-06-18. No longer using any of Brausch's crap, including Artemis.

"Articles Unique" Promotional Article Generating Software Released

The "Articles Unique" software program recently in Beta Test has now been released.

"Articles Unique" enables you to simply generate UNIQUE articles to promote your website. You do some prep work, then the program generates unique articles for manually submitting to others' sites by just pasting into their submittal forms.

"Articles Unique" is easy to use, yet has some unique and user-friendly (I think) touches, and is more "transparent" in case you like to know what's going on "under the hood", as I do. It offers more flexibility as to the source documents, so that if you are short variations in one section, you can make it up in another.

If you are an Artemis user, it will also generate a set of files that you can use with the James D. Brausch Artemis program.

Full details are at Articles Unique Article Generating Software.

"ARTICLES UNIQUE" (tm) BETA TESTERS WANTED

I'm looking for ten beta testers for a new article generating program. "Articles Unique" is my initial entry into the "Unique Content Generator", "Article Converter", "Article Rewriter", "Article Multiplier", "Article Spinner", whatever called, arena.

"Articles Unique" is for manual submission of your promotional articles, generating a unique article (or articles) for your OWN site, and unique (non-duplicated) versions for submission manually to others' site. Some programs do e-mailing. Mine doesn't, yet.

It is simple, yet has some unique and user-friendly (I think) touches, and is more "transparent" in case you like to know what's going on "under the hood", as I do. It offers more flexibility as to the source documents, so that if you are short variations in one section, you can make it up in another.

If you are an Artemis user, it will also generate a set of files that you can use with the James D. Brausch Artemis program.

Look through the user document Articles Unique pdf User Document.

Let me know if you want to do it. Artemis or other generator users preferred -- let me know what you have used and, if so, a brief sentence or two about your experience with it.

"First come, first served".

Respond ASAP, as the testing is to be done -- and the results in -- by Wednesday, 2007 June 13, 11:59 PM.

The Beta test is now closed.

Thanks much,
David Bean

The Beta test is closed and the product is now released and available
For information about the finished product, see Articles Unique Article Generator.

Brausch Artemis Pro Customer Service - Part 2

In a previous post, I mentioned a reader's complaint about Brausch's customer service. It turns out, I think, that there are two problems. One is Brausch's customer service. The second is that there was customer "cockpit problems" (not being attentive to detail).

Since Brausch customer service is so poor, I tend to give the benefit of doubt to a complaining customer. In this case it appears to me that in the instance mentioned, there were several Artemis article version formatting problems uncorrected by the reader. This led to the failure of the Artemis program to accept and submit the article.

This does not excuse, however, the Brausch machine poor customer service. One problem is that can be impossible to get hold of customer service. A second problem is that Brausch instructs his customer service people to "fire" people as customers if they exceed some sort of arbitrary help quota. A third problem is that there are no on-line TEXT instructions and/or FAQs for various products. Brausch has stated that his videos are sufficient and that people don't read FAQs. I disagree that videos are sufficient. As to FAQs, I think people do try them, but they usually are written and organized so poorly that the customer gives up and resorts to trying to e-mail or call.

But, as Brausch would say, so what if I disagree, I am one of the 98% "losers". Brausch prides himself that his videos take much less time to prepare than written documentation. Good for him, bad for his users. The videos are not downloadable as far as I can tell. And even if they were, users still have to plow through talk, talk, talk for a much longer time than perusing a written document to find the possible nugget searched for.

So, I am doing Brausch's job. But that does provide content for this blog and my site.
For text tips on formatting Artemis posts:
Brausch Artemis Pro Customer Service (part 1)
e-Commerce Biz (Internet Business) Web Site
Having Problems with Artemis Pro.

Brausch Artemis Pro Customer Service

A visitor to my site e-Commerce Biz (Internet Business) wrote to me about a problem he had with Artemis Pro that he got as part of a package from Brausch.

Both my laptop and my desk top tell me “File A not found” when I try and submit an article. Then another window pops up and reads “Please fix the problems associated with the article(s).”

I don’t now what this is talking about. When I purchased his products I got them in an all-in-one package. Did not get any kind a receipt. So customer support will not let me in.

I too have had problems with Brausch customer support. Further, the only documentation for products are videos, which leave a great deal to be desired in many instances as to clarity and completeness. There are no online FAQ pages, much less FAQ pages updated in response to customer inquiries.

FWIW, I sent the following response to my reader, just to make sure he was doing things right. We shall see if it works for him. If I hear back, look for a comment to this post.

Hello .....
My commiserations to you:

The only thing I can suggest is to make sure you have the three versions of the article and the resource file in the same directory as artemis.exe,

articlenamewhatever-1a.txt
articlenamewhatever-1b.txt
articlenamewhatever-1c.txt
articlenamewhatever-resource.txt

The file naming convention is STRICT:
An article name followed by a dash then a number (the SAME number for the three versions), then the letter a, b, c for each version, then ".txt". The resource file has to be named the same basic article name followed by a "-resource.txt".

I have no help to offer regarding submitting to your external publication list, as I have't been able to get that to work, myself.

FWIW, other files as part of Artemis are, and in the same directory are:
fce32.dll
see32.dll
mi.hef
si.hef
common.txt
log.txt (probably optional)
page.txt
postit.txt (probably optional)
...
Regards...