It is too bad that we need to check links a LOT! It is too bad that programs change ANYTHING, ever!

I hate it when programs change things, that force Affiliates to have to change links. What could go wrong with that?? Well, everything!

Just as Affiliates look for RSS feeds so they don't have to do so much busy work maintenance work, having to check e-mail for change scenarios, and testing links for changes, is a huge maintenance burden most web masters of the scale that web masters on these Forums are, didn't sign-up for!

Those are things that Sponsors programs, with big staffs, do because they can, and because it is something that suits their back-end business structure. There's way too many posts on this and other Forums, where web masters DON'T get the e-mail, DON'T check or test links, DON'T check their postal mailbox or bank account for payments.

I hate it when my VOD and DVD partners change the format of the Excel spreadsheets, and add a new column in the MIDDLE of a row of columns! That breaks all of my PHP scripts, because suddenly $VariableC is now $VariableD, and $VariableC is now something new.

And since I analyze stats going back to 2005, I can't just change the script to the new column format, I have to put in a(nother) IF statement: if on date of the month-end statistic is less than the date of the change of column format, do this with $VariableC, and if the date is after the date of the change of column format, do that with $VariableC, and do something else with $variableD.


Several months ago, I sent a VOD partner a box of 90 DVDs, US Postal Priority Mail box, with Tracking. I went to USPS.com and signed up for e-mail notification of the Tracking. I got several e-mail notifications, with step-by-step progress of the shipment, right down to the day and time it was delivered.

Now, instead of contacting the VOD partner that same day, and acknowledging "DID YOU GET IT," I wait all summer long and don't see any new titles. I figure they're not doing much in the heat of the summer. I'm busy writing new PHP scripts for a project.

Dumb me, I wait until almost the 1st of October, and ask.

They replied, as they did once 3 years ago when I sent a shipment in a box rather than in an envelope: "We don't see the package on our incoming log". "Send it again".

NO, I'm not. You loose. AEBN didn't loose their shipment, but YOU did. I make 20%, you make 80%, You Loose. You lost my package inside of your house, because you get hundreds of packages a week, YOU LOOSE.

I didn't check. (And, I didn't send it Signature Required.) But, I didn't check. And we one-man webmaster shops and studios have to check EVERYTHING, because the big staff operations will do things that will need checking.