If you test the code as much as you says you do, and are testing for the correct thing (which I do not know you are doing) the problem may be the architecture.
Code which is "forced" into a paper architecture is sometime worse that code with no architecture at all. In many of my projects, parts of my architecture change part way through so that the code will work better. Sometime not everything can be thought of before hand. OO programs have a lot of information to fit in a human barin at one time, problems are bound to show through. I don't have any "high eng tools" to help with the architecture either, which doesn't help.
Also, the architecture itself may suck.
What kinds of problem are you having? I think you need to design test routines geared towards not letting the types of problems you currently have through. It is hard to have any specifics, since the post was so vague.
A few months ago I went to Best Try's site at 4 in the afternoon to be greeded by a "running maintainance" page. Ever since then I've had the feeling their tech support people we inept.
This should not suprise me, as I have yet to have a good experience in their store. The salespeople are, and look, clueless. I have thown them for a loop too many times with questions like "how much does the item in the end isle display cost, there is no tag". I have never waited in line there less than 10 minutes, and the "anti-theft" thing goes off every 10 people or so; the guy with who looks like a thug (who's polo shirt doesn't fit) then has to check reciepts. It is all just a ploy to eliminate shoplifting, like the very visible camera monitor you have to walk around to get into the store. The place is run like the don't trust any of their customers. Not a place that makes you feel welcome.
It short, it is auwful. If there was another major electronics store in the area (closest "equal" class competitor is an hour away) they would not get any of my business.
I aviod them at every opportunity. Too bas they are the only place I can find certain items around here.
I have no problem at all with the FBI and whoever (law enforcement wise at least) looking at call logs without a warrent. I think that would help a lot in crime fighting.
I DO have a problem with easier wire taps, the listening kind. For better or worse, at least when they record a call, it has to be important enough for an officer/agent etc to spend time listening to it. Manpower alone seems to me to be a significant level of check and ballance. They are not going to devote a "person" to listen to calls, unless they think it is important enough.
I am an amazon affilate. I'm love business and tech books, and have quite a collection of both. I'm am trying to build up a site that will make enough in sales on a regular basis to pay for site hosting on a real provider...right now it's on my cable modem.
A little project of mine. I plan to expand it into a much more complete site as time goes on. Kinda the slashdot for tech and business books. Has a long way to go, it's only been up three weeks, so don't be to hard on my lack of features and content yet.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to add them.
I work in a shop that has, among other system an AS/400. The guy who usually comes to work on our hardware doesn't know or really understand anything about linux. I have known him professionally for about 5 years now, and for most of that time he has known I work with Linux.
The past few times I have seen him he has struck up a conversation about all the great stuff about Linux he is hearing at IBM, and how important it may be in the future.
I have worked with many AS/400 type people, and let me tell you, it is hard to get them on the bandwagon for stuff like this. I don't know what IBM is doing to communicate their Linux vision, but whatever it is they are doing right.
Compaq has had something like this for years. Not only that, they have an internal case lock which can be activated/deactivated remotely, or in the password protected bios.
A special tool from compaq is required to defeat the lock...or a drill. But anyway, it can keep track of when the case is opened I believe.
I have seen, but never used the feature, so I don't know the specifics.
I wonder if this would be solid enough for a commercial connection. By commercial, I mean a replacement for a T1/T3.
It seems every time we order a new line, the phone company has to bring another line 1/2 mile down our road, which takes months.
We don't have line of site to anyplace useful, which makes things even worse. We are at the mercy of the phone company everytime we need more bandwidth.
I believe commercial software is bad because the companies and programmers have no real incentive not to make it so. I believe part of the problem is not the gap between the market leader but the gap in the corporate org chart where the techies meet the technots.
The level of people that SHOULD care about high quality don't understand enough. Not only to they not push for high quality code, but the push the other direction entirly.
Scale of big vs. small means nothing. I have seen some fairly high quality open source projects with a programming team smaller the their commercial competitors secretarial pool.
This may be a good organized way for us to get political representation. This may offer the physical "grouping" needed to effectivly lobby our elected government officials.
Maybe try and invite your local congressman to hold a Q/A thing about technology legislation. It makes it easier to organize petitions. Organize a group drop off to his local office when you know he is in...bring the whole group. Can you think of a better way to make a point? Image if this happened at congressional office all over your county (the US in my case.)
Something like that may be enough of a reason to get me to go to something like this, or at least join the mailing list.
There are others like me in my town? I can get 300k downloads off my cablemodem in the evening since there are so few geeks in my area. You think there is enough of us to have a meeting?
What are you smoking! That's why I spend my time here.
Do you know a user how is, or just has lost access to this? Start looking.
Image how much of a difference we can make if each geek that wants to stick it to the RIAA helps 2 people get hooked up to real P2P networks, that aren't controlled by companies like that.
I use LimeWire myself, although I think it attaches adware to IE. While your at it, switch them to mozilla so they don't see that crap. They will love you.
Help a friend, and stick it to the RIAA an Microsoft at the same time.:-)
If I ruled the RIAA, I'd go after Morphius and Kazaa next. Not because of the music problem, but because of all the crap, buth known an unbeknownst to the users of their software.
The Washington Post has a favorable review of Mozilla 1.0 as well, with I though was interesting because a) it's read by politicians among others, and b) it is a review of Mozilla and not Nutscrape.
Anyway, here is the link. One of his favorite features was the ability to block ads. He even tells people how to turn that feature on.
Half the article was "Is this a good decision? We don't know..." said in a couple different ways. Regardless of what you think of DVD's and Circuit City in general, here is my take:
Circuit City is a progressive business, who pushes the status quoe (sp?). This is evident by their experiment with DivX, and getting rid of appliances, as stated they did in the article. Circuit City is after a certain type of market. By now, most people who buy electronics on a regular basis own a DVD player. I figure Circuit City makes their highest profit per visit off of customers who already own DVD players. If they don't own a DVD play, and stop shopping at CC due to this change, it was not one of their high value customers to begin with.
DVD's are "moving" much faster than VHS these days. Not only are people buying new releases, but also replacing their old VHS tapes. This means it is to CC's best advantage to fit the broadest DVD collection possible into the store. People will go to CC since they are likley to have the DVDs they want. If a non-DVD player owner is on the brink of getting a DVD player, this may be the kick in the pants they need (cha-ching on new players!)...if it isn't, the customer will probably be on the low end of their "value" scale anyway.
My guess is Circuit City want to be the one stop shop for the progressive electronics buyer, who isn't interested in VHS, or appliances anyway. If that is the case, which I could be wrong about, CC knows what they are doing and this is probably a good business decision.
That's got to be the best Joel on software I have ever read. Not only is it a great discussion of Open Source economics, but it is an interesting read to boot!
The "make your compliment a commodity" idea is great. Not a new idea, but I have never heard it put that way before, the examples (Flights to Miami vs. Hotel rooms in Miami, etc) make it even better.
I am not a Joel on software fan. Even if you arn't either, read the article. It will give you great examples of economics to pull out next time someone questions how Open Source can make money and survive.
" The secret? The heavy lifting is done on an MXI-based server that runs the actual applications and sends a stream of data back to the MXI client software residing on the handheld. "
Wow, they reinvented VNC. Cool huh? How did the dnet folks find this one? (yes, that is sarcasm.)
I just did some searches, and it appears to be ok for finding information. Whether it's logic is as good as google's is hard to tell. Little slower than google. It doesn't look to me like there is any reason to use it over google. How many sites worth visiting are not in google's index?
This may be a case of a company picking a poor benchmark as their performance measurment. Google's draw is their great ranking logic, not index size.
This is not that much different than the "mat" for the track and field game that used to be available for the origional NES (Nintendo).
Used to be pretty good excersize. I remember working up quite a sweat as a kid on one of those, I can see why it may be used gym. After two days of using it, my parents made me take in down the basement to play it.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
"Razor for the Masses"
I was thinking one of the silly metal scooters...
-Pete
If you test the code as much as you says you do, and are testing for the correct thing (which I do not know you are doing) the problem may be the architecture.
Code which is "forced" into a paper architecture is sometime worse that code with no architecture at all. In many of my projects, parts of my architecture change part way through so that the code will work better. Sometime not everything can be thought of before hand. OO programs have a lot of information to fit in a human barin at one time, problems are bound to show through. I don't have any "high eng tools" to help with the architecture either, which doesn't help.
Also, the architecture itself may suck.
What kinds of problem are you having? I think you need to design test routines geared towards not letting the types of problems you currently have through. It is hard to have any specifics, since the post was so vague.
-Pete
A few months ago I went to Best Try's site at 4 in the afternoon to be greeded by a "running maintainance" page. Ever since then I've had the feeling their tech support people we inept.
This should not suprise me, as I have yet to have a good experience in their store. The salespeople are, and look, clueless. I have thown them for a loop too many times with questions like "how much does the item in the end isle display cost, there is no tag". I have never waited in line there less than 10 minutes, and the "anti-theft" thing goes off every 10 people or so; the guy with who looks like a thug (who's polo shirt doesn't fit) then has to check reciepts. It is all just a ploy to eliminate shoplifting, like the very visible camera monitor you have to walk around to get into the store. The place is run like the don't trust any of their customers. Not a place that makes you feel welcome.
It short, it is auwful. If there was another major electronics store in the area (closest "equal" class competitor is an hour away) they would not get any of my business.
I aviod them at every opportunity. Too bas they are the only place I can find certain items around here.
-Pete
Sorry, I replied to the wrong post.
Trust me, I know.
I have no problem at all with the FBI and whoever (law enforcement wise at least) looking at call logs without a warrent. I think that would help a lot in crime fighting.
I DO have a problem with easier wire taps, the listening kind. For better or worse, at least when they record a call, it has to be important enough for an officer/agent etc to spend time listening to it. Manpower alone seems to me to be a significant level of check and ballance. They are not going to devote a "person" to listen to calls, unless they think it is important enough.
-Pete
I have a list of titles I think people should have if they do Web Development, especially JSP/Servlet programming.
Check out http://www.starvingmind.net/tech.php
I am an amazon affilate. I'm love business and tech books, and have quite a collection of both. I'm am trying to build up a site that will make enough in sales on a regular basis to pay for site hosting on a real provider...right now it's on my cable modem.
A little project of mine. I plan to expand it into a much more complete site as time goes on. Kinda the slashdot for tech and business books. Has a long way to go, it's only been up three weeks, so don't be to hard on my lack of features and content yet.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to add them.
-Pete
I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman...
I work in a shop that has, among other system an AS/400. The guy who usually comes to work on our hardware doesn't know or really understand anything about linux. I have known him professionally for about 5 years now, and for most of that time he has known I work with Linux.
The past few times I have seen him he has struck up a conversation about all the great stuff about Linux he is hearing at IBM, and how important it may be in the future.
I have worked with many AS/400 type people, and let me tell you, it is hard to get them on the bandwagon for stuff like this. I don't know what IBM is doing to communicate their Linux vision, but whatever it is they are doing right.
-Pete
Need better sound out of a laptop? Lots of them do have cheap soundcards. Try USB audio "boxes". Here are a couple from amazon:
Yamaha AP-U70 CAVIT External Audio.... $350 or so. Include a built in amplifier.
or
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Extigy Sound..., for about $134.
I don't know about Linux support, but they will makes a Windows Laptop rock.
-Pete
And to think I am satisfied with my $12 computer show OPL3 special...
-Pete
Compaq has had something like this for years. Not only that, they have an internal case lock which can be activated/deactivated remotely, or in the password protected bios.
A special tool from compaq is required to defeat the lock...or a drill. But anyway, it can keep track of when the case is opened I believe.
I have seen, but never used the feature, so I don't know the specifics.
-Pete
I wonder if this would be solid enough for a commercial connection. By commercial, I mean a replacement for a T1/T3.
It seems every time we order a new line, the phone company has to bring another line 1/2 mile down our road, which takes months.
We don't have line of site to anyplace useful, which makes things even worse. We are at the mercy of the phone company everytime we need more bandwidth.
-Pete
I believe commercial software is bad because the companies and programmers have no real incentive not to make it so. I believe part of the problem is not the gap between the market leader but the gap in the corporate org chart where the techies meet the technots.
The level of people that SHOULD care about high quality don't understand enough. Not only to they not push for high quality code, but the push the other direction entirly.
Scale of big vs. small means nothing. I have seen some fairly high quality open source projects with a programming team smaller the their commercial competitors secretarial pool.
-Pete
This may be a good organized way for us to get political representation. This may offer the physical "grouping" needed to effectivly lobby our elected government officials.
Maybe try and invite your local congressman to hold a Q/A thing about technology legislation. It makes it easier to organize petitions. Organize a group drop off to his local office when you know he is in...bring the whole group. Can you think of a better way to make a point? Image if this happened at congressional office all over your county (the US in my case.)
Something like that may be enough of a reason to get me to go to something like this, or at least join the mailing list.
-Pete
Who wants to meet? Since when are geeks social? Grab your PC and CAT5 and setup a LAN party into the wee hours of the morning.
Ouch! I just had a visual of 50 people all trying to get first post...all in the same room.
-Pete
There are others like me in my town? I can get 300k downloads off my cablemodem in the evening since there are so few geeks in my area. You think there is enough of us to have a meeting?
What are you smoking! That's why I spend my time here.
-Pete
Do you know a user how is, or just has lost access to this? Start looking.
:-)
Image how much of a difference we can make if each geek that wants to stick it to the RIAA helps 2 people get hooked up to real P2P networks, that aren't controlled by companies like that.
I use LimeWire myself, although I think it attaches adware to IE. While your at it, switch them to mozilla so they don't see that crap. They will love you.
Help a friend, and stick it to the RIAA an Microsoft at the same time.
-Pete
If I ruled the RIAA, I'd go after Morphius and Kazaa next. Not because of the music problem, but because of all the crap, buth known an unbeknownst to the users of their software.
Please, shut them down!
-Pete
The Washington Post has a favorable review of Mozilla 1.0 as well, with I though was interesting because a) it's read by politicians among others, and b) it is a review of Mozilla and not Nutscrape.
Anyway, here is the link. One of his favorite features was the ability to block ads. He even tells people how to turn that feature on.
-Pete
Half the article was "Is this a good decision? We don't know..." said in a couple different ways. Regardless of what you think of DVD's and Circuit City in general, here is my take:
Circuit City is a progressive business, who pushes the status quoe (sp?). This is evident by their experiment with DivX, and getting rid of appliances, as stated they did in the article. Circuit City is after a certain type of market. By now, most people who buy electronics on a regular basis own a DVD player. I figure Circuit City makes their highest profit per visit off of customers who already own DVD players. If they don't own a DVD play, and stop shopping at CC due to this change, it was not one of their high value customers to begin with.
DVD's are "moving" much faster than VHS these days. Not only are people buying new releases, but also replacing their old VHS tapes. This means it is to CC's best advantage to fit the broadest DVD collection possible into the store. People will go to CC since they are likley to have the DVDs they want. If a non-DVD player owner is on the brink of getting a DVD player, this may be the kick in the pants they need (cha-ching on new players!)...if it isn't, the customer will probably be on the low end of their "value" scale anyway.
My guess is Circuit City want to be the one stop shop for the progressive electronics buyer, who isn't interested in VHS, or appliances anyway. If that is the case, which I could be wrong about, CC knows what they are doing and this is probably a good business decision.
-Pete
That's got to be the best Joel on software I have ever read. Not only is it a great discussion of Open Source economics, but it is an interesting read to boot!
The "make your compliment a commodity" idea is great. Not a new idea, but I have never heard it put that way before, the examples (Flights to Miami vs. Hotel rooms in Miami, etc) make it even better.
I am not a Joel on software fan. Even if you arn't either, read the article. It will give you great examples of economics to pull out next time someone questions how Open Source can make money and survive.
-Pete
" The secret? The heavy lifting is done on an MXI-based server that runs the actual applications and sends a stream of data back to the MXI client software residing on the handheld. "
Wow, they reinvented VNC. Cool huh? How did the dnet folks find this one? (yes, that is sarcasm.)
-Pete
I just did some searches, and it appears to be ok for finding information. Whether it's logic is as good as google's is hard to tell. Little slower than google. It doesn't look to me like there is any reason to use it over google. How many sites worth visiting are not in google's index?
This may be a case of a company picking a poor benchmark as their performance measurment. Google's draw is their great ranking logic, not index size.
-Pete
This is not that much different than the "mat" for the track and field game that used to be available for the origional NES (Nintendo).
:-)
Used to be pretty good excersize. I remember working up quite a sweat as a kid on one of those, I can see why it may be used gym. After two days of using it, my parents made me take in down the basement to play it.
Ahh, the memories...
-Pete