I didn't write about legal issues in the first post, but we were already in contact with them in the past.
Our company exists since 1995, so I'm sure that we exist longer than them.
Anyway my co-worker was in contact with one of yellowTab bosses and if I recall correctly we decided to leave each other alone, i.e. not forcing any legal issues against the other.
Of course this was before all that ugly TV-commercial stuff. So maybe it is time to talk to each other again. On the other hand, being a 6-person company and fighting against a probably-much-larger company with much more money behind them, it would be a great waste of resources for our company, even if we win...
Actually probably they are selling well in those TV shows, but I'm absolutely sure that everyone who buys only uses it once and then the ZetaOS rots in some corner of his room...
(But hey, after all that's the basic concept of every product sold on those home-ordering-TV-shows, isn't it?)
I do work for a small German company called "zeta software".
Currently, yellowTab is selling the ZetaOS through multiple German home-order-TV shows to computer-illiterate persons. Of course most of them fail to successfully install ZetaOS on their supermarket-bought PCs.
A daily average of two or there of them call us (not yellowTab!) and ask what they can do, now that they crashed both their Windows installation and their ZetaOS.
Even the hints beside every phone number on our website that we have absolutely nothing to do with that ZetaOS did not help much.
yellowTab seems to be aware of the problem that many many customers seems to be very discontented with ZetaOS and additionally call all companies that seem to have the Word "zeta" in their name (which are quite a few), because yellowTab hired a marketing agency (or how you call that in English) that called us some time ago on the phone.
This agency seemed to have the task to call all those zeta-named companies and apologize for the "idiots" (= ZetaOS customers) calling them. The agency further asked us what the average questions of the ZetaOS customers was. You could call that "Indirect surveying";-).
I really whish myself and all zeta-named companies that yellowTab runs out of venture-capital really soon and that they disappear and never ever return again *sigh*.
Personally, I hate those kind of "look, how stylish we are" websites which have such a crappy usability (just look at the small fonts, the missing contrasts, etc.)
Your conclusion sucks. This would be the same as this fictious story:
"Last week a woman with red hair drove her car into mine, causing an accident. That proofes that red haired women are the primary source for traffic accidents."
We use our own Windows-based system "zeta producer" (german) for other things like e.g. creation of Windows Help files.
Beside City Desk, I don't know any other mid-/small-sized CMS package that is NOT implemented as a browser based application, but as a full features desktop Windows application.
But the language... The language itself is really a crime to all programmers. I hate it for its lack of flexibility (ok, for a LEARNING language, as it was first designed, it's OK)
And the Borland IDEs are really bad. All those nasty bugs and crashes. I really doubt someone professional would work with it, if he isn't forced to.
I rather suggest to use VS.NET. The cross-language features (use Perl here, VC++ there, etc.) should get closest to the needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you!
I didn't write about legal issues in the first post, but we were already in contact with them in the past.
Our company exists since 1995, so I'm sure that we exist longer than them.
Anyway my co-worker was in contact with one of yellowTab bosses and if I recall correctly we decided to leave each other alone, i.e. not forcing any legal issues against the other.
Of course this was before all that ugly TV-commercial stuff. So maybe it is time to talk to each other again. On the other hand, being a 6-person company and fighting against a probably-much-larger company with much more money behind them, it would be a great waste of resources for our company, even if we win...
OK, I'll try :-)
Actually probably they are selling well in those TV shows, but I'm absolutely sure that everyone who buys only uses it once and then the ZetaOS rots in some corner of his room...
(But hey, after all that's the basic concept of every product sold on those home-ordering-TV-shows, isn't it?)
I do work for a small German company called "zeta software".
Currently, yellowTab is selling the ZetaOS through multiple German home-order-TV shows to computer-illiterate persons. Of course most of them fail to successfully install ZetaOS on their supermarket-bought PCs.
A daily average of two or there of them call us (not yellowTab!) and ask what they can do, now that they crashed both their Windows installation and their ZetaOS.
Even the hints beside every phone number on our website that we have absolutely nothing to do with that ZetaOS did not help much.
yellowTab seems to be aware of the problem that many many customers seems to be very discontented with ZetaOS and additionally call all companies that seem to have the Word "zeta" in their name (which are quite a few), because yellowTab hired a marketing agency (or how you call that in English) that called us some time ago on the phone.
This agency seemed to have the task to call all those zeta-named companies and apologize for the "idiots" (= ZetaOS customers) calling them. The agency further asked us what the average questions of the ZetaOS customers was. You could call that "Indirect surveying" ;-).
I really whish myself and all zeta-named companies that yellowTab runs out of venture-capital really soon and that they disappear and never ever return again *sigh*.
They aren't all real graphic design books but they really helped me improve my "design awareness".
Personally, I hate those kind of "look, how stylish we are" websites which have such a crappy usability (just look at the small fonts, the missing contrasts, etc.)
;-)
Jakob Nielsen (www.useit.com) would agree
So do I have to upgrade my TV set too, when the DVD version comes out?
People using phrases like "The fact is..." are very strange to me and sound unbelievable...
:-P
And that's a fact!
And I thought the patent system was created to protect the inventor of a thing, not the consumer of a thing.
You write: "the more people who know about present-day Java performance, the better"
Why do you think so?
Depends on the girl and the game, I guess...
Your conclusion sucks. This would be the same as this fictious story:
"Last week a woman with red hair drove her car into mine, causing an accident. That proofes that red haired women are the primary source for traffic accidents."
Windows.Forms is _NOT_ MFC.
No, since the German guy only writes the URLs of the questionable sites, but provides no A-tag to directly click.
So what's wrong with copying? Nothing!
Me too. Really funny :-)
Probably they put all their efforts into the content of the EULA and have no ressources left to implement the button handlers.
We use our own Windows-based system "zeta producer" (german) for other things like e.g. creation of Windows Help files.
Beside City Desk, I don't know any other mid-/small-sized CMS package that is NOT implemented as a browser based application, but as a full features desktop Windows application.
Is someone aware of other systems?
But the language... The language itself is really a crime to all programmers. I hate it for its lack of flexibility (ok, for a LEARNING language, as it was first designed, it's OK)
And the Borland IDEs are really bad. All those nasty bugs and crashes. I really doubt someone professional would work with it, if he isn't forced to.
I rather suggest to use VS.NET. The cross-language features (use Perl here, VC++ there, etc.) should get closest to the needs.
A very polemic opinion.
E.g. what has the HTML-code of his own website to do with his opinions on web-usability? Do you have to be an engineer to drive a car?
And why should he NOT use Verdana and Georgia on his website? Other than Arial these are fonts designed for screen-reading (BTW by Microsoft).