Actually I agree with you 100 percent.
But I have to laugh at this "What he's talking about is more to do with making admin types more skeptical / less polite" As most for the company I work for are the rudest bastards you ever want to meet. All little RMS's.
I think you are right in the sense that most companies have web based forms for password resets and have some jackass sitting there who is not per say a techinical person, just some wage slave who handles pass requests becuase it is something that the real admins disdain to do. Or like in my case, my job has about 10k people at any one time who need to be in about 30 different systems a day, each with it's own unique pass, so you can imagine the password requests that come in.
Puto
Even though I use Firefox pretty much excuslivley I just checked the memory usage under my windows box, and with one page open, Slashdot, I am at 48 megs.
Opera with 3 tabs open with all heavy images, 15 megs.
1. The blatant inaccuarcy of this charge, of the co computers of my fathers office network that run firefox and microsofts anti spyware(which is just giant with a new label) this has not happened yet.
2. None of my four machines that have windows at my own home.
2. Nor the 1000+workstations at my job that run the combo.
So of the 1024 windows box i am personally responsible for this has not happened.
Not saying it is impossible but it is pretty strange.
Have we as a community gotten better as marketing/rumor spreading than redmond? Than as something as reported we get the torches out and storm the village?
And you know for all those screaming, VNC could be a threat if you do not know it is on the machine, but then again, after first scan, choose to ignore.
I am operating system agnostic but it seems as if some of my fellow users of linux only time to take to know their own OS. I like to know all I can about all OS'es I can. Job security, and it is something I like to do, have for the past 28 some odd years of my life(I am 35).
I am just glad to see some people here stepping up and saying they think it is bogus.
1. OSX=BSD 2. Apple(someone elses idea and product 3. Cases you can open(apple 1 and 2 you could crack 4. Downloadable music. 5.USB Not to down push apple, as for r and d they do the same thing.
I use a MAch 3 for shaving my head, and a Sensor for shaving my face. And at least for me no other brand or model I have tried works well.
The Gilette Venus for ladies works wonders on a mans face, much better than the mach three. Think about it, women have more area to cover, my venus i stole from my girlfriend works wonderfully for long periods of time.
You can buy replacements from after market companies for gilettes, but you end up spending the same or more, because quality is often very poor I have tried.
i have a nokia 3600 blue tooth phone, have had it for a year, use blue tooth for a headset. Have 12 mb mmc stuck in back. Gotta couple of odd pics on it.
I have a pocket pc, and IPOD. And countless other gadgets.
At 35 this crotchety old techie who access to all things celluar, uses his phone to make and place calls. Pocket PC looks pretty on desk, ipod goes on vacations with me.
I only carry the phone. Cause I came to the realization about a year ago there was a whole lot more to life than me being connected to the net and gizmoed out.
The day I need these three things to make my life complete, well is the day I need to consider a change of careers and habits.
Pretty funny but I am someone who works for Ma cingular, well if you have access to anything it is to Cingular.com. Very few people on our network can get to the outside world.
"With VOIP and cell phones, SBC can never have the type of monopoly that AT&T once had. "
Hmm, as an employee of Cingular Wirless, which is SBC owned and operated, and who just acquired ATT wireless, SBC now has over 50 million wireless clients, and the largest TDMA/GSM network in north america.
His first ever review was of his hot dog cooker k6 chip. And the review appeared on his personal site that has since become the Behemoth that is Anandtech.
So he is partial to AMD, you could even say AMD was the piece of sand that turned into his personal pearl.
When I first saw this I was going to think he was trying to make a quick buck.
Then I thought about Kevin Smith. And I think he just going to make a movie with some friends, and have a good time. You never can go home, but you can sure as hell visit.
Things I would like to see in the movie.
1. Jays cussing Olaf with his Berserker song become a star. 2. Randall come out of the closet. 3. Randall as Dantes boss. 4. Silent Bob having a love Child with Kaitleen bree. 5. Another Hockey game on the roof" any balls down there, BOUT THE BIGGEST PAIR YOU WILL EVER SEE" 6. What number of dicks Dantes ex is actually on now.
I own an powerbook, and an Ipod. And various pc's with a hodge podge of Os's. And trust me I am not an apple dfany boy.
But I work with plenty, and almost married a girl with an apple centric family. Who on a whim I gave an XP pc(now they love surfing the net on it).
However, I can say it has never been considered geeky to own apple stuff. It has always been trendy, that is how apple has marketed its stuff for years. Why you see so many people sitting at starbucks drinking 5 dollar hot colored waters with their macs. Cause it is cool.
I live my powerbook, it is what i do a great deal of work on. As well as my Dell inspiron, depends on what mood I am, and both perform equally well..
As for getting stop by "common folk". Well what are common folk, the unwashed? The un appled? There is an elitist aitude with many apple users I do not like.
And no offense. But I meet people without carrying my gadgets around. I call it a " I SMILE"
I worked in the electronic department at Sears and saw this no questions return policy abused.
People woule buy a video camera, use it for a wedding, then bring it back say they didnt like it. Even got one back that had seawater in it and the lady said it came that way. Manager made me take them both back(and commission was retroactive). Hell, they would take things back thate were a year or two old and give them a percentage of the full price back.
Craftmans tools, life time warranty. People would show up with tools so old and funky just for new ones. I caught one of our old faithful returnees at a flea marker, buying used craftsman stuff, returning it for new and then reselling it for almost new prices.
Sears no questions return policy almost put them out of business. The abuse was rampant.
As someone who works for a technology company who has a an office in Atlanta. AND whos CEO is on the constant push to move him up there. I beg to differ.
Our office is in Buckhead, and within a 60 mile readius there is nothing cheap in Atlanta nor in most of Georgia.
After doing the cost of living expenses for the quality of life I maintain in Florida, my salary would have to raise 25k a year from its current level so I can live in the same manner I enjoy in Florida.
Granted georgia does have some backwoods areas but it does have its metropolitans as well. I suggest you visit something other than the airport.
And as for the car unions. Hell, I agree with you. Though, I still personally have a hard time buying American cars, as my japanese ones have caused far less trouble than the american counterparts. And trust me, I have owned from just about every major auto manufacturing country.
Also, unions are good. But they also foster whiny bitches. No one says a job has to be fun or interesting, just safe.
Pardon me Antoine but you need to lay the crack pipe down and get a grip.
I have had top of the line Palms and PPCs with all the fixings and nowhere near paid that much. And these devices have *Loads* of software free and purchased on the market.
I use a Dell Axim supplied by work and am pretty happy with it.
I am daily linux user, have been for years. But 645? There goes the TCO argument.
I can get a laptop for 645. A 4 day trip to mexico.
If our product annoyed a large amount of customers to where it was a detriment to our business, or the fortune 200-500 companies that use is, I doubt Forbes would see it in the light they do, and I doubt that I would still receive my handsome paycheck every two weeks.
We sell web communication software. Groopz is not what built the company. But it damn sure keeps us in business and in the black.
On our side, if someone says they are just browsing we let them go.
Not to offend but I checked your personal site. Intelligent mathematicians, coder libretarians, are probably not true capitalists. You have had a succesful career doing what you do. However, it is not involved in economics, people, and making money. Our company is unique in the fact that the majority of our products are for building communities for people to interact. We have written one sales tool(Groopz) and it has been a greate success.
People like you can investigate, discover, what they want to buy on their own. You have ample intelligence for this(card carrying Mensa member and all) However, the majority of the customers who cross our path want help and advice, and are only thrilled that we contact them.
If companies like HP, Hitachi, Verio, Thawte, and Rackspace have done feasibility studies, real world testing, and weighed all odds(included annoying.000000001% of the population) and decided that it was a good idea, then they probably are right.
We might have a difference of opinion but the proofs in the pudding. We are doing a thriving business, and our customers do really love our product.
Maybe it is a little evident that you havent done real time metrics on actual live chat.
I work for the company that makes Groopz. As I have said it is not our primary product. We wrote it to sell and promote our other software as well as professional services.
We have actually not monitored our site for week long increments, and tracked number of leads and revenue as compared to call ins and people using the forms on the web to contact us for further information.
Revenue with groopz averaged 20k a week. Without betweek 5-8. Leads with groups are higher by a factor of five.
The whole idea of build the site and they will come is great. But most people will not be bothered to fill out a form, or call. They will continue browsing and looking for similar products.
As a matter of fact most smart consumers, especially in the tech world, gauge a companies initial response time by first contact. If they have to wait three days for someone to remail them back from a webform that was sent to a mailbox called sales@whatever.com and was lost in spam, they probably have purchased something else.
If you go to a tradeshow, pay a fortune for a booth. Do you leave it empty? Hope that someone grabs a flyer, and calls you?
Kudos for the compliment. I work for the company that designs and sells Groopz. We work hard to make our product solid and feature rich.
And honestly it depends on the product and the salesperson behind the software.
I use Groopz everyday. And I sell an inordinate amount of software with it. Groopz is not our only product nor was it our first one. We developed it for us, and then we decided to try and sell it. It has been a win win for our company and allowed us to easily whether the dot.com bust.
Easy nuumbers are this way. Through Groopz if you contact 20 people a day, that is 100 a week. Say you get 20 leads from it, 5 turn into sales. Those are 20 sales that you wouldnt have gotten from normal venues.
I work for the company that writes the software that Rackspace uses.
We initially wrote the software to use in house to for our sales and support team, but people quickly started to use it and like it.
That being said I am going to answer a few things that I see popping up here.
1. Our sales staff are all technical, network engineers, developers you name it. So when you page someone on our site, you get someone knowledgable about networks, internet, webservers, etc, so they can guid you.
They are many companies that use our tool and similar ones to provide sales and they dont provide quality sales people. So if you have retail store or webstore, you need good sales people.
2. Our products are cross platform. You hear me. Server side Linux, Windows, Xserve, Solaris. Operator side as well. We develop on OSX then port.
3. Support staff are always the hardest people to please with tools, and the more you give them to do the less they like it. I rode a support desk for 5 years and I was a stubborn son of a bitch. However with online support you get the benefit of being able to have 2-6 people in a chat, as opposed to one on one on the phone. It actually makes you work more efficiently. And all communication is logged for QA, and you can email the transcript to your CRM system and the customer. It allows for efficiency.
The biggest gripe I see here on slashdot is that you do not want to be browsing and someone popup. Well here is my opinion on that from a business standpoint and a computer liberal. If I am a business man, and I am paying thousands of dollars for design, hosting, bandwidth, not too mention my products. I want my salespeoople to have every advantage that they can.
IT makes no sense to build a beautiful venue for window shopping only.
Our software has increased companies revenues up to 700 percent, allowing for more jobs, pay raises, in the technical industry.
I personally have to use the software everyday and abouot.0001 percent of the people we contact get bent out of shape. Most are amazed and want to know more.
As a tech, I think it might be a little intrusive, but then again, if you got your nose pressed against a retail establishment window, someone will come and talk to you. And what is wrong with saying just browsing.
This type of software adds the human element to an otherwise cold web. Which many people on Slashdot tend to lose because most of us sent behind monitors all day and on high horses.
www.groopz.com That is the product Rackspace uses. That is our site.
It is really funny the level of fervor behind Mysql. So funny it makes you wonder if the zealots have ever used anything other to any real extent.
The company I work for software's backend can go Mysql, Postgres, Mssql, Db2, or Oracle.
For massivce connections, queries, reporting, reliability it is in this order.
1. Mssql, DB2, Oracle, all pretty much equal. 2, Postegres, tricky but holds its own. 3. Mysql, will work in the low end, forget reporting, forget huge db hits.
I like Mysql. But Mssql 7.0 hands its ass to it.
What happens is some company will be our product. Hand it over to some 25 year old self proclaimed web genius to install. Conversation is as follows.
1. "Can I have the Source?" No, it is closed, long discussion about how we suck cause our product isn't open source. 2. "Ewwww, Java, it sucks, you should rewrite in PHP" I explain it has been continually developed since 96, no way to stop the engine and write in PHP. 4."I decided to save the company some money and install Mysql" We say ok, explain issues, put them in an email and fax(CYA principle). I then advise to run Postegre, that it is more robust, and is FREE as well.
No one lists. Junior installs on Mysql, everything runs fine, site gets huge amount of traffic, database gets quirky. Management starts running huge queries on database reporting tool. Database is very slow to respond, then in a few weeks keels over.
We get called. Tech is yelling, my guys are smirking(but still polite on phone) Management, myself, and tech gets on conference. Tech starts berating me. Management starts berating me. I pull out magic email and fax with all my system recquirements, suggestions for optimal use. Hey, guess what I was write. Wait a minute, shouldn't I know best since I work for the company that writes and support the product?
Three times a week this happens with Mysql. We have 14000 customers and I swear 50 percent have some guy that thinks he knows best.... knows our product better, knows computers better...
This is a great example of where our community needs to clean up its act. And I thought I would never say that.
Mysql is good for what it is, but there are many things it is not. Learn this.
As a guy who works for an all Java shop we view it a sad day for use when everyone starts making their own JVMS. Because we only officially support Suns. IBM has a good one. And I know of some russian and japanese custome ones that kick ass.
We start seeing more than one JVM and it will be like the customers who ask as why we dont have RPMS, just tar balls.
Example customer"Your software doesnt work" me"are you using the Latest Sun JVM" then" No I am using the Gentodrakefedora JVM" me"Sorry we only support Suns" them"you need to make it work with mine"
Fuck it, let sun do the JVMS, we write to one and to one only.
I work for a small company(30 people) and we are an all java shop. We have several packages that we sell and support about 14000 customers. Good business for us.
Sun is our customer. And I have gotten friendly with PR and engineering. And they are making a great effort to change image and communicated with their users. And everyone I have been in contact with is extremely nice.
So when we counsel sun on our pure Java product, how to make it run well, etc, they listen. No hassles.
And my communication with them puts me on the periphery of their relationship with their users. They use our stuff to survey, communicate, and keep people happy.
Sure sometimes they are pain in the ass. But honestly out of all the biggies I consult for(Thawte,Verisign, Rackspace, HP) sun has been the coolest.
They are even better at stretching the truth than CEOs if they don't want to do something.
The new Crop of developers assume that everyone else has a 20 iq, and knows nothing about computers. And since they developers they know all about networking, system admin, hardware, operating systems. how to fly the space shuttle, and make a souffle.
And if you have a PHB who has a request that they do something they dont consider interesting, they will come up with some pseudo-techno babble reason that it can't be done, when it can, they just do not feel like doing it.
I have to mitigate all transactions between deveopers and management, and both sides are equally oafish.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I agree with you 100 percent. But I have to laugh at this "What he's talking about is more to do with making admin types more skeptical / less polite" As most for the company I work for are the rudest bastards you ever want to meet. All little RMS's. I think you are right in the sense that most companies have web based forms for password resets and have some jackass sitting there who is not per say a techinical person, just some wage slave who handles pass requests becuase it is something that the real admins disdain to do. Or like in my case, my job has about 10k people at any one time who need to be in about 30 different systems a day, each with it's own unique pass, so you can imagine the password requests that come in. Puto
Wow you are one the money!
Even though I use Firefox pretty much excuslivley I just checked the memory usage under my windows box, and with one page open, Slashdot, I am at 48 megs.
Opera with 3 tabs open with all heavy images, 15 megs.
WTF?
Puto
1. The blatant inaccuarcy of this charge, of the co computers of my fathers office network that run firefox and microsofts anti spyware(which is just giant with a new label) this has not happened yet.
2. None of my four machines that have windows at my own home.
2. Nor the 1000+workstations at my job that run the combo.
So of the 1024 windows box i am personally responsible for this has not happened.
Not saying it is impossible but it is pretty strange.
Have we as a community gotten better as marketing/rumor spreading than redmond? Than as something as reported we get the torches out and storm the village?
And you know for all those screaming, VNC could be a threat if you do not know it is on the machine, but then again, after first scan, choose to ignore.
I am operating system agnostic but it seems as if some of my fellow users of linux only time to take to know their own OS. I like to know all I can about all OS'es I can. Job security, and it is something I like to do, have for the past 28 some odd years of my life(I am 35).
I am just glad to see some people here stepping up and saying they think it is bogus.
Puto
You mean like apple?
1. OSX=BSD
2. Apple(someone elses idea and product
3. Cases you can open(apple 1 and 2 you could crack
4. Downloadable music.
5.USB
Not to down push apple, as for r and d they do the same thing.
Puto
I agree.
I use a MAch 3 for shaving my head, and a Sensor for shaving my face. And at least for me no other brand or model I have tried works well.
The Gilette Venus for ladies works wonders on a mans face, much better than the mach three. Think about it, women have more area to cover, my venus i stole from my girlfriend works wonderfully for long periods of time.
You can buy replacements from after market companies for gilettes, but you end up spending the same or more, because quality is often very poor I have tried.
Puto
Who also works for cingular wireless GASP.
i have a nokia 3600 blue tooth phone, have had it for a year, use blue tooth for a headset. Have 12 mb mmc stuck in back. Gotta couple of odd pics on it.
I have a pocket pc, and IPOD. And countless other gadgets.
At 35 this crotchety old techie who access to all things celluar, uses his phone to make and place calls. Pocket PC looks pretty on desk, ipod goes on vacations with me.
I only carry the phone. Cause I came to the realization about a year ago there was a whole lot more to life than me being connected to the net and gizmoed out.
The day I need these three things to make my life complete, well is the day I need to consider a change of careers and habits.
Puto
Hmm, I have a several no name portable usb 2.0 hard drives, and all are bootable.
Google it up.
Puto
Pretty funny but I am someone who works for Ma cingular, well if you have access to anything it is to Cingular.com. Very few people on our network can get to the outside world.
Puto
"With VOIP and cell phones, SBC can never have the type of monopoly that AT&T once had. "
Hmm, as an employee of Cingular Wirless, which is SBC owned and operated, and who just acquired ATT wireless, SBC now has over 50 million wireless clients, and the largest TDMA/GSM network in north america.
Puto
Oh ye of little knowledge of Anandtech.
His first ever review was of his hot dog cooker k6 chip. And the review appeared on his personal site that has since become the Behemoth that is Anandtech.
So he is partial to AMD, you could even say AMD was the piece of sand that turned into his personal pearl.
Puto
When I first saw this I was going to think he was trying to make a quick buck.
Then I thought about Kevin Smith. And I think he just going to make a movie with some friends, and have a good time. You never can go home, but you can sure as hell visit.
Things I would like to see in the movie.
1. Jays cussing Olaf with his Berserker song become a star.
2. Randall come out of the closet.
3. Randall as Dantes boss.
4. Silent Bob having a love Child with Kaitleen bree.
5. Another Hockey game on the roof" any balls down there, BOUT THE BIGGEST PAIR YOU WILL EVER SEE"
6. What number of dicks Dantes ex is actually on now.
Puto
I own an powerbook, and an Ipod. And various pc's with a hodge podge of Os's. And trust me I am not an apple dfany boy.
But I work with plenty, and almost married a girl with an apple centric family. Who on a whim I gave an XP pc(now they love surfing the net on it).
However, I can say it has never been considered geeky to own apple stuff. It has always been trendy, that is how apple has marketed its stuff for years. Why you see so many people sitting at starbucks drinking 5 dollar hot colored waters with their macs. Cause it is cool.
I live my powerbook, it is what i do a great deal of work on. As well as my Dell inspiron, depends on what mood I am, and both perform equally well..
As for getting stop by "common folk". Well what are common folk, the unwashed? The un appled? There is an elitist aitude with many apple users I do not like.
And no offense. But I meet people without carrying my gadgets around. I call it a " I SMILE"
Puto
Well,
I worked in the electronic department at Sears and saw this no questions return policy abused.
People woule buy a video camera, use it for a wedding, then bring it back say they didnt like it. Even got one back that had seawater in it and the lady said it came that way. Manager made me take them both back(and commission was retroactive). Hell, they would take things back thate were a year or two old and give them a percentage of the full price back.
Craftmans tools, life time warranty. People would show up with tools so old and funky just for new ones. I caught one of our old faithful returnees at a flea marker, buying used craftsman stuff, returning it for new and then reselling it for almost new prices.
Sears no questions return policy almost put them out of business. The abuse was rampant.
Puto
As someone who works for a technology company who has a an office in Atlanta. AND whos CEO is on the constant push to move him up there. I beg to differ.
Our office is in Buckhead, and within a 60 mile readius there is nothing cheap in Atlanta nor in most of Georgia.
After doing the cost of living expenses for the quality of life I maintain in Florida, my salary would have to raise 25k a year from its current level so I can live in the same manner I enjoy in Florida.
Granted georgia does have some backwoods areas but it does have its metropolitans as well. I suggest you visit something other than the airport.
And as for the car unions. Hell, I agree with you. Though, I still personally have a hard time buying American cars, as my japanese ones have caused far less trouble than the american counterparts. And trust me, I have owned from just about every major auto manufacturing country.
Also, unions are good. But they also foster whiny bitches. No one says a job has to be fun or interesting, just safe.
Puto
Pardon me Antoine but you need to lay the crack pipe down and get a grip.
I have had top of the line Palms and PPCs with all the fixings and nowhere near paid that much. And these devices have *Loads* of software free and purchased on the market.
I use a Dell Axim supplied by work and am pretty happy with it.
I am daily linux user, have been for years. But 645? There goes the TCO argument.
I can get a laptop for 645. A 4 day trip to mexico.
Puto
If our product annoyed a large amount of customers to where it was a detriment to our business, or the fortune 200-500 companies that use is, I doubt Forbes would see it in the light they do, and I doubt that I would still receive my handsome paycheck every two weeks.
.000000001% of the population) and decided that it was a good idea, then they probably are right.
We sell web communication software. Groopz is not what built the company. But it damn sure keeps us in business and in the black.
On our side, if someone says they are just browsing we let them go.
Not to offend but I checked your personal site. Intelligent mathematicians, coder libretarians, are probably not true capitalists. You have had a succesful career doing what you do. However, it is not involved in economics, people, and making money. Our company is unique in the fact that the majority of our products are for building communities for people to interact. We have written one sales tool(Groopz) and it has been a greate success.
People like you can investigate, discover, what they want to buy on their own. You have ample intelligence for this(card carrying Mensa member and all) However, the majority of the customers who cross our path want help and advice, and are only thrilled that we contact them.
If companies like HP, Hitachi, Verio, Thawte, and Rackspace have done feasibility studies, real world testing, and weighed all odds(included annoying
We might have a difference of opinion but the proofs in the pudding. We are doing a thriving business, and our customers do really love our product.
Puto
Maybe it is a little evident that you havent done real time metrics on actual live chat.
I work for the company that makes Groopz. As I have said it is not our primary product. We wrote it to sell and promote our other software as well as professional services.
We have actually not monitored our site for week long increments, and tracked number of leads and revenue as compared to call ins and people using the forms on the web to contact us for further information.
Revenue with groopz averaged 20k a week. Without betweek 5-8. Leads with groups are higher by a factor of five.
The whole idea of build the site and they will come is great. But most people will not be bothered to fill out a form, or call. They will continue browsing and looking for similar products.
As a matter of fact most smart consumers, especially in the tech world, gauge a companies initial response time by first contact. If they have to wait three days for someone to remail them back from a webform that was sent to a mailbox called sales@whatever.com and was lost in spam, they probably have purchased something else.
If you go to a tradeshow, pay a fortune for a booth. Do you leave it empty? Hope that someone grabs a flyer, and calls you?
They call the company that took the extra effort.
Puto
To be exact Digi-Net Technologies. The company in my sig is a webhosting gig I do on my side.
Puto
Kudos for the compliment. I work for the company that designs and sells Groopz. We work hard to make our product solid and feature rich.
And honestly it depends on the product and the salesperson behind the software.
I use Groopz everyday. And I sell an inordinate amount of software with it. Groopz is not our only product nor was it our first one. We developed it for us, and then we decided to try and sell it. It has been a win win for our company and allowed us to easily whether the dot.com bust.
Easy nuumbers are this way. Through Groopz if you contact 20 people a day, that is 100 a week. Say you get 20 leads from it, 5 turn into sales. Those are 20 sales that you wouldnt have gotten from normal venues.
Puto
I work for the company that writes the software that Rackspace uses.
.0001 percent of the people we contact get bent out of shape. Most are amazed and want to know more.
We initially wrote the software to use in house to for our sales and support team, but people quickly started to use it and like it.
That being said I am going to answer a few things that I see popping up here.
1. Our sales staff are all technical, network engineers, developers you name it. So when you page someone on our site, you get someone knowledgable about networks, internet, webservers, etc, so they can guid you.
They are many companies that use our tool and similar ones to provide sales and they dont provide quality sales people. So if you have retail store or webstore, you need good sales people.
2. Our products are cross platform. You hear me. Server side Linux, Windows, Xserve, Solaris. Operator side as well. We develop on OSX then port.
3. Support staff are always the hardest people to please with tools, and the more you give them to do the less they like it. I rode a support desk for 5 years and I was a stubborn son of a bitch. However with online support you get the benefit of being able to have 2-6 people in a chat, as opposed to one on one on the phone. It actually makes you work more efficiently. And all communication is logged for QA, and you can email the transcript to your CRM system and the customer. It allows for efficiency.
The biggest gripe I see here on slashdot is that you do not want to be browsing and someone popup. Well here is my opinion on that from a business standpoint and a computer liberal. If I am a business man, and I am paying thousands of dollars for design, hosting, bandwidth, not too mention my products. I want my salespeoople to have every advantage that they can.
IT makes no sense to build a beautiful venue for window shopping only.
Our software has increased companies revenues up to 700 percent, allowing for more jobs, pay raises, in the technical industry.
I personally have to use the software everyday and abouot
As a tech, I think it might be a little intrusive, but then again, if you got your nose pressed against a retail establishment window, someone will come and talk to you. And what is wrong with saying just browsing.
This type of software adds the human element to an otherwise cold web. Which many people on Slashdot tend to lose because most of us sent behind monitors all day and on high horses.
www.groopz.com That is the product Rackspace uses. That is our site.
Puto
It is really funny the level of fervor behind Mysql. So funny it makes you wonder if the zealots have ever used anything other to any real extent.
The company I work for software's backend can go Mysql, Postgres, Mssql, Db2, or Oracle.
For massivce connections, queries, reporting, reliability it is in this order.
1. Mssql, DB2, Oracle, all pretty much equal.
2, Postegres, tricky but holds its own.
3. Mysql, will work in the low end, forget reporting, forget huge db hits.
I like Mysql. But Mssql 7.0 hands its ass to it.
What happens is some company will be our product. Hand it over to some 25 year old self proclaimed web genius to install. Conversation is as follows.
1. "Can I have the Source?" No, it is closed, long discussion about how we suck cause our product isn't open source.
2. "Ewwww, Java, it sucks, you should rewrite in PHP" I explain it has been continually developed since 96, no way to stop the engine and write in PHP.
4."I decided to save the company some money and install Mysql" We say ok, explain issues, put them in an email and fax(CYA principle). I then advise to run Postegre, that it is more robust, and is FREE as well.
No one lists. Junior installs on Mysql, everything runs fine, site gets huge amount of traffic, database gets quirky. Management starts running huge queries on database reporting tool. Database is very slow to respond, then in a few weeks keels over.
We get called. Tech is yelling, my guys are smirking(but still polite on phone) Management, myself, and tech gets on conference. Tech starts berating me. Management starts berating me. I pull out magic email and fax with all my system recquirements, suggestions for optimal use. Hey, guess what I was write. Wait a minute, shouldn't I know best since I work for the company that writes and support the product?
Three times a week this happens with Mysql. We have 14000 customers and I swear 50 percent have some guy that thinks he knows best.... knows our product better, knows computers better...
This is a great example of where our community needs to clean up its act. And I thought I would never say that.
Mysql is good for what it is, but there are many things it is not. Learn this.
Puto
Hmmmm,
I have been paying 500 for my msdn for years. And I can get OEM copies of office for 250 for clients.
All about who you know and where to go.
Puto
Agreed,
As a guy who works for an all Java shop we view it a sad day for use when everyone starts making their own JVMS. Because we only officially support Suns. IBM has a good one. And I know of some russian and japanese custome ones that kick ass.
We start seeing more than one JVM and it will be like the customers who ask as why we dont have RPMS, just tar balls.
Example
customer"Your software doesnt work"
me"are you using the Latest Sun JVM"
then" No I am using the Gentodrakefedora JVM"
me"Sorry we only support Suns"
them"you need to make it work with mine"
Fuck it, let sun do the JVMS, we write to one and to one only.
Puto
Agreed,
I work for a small company(30 people) and we are an all java shop. We have several packages that we sell and support about 14000 customers. Good business for us.
Sun is our customer. And I have gotten friendly with PR and engineering. And they are making a great effort to change image and communicated with their users. And everyone I have been in contact with is extremely nice.
So when we counsel sun on our pure Java product, how to make it run well, etc, they listen. No hassles.
And my communication with them puts me on the periphery of their relationship with their users. They use our stuff to survey, communicate, and keep people happy.
Sure sometimes they are pain in the ass. But honestly out of all the biggies I consult for(Thawte,Verisign, Rackspace, HP) sun has been the coolest.
Puto
What developers only lie twice a week?
They are even better at stretching the truth than CEOs if they don't want to do something.
The new Crop of developers assume that everyone else has a 20 iq, and knows nothing about computers. And since they developers they know all about networking, system admin, hardware, operating systems. how to fly the space shuttle, and make a souffle.
And if you have a PHB who has a request that they do something they dont consider interesting, they will come up with some pseudo-techno babble reason that it can't be done, when it can, they just do not feel like doing it.
I have to mitigate all transactions between deveopers and management, and both sides are equally oafish.
Puto