Subject: From: Date:

[Fwd: ECS] Mark Gilmore Mon, 10 Aug 1998 12:47:06 -0700

Mon, 10 Aug 1998 12:47:06 -0700

---

I would appreciate any constructive criticism regarding
the following comments from a frustrated installer.

Please do NOT respond to him, as I did not get his permission.

BTW, The install directions ARE in the README.TXT (I downloaded
it and checked), and I think he ran SETUP instead of INSTALL.

Should I rename *.DOC to *.TXT to avoid various editors from
assuming a format other than plain text ?

Thanks.
-- 
Mark Gilmore
Omnipotence
http://members.a2zsol.com/omnipotence.html

Subject:
From:
Date:
 Re: ECS
 Harold Harrington
 Mon, 10 Aug 1998 10:06:21 -0400

The install program appears to fail if there is a long name with spaces
in the fully qualified file name.  When setup starts it appears to run
as a 16 bit DOS application.  I do not generally view that as
acceptable. When I was in setup it failed immediately with the message
"Invalid startup directory, please check your pif file"; not a real NT
flavor message.  It showed the file name E:\downlo~1\X10\setup.exe.  It
was clearly having trouble with the path E:\downloads\X10\setup.exe.  My
experience with installs like this is that they are also sufficiently
unsophisticated to avoid damaging the system by replacing newer files
with old ones.  Now I could make this run by building a new directory
with a DOS compliant name. But, it will also prevent placing the
executable where it is supposed to go  x:\Program Files\.

Your read.me file's only information about installing is for a pure DOS
environment. And it does not actually tell a person how to install, just
how to unzip.  I suspect most users will simply drag the file to WINZIP
or something of that ilk to unzip it. While I do not need this
information, it again says "old, DOS, unsophisticated".  It is also  a
VERY  ugly text file.  It is full of capital A's with a pair of dots
over them.  I assume that is from lines or something you used in the
text.  But you did not bother to look and see what they look like in
Notepad; probably the single most likely program that the user will use
to view the file.  You did not understand that in Windows (any version)
.DOC means Word.

All of these things, rightly or not, say to me this is not an up-to-date
program regardless of what the vendor's words on the web say.  It says
to me that here is an old DOS or UNIX or something programmer that
simply has not kept up to date.  Why should I trust any code this person
or persons has created.  There are install programs available that
simply so not have these problems and I expect anything I intend to pay
money for to be using them. You are selling a not-inexpensive program
here (full version).  It would be the most expensive piece of software I
purchased for quite some time and I have some generally high end office
applications.

When I evaluate a product, I install and evaluate a product.  I do not
expect to have to change standard conventions (\Program Files\) to
accommodate them.  I do not go to opinion boards after the product fails
to perform.  The product has to work the first time "out of the box",
and it has to work as I expect any current commercial product to work.
You may have an excellent product when it is finally installed, but the
whole package has to be at that level. I have scanned your .doc file and
the program has some very interesting features.   However, I believe
from a marketing standpoint your product makes a very bad first
impression for the reasons I have stated.

You may well disagree with all of this since you clearly have not
believed it necessary to do it differently.  It may be I am alone in
these views; a distinct possibility.  There may be also be more of us
who simply don't take the significant amount time to send a detailed
memo; we just don't use it.  I have looked at a couple of other X10
programs in the last few days.  One in particular has such wretched
thinking behind its' user interface that I would not consider using it
under any circumstances.  It would be so simple for the author to make
the interface user friendly. It looked like he was just enamored with
the new tools in his VB (?) tool kit and wanted to use as many of the
cute things as possible.  His choices are those of someone with no
understanding of human interface design. He failed in the same manner as
many web sites in losing sight of the fact that the user is trying to do
work or get information, not watch detailed pictures of the company
headquarters or animated whatevers. Even when he sat there and tested it
you would have thought he would have noticed it was ill-thought. But I
am not sending them a note.

The HTML thing - when I started sending the email Netscape generated a
message (which I do not see very often although I use a lot of email)
that said essentially that the recipient did not accept HTML.  Why this
was generated I do not know.


 Mon, 10 Aug 1998 10:06:21 -0400