At 16:34 1999-12-25 +0700, tracer wrote:
> Hello Frank Farance,
> On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 23:06:54 -0500 GMT your local time,
> which was Friday, December 24, 1999, 11:06:54 AM (GMT+0700) my local time,
> Frank Farance wrote:
>
> Frank> The Bat somehow corrupts the registry when you select it as the default
>mailer. The following test should recreate the problem:
>
> Frank> 1. Install Eudora Light
> Frank> 2. Run Eudora so it asks "should I be your default mail program?".
>Answer Yes.
> Frank> 3. Install The Bat.
> Frank> 4. Run The Bat so it asks "should I be your default mail program?".
>Answer Yes.
> Frank> 5. Run Eudora again so it asks "should I be your default mail
>program?". Answer Yes.
> Frank> 6. Winodws will crash hard.
> Well, Blame a Mr Gates, Eudora, the Bat or yourself.
> specifying 2 captains on the ship is asking a bit for potential
> problems.
>
> Frank> It is difficult to fix the registry at this point. My solution is to exit
>from Windows to DOS mode and type:
>
> Frank> scanreg /restore
>
> Frank> Which can restore yesterday's copy of the registry. I'm not sure if this
>works on all Win98 workstations. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work on Win95
>workstations. I've had no problem with
> Frank> Eudora and other mailers (Outlook, Netscape), so I think the problem is
>related to The Bat.
> By a restore you bring everything back as it was before you added
> things and it says nothing about whats to blame UNLESS you export
> registry before and after the mess and compare line by line.
>
> Frank> My configuration? IBM ThinkPad 770X with 320MB RAM, Pentium 300MHz, running
>Win98 (first edition). Resources are not a problem because you can recreate the
>windows crashing problem just after
> Frank> reboot.
> In which case problem can also be the thinkpad.
> IBM makes nice portables but like Compaq's they are a bit
> temperamental.
There's a difference between a bug report (which I was providing), a higher quality
bug report (a method for reproducing the problem), and a bug fix (which I was not
providing). You don't have the most effective attitude for getting more "The Bat!"
customers because you are looking to shift blame everywhere else (including the
ThinkPad!). I don't know exactly what the cause is ... yet. However, I did try to
reliably reproduce the problem and report it to this list. If you are going to piss
on customers that try to give higher quality bug reports, then you are going to have
fewer customers.
> (snip the complaints).
> Considering that acc to your banner you are an IT professional your
> test methods are a bit odd. That was the first thing I noted.
> Nobody with computer experience would consider one hour adequate to
> test ANY emailer and you obviously hadnt looked any further then the
> basics of the thing as most 'problems' you reported werent problems,
Since you probably don't test things, you are probably unware that it *can* take a
short amount of time to find problems ... it usually takes longer to verify things are
good. I made the following statement to one of the other members of the mailing list:
if you want more customers, then you should have an idea why customers are walking
away from your product. Most professionals consider their time valuable. They don't
have many free hours to "play" with things. At least I'm giving you the feedback on
why *this* customer has given up on the product. You might find that valuable or not.
The real issue is: do you want more customers.
If this were my product, I'd like to fix problems ASAP and try to understand why
customers like or *dislike* my product. If I can be less emotional or defensive about
the feedback I receive, then I can get to a better product.
> just user lazyness...
> Sorry to say it ...
> This list IS useful, there Are bugs , lack of documentation and
> whatever but the program runs in general quite well.
> All of us have wishes of things to be fixed / changed.
> As with any program...
>
> If you ask for advice which isnt 20 points or whatever due to not
> spending enough time to try to use it, read the menus, why should you
> expect us to do that thinking work for you?
I guess you might label it as "laziness", "user stupidity", etc., ... but these are
*usability problems*. In a private E-mail to one list member, I make the following
statements:
"In the 1970's, the same attitude existed in software: you want a powerful
tool, you need a long learning curve. However, in the 1980's people adopted a better
paradigm: you should be able to get to novice level is a short time, and expert level
will take more effort. Help features can greatly improve the learning ... a simple
rule of thumb is: (1) every feature should have a help page, (2) every operation
should be described, (3) every question a typical user has should be answered. In
this case, I was looking for help on "edit template" ... that was not in the Help
feature."
"So I wasn't expecting to master The Bat in an hour, but I was expecting to
increase my knowledge by using the help feature ... which was inadequate."
So the above rules are simple, measurable tests that one can use to improve The Bat's
help facility. When I looked for "edit template", I didn't find it (which fails the
rules above). Of course, there is more to a help facility, but the above checklist is
a good start at improving software.
If you are interested in developing highly usable software, then there is a simple
rule: you don't get to argue with usability complaints, you only get to decide whether
or not you want to change the software to keep the customer.
Awareness of human factors issues can make systems more usable ... you have to expect
that people *do* have ways in which they are already comfortable with ... and you try
to accommodate those varieties. For products that are optional (to the customer),
comfortability is one feature that will keep or lose a customer. You don't have to
change the way The Bat works, but accommodating different styles can be very
beneficial ... in this case, I'm asking (among other things) that the UI of this Win9X
product behave similarly to other Win9X applications (I'm refering to the "caret"
placement which all breaks down once you start supporting proportional fonts). I was
also asking that the date/time facility use the internationalization and localization
features already in Win9X that accomodate my date/time preferences.
It's not a question of right or wrong, but a question of how many customers do you
want? (See below, apparently you don't want more customers.)
> Also, you post this on Eudora and you still got that damn line length
> set wrong!
Why don't you make that suggestion to the authors of The Bat that they should
incorporate some feature into the next revision of The Bat. Since many E-mail systems
support wrapping (even UNIX's dumb "mailx" program supports wrapping with
"PAGER=fold|pg"), you should see this as a potentially useful feature/improvment in
The Bat. There are other usability problems with copy and paste, but unless I hear a
request to describe them, I don't think it is worth spending my time.
My line length in Eudora is set just right. The problem is a *display* issue, not an
E-mail generation issue.
> Frank> I'm sure many of you will send criticisms of my points, but you should take a
>serious look at the questions posed above (paragraph and bullets starting with "FYI")
>and the responses given over
> Frank> the E-mail reflector. I really think you should ask yourself (1) if those
>responses I've received are reasonable, and (2) if those responses would encourage
>wide-scale use of The Bat, just as
> Frank> Eudora has.
> This list isnt there to stimulate widespread use...
Then I guess you arean't interested in increasing customers ... which means my
comments have little value to you.
Happy Holidays!
-FF
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Frank Farance, Farance Inc. T: +1 212 486 4700 F: +1 212 759 1605
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.farance.com
Standards, products, services for the Global Information Infrastructure
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