Home
About
Apple
Career
Experiences
General
Graphics
Hardware
History
Humor
Interface
Networking
OS
Opinion
Politics
Programming
Quotes
Reviews
Security
Software
Sound
Thought
Web
Cheap International
Airfare Online
Wachovia online banking
Get Free Coupons Online
Finding the perfect
discount hot tub
Payday Loans
Stock Trading Online
Stuffed Animals
Smart Investing Online
|
|
Letter from Douglas Adams -
The ultimate customer complaint letter
By: Douglas Adams
|
Kind:
Created:
Size: |
Article
0000-00-00 00:00:00
2 KB |
|
|
|
 his is a real letter from Douglas Adams (writer of Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy among others) - about a support problem he was having. This should just be a form letter
Sub: Now Up to Date Dear Now Software people,
Have I found a bug? I'm running multi-user Now Up-To-Date 2.0 (which is an excellent and invaluable program, by the way, and would be absolutely perfect if it included a multi-user network up-datable address book as well and if your foreign distributors were distinguishable from a pack of epileptic monkeys).
The problem I'm having is this: I use Apple Remote Access a lot to dial into my office computer from my PowerBook 170, and have recently found that more often than not I can't connect properly. The modem answers but doesn't pass me through to the network. The usual fix is to get my secretary to restart my office Mac. What I've noticed is this: the problem seems always to occur after any ARA session when I've used Now Up-to-Date. Is there a connection?
Re the epileptic monkey problem: have you considered CD ROM distribution? I know that there is a new outfit in England run by Greg Rice (ex-Supermac) for distributing software on regularly shipped CD-ROMs. You try a demo of the product, and if you want to buy it you phone in your credit card number, etc. etc. Same principle as is regularly used for fonts. Boy, would it make life simpler.
Apart from the fact that most software distributors operate at a general level of competence that verges on the criminally culpable, there is one area in which they seem to display particularly sub-simian obtuseness which is that multi-user network software. They never even know what you're talking about.
While I was trying to get my Version 2 update, the distributor claimed there was no such thing and tried to sell me five single-user versions of the program. I notice as well that when the magazines review or grade software they rarely distinguish between networkable and non-networkable products. This is not trivial. I suggest that as far as the magazines are concerned you work to make them network-aware, and as far as your distributors are concerned, that you kill them, but not, please, in any swift or humane way. I couldn't bear to think of them passing away peacefully in their sleep after all the suffering they've caused. Make them hide in Paraguay for a few years in daily fear of their lives and then hunt them down with a pack of drug-crazed psychotic sadists who will kill them slowly with very small heated tweezers. It's the only way.
I think I need a walk and some fresh air.
Best wishes, Douglas Adams
 Format for Printing  Mail
|
|
|
|
