Client Work

Kingdon’s Java project has got to go on hold for time being, we have got some clients come in and my skills are needed here first.

Some Joe wants a server running Apache, and he thinks he needs SSH access. He just wants to get his files online and set himself up for some web-based advertising, the man likes to use libraries and scripts, but with the web climate today I think he shouldn’t need SSH or root access at all. We can do probably everything he needs just interfacing through web applications, for sure.

You can install pretty much anything in a web container, so long as the web container is set up to handle the languages you’re introducing to it. We’re going to show off Subversion and SVNControl (ed: haven’t been able to make SVNControl work, or the ruby-based alternative WarehouseApp.  Bummer!), so if he’s only doing web hosting he won’t really need FTP or any of those other protocols, just old-fashioned files and folders like Mom always used, and a client for synchronization of files and folders with the server.

FolderShare would also work great, for small-scale server deployments where annotations are not required.  Except, no direct Linux support… and we can’t really have that.

Next, we’ve got our friendly neighborhood executive officer who is pretty heavily invested in the internet, interested to diversify has decided to pursue an advanced degree. This friend is working on defining a personal wall of separation from the company for professional reasons, call it a handbag.

The Corporate Executive has an IT department to work with, but they actually bill quite a lot more than we do, and tend to have their hands full with a billion requests from a billion parties as well as helping with product testing and research. The Executive has also got A Network™.

The Network is smart, but the reps apparently didn’t catch an issue that the neighborhood geek was afraid would pop up—a USB 1.1 connection does not support the high-speed bus interactions of a modern network, it only supports “full-speed,” which is lower than “high-speed.” How oddly named these standards have become.

Anyway, it works OK with the PC that supports Vista.

With XP and a Pentium III, service is intermittent (the device works briefly, then suddenly doesn’t work) and this is characteristic of an upstream service problem in my book. The techs kept our friend on the phone for about 5 hours insisting that it was a problem with the computer and not the device—a totally inaccurate assessment, the pairing was flawed, and so neither device is “at fault,” only the salesperson.

They are both operating within specifications, it’s just that the specifications’ names are so carefully crafted that only a “trained professional” would see the issue interfacing the two. Who would ever guess that “high speed” is greater than “full speed?” Surely the problem is related to a local firewall or some other issue, “our device is not at fault and no we don’t have anyone to escalate the problem, you have an IT department of your own don’t you?”

Sure, spend some resources. It’s your network. Who trained these sales people? Who trained these customers? I’m not responsible for that.

Last but not least we’ve made a friend in another brick-and-mortar business, and he’s interested to increase the size of our web marketing chops. He’s got a graphic designer on staff who has passed along some documents in Publisher format, which is a problem because our web publishing staff doesn’t think they need anything from Microsoft, and I tend to think they’re right.

Unless we can hire a translator (Adobe + HP to the Rescue!) this solitary client has just served each of our developers with a bill for Office 2003 and ostensibly some minimal training for MS Publisher. It’s probably cheaper than teaching how to wield HTML or Dreamweaver, and either of those options would kind of eliminate the need for me to be involved in this work.

Bummer!

Yours truly, jackthemac@live.com