Comments on: Seattle Xcoders Coverage: Golden % Braeburn

By: Required Name

Required Name — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:03:26 +0000

I won’t consider that an excuse. It is simply impossible to ensure something will work for 100% of people. Yes, they’ll notice if the 1% becomes 5% or 10%, but it hasn’t has it? Will it? Don’t seem likely.

By: Alex Blewitt

Alex Blewitt — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:56:19 +0000

That’s exactly the excuse used by poor site developers who put “only works on Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater” on each page because they don’t care about the 1%. The problem is that the 1% ends up being 5% which ends up being 10% and then you start to notice.

By: macpug

macpug — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:50:22 +0000

@Alex Wil’s “lacklustre response”, as you put it, actually sounds quite considerate. You’re bashing his system, so he could have sent a snarky response, or none at all. Instead, he took time to acknowledge your issue and even explained why it’s happening.

I know dozens of people across the U.S., in Canada, and in the U.K. (and a couple in other countries) who’ve all either purchased DL2 or upgraded to it. None of them had issues. If you really want the app (and it is truly “delicious”) go to a WiFi cafe or a friend’s house and pick it up.

Also, like Wil says, they mail the receipts, so there’s no need for a screen grab; but if there were, use the default scrrenshot command, or the grab utility that’s hiding in your Mac’s utilities folder. Sounds like you’re just grasping at straws when you’re complaining that DL doesn’t have a screen capture utility built in.

By the way, you should get ready to either correctly configure your network or live without some great apps…quite a few devs at WWDC jumped on the G%B bandwagon

By: Alex Blewitt

Alex Blewitt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:15:59 +0000

Not so much ax grinding - I’m a potential customer, I want to purchase it, I just can’t. How many thousands doesn’t Delicious sell to customers who are not able to use the in-app store?

By: Chris Myers

Chris Myers — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:06:21 +0000

@Alex, seems like there is a bit of an ax grinding going on here.

From all reports, Delicious Library sells thousands of copies and wins awards from Apple and Macworld. Yet you’re the only one screaming this issue.

I think we’ll be alright.

By: Alex Blewitt

Alex Blewitt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:55:03 +0000

The only problem with this is that it does not work if you’re not directly connected to the net, with a public IP address and no firewalls blocking random ports on 5123 or whatever. If you run behind a NAT device, or there’s a firewall which prevents you connecting to non-standard ports, or simply if you’re on a network where it’s a private subnet with (say) HTTP proxies to connect you to the outside world, this solution is fundamentally broken. In addition, there’s no plans to fix this breakage.

Given the reports of IPv4 addresses running out, and different speeds of IPv6 rollout, many ISPs are now running with either private, non-routable addresses or (to prevent spammers) locking down non-standard open ports. A purchasing system should not be technically hobbled by choosing to not use the standard HTTP infrastructure which will be used to download the application in the first place, which only causes to frustrate customers and turn them away from your product.

Full write up at http://alblue.blogspot.com/2008/07/will-golden-braeburn-be-golden-lemon.html, including Wil’s lacklustre response.

So, if you want to randomly ignore your potential customer base, go ahead and use Golden Lemon.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:13:12 +0000

I appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I wanted to make it up to Seattle for the presentation, but couldn’t get out of town.

G%B looks like a great product. I imagine we’ll see a new customer or two to run the backend of the app.