Did I mention we’d been bought out by another company some time ago? I think I may have ranted over the issue a few times

Anyway, we used to sell two products that shared some same code and did much the same. One was named after X (because it runs on Linux using X Windows) the other after windows because it runs on Windows.

The marketing guys at the new company decided they ought to have a streamlined name like “blah for windows” and ”blah for linux”. Great except we keep getting people trying to swap between them thinking they are identical. They seriously differ in places.

Choosing names is a big issue in marketing - Pen Island could have had a better name for their website than penisland.com for instance. They say the Mini Metro marketing team had to come up with a name and just as a starting point they were given 6,000 already considered and rejected!

However, a thought to engineering or even a moment to reflect why a company that knew the product used different names could have saved a whole raft of support issues and disgruntled customers. Marketing has its place but that place shouldn’t always be at the top of the heap.

Here’s an idea for a simple app - or a tweak to existing mail clients. Before sending, scan the text and if it includes the word “attached” and there isn’t an attachment pop up an “Are you sure?”

We could reduce the net traffic considerably!

Ages ago I bemoaned Music Match Jukebox no longer working properly http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/06/13/musicmatch-jukebox-cddb/

It appears the problem is yahoo bought it and scrapped the existing database to try and get people to upgrade. MMJB was one of the few bits of shareware I’ve actually paid for - because it was good. It also doesn’t work with ie 7 - but that was just another reason not to use ie7.

How many times do we see a great piece of software bought up by some huge bunch of bozos who *-* it up(1)? Usually it is Microsoft who buy it & *-* it. Auto-route was brilliant. I remember the first time I saw the DOS version (85?) and the whole office clustered round to see this brilliant thing work out routes, display maps and generally wow us. The later versions with full OS map overlays - still brilliant. Microsoft bought it renamed it and totally *-* it. It sits on a 1G PC with a 19″ monitor and people would rather use a Tom-Tom because it is easier and faster. How did they manage to ruin it that much? Staggering.

More than staggering for some of us. For some of us it is worrying. I am now part of huge multinational - what will they do to the software product we have been designing and selling as a small company for the last 20 years?

Answers to http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/17/never-a-crossword-part-ii/

Not too hard I hope - not with the explantions anyway! 

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters USER

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters! STRAP

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue) DECADE

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK? PEGS

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word YEATS

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word! ITPRO - had to get that it really!

On http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/16/never-a-crossword-2/ I promised the answers and some more clues so here goes.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

LEAD

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

SINGER

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….) Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

ELVIS

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

PEEK

And some other egs - getting harder!

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters!

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue)

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK?

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word!

And I’ll publish the answers to these another day!

The current add on the IT Pro home page gives me an excuse to plug one of my hobbies - cryptic crosswords. I’ve been doing them for years but some time ago I thought “that’s a rubbish clue, I could do better than that” and after a while I gave it a go. 

Only once I had computers and the internet to help did I manage to achieve much - however it is still very difficult and deserves a huge payment ;-) Anyway I regularly write a crossword for a guitar magazine (so it has a guitar theme) and occasionally branch out to other themes.

There are several basic types of cryptic clue - if you don’t know how they are code here’s a couple of clues with hints - I’ll publish the answers tomorrow.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….)Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

There are other types of clue - I’ll do some more egs another day. And I’m always open to commissions!

I feel bad referring to an MSN blog - call me a snob for decrying the populist but let’s face it most MSN stories are about Britney or X Factor or something else no one should care about - however… http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/music/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9617667&ocid=today>1=61501 is just so right. Abba - clever, competent, catchy but not great.

I’m tempted to say not music but that would be unfair. Music doesn’t have to be inspiring, life changing art but it can be  and anything that isn’t just shouldn’t be lauded - it can be enjoyed but not worshiped.

If Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” is Manet’s “The Bar at the Follies Bergere” then Mama Mia is the tennis girl scratching her bum - cleverly done and not without a simple (if guilty) pleasure but it ain’t great.
But  maybe I am just a snob  decrying the popullar.

QT has been part of Nokia for a while but they seem to have started making their changes. Having been bought out once or twice I can assume most of the changes will be pointless ones that make the parent company feel in control and give waste of space managers something to do (bitter? me?) but their latest mail shows signs of real innovation

• Modular architecture for feature selection
• IP communications framework based on Telepathy
• New Qt UI Test, a tool for automated system tests 
• New reference design - Video IP Deskphone

Wow, IP telepathy - makes routing tables a thing of the past…