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Messages: (72) 1
Back at the very end of November Macrobyte picked up a new client. The initial project was very, very small (like, $200).
However, he liked the work so well that he sent me a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate as a "bonus", with which I bought Corinne a cookbook and hard cover novel. Also bought myself the soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
Today I (mostly) finished up a second project for him. This one was a little bigger, and he sent me another bonus! This time he bough me a license to the MacOSX version of Radio. He knows I don't have OS X yet, so he bought that for me, too!
Very cool. Macrobyte turns ten years old this month, and in all that time I've never had a bonus from a customer. (Art Christianson did offer me one of his bizarre paper weights once, I think. Does that count? Oh, and I found my wife at RR Donnelley... maybe that should count too.)
Wait, there's more! Here's a note he sent before telling me about the first bonus:
Perfect. Abolutely perfect. Exactly what I had in mind.
I can't wait for other people to use it, too.
Please consider me a (very enthusiastic) references for future work if needed.
Thanks Clark. I've always been a sucker for a kind word (big time), and there's nothing better than praise from a customer who's already paid you.
:-)
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Yesterday I linked to Clark's Conversant site. He's still learning Conversant, but he really understands Radio Userland alread.
He asked me if I'd link to his Radio site, at least until he's more comfortable with Conversant. That's fair.
Keep plugging away with Conversant, Clark! It won't be long before you'll be surprising yourself with what you're able to do. Just ask anybody whose been there before.
Oh, and thank you for the comments on my work ethic.
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On 1/18/2002 at 8:07 PM, Duncan Smeed wrote:
>It must be frustrating for you Seth to see so much >hype and ooh-aah!s surrounding Radio at the moment.
Honestly, I'm NOT frustrated by it. I know they're complementary products, and in fact I *like* Radio.
What we need to do is find a way to tap into Radio's rush of excitement. That's the main reason that we released Blogger API support the other day (for example).
>PS Looking forward to seeing what Clark does with the Downstreamer >suite ;-)
You'll ge able to download it tomorrow, if I can make the time to make it available. It's a Radio Tool, and has nothing at all to do with Conversant. (Though I did enjoy working on it, immensely, I miseed Conversant's API the whole time I was away!)
Clark and I actually mentioned you specifically, Duncan, when we were planning this tool. ;-)
Seth
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On 1/18/2002 at 8:36 PM, Duncan Smeed wrote:
>In fact, I think I will be 'turning off' my radio,userland.com site >and will, if possible, route all my Radio 'transmissions' to a >separate smeed.org weblog.
Sure... and why not, right? You already have a busy weblog. If you're primarily going to use Radio to post to a weblog, then why not use it to post to the weblog you already run?
The "ooh ahh" surrounding Radio isn't about the hosting service, after all. It's about the desktop tool. You can use that tool with what you already have, which (to me) is a pretty big "ooh ahh" all by itself.
:-)
Seth
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On 1/18/2002 at 9:26 PM, Brian Andresen wrote:
>>I wish I could afford to hore you to implement them B-} > >(nearly ROTF)L!! Incredibly funny typo. Never mind that there would be >a 'w' missing, but still... > >I can see the reporter now: "So Mr. Dillingham, what's the new business >model for Macrobyte Resources?" "Uh.... um.... let's talk about that off >the record."
Hah! Duncan! I hope that's not how you meant it!
I don't think Corinne would approve, at all. Nevermind the reaction of my ecclesia.
;-)
Brian, how long did you have to think, prepare, and sweat over this one? (Heh...)
Seth
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On 1/18/2002 at 9:44 PM, Corinne Dillingham wrote:
>>I don't think Corinne would approve, at all. > >Ah, but, Corinne thought the same thing that Brian did & found it >amusing...
I figured you'd find it amusing... as long as it's just a typo. ;-)
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As a Manila user (discuss.hmc.psu.edu), I really like the idea of a pre-done reception weblog template for Radio users using the Radio-Weblogger Bridge tool. Make it seductively easy to post to a Conversant-based weblog using Radio by not only supporting the Blogger API, but also providing a satisfactory starting point with a custom r=ead-only template. Keeps the frustration level low (at least at first).
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It will be well, well worth the effort. I got frustrated with my Manila site because at the time, one could only have one weblog page, and it *had* to be the home page. Aargh! This may have changed since then, but it was really annoying.
Now at my site I've automated the thing within an inch of its life. And there's so much more one can do. It's worth whatever time you spend on it. Conversant is much more than a CMS, much more than a website management tool. You can start small and build whatever you want. Want to stay just a small website? No problem. And when you've outgrown that, Conversant will scale right along with your wants and desires. I mean, good grief, I've built a web publication system on the thing where I don't have to do *any* work. What more could a man want? (Well, Seth never got me my pony.)
If there's anything I can do to help you, e-mail me or visit Becoming Conversant and ask. I love the product and want everyone in the world to love it, too.
Mark Morgan: mark_morgan@yahoo.com
http://www.VoicesOfUnreason.com "obeisances before the written word"
CS Lewis: "We read to know we're not alone."
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It will be well, well worth the effort. I got frustrated with my Manila site because at the time, one could only have one weblog page, and it *had* to be the home page. Aargh! This may have changed since then, but it was really annoying.
Now at my site I've automated the thing within an inch of its life. And there's so much more one can do. It's worth whatever time you spend on it. Conversant is much more than a CMS, much more than a website management tool. You can start small and build whatever you want. Want to stay just a small website? No problem. And when you've outgrown that, Conversant will scale right along with your wants and desires. I mean, good grief, I've built a web publication system on the thing where I don't have to do *any* work. What more could a man want? (Well, Seth never got me my pony.)
If there's anything I can do to help you, e-mail me or visit Becoming Conversant and ask. I love the product and want everyone in the world to love it, too.
Mark Morgan: mark_morgan@yahoo.com
http://www.VoicesOfUnreason.com "obeisances before the written word"
CS Lewis: "We read to know we're not alone."
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I appreciate the offers of help, BTW.
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(Go to the support site for more on Page Themes. They're downloadable files that program Conversant Page Types for you.)
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On 1/19/2002 at 10:17 AM, Philippe Martin wrote:
>And you know what? From the admin's point of view, the simplicity >that makes Radio/Manila so cools when you begins with them, is >exactly what you hate after a while. :-)
That's the scalability factor, but rather than server-load scalability it's "owner-expectation" scalability. It takes a really, really long time to run out of things you can do with Conversant.
>After a couple years working on Conversant, I now have to work with >Manila all the time (because the system I work on was created on >Manila before I was hired). I can tell you that I miss Conversant! >The simplest things in Conversant are just impossible or almost in >Manila. Try using a Javascript in a specific page, for exemple... or >a different template...
Macrobyte misses Flip even more than Flip misses Conversant, I promise.
Seth
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On 1/19/2002 at 1:47 PM, Jim Roepcke wrote:
>That's why I'm using Conversant. I'm not using all the features of >it, not even close. But I know that if I want to add some new >functionality, there's an excellent chance it's already built in
Since you brought the subject up (sort of)... What your site needs, IMO, is an improvement to the discussion group. At the absolute least, messages should have a link "up" to the message it's reply to. It's REALLY hard to navigate your DG.
Not that you asked.
>I can't wait for the new weblog plugin. :-)
I think you left out the word, "hassle". ;-)
Seth
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Seth wrote a very polite response. He was always very nice, going out of his way to help someone who for a long time didn't even give him money back.
Worked like a charm, and very different from the one time I tried to make a feature request on Manila-Newbies and got my head bit off for it.
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On 1/19/2002 at 1:05 PM, Mark Morgan wrote:
>Seth wrote a very polite response. He was always very nice, going >out of his way to help someone who for a long time didn't even give >him money back. > >Worked like a charm
Then I flew out to Oregon, stuffed him in a steamer trunk, and shipped him home. I didn't let him out until he agreed to let us host voicesofureason.com.
:-p
Mark, I still think that's one of the funniest things anyone has ever written about me.
Seth
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No, you mean you've heard of a system that does that sort of thing?!
> Seth wrote a very polite response. He was always very nice, going out of his way to help someone > who for a long time didn't even give him money back.
Seth does an *excellent* job of handling requests. I've been delighted by the informed responses he offers. Even the unreasonable or unrealistic ones are handled effectively and professionally.
> Worked like a charm, and very different from the one time I tried to make a feature request on > Manila-Newbies and got my head bit off for it.
Tell me about it. The requests into the FC group ( news:free-conversant.com/free-conversant ) are really well discussed. That and the fact they've got an NNTP interface makes it a must-read for me. They've really got a good way of handling support. Honest, realistic and open, that's a great combination.
-Bill Kearney
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I'm comfortable with Seth saying whatever he wants here at Truer Words. It's obviously his private site, and not a reflection of any official opinion of Macrobyte Resources. I agree; the support site is definitely customer service done right.
(This post by Mark Morgan, Conversant Evangelist.)
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On 1/19/2002 at 2:46 PM, Mark Morgan wrote:
>Addendum: and Bill, you should at least try Conversant. Good grief >man, it's free! Even I can afford free!
Unless he's so po' he can't even pay attention. Then it might be out of reach.
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Addendum: and Bill, you should at least try Conversant. Good grief man, it's free! Even I can afford free!
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On 1/19/2002 at 2:31 PM, Bill Kearney wrote:
>Seth does an *excellent* job of handling requests. I've been >delighted by the informed responses he offers. Even the >unreasonable or unrealistic ones are handled effectively and >professionally.
Not just me... I really don't deserve all the credit.
Others deserve credit for Conversant too, and for the tech support. Especially Greg and Flip.
Seth
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I just wanted to add my meager voice to the chorus singing Conversant's praise. There are very few products out there that do as much as flexibly as Conversant -- it's a swiss army knife for websites. I've felt pretty crippled when I've had to go back and create sites without it as an underpinning. The curve is, of course, a bit steeper than that for some other tools, but there are lots of helpful people a bit further up the mountain with strong arms, long ropes, and helpful attitudes.
Best, Sean
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I mentioned a few weeks ago that a customer ordered a copy of Mac OSX for me, as a bonus for some work I did for him.
Unfortunately, Apple didn't have any copies in stock, so it didn't ship, and it didn't ship, and it didn't ship. Finally, on Wednesday, we heard that it was being shipped out.
So where was it?
Apple included the tracking number in the email that said it had shipped. I went to FedEx to track the shipment, hoping that since it hadn't arrived Friday that they'd at least deliver it on Monday.
Hmm. I guess I'm a dope.
Yep, they were right. There it was, sitting at my front door, shivering in the cold. What a knucklehead.
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This was much easier than I expected it to be.
Except for the fact that my Kensington TurboBall doesn't feel the same under OS X as it did under 9, this has been totally painless and trouble free.
Now to go find Mozilla... and to install the Developer Tools... and um... play. More.
Oh wait, my first reaction. It was, "Ooooh! Pretty!" :-)
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On 2/2/02, Clark Venable said:
>If you're into 'pretty', go look at OmniWeb as a web browser: >http://www.omnigroup.com/. Its only downside as far as I'm concerned >is CSS support (which is poor). > >Enjoy! You deserve to have fun at the computer!
Thanks, Clark. I will check it out, but not immediately.
Even though I said I want to play and that I like "pretty", I'm trying to get all of my work tools up and running as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, my email client uses the same binary in both OS 9 and OS X. In fact, I didn't have to do ANYTHING for it work correctly. That's cool. :-)
I need to get that [censored] finished soon, or there's going to be mutiny and bloodshed. Can't have that.
Seth
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On 2/2/02, Clark Venable said:
>OmniWeb is great of spelling-impaired writers like me. Since it's a >Cocoa app, it spell checks in a text field of OmniWeb. Very helpful, >me thinks.
Programers nevar maek speling misteaks, soh it's naht and isue four me.
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Corinne came home from a cat show in Southbury, CT, today (she was only gone last night). Anyway, it took me longer to switch her Windows 98 laptop's TCP/IP connections back to the right settings (to work correctly on our home LAN) than it did to intall OS X!
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Okay, I went for the gusto and have completely erased my PowerBook in favor of a virgin installation of OSX.
Absolutely no regrets. My PowerBook was having serious problems, which I thought were all hardware related... but every one of them has gone away since the upgrade.
Radio and Frontier both run better under OSX. I've had zero stability problems, and I have the port forwarding issues all worked out for Frontier (haven't bothered with Radio yet).
My mail client runs better under OSX.
I can't believe what I've been missing.
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On 2/3/02, Greg Pierce said:
>I'm liking OS X better and better the more I use it...but they >definitely still have some issues to work out. Don't you have a G3 >powerbook? I'm surprised you're satisfied with performance on it >without video acceleration...I find it painful to use on my 266 iMac. > >It keeps forgetting/screwing up a number of my system prefs on my >TiBook...which is annoying.
It's a G3 PowerBook, but it's a G3/400. Maybe those extra cycles are enough, because I'm 100% satisfied with the performance. I've been running it heavily all afternoon, with Radio running, and multiple browser windows open, AIM is online, and file sharing happenin'... and there hasn't been a hitch.
It's wonderful.
Seth
P.S. One of these days I'll get a *00 message for myself. You got 1600, congratulations. ;-)
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On 2/3/02, Clark Venable said:
>You must have plenty of RAM.
192 in the PowerBook, 768 in the G4.
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On 2/4/02, Duncan Smeed said:
>Alas, the latest beta of Eudora for OS X still crashes regularly - >less often than before but often enough to be annoying, especially >when some of the mailboxes need to be rebuilt.
I've always hated Eudora. In fact, all email clients suck.
http://www.truerwords.net/236 http://www.truerwords.net/780
>You use Mozilla 0.9.7 don't you? Care to comment on that? I've had >problems with the news component. Hopefully 0.9.8 will be better.
I use Mozilla almost exclusively.
Don't use the offiical 0.9.7 release. It's total junk.
The build I'm running right now is 2002020108. Decoded, that's the build from Feb 1.
I *always* use the nightly builds.
Seth
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On 2/4/02, Clark Venable said:
>Can you detail how to do that (get the nightly build and install >it)?
Clark,
Greg's right, but you can even bookmark a link to the latest builds, here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/
or to the specific build you need, here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/mozilla-macosX-trunk. smi.bin
Instlaling it is easy. The file is a disk image. Just mount it, and then drag the Mozilla folder to your Applications folder and run it. No installer needed.
>Obviously, you've already surpassed me on the OS X learning >curve.
I don't think means I've surpassed you in any way... but this is a bit closer to my job than it is to yours, don't you think? :-)
Seth
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