I spent this past week working with a software product developer helping to debug an installation error. The program works well for most buyers of the software except for a handful of users, including myself. As it turned out, the developer had to rewrite a portion of the program to get around the bug.
That is impressive customer relations because it shows the developer wants satisfied customers, but is not an isolated event. Everyday 1000s of computers users fume about software which works poorly, or cause them to lose data and waste time.
Microsoft earns billions of dollars each year by releasing products without fully testing them. They force users to report bugs as they use the programs, then issues updates instead of upgrades.
Sometime I wonder why some users have problems with a particular program when others don’t. I remember one woman reporting she couldn’t view a video she downloaded from a particular site. Almost everyone who tried to help, believed she wasn’t following the instructions and offered the most basic advice. Of course she felt frustrated, until a wise head prevailed, and found a solution while thinking out of the box.
Similarly, I have to go to a Kinkos store every month to download three zipped files that come from a membership site. For whatever reason, I can download the files using my computer, but cannot open them with any unzip program. I get an “archive not found or is invalid†error every time. It is even stranger when you consider I can download zipped video files from this same site, and play then on my computer without a hitch.
So you see, all is not well in the computer software world. You need a buddy to help you get access to your important data when your operating system, application program, or browser decides to screw you.
