To TEDennis, Post 274 of Raging Bull, from Kathy Knight-McConnell:
I found the following message on the SI board and sent a copy of it to Rudy Rupak at Planet City. I received an answer from Rudy and I would appreciate it if some one could post it on the SI PINC board to TEDennis.
Subj: Re: Software Evaluation on SI Board tonight
Date: 12/10/98 12:30:09 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: rudy.rupak@planetcity.com
To: KKnightmcc
I would like to thank the person who did this evaluation and let them know that they came in almost in time for our next release version which we have been working on since COMDEX. Could you please
post this and let the person who did the eval know that I send him my gratitude.
[The message this is in answer to follows]:
To: ztect (1097 )
From: TEDennis Wednesday, Dec 9 1998 6:58PM ET
Reply # of 1098
MBCK evaluation - Observations and comments:
Disclaimer: All information in this post is my opinion. It is not intended to be used to make investment decisions.
I am an experienced software developer. I'm doing this evaluation as a favor to an SI poster who is familiar with other evaluations I have done on SI and who requested that I do the same type of
evaluation on the Millennium Bug Compliance Kit (MBCK). Do not construe this evaluation as an investment recommendation, as I am not qualified to make them. I will evaluate the product's technical
and functional capabilities from a developer's perspective, as well as the overall packaging of the product.
I currently have no financial stake in PINC, and don't intend to have any in the near future. I do have positions in other Y2K solution vendors. However, they are primarily mainframe related companies.
End of disclaimers ...
I received a Federal Express package from Planet City containing a production copy of the MBCK in its shrink-wrapped container. Enclosed was a marketing brochure in both English and French, and what is typically called a "Lit Kit". Lit Kits contain all the appropriate marketing literature currently available for a given product.
I unpacked the software, read the literature, then began to install the product. It came on 4 floppy disks. As I discovered later, it was the same version as the evaluation copy that I had downloaded from their site. In addition, I received a business card that contains a registration key that I used to fully register the product online with Planet City.
In the following comments, I included a website address if the comment refers to one. Otherwise, the comments pertain to the installed product. I have replaced any confidential information with asterisks.
Note that this is only a partial evaluation because I am unable to access the online website database of application software, as I shall explain in the text. What follows is more of a "Quality Assurance" test than a full blown evaluation of the product and its usefulness. At least this text can be an aid to Planet City in improving the quality of their deliverable. On their website, they requested input on how they could improve their product and their website. Here is some input.
1) The registration dialog box has no Windows name, so the corresponding button in the "Start" window at the bottom of the screen is blank. This is against Windows' suggested guidelines. All
windows should be titled.
2) On the initial entry/registration screen, there is no way to cancel out. The Windows "X" in the upper right hand corner is grayed out. You have to accept either "Register now", which is grayed out unless you have a registration number, or "Diagnosis only". This is against Windows' suggested guidelines.
The user should be able to cancel out of any window.
3) To gain access to all the product's functionality, it is required to register with the company. I used the online registration at their website. It functioned perfectly.
Registration email request sent at 3:44pm on 12/8/98.
Info sent:
Registration code: ***********
Registration key: *******
Registration email received at 8:03am on 12/9/98.
Info received:
Registration number: ******
The delay from send to receive indicates a manual process, or a webserver that is only up during working hours. If they get busy registering products, this could become a bottleneck. I recommend
creating an automated process that will filter incoming emails, detect a registration request, automatically register the user, and then send the registration key back to the requestor via email.
Following is the text of the email I received:
"Mr. Dennis,
Thankyou for using the millennium bug compliance kit. Your registration number is ******.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call me.
Sincerely,
***** ******"
Problems in the email: 'Thankyou' should be 'Thank you'. This was either cut and pasted from a template, or hand typed. In either case, it's bad style to communicate with embedded typos.
'millenium bug compliance kit' is the name of the product and thus should have the first initials of each word capitalized.
'please do not hesitate to call me' was a nice touch, but there was no number given to contact the author.
Also, the product's message box that displays after entering the "Registration code" and the "registration key" says "Your registration key correct." It is missing the word "is".
4) millenniumbugkit.com
"we welcome you to a download an evaluation version"
'to a download'? Should remove the 'a'.
5) millenniumbugkit.com
"The Millennium Bug Compliance Kit is a comprehensive software solution that checks and date-fixes your PC"
'Date-fixes your PC'? A bit over-enthusiastic. This could be misconstrued to mean that it corrects all the Y2K problems on your PC. It doesn't fix the software problems at all.
It does, however, provide "RTC Patch" which reportedly corrects a problem with the Real Time Clock. Note that there is a button on the product screen which says "Install fix". Click on that button, and a
message box proclaims "RTC Patch successfully installed".
Interestingly enough, you can click on the button again, and the same message box appears. It would be helpful if the product would report that the patch has already been applied. You could then determine that the reboot startup process is successfully installing the patch.
6) millenniumbugkit.com
"give you access to our CONSUMER OF THE SHELF (COTS) database"
COTS is an industry-wide acronym for "Commercial Off The Shelf". Using the wrong name indicates lack of marketplace familiarity by whoever wrote and/or edited the text.
7) millenniumbugkit.com
"This can be found when your software first starts up, or by accessing the software's help menu."
The registration number can only "be found when your software first starts up" prior to successful registration. Once you have supplied the registration key to the product, it skips the startup screen, so
there's no chance to see the registration number when the "software first starts up". Also, there is no information about the registration number on "the software's help menu". So, once you've registered,
there's no way to find the registration number, which is a problem because it is needed to access the COTS Database through their website.
8) millenniumbugkit.com
"Planet City will be launching several new titles, at the Fall Comdex in Las Vegas"
Outdated information. Fall Comdex is over.
9) millenniumbugkit.com
"let our team assist you maximize its potential. We take an aggressive position towards marketing ..."
'assist you maximize'? Poor English. Should be "to maximize"?
10) millenniumbugkit.com
"If you are a retailer or reseller of electronic cash registers, your have a greater vulnerability to the Y2K problem"
'your have' should be 'you have'
11) millenniumbugkit.com
This page is supposed to list MBCK partners, but all it lists is a link to a site that sells Y2K related memorabilia, which links back to MBCK on this page:
bugoff2000.com
Note that the above page also links to the MBTK (Millennium Bug Tool Kit) company (MikroDots) at
mikrodots.com which appears to be a very similar product to MBCK.
12) millenniumbugkit.com
"You must fill go to the Purchase and Download section."
'fill go'? Should remove 'fill'.
13) millenniumbugkit.com
"Return to Low Bandwidth pages"
Even though I entered this screen from the "hiband" path, it takes me back to the "loband" path. It should remain in whichever path I originally chose.
14) The product's hardware tests all seemed to work well, and were documented sufficiently for an inexperienced computer user to follow.
The disk scan for software executables and application files took a long time, as it stated on the popup that appeared when it started. I printed the results to a text file, then used Microsoft Word to review
them.
I didn't see any way to scan a disk other than the C: drive. For instance, I'd like to scan my ZIP disks, where I store most of my application software and data.
I was surprised to find that the scan results file was nothing more than a columnar list of files. Column 1 was an underlined area where the user could write down the manufacturer of a given file, column 2 was a check box area where the user could indicate that a given file had been checked out, and column 3 was the fully qualified filename of the executable or application file. The following line is an example
copied directly from MBCK's file:
_______________ [ ] C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM
The pertinent information regarding the date and time of creation of the executable wasn't provided.
Different versions of executables have different time stamps. Some older versions are non-compliant, while newer versions are. Without the date/time stamp, the user will be required to use Windows
Explorer or some other method to ascertain when the file was created so the compliance status can be determined.
I was disappointed that the product didn't automatically attempt to identify the manufacturer of programs like "Windows" and its associated utilities. This omission requires that the user manually
determine the manufacturer.
The user is supposed to go into MBCK's COTS Database on the website and crosscheck each individual file for compliancy. I have very few applications on my PC, but the list of executables and application files that was generated is quite long (14 pages in Word). Users with many off-the-shelf applications will encounter significantly longer lists. Longer lists will translate into longer times to manually crosscheck the files' compliance status.
Unfortunately, the website asks for a 'registration number' to access the COTS Database, but the regsitration number I registered with isn't accepted. I have emailed MBCK and am awaiting instructions
on how to proceed.
15) I tried to create a "comma delimited file" of the software list for further use in a spreadsheet. I produced two versions of the file: one with the full path names of the files, and the other with the path
information "extracted" to leave just the "product name" (a misnomer: it's actually the file name). But, the file that was produced by MBCK had no usable data in it. There was just one line of text that looks like this: "1.1,1,1,1,1900/01/01,2000/01/01,2000/01/01,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,
0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,
0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,
0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,0000/00/00,
0000/00/00,,,,,,,,,1,c,2047.688"
This is definitely a bug. At least the printed version had the file names that I could review.
Until the COTS Database is accessible to me, I am in limbo.
Currently, my opinion of MBCK is this: the hardware tests and patches work fine, and would be useful to all PC users. I'll withhold judgement on the software portion until I can access the COTS Database.
********
Edit - I just received an email from Planet City regarding the failure to access the COTS Database.
Here is the text of the email, which came from the same person who sent me the registration email:
"I'm sorry but are experiencing a temporary problem with the COTS database. You should be able to access it by tomorrow evening. (December 10, 1998)
We appologise for any inconvinence.
Sincerely,
***** ******"
Note the most recent email's typos, spelling, and grammar errors. This is an area that, IMO, needs to be cleaned up. First impressions count.
Regards,
TED
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