Ken's Korner Grows Up! A user representative at MOTU fo

[Timeline]

Shooshie,

I love that idea completely but think it might be better in a maintenance app. A routine that someone designs that runs on our computer. It could pull the info you describe much easier and upload it to a data base somewhere and compare problems and setups.

The rub...MOTU would have to agree to giving us code to retrieve the data from DP. Never happen, in my opinion.

In return for MOTU's kindness, we could restrict anyone but MOTU users access and keep it confidential which would likely please MOTU management. They may go for it.. who knows.

I think a pro-active stance is a great idea. My brother works for Cisco and knows many programmers from the Apple area. I wonder if he would help find a guy to design an app. I wonder how much it would cost to build?

Hey, the convention is nearing...

<small>[ April 23, 2005, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: Timeline ]</small>

[Weekendshooter]

Over in another hobby of mine, demo products would happen to become available to the nonprofit sanctioning body who would in turn "surprise" an active member with the hook that they got to keep the item when done (mostly kits), that they wrote up a review for the magizine, and continued participating in the cyber forums passing along what they knew. I'm guessing though this already happens with the likes of SOS, Mix, etc... Sigh...

Just yapping...

I'd like to volunteer for mobile laptop stuff.

[jlafferty]

TDH and Shooshie, your ideas are excellent, well thought out and well intentioned. An "Open Source" data correllation project would be killer. And as pointed out, incredibly time consuming.

As I see it, the ideas presented here are borne out of assumptions about MOTU and their Testing environment, Testing resources, Quality Assurance practices and mostly, communication. (and of course, our frustrations with the effects of these causes)

I do Software Quality Assurance for my primary income and have worked in many large, medium and small company development environments.
I mention this because I think MOTU does many things really well, and I support my family off of my ability to determine what "really well" means. (Also so the potential flaming can be held in check and we can get to the heart of the issues at hand.)

Few companies expose their testing practices fully to their client base. What if MOTU came out to all of us and said:

1) We have a lab with the following hardware and software (x,y,z)

2) We have (X) dedicated testing resources full time.

3) We test the following combinations of hardware and software with every release:(X,Y,Z)

4) Our defect tracking processes are:

5) Our regression test process invloves the following for every minor and major release on all the following combinations of hardware and software:

5) Our defect prioritization and repair strategy is as follows:

6) Our customer communication philosophy and practice is as follows:

7) Our beta test program operates as follows:

Well, if we knew all that information, we could decide what we had to do to get the ball rolling and find solutions to the nagging, difficult to pinpoint defects.

I would expect MOTU is about 50+ employees strong, The breakdown probably looks something similar to this:

10 to 15 software development team.
8-12 hardware development (design and driver dev)
5- sales/ sales rep
2 marketing
4 executive
10 to 15 are assembly/packaging/shipping

I imagine they do quite a bit of outsourcing for assembly, etc.

They might have matured enough to have all manufacturing/assembly and packaging done through 3rd parties, hard to tell.

Why do I mention this?

For the number of products they offer to the marketplace, a proper ratio of Developer /QA would be 2:1.

That's right folks. If they have 10-15 developers, they should have 5 to 7.5 QA resources to do the proper job. (Aero Space and medical routinely use 1:1 that's 'cause people die and billions of dollars are wasted if a bug surfaces in production)

I have not seen a job posting for a Quality Assurance Position at MOTU ever
(in the last 12 years and I had been looking once a month).
I do not believe they utilize trained QA professionals for their testing (I could be wrong, hope so). That is not necessarily a bad thing, BUT it does allow things like latent issues to occur more frequently and linger longer.

This can be exceptionally problematic if they are allowed to span multiple releases.

I know they have a beta test program, I know some folks who participate. That's a good thing.
I am pleased with their efforts overall. That's why I continue to buy their products and support them. I am really happy they are stil in business. I think they balance all of the details of running a company and staying in the game the best they can.

That being said, some real information about about their testing environment would certainly help us help them.

What do you guys think? How can we learn what MOTU does to test and resolve?
Anybody have some inside info on this?

Best Regards,

Jeff

[Timeline]

Maybe I wrong but I don't think were trying to rebuild MOTUs app here.

Aren't we just 'discussing' some ideas and alternatives to make it work better for those having difficulties?

It's not that big a deal. DP works fine for many of us.

_________

<small>[ April 23, 2005, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: Timeline ]</small>

[chrispick]

Hey, I'm usually for all the optimistic vibe here, but I really think that, unless someone here can come up with a way to rationalize any of these ideas to the MOTU bean-counters, it simply won't fly. It just seems market-limited (we're talking Unicornation-ites, right?) and won't procure any new monies for the company.

[Artspoke]

Don't we all love Magic Dave? What if an optional 1$ donation button, akin to some shareware/freeware apps, showed up here at unicornation - and then it all just went to Magic Dave. To earn it, he could chime in here more often, making us all feel that much better.

At this point, I see Ken's Korner as very much the same thing as Magic Dave's posts, here and everywhere altogether, only better organized. The "magic" part, to me anyway, is the @motu.com that completes Dave's email address.

Isn't the biggest downfall (AND benefit) to unicornation is that is not afiliated with MOTU?? I'm sure some of the posters here are secretly MOTU employees, or at least, hopefully, some of the readers. Why don't we try to come up with some ideas that might better attract MOTU staff to this site?

MOTU seems to feel confident that its Tech Q&A section of the website addresses their users problems well enough. I think that a BBS such as this, only at MOTU, moderated by MOTU staff, would be a step in the right direction.

Who knows? Perhaps MOTU staff aren't even aware of this site, and we are all rambling and fighting with/helping each other to express ourselves here for no reason! Of course, the volunteer help here is miraculous at times, and I don't want to downplay that. However, being non-affiliated with MOTU, we have no guarantee that our issues aren't simply falling on deaf ears - they may not be falling on any ears at all.

Also, what about that "send crash report to Apple" dialogue that shows up occasionally when an app disappears/crashes? Could there be a BBS, perhaps even a forum here, that could be configured to upload that information, verbatim, from the crash logs concerning DP crashes only? Whatif the dialog box had two options:

1) send this report to Apple (has anyone ever done this??)

2) upload crash report to unicornation:crash logs.

It's just text, so it wouldn't develop an unruly amount of data, and the data wouldn't have to be sorted,or logic injected, or anything, just posted for us to peruse. We can search by keyword here, so it doesn't seem overly daunting to sort through. If I know the addicts on here well enough, I'll bet that this "paid full time position" for Ken would become unnecessary, as Ken Korner would be more aptly named something more like, "Kind Experienced Newbie-helping Specialists, Volunteering Afterhours Undying Lipservice Tirelessly. (K.E.N.S.V.A.U.L.T. - which is basically a fair second title for unicornation, I think.)

For that matter, perhaps it isn't even necessary to develop some automatic crash sending program. Maybe a new forum could be created specifically for crash report upload/brief explanation of what led to its posting.

The answers are out there, we just need help pooling data to better determine when the problems are DP, and not simply our own personal misunderstandings of what is supposed to be happening.

-James

P.S., Does anyone think that something like Ken's Korner might discourage people like Magic Dave from posting at places like this - in fact, might Ken's Korner make the DP forum here at unicornation obsolete????

[toodamnhip]

what if all respondants to this thead sent a request for MOTU to view this thread..... to MOTU tech support?....Think Ken's Korner would get the needed jolt to be considered seriously?...

[Shooshie]

Originally posted by toodamnhip:
what if all respondants to this thead sent a request for MOTU to view this thread..... to MOTU tech support?....Think Ken's Korner would get the needed jolt to be considered seriously?...

Honestly, it would probably send them all ROTF, laughing their asses off. But after a good, hearty laugh, they might start thinking about a script that could collect data, and how easy it would be to make it a part of registration and tech support, and how they could possibly learn some very important things this way...

...and then they'd fall on the floor again and roll, laughing!

But you never know. MagicDave? What do you think?

Shooshie

[iaingub]

a quick thought though - that might mean a liability and "can of worms" scenario for MOTU

But what if we simply had a separate forum bit where the subject headings were simply the different individual configs. You would put your config down and this would referrence "what works" cos its yours and it does - you could add in any known issues......

Anyway It my birthday today and Ive just bought myself a G5 duallie 2.5 wayayayayayayayayayayay

IG

[croyal]

Until Ken's Korner happens, MOTU could do some things that would make better for us all.

1. Post the MOTU tested configs like Digi does. Not trying to start a flaming war; just noting that there is no "standard guaranteed MOTU-approved setup" for DP (and by version I might add.)
"DP4.x has been tested to work with OS X 3.x and on these Macs and with these drives and plugs." From there, users can stray from the benchmark as far as they choose- but they would know they are straying!! Tech support wouldn't have to troubleshoot everyone's system completely; they would first inquire if the user's rig was set up to spec before jumping into a long support session.

2. Bug/ incompatibility admission
MOTU, I love the surprise extra features when you give us updates/upgrades- but I would more apppreciate notices such as;
"we are aware of a problem wih xxx plug-in, and is being addessed in the next update." Tied into the "standard guaranteed MOTU-approved setup" compatibility problems would be listed for commonly used software-

"Reason version x.xx has not been tested for use"

Users would postpone upgrading plugs according to what has been tested. And possibly, plug designers will have to check if the plug works with DP's configs, not the other way around. At least they would have the same benchmark for testing. We are quick to blame MOTU if the new version of xyz plug crashes DP, when that plug may be the culprit.

++++++
It would just be great if we could get some insight into MOTU's testing setups. I don't believe they release buggy software according to their rigs. If we knew what should work, but doesn't, then bug complaints would actually have merit and be easier to track down.

This kind of support can be done today, without hiring one damned soul to mull over endless setup info uploaded from all over the planet. DP is pro software and not an "iApp" for use in any old setup that runs the OS. There should be some published and regularly updated system reqiuirements and compatibility docs.

Croyal

[Klaus]

Is MotU a hardware *and* software company ?
If I got it right, the only control they have on hardware is marketing and sales. Developpement and manufacturing isn't fully in - house...
This makes it impossible to react fast on hardware issues, it takes usually a mkII version, if at all.
My point of view...

Best to all

Klaus

[slybass3000]

Croyal;
I second your post.
I think it would be fair enough from MOTU.
SB

[toodamnhip]

Listen... I posted this idea...and I can take anyone thinking maybe it's good, bad ..or ugly....or...a little off here and there...

But damn if we all should put our collective FEET down when it comes to feedback from companies as to recent upgrades and compatablility with this plug in or that plug in.

Don't we all agree there's just too much RUMOUR involved in what is a highly technical process?
Let me repeat that:
Don't we all agree there's just too much RUMOUR involved in what is a highly technical process?

We have highly precise systems and when manufacturer "A" or OSx upgrades, we all come on here like lost little children saying..."you taste that new apple first" the last apple had a worm in it and made ME sick!..i.e.. "You try out that new softaware Dave, let me know how it goes..hell if I'm gonna try it".

Companies need to be WAAAAAY more responsible for taking the worms out of our apples.

Can I get a collective AMEN?....

ps...my system works pretty darn well but that could change..for example..I have the Reason 3.0 upgrade and it's sitting in the damn box?...we all know why!

<small>[ April 24, 2005, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: toodamnhip ]</small>

[Klaus]

Sorry to ask, Reason 3, why not with DP 4.52 ?

Klaus

[toodamnhip]

I heard there were problems....

waiting for upgrade