Hi,
a few months ago, in a discussion in group compl.lang.lisp, I said to
Duane Rettig that Franz made an impression of a company that was behind
the modern technology because its communication facilities were not
working or working inappropriately.
In return, I was assured that Franz is still on the bleeding edge, and
now more than ever. I decided to try and bought a license for Mac OS X
(Intel) -- it took me through a low-tech nightmare because Franz cannot
process credit card purchases electronically, and asks customers to
send the card number in plain e-mail, and had to find a way to work
around that as I certainly don't want my card number to go anywheer in
plain e-mail.
No, thanks to the promotion available at that time, I have two licenses
(Mac OS X Inteal and Mac OS X PowerPC -- which despite the promotion
required a half dozen of e-mails to obtain because all that is done
manually, without any automation). And I am a proud subscriber of their
technology news mailing list (which I am glad to receive).
The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
licenses, though issued on the same day to the same e-mail address and
name. Previous time, when I received two messages instead of one, I
wrote to ·······@franz.com and ·········@franz.com and said that I am
glad to receive their mailing list, but would like to get everymessage
only once (I am on the road often, and doubling the amount of my e-mail
will roughly double my GPRS bill, besides all other inconveniences --
that was several weeks ago). I even mentioned the common lisp function
REMOVE-DUPLICATES (I am not sure I sent a link to the hyperspec,
though).
The reply was swift and speedy, with assurances that the issue will be
fixed.
Yesterday, I got another couple of e-mails from the mailing list. Twice
the same one, of course. OK, I know that my contract is without
·······@, but I assume there are other Franz customers with more than
one license (and with support) who get message twice (and the
environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
catastrophe). Could some of those users write to Franz to ask them to
fix their mail sending program so that it applies REMOVE-DUPLICATES to
the list of e-mails?
Meanwhile, I've written a simple filter to remove the duplicates on my
side. It saves my traffic -- but unfortunately, it does not save the
environment.
David Tolpin
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: why Franz is such a low-tech company?
Date:
Message-ID: <87ejv4bxjw.fsf@geddis.org>
···················@gmail.com wrote on 24 Aug 2006 22:3:
> The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
> licenses
[...]
> (and the environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
> catastrophe).
[...]
> Meanwhile, I've written a simple filter to remove the duplicates on my
> side. It saves my traffic -- but unfortunately, it does not save the
> environment.
You realize, don't you, that merely posting an article to this newsgroup
has probably "wasted" more world resources (bandwidth, hard drive storage)
than all the duplicated Franz messages you've ever received or ever will
receive?
comp.lang.lisp is a world-wide newsgroup, and newsgroups propagate each
message to all news servers in the world. Plus you have things like Google
groups, which archive such postings for all time.
So: if you were really concerned about the environmental impact of an extra
email/posting here or there, you probably shouldn't have posted your own
message.
And, of course, your posting prompted my followup, which now DOUBLES the
waste of bits, and electricity, etc.
:-)
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
When Rick told me he was having trouble with his wife, I had to laugh. Not
because of what he said, but because of a joke I thought of. I told him the
joke, but he didn't laugh very much. Some friend HE is.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
> ···················@gmail.com wrote on 24 Aug 2006 22:3:
>> The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
>> licenses
> [...]
>> (and the environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
>> catastrophe).
> [...]
>> Meanwhile, I've written a simple filter to remove the duplicates on my
>> side. It saves my traffic -- but unfortunately, it does not save the
>> environment.
>
> You realize, don't you, that merely posting an article to this newsgroup
> has probably "wasted" more world resources (bandwidth, hard drive storage)
> than all the duplicated Franz messages you've ever received or ever will
> receive?
>
> comp.lang.lisp is a world-wide newsgroup, and newsgroups propagate each
> message to all news servers in the world. Plus you have things like Google
> groups, which archive such postings for all time.
>
> So: if you were really concerned about the environmental impact of an extra
> email/posting here or there, you probably shouldn't have posted your own
> message.
>
> And, of course, your posting prompted my followup, which now DOUBLES the
> waste of bits, and electricity, etc.
Of course, that discounts the effects of using a mobile phone to
access e-mail in the first place.
I think that the real concern is the cost and perceived nuisance of
receiving each message twice, and that the "environmental" concerns
would have been better left out of the original message if he wanted a
serious response.
···················@gmail.com writes:
>> Hi,
>>
>> a few months ago, in a discussion in group compl.lang.lisp, I said to
>> Duane Rettig that Franz made an impression of a company that was behind
>> the modern technology because its communication facilities were not
>> working or working inappropriately.
>>
>> In return, I was assured that Franz is still on the bleeding edge, and
>> now more than ever. I decided to try and bought a license for Mac OS X
>> (Intel) -- it took me through a low-tech nightmare because Franz cannot
>> process credit card purchases electronically, and asks customers to
>> send the card number in plain e-mail, and had to find a way to work
>> around that as I certainly don't want my card number to go anywheer in
>> plain e-mail.
We do credit card processing on Student Edition and Allegro NFS orders
only. We don't have an automatic method on our website for Enterprise
and Professional because the majority of our sales are via a Purchase
Order. It's not as you suggest, that we cannot process these payments
electronically.
>> No, thanks to the promotion available at that time, I have two licenses
>> (Mac OS X Inteal and Mac OS X PowerPC -- which despite the promotion
>> required a half dozen of e-mails to obtain because all that is done
>> manually, without any automation). And I am a proud subscriber of their
>> technology news mailing list (which I am glad to receive).
>>
>> The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
>> licenses, though issued on the same day to the same e-mail address and
>> name. Previous time, when I received two messages instead of one, I
>> wrote to ·······@franz.com and ·········@franz.com and said that I am
>> glad to receive their mailing list, but would like to get everymessage
>> only once (I am on the road often, and doubling the amount of my e-mail
>> will roughly double my GPRS bill, besides all other inconveniences --
>> that was several weeks ago). I even mentioned the common lisp function
>> REMOVE-DUPLICATES (I am not sure I sent a link to the hyperspec,
>> though).
We send out one email per platform. (The system that does this is
automated from the point that the order is entered by a sales person
and approved). As you pointed out you got two emails about your
original purchase because you have two platforms.
The emails have unique URLs in them. There are no duplicates.
>> The reply was swift and speedy, with assurances that the issue will be
>> fixed.
>>
>> Yesterday, I got another couple of e-mails from the mailing list. Twice
>> the same one, of course. OK, I know that my contract is without
>> ·······@, but I assume there are other Franz customers with more than
>> one license (and with support) who get message twice (and the
>> environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
>> catastrophe). Could some of those users write to Franz to ask them to
>> fix their mail sending program so that it applies REMOVE-DUPLICATES to
>> the list of e-mails?
The duplicate emails yesterday was a one time glitch in the system
(automated, I might add) that sent out our monthly newsletter which
caused two copies to be emailed instead of one. I apologize to our
newsletter subscribers.
Kevin Layer
Kevin Layer wrote:
> ···················@gmail.com writes:
>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> a few months ago, in a discussion in group compl.lang.lisp, I said to
> >> Duane Rettig that Franz made an impression of a company that was behind
> >> the modern technology because its communication facilities were not
> >> working or working inappropriately.
> >>
> >> In return, I was assured that Franz is still on the bleeding edge, and
> >> now more than ever. I decided to try and bought a license for Mac OS X
> >> (Intel) -- it took me through a low-tech nightmare because Franz cannot
> >> process credit card purchases electronically, and asks customers to
> >> send the card number in plain e-mail, and had to find a way to work
> >> around that as I certainly don't want my card number to go anywheer in
> >> plain e-mail.
>
> We do credit card processing on Student Edition and Allegro NFS orders
> only. We don't have an automatic method on our website for Enterprise
> and Professional because the majority of our sales are via a Purchase
> Order. It's not as you suggest, that we cannot process these payments
> electronically.
>
> >> No, thanks to the promotion available at that time, I have two licenses
> >> (Mac OS X Inteal and Mac OS X PowerPC -- which despite the promotion
> >> required a half dozen of e-mails to obtain because all that is done
> >> manually, without any automation). And I am a proud subscriber of their
> >> technology news mailing list (which I am glad to receive).
> >>
> >> The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
> >> licenses, though issued on the same day to the same e-mail address and
> >> name. Previous time, when I received two messages instead of one, I
> >> wrote to ·······@franz.com and ·········@franz.com and said that I am
> >> glad to receive their mailing list, but would like to get everymessage
> >> only once (I am on the road often, and doubling the amount of my e-mail
> >> will roughly double my GPRS bill, besides all other inconveniences --
> >> that was several weeks ago). I even mentioned the common lisp function
> >> REMOVE-DUPLICATES (I am not sure I sent a link to the hyperspec,
> >> though).
>
> We send out one email per platform. (The system that does this is
> automated from the point that the order is entered by a sales person
> and approved). As you pointed out you got two emails about your
> original purchase because you have two platforms.
>
> The emails have unique URLs in them. There are no duplicates.
>
> >> The reply was swift and speedy, with assurances that the issue will be
> >> fixed.
> >>
> >> Yesterday, I got another couple of e-mails from the mailing list. Twice
> >> the same one, of course. OK, I know that my contract is without
> >> ·······@, but I assume there are other Franz customers with more than
> >> one license (and with support) who get message twice (and the
> >> environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
> >> catastrophe). Could some of those users write to Franz to ask them to
> >> fix their mail sending program so that it applies REMOVE-DUPLICATES to
> >> the list of e-mails?
>
> The duplicate emails yesterday was a one time glitch in the system
> (automated, I might add) that sent out our monthly newsletter which
> caused two copies to be emailed instead of one. I apologize to our
> newsletter subscribers.
>
> Kevin Layer
This will sound really shallow, but I think that you guys (and gals)
should update the Allegro CL website a bit. It looks a bit dated.
On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:14:58 -0700, ··········@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Kevin Layer wrote:
>> ···················@gmail.com writes:
>>
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> a few months ago, in a discussion in group compl.lang.lisp, I said to
>> >> Duane Rettig that Franz made an impression of a company that was behind
>> >> the modern technology because its communication facilities were not
>> >> working or working inappropriately.
>> >>
>> >> In return, I was assured that Franz is still on the bleeding edge, and
>> >> now more than ever. I decided to try and bought a license for Mac OS X
>> >> (Intel) -- it took me through a low-tech nightmare because Franz cannot
>> >> process credit card purchases electronically, and asks customers to
>> >> send the card number in plain e-mail, and had to find a way to work
>> >> around that as I certainly don't want my card number to go anywheer in
>> >> plain e-mail.
>>
>> We do credit card processing on Student Edition and Allegro NFS orders
>> only. We don't have an automatic method on our website for Enterprise
>> and Professional because the majority of our sales are via a Purchase
>> Order. It's not as you suggest, that we cannot process these payments
>> electronically.
>>
>> >> No, thanks to the promotion available at that time, I have two licenses
>> >> (Mac OS X Inteal and Mac OS X PowerPC -- which despite the promotion
>> >> required a half dozen of e-mails to obtain because all that is done
>> >> manually, without any automation). And I am a proud subscriber of their
>> >> technology news mailing list (which I am glad to receive).
>> >>
>> >> The problem is, I get every mailing two times, because I have two
>> >> licenses, though issued on the same day to the same e-mail address and
>> >> name. Previous time, when I received two messages instead of one, I
>> >> wrote to ·······@franz.com and ·········@franz.com and said that I am
>> >> glad to receive their mailing list, but would like to get everymessage
>> >> only once (I am on the road often, and doubling the amount of my e-mail
>> >> will roughly double my GPRS bill, besides all other inconveniences --
>> >> that was several weeks ago). I even mentioned the common lisp function
>> >> REMOVE-DUPLICATES (I am not sure I sent a link to the hyperspec,
>> >> though).
>>
>> We send out one email per platform. (The system that does this is
>> automated from the point that the order is entered by a sales person
>> and approved). As you pointed out you got two emails about your
>> original purchase because you have two platforms.
>>
>> The emails have unique URLs in them. There are no duplicates.
>>
>> >> The reply was swift and speedy, with assurances that the issue will be
>> >> fixed.
>> >>
>> >> Yesterday, I got another couple of e-mails from the mailing list. Twice
>> >> the same one, of course. OK, I know that my contract is without
>> >> ·······@, but I assume there are other Franz customers with more than
>> >> one license (and with support) who get message twice (and the
>> >> environment is polluted needlessly thus nearing the environmental
>> >> catastrophe). Could some of those users write to Franz to ask them to
>> >> fix their mail sending program so that it applies REMOVE-DUPLICATES to
>> >> the list of e-mails?
>>
>> The duplicate emails yesterday was a one time glitch in the system
>> (automated, I might add) that sent out our monthly newsletter which
>> caused two copies to be emailed instead of one. I apologize to our
>> newsletter subscribers.
>>
>> Kevin Layer
>
> This will sound really shallow, but I think that you guys (and gals)
> should update the Allegro CL website a bit. It looks a bit dated.
Yeah, check this out:
http://msig.info/web2.php
http://andrewwooldridge.com/myapps/webtwopointoh.html
http://emptybottle.org/bullshit/
http://www.parm.net/web2.0/
http://www.sloganizer.net/en/
--
Lars Rune Nøstdal
http://lars.nostdal.org/
Hi Kevin,
Kevin Layer wrote:
> We do credit card processing on Student Edition and Allegro NFS orders
> only. We don't have an automatic method on our website for Enterprise
> and Professional because the majority of our sales are via a Purchase
> Order. It's not as you suggest, that we cannot process these payments
> electronically.
the promo offer explicitly mentioned that the only way of payment
accepted for the license is by credit card. After a somewhat lengthy
e-mail interchange with a sales person to make sure that the person
understands what the promo says and that I do get the runtime (and not
as the person suggested that I didn't), I asked the person for a secure
HTTP URL to make the payment. The person responded that I can send the
card information in plain e-mail. I asked again about a secure way to
pay, and the person responded that there was no such way with Franz.
I had to ask my companion in the US to pay for me (and take the risk
which is easier to resolve for someone in the same country), because I
obviously didn't want to send my card number via plain e-mail. I don't
know how exactly the payment was made, but I finally got the license
key, which, however, required a few more e-mails to actually obtain a
license matching the advertisement in the promo flyer because the
person didn't know which licenses to cut, and the process was manual
and thus error-prone.
> We send out one email per platform. (The system that does this is
> automated from the point that the order is entered by a sales person
> and approved). As you pointed out you got two emails about your
> original purchase because you have two platforms.
I, and not the platforms, receive the e-mails. I have the same e-mail
address for all platforms; and I would like to receive one e-mail per
my e-mail address, not per the platform the compiler runs one.
I wrote to ·······@franz.com explaining the issue lthe previous time,
and even suggested to use REMOVE-DUPLICATES on the list of e-mail
addresses.
>
> The emails have unique URLs in them. There are no duplicates.
Are the e-mails different in any other way? I suppose, not. Then,
what's the reason for me to receive two identical e-mails? The only
reason is poor automation of your sales cycle. And I am raising this
question publicly in hope to see it eventually resolved.
> The duplicate emails yesterday was a one time glitch in the system
> (automated, I might add) that sent out our monthly newsletter which
> caused two copies to be emailed instead of one. I apologize to our
> newsletter subscribers.
This contradicts with your earlier words. I received two e-mails, not
four; that means that there was one e-mail per platform and no one-time
duplicates. There are two e-mails because the system has false notion
of customer identity due to poor sales automation.
I'm afraid that my original point that Franz is behind the current
technology by a decade and that it will affect my satisfaction as a
customer was true.
David
Sometimes (with old emailing platforms) could happen that even if there
are no emails duplicates, system delivers more than one email per
address. For example if delivery queue stops for some reason, it could
restart from the beginning, sending twice emails.
With modern systems, as our http://www.mailupnet.com, this not happens,
and duplicates are removed automatically.
> > The duplicate emails yesterday was a one time glitch in the system
> > (automated, I might add) that sent out our monthly newsletter which
> > caused two copies to be emailed instead of one. I apologize to our
> > newsletter subscribers.
>
> This contradicts with your earlier words. I received two e-mails, not
> four; that means that there was one e-mail per platform and no one-time
> duplicates. There are two e-mails because the system has false notion
> of customer identity due to poor sales automation.
>
> I'm afraid that my original point that Franz is behind the current
> technology by a decade and that it will affect my satisfaction as a
> customer was true.
>
> David
···················@gmail.com writes:
> HTTP URL to make the payment. The person responded that I can send the
> card information in plain e-mail. I asked again about a secure way to
> pay, and the person responded that there was no such way with Franz.
What about the Franz Store?
https://secure.franz.com/store/home
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
The Common Lisp Directory: http://www.cl-user.net
> What about the Franz Store?
>
> https://secure.franz.com/store/home
Hi,
that works for goods in the store, but the sales person refused to use
it (or any other secure facility) for the purchase for which the only
payment method advertised was by a credit card. I asked for a way to do
that several times.
David
David,
I run the Sales Team at Franz and want to apologize for any
inconvenience that you have experienced with our process. We are
always looking to improve the customer experience.
You may have experienced a few more email exchanges on this transaction
primarily because the sales person had just started working for us and
was still learning the process. This is my fault for not providing
more guidance during this training period. I can assure you that she is
now one of the most efficient and responsive sales persons I have
managed. If you (or any others reading) ever have a question or
concern then I am always available to discuss your issues.
I will take the blame for our inability to process transactions as you
requested. It has been my experience that purchasers prefer to speak
with a live person when they are charging more than a few hundred
dollars on their credit card. This mode of operation seems to work for
most of our transactions, the obvious issues are time zone related but
generally we will do what is necessary to contact customers at their
preferred time. Thus, I have not pushed our technical staff for a
solution since there are many other items on the list that appear to us
to be a higher priority. Franz is a small company and personally I
would prefer we use our technical resources to respond to customer's
technical questions and develop new functionality in an effort to keep
Lisp relevant to the market. We will investigate if there is an
intermediate solution that will satisfy users but not consume more
effort than is necessary to process requests such as yours.
With regard to the software license emails, we have a number of
situations that involve purchasing agents, contact persons, end users,
renewal recipients, etc. in often very large and bureaucratic
organizations. It has been our experience that one email per platform
seems to offer the most clarity for a majority of our customers. Our
experience has been that most customers do not have a problem with
receiving 2 and sometimes 3 emails rather than one email with all the
licenses lumped together. Of course, doing as you suggest is all
technically possible and given infinite resources there are many more
things that we can image that would improve the process. We certainly
hear what you are saying and as we obtain more feedback from customers
we will try to improve the user experience so their experience with
Franz is positive one.
I hope that you will look beyond the problems you had with our sales
process and recognize that we are running full speed with available
resources to make our Lisp relevant for the market so our customers can
be successful with their Lisp projects.
I encourage you to contact me directly (cnorvell(at)franz.com) with any
further ideas or suggestions that will help us improve our customer
service.
Best Regards,
Craig Norvell
···················@gmail.com wrote:
> > What about the Franz Store?
> >
> > https://secure.franz.com/store/home
>
> Hi,
>
> that works for goods in the store, but the sales person refused to use
> it (or any other secure facility) for the purchase for which the only
> payment method advertised was by a credit card. I asked for a way to do
> that several times.
>
> David
········@gmail.com wrote:
> Franz is a small company and personally I
> would prefer we use our technical resources to respond to customer's
> technical questions and develop new functionality in an effort to keep
> Lisp relevant to the market.
Continuing a fine tradition of the cobbler's children going without
shoes. Or even buying shoes from another cobbler. I was dumbstruck back
in college when my off-campus apt landlord who worked days as a mechanic
said he had the family car in the garage. Someone else's. Years later I
am shopping for someone to do my web app programming. Something like that.
kt
--
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:02:21 +0200, <···················@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest bank transfer.
That is about as safe at it gets.
Incidentally credit card is a lot safer on the net that using in
a store. Just look for the SSH signs.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/