I’m pushing a button
That I think does nothing
Just to say I’m here

As I was becoming increasingly annoyed with a non-functioning app the other day I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was pushing the Cancel button just to say I was there? It obviously wasn’t doing anything so why did I keep pressing it? I guess I was just desperate for an acknowledgement from the app that it ‘knew’ I was trying to do something. I just wanted some feedback.

Feedback is critical. Whether it’s an app providing feedback to a person or a customer providing feedback to a company, feedback is empowering in so many ways. I vividly remember the early days of Agent Ransack. As a lone developer releasing a new app into the big wide world of April 2000 I had no idea that what I was doing was truly worthwhile. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that without the compliments, suggestions, and feedback from users around the globe Agent Ransack wouldn’t have survived.

With a new release of Agent Ransack planned for 2012 it’s now time to kindly ask for your feedback again. I understand that your time is valuable so I’ve tried to keep the questions to a minimum in the form of a short one page survey:

Agent Ransack 2012 – Wish List Survey

Mythicsoft’s on Twitter

I also have another favour to ask. I’ve just setup a Mythicsoft Twitter account and I could really do with your help in getting us established. If you use Twitter please consider following us by clicking on the link below:

Follow @mythicsoft

Now I realize that we’re hardly blazing a social-media-engagement trail here but better late than never. Please let us know how you think we’re doing and what we’re missing.

Making major changes to a product is not something to be taken lightly. Most of us have experienced the disappointment of installing a new update to a much-loved product only to find that rather than improving it the result was something bordering on useless.

I remember my personal frustration when upgrading PaintShop Pro from version 7 to 8. What had been a fast loading, easy to use, rock solid application suddenly morphed into a slumbering buggy monster. It was unceremoniously removed from my PC and thrown in the bin. It was only recently, 8 years later, that I felt brave enough to give it another go, now version X3. Sure enough many of the issues have now been resolved and it’s returned as my favourite image editing program but I still remember that sinking sense of disappointment.

Upgrade Disappointment was something I was determined would not happen with FileLocator Pro 6. There were some major under the hood changes regarding how data was read from disk and processed and since these routines are core to FileLocator Pro the introduction of even a small inefficiency is exaggerated over the course of an average search. Fortunately not only are the routines as fast as the original ones but in many circumstances significantly faster.

FileLocator Pro does remove support for Windows 2000 but while this might be frustrating for a small minority of users I think it’s worth the compromise.

So, it’s a great update. Right? Well, you can’t be sure you’ve hit the mark until your customers get their hands on it. Only when they start pounding away and using it in ways you’ve never thought of can you be sure. It’s still early days but so far the feedback has been amazing and the upgrade orders are record-breaking.

My heart-felt thanks go to all our customers. They’re the ones who really made Version 6 possible!

I’m not a big mobile phone user but with the huge movement in mobile apps I thought I needed to understand the new generation of smart phones. From a developer’s perspective I’m not comfortable with Apple so I went for the HTC Desire running Android 2.2.

The best (legitimate) offer on the web was with Orange so I went ahead and purchased the phone with a monthly contract.

Problem no.1: On the final confirmation stage the web page animation seemed to hang then after about a minute showed an error message saying that I needed to phone Orange to complete the order. So I phoned and spoke to some bloke who was very pleasant and apologetic. He took my details again and said the phone would be with me tomorrow morning.

Next morning the phone arrives.

Problem no.2: Instead of an expensive state-of-the-art piece of electronic wizardry the parcel contained the cheapest looking piece of rubbish I’ve ever seen. (Even my wife, who is not the most technically savvy consumer, looked at it with horror.)

So I phoned up and said they’d been a mistake and the wrong phone had been shipped. The customer rep apologised and said she would cancel the contract and I’d need to re-order. “Can’t you just collect this phone and send me out the one I ordered?”, “Sorry sir that’s not possible”.

Problem no.3: Anyway, I couldn’t just quickly cancel the contract. I needed to break the seal on the box, open it, unwrap the phone, take off the case, and read some number in the battery compartment, find the SIM card, which was floating loose in the packaging and read that number too. I couldn’t help but laugh when, after all this, she asked “So why would you like to cancel your contract?”.

With the contract cancelled she forwarded me to the Sales group, who informed me that they don’t have the HTC Desire in stock. It looks like the original sales guy wanted his commission so badly that rather than tell me the phone wasn’t in stock he’d take the order, get the commission, and send me out the cheapest phone they have knowing that the contract would simply be cancelled when the phone arrived.

Fuming, and promising NEVER to use Orange again I went to look at other carriers. However, before I did I thought I’d give the Orange web site a look to see if they’d taken the product off the site. No, it was still there. Now I know that at this point I should have just tutted and moved on but I was in the mood for creating trouble so I phoned Orange again.

The rep who answered said they’d just received a new batch of phones and he could send me one immediately. I said don’t worry about it, if I wanted the phone I’d order it through the web site (thinking to myself that it’d be a cold day in hell before I ever purchased something from Orange again). The sales rep (who was actually called Steve) was very persistent to the point that I explained why I had such a negative opinion of Orange. Steve apologised, said it wouldn’t happen again and he’d sort it out. I politely rejected his offer and said I needed to go.

The end? Well, not quite. Steve phoned back. He seemed genuinely troubled by my recent experience and wanted to sort it out. He said he could process the order immediately with all the information already in the system and the phone would be with me tomorrow. Guaranteed. In my slight state of shock at his concern I agreed.

And to my surprise the phone, in all its shining glory, arrived as promised. However, what I was more surprised about was my attitude to Orange. My strong negative emotions (which I was eagerly intending to rant about to anyone willing to listen) had gone. Just like that.

Lessons learned:
- If you incentivise your sales staff purely on sales and not quality of sales bad things will happen.
- You don’t need to pay compensation to rectify a bad situation. Steve never offered me a discount and I never asked. I thought the price was fair. All I wanted was the product.
- A little concern, empathy, and professionalism can go an awful long way to turning around what seems like a terminal situation.
- Persevere. Customers assume you don’t care about them. Show them you do.
- Problems happen, that’s life. How you sort them out is what counts.

Oh, and the phone? One word: Astonishing.

Do software developers write software for Windows because

a) Windows is REALLY cool and hip
b) Microsoft creates a great environment in which to write applications
c) 90% of all PC users use Windows
d) Microsoft understands and looks after 3rd party software developers
e) Windows users understand that paying for software provides much needed support for their favourite tools and utilities

My answer: “f) All of the above (except a)”.

What’s my point? Well, it’s a convoluted answer to numerous, very complimentary, requests to port FileLocator Pro to the Mac. Usually I reply something along the lines of “We don’t have the resources to support multiple platforms with minimal market share”. But it’s not as simple as that.

For all of Microsoft’s faults it has always understood one very important thing. Look after software developers. Microsoft’s support for developers is multi-faceted. Its development tools (such as Visual Studio) are best in class, its help systems are comprehensive, the support communities are (for the most part) welcoming and Microsoft really cares about backwards compatibility.

Microsoft also cares about fostering a strong inclusive 3rd party community listening not only to the large partners but also the smaller partners, as we witnessed first hand when they included us in a recent press release.

This isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ its incredibly important.

Writing software is a HUGE investment with no guaranteed returns. To take that sort of risk you need to know that the organization ultimately responsible for the ecosystem in which you want to live cares about your success and survival.

Which leads me back to the topic on writing software for the Mac. With all the recent press regarding the App Store (I know it’s for the iPhone but it’s still the same company) Apple appears to have a very arrogant attitude to its 3rd party developers. Paul Graham has a good article about it here: http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html

Don’t get me wrong Apple products are invariably cool. They make you smile, even chuckle, when you use them. Apple users don’t mind paying for software. The Mac market place is big enough for a FileLocator Pro type utility. I would even like for Mythicsoft to write software for the Mac. But, and this is a BIG but, I just don’t trust Apple to look after the ecosystem in which we would need to live. I’m not saying that we won’t write software for the Mac but Apple isn’t making it a no brainer.

Our customer service queries are answered either by me personally or by a software developer who can review the actual source code. It pays for us to have software developers answering questions but not just for customer satisfaction. Customers are, more often than not, helping us to make our products better. It’s amazing. They’re spending their time making our product better and then they thank US at the end of it. Simply because we’ve listened to them.

We never forget that we’re the main beneficiary of the correspondence. Who knows how many other people couldn’t be bothered to tell us about the issue/feature deficiency and simply uninstalled the product? As a rule of thumb I put it at around 1 in 100 will contact us, which highlights just how special each correspondence is.

However, there are a rare few people who can create problems and waste time. Suddenly customer support can become quite a challenge. Fortunately we only have one or two challenging users but I thought it’d be interesting to show you the correspondence with one of those users over the past decade to illustrate the harder side of customer service.

(For the sake of privacy I’ve paraphrased the communication, unless shown in quotes, but I’ve tried to keep the tone. I’ve used the fictitious name of ‘John’ and I’ve also removed all the ‘Thank you for your comment’ style introductions.)

It all starts nicely enough…

Year 2000

Sept – John: Will Agent Ransack be compatible with Win ME?
Mythicsoft: While I have not yet tested Agent Ransack there should be no compatibility problems.

Nov – John: How do I get a registration code?
Mythicsoft: I’ll send one to you.

Year 2001

Nov – John: How do I install the latest version of Agent Ransack?
Mythicsoft: You can just run the latest install which will install straight over the top.

Year 2002

Aug – John: How do I install the latest version of Agent Ransack?
Mythicsoft: Just install over the top

Year 2003

July – John: How do I use wildcards with Agent Ransack
Mythicsoft: Please see example below…

Sept – John: What is the equivalent to *.* in Agent Ransack
Mythicsoft: Just don’t put anything or put .*

Year 2005

And after using the product for five years…

Nov – John: “The program does not work at all. How would I MAKE it work?”
Mythicsoft: “What happens?”
John: “Nothing. There isn’t even an icon on the desktop.”
Mythicsoft: “So when you double-click the downloaded agentran.exe absolutely nothing happens?”
… No response…

Year 2006

Jan – John: How much does FileLocator Pro cost?
Mythicsoft: A single user license costs $24.95

Year 2007

June – John: When I click on a search result I get an error. How can I get rid of this error.
Mythicsoft: Were you clicking on a temporary file that has since been deleted?
John: No, it is neither a temporary or deleted file.
Mythicsoft: Does this happen in all folders for all searches?
… No reponse …

July – John: I did a search for xxx and received hundreds of results. Obviously, this is not useful. Please help with this problem.
Mythicsoft: Are the results wrong?

Aug – John: I tried searching for .txt but the results are wrong. What is the problem and how can it be fixed?
Mythicsoft: In FLPro set the type to DOS Exp and put *.txt and in Agent Ransack use \.txt$

Aug – John: It is possible to obtain an instruction manual.
Mythicsoft: Link for PDF manual sent.

Aug – John: I’m happy with Agent Ransack so I think I’ll give FileLocator Pro a try but first I have a few questions…
Mythicsoft: (Questions answered).

It looks like John wants to buy but there are some problems…

Sept – John: “You want me to pay by Visa or Mastercard. I have Discover. Does Mythicsoft want to make it impossible for me to purchase its products?”
Mythicsoft: “We do accept Discover, simply follow the Buy Now link and although it show the VISA and Mastercard symbol does accept Discover.”
John: Do I choose Visa or MasterCard.
Mythicsoft: Simply click the Buy Now button and follow the on screen instructions. Regsoft handle all the details regarding credit card information.

Oct – John orders FileLocator Pro – Great! It’s taken a while but we have another satisfied customer… or do we?

Oct – John: I have not received my registration code.
Mythicsoft: (Registration code resent).

How much goodwill and trust does free help and support over seven years buy you? Not much…

Oct – John: “YOU are a fraudulent organization engaging in illegal practices.

I PAID for FileLocator Pro because Agent Ransack was good and FileLocator Pro demonstration program worked well. So I paid for the program and I fell for the old “bait and switch” scheme.

I told you that the “registration” key that you sent to me did not work — actually, the key did not fit, so I requested a fully working copy. NO response. I requested the program…again no response.

Mythicsoft may be a small organization, but that doesn’t excuse its shoddy treatment of customers. You may rest assured that I will do everything in my power to besmirch your firm for its shoddy morals — if your firm and employees have any morals at all.”

Mythicsoft: (Multiple replies were sent using Mythicsoft and private email accounts without any response.)

Assuming that it was an unsuccessful purchase a refund was issued. End of story? Not quite…

Nov – John: “I apologize for being so nasty”. Your registration email went into my spam folder. The lazy and incompetent people at my ISP win again.
Mythicsoft: “No worries I’m glad at least one email got through. You’ve probably noticed that your original order was refunded since we assumed that you never received any registration code. Keep the original registration with our compliments.”
John: “Thank you.”

Dec – John: Your system is excellent. Could you recommend a search engine for web searches?
Mythicsoft: Google works for me.

Dec – John: Would you send the registration code to me? My computer fouled up and I need to reinstall.
Mythicsoft: You can download the registration key at anytime from the web site.

Year 2008

Jan – John: I would like to use a manual instead of a help file.
Mythicsoft: Link to manual in PDF format sent.

Feb – John: How do I search multiple drives?
Mythicsoft: Separate locations using the ; character. e.g. c:\;e:\

And then things start going wrong again…

Mar – John: “I bought the program [FLPro] because I was impressed by Agent Ransack.” You can understand why I was disappointed when FileLocator Pro missed something. FileLocator Pro found 13 items, yet not one of them was what I was looking for. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from occurring?
Mythicsoft: I would need to see the file it missed to understand why the file was not picked up.

Mar – John: “How would I get the EXACT match? My definition of ‘exact’ is just that…EXACT.”
Mythicsoft: Switch to regular expression and type: \bterm\b

Apr – John: “FileLocator Pro indicated that a document I was searching for was in the ‘c:\Documents and Settings folder. I looked for that folder yet it was not there. What is going on here?”
Mythicsoft: You probably have the folder hidden. In your explorer settings make sure that you show all items, including hidden and system.

May – John: FileLocator Pro is now running slowly. How should I proceed?
Mythicsoft: If you have switched on the extensions in the ‘File Type Extensions’ tab then it will be slower. If not then please provide some metrics. i.e. 3 searches of a 100MB took 10 secs etc.

Nov – John: “I bought FileLocator Pro about a year ago, after being impressed by Agent Ransack. Suddenly FileLocator Pro doesn’t work.” I searched for a word and it wasn’t found.
Mythicsoft: I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to. Are you searching through PDF documents?

Year 2009

Mar – John: “There are two questions, the answers to which are probably covered in your ‘Help’ file, but I must have quick answers:…”
Mythicsoft: (Questions answered)

More problems, this time with registration…

May – John: “I’ve used FileLocator Pro for several years (and before that Agent Ransack). Suddenly, FileLocator Pro disappeared. And now I get a message that I must register it AGAIN. I already paid for the program — after I saw how well Agent Ransack worked. Must I pay for FileLocator Pro again? If not, please send a version that works — or send a registration key so I may input it?”
Mythicsoft: I imagine that some sort of registry cleaner type program has accidently removed it. Please re-download the program from the MyAccount section of the web site.
John: I followed your instructions exactly. I got a message that the trial period had expired. What is going on here?
John: Please send an executable (the actual program, NOT instructions and NOT an installation file ) to me.
Mythicsoft: What reg code are you trying to use?

Request for a refund (it’s already been refunded!) with a few threats thrown in…

May – John: I have been using FileLocator Pro for a long time, after using Agent Ransack. Suddenly, FileLocator Pro did not work. The $29.95 registration fee may not mean much to you, but to me it is a lot of money. I would rather have the program running, but if you cannot fix matters, return the $29.95 to me.
“One thing you can be certain of: I will heartily not recommend MythicSoft or any of its products to my local association (350+ members) if you do not resolve this problem promptly.”
Mythicsoft: (More instructions on how to download and install FileLocator Pro).
John: Thank you, I have a few more questions on how to register the product.
Mythicsoft: (Repeat instructions from above)

Looks like registration was sorted out so let’s get back to using the product…

Oct – John: “How do I conduct a search on FileLocator Pro?”
Mythicsoft: “Please supply more information about what you are trying to do.”
John: How can I put in a search term and then get results for ONLY the term I input?
Mythicsoft: What are you getting other than the term you’re entering?

Nov – John: “I am finally getting around to reading your ‘help’ file. Do you have it in book/magazine format so”
Mythicsoft: Link to manual in PDF format sent.

After almost ten years of free continuous support and…

Nov – John: This program was supposed to be faster than XP search but it’s not. The help system is over blown and was no help. There was nothing about ‘faster’, ‘rapid’, or ‘speedier’ on it.
“I paid for this program. It is supposed to be even better than Agent Ransack. I don’t mind paying for a computer program that does something and/or is an improvement to an existing function. FileLocator Pro is a disappointment — it is not an improvement.”
Mythicsoft: (Through gritted teeth) “Thank you for your comments. We make every effort to make FileLocator Pro as fast and as functional as possible.”

Just to round of the year with a bang…

Dec – John: I downloaded the new version application: npp.src.4.7.2.zip
Nothing, absolutely nothing shows up. It has been over two hours since I downloaded the file.
Mythicsoft: “Any questions relating to NotePad++ should be directed at the NotePad++ team.”
And we all wait with baited breath for the next question…

What’s my point?

Customer service can be very rewarding and, at least in our case, company changing but it can also be very hard and sometimes even slightly distressing. When some people communicate without any face to face interaction they can loose all sense of respect and courtesy. Take our ‘John’ for example. He’s taken up hours if not days of our time without any compensation financial, gratitude or otherwise. But in some ways I quite look forward to John’s emails. It now always raises a smile and reminds me how truly special all our other customers are.

It seems that Command Prompt Here has been added as a standard ‘Extended’ option in Windows 7 and that’s where my option had gone… onto the folder’s Extended context menu, which is visible if you hold down Shift while right-clicking on a folder. Since I use that option so often I wanted it back on the regular context menu. Fortunately this is very simple:
1.
Open RegEdit

2.
Go to HKCR\Directory\shell\cmd

3.
Delete the string value ‘Extended’

And Hey Presto it’s back!

Back in 1994, while working for a bank in London, I was asked to come up with a specification standard that could be given to any old ‘monkey’ and would produce reliable results. Management were fed up with the code quality and productivity disparities through-out the development teams.

In my naivety I thought it could be done. If I could take out the hard bit of the problem, my thinking went, then surely the ‘easy’ bit could be given to anyone with even half a brain cell. However, once I started drawing up tables and diagrams I eventually realized that to cover all the details required it would be easier just to code the whole thing myself. Frederick Brooks describes the problem as the ‘essential’ difficulties as opposed to the ‘accidental’ difficulties in the software process:

http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SoftwareEngineering/BrooksNoSilverBullet.html

Before I had to admit failure the whole project was cancelled but that experience has hung with me ever since. It’s why I’m cynical of many development methodologies that attempt to remove the ‘essential’ difficulties of software design and dumb down the art of software development.

There’s much common sense in modern methodologies but each project/team needs to take a pragmatic approach to picking the best bits that remove as much of the ‘accidental’ difficulties as possible without stifling creativity and productivity. This Goldilocks philosophy (not too little or too much but just enough) doesn’t always go down well because it’s very intangible and changeable. Software developers intrinsically like to complete lists and an unchecked box on a Methodology check list feels uncomfortable. The trouble is software development is not a science that can be reduced to check lists but rather a highly creative art form. But that’s for another post…

Now, where was I?

Ah yes, an automated test system. Invaluable… but our system maybe not quite what you’d imagine when talking about automated testing. We don’t have test plans for every piece of code. We don’t write test cases before writing code. So what do we have?

Instead we maintain a library of search criteria that’s applied against a library of test data. Search tests exist for all the common cases but equally importantly for the ‘edge’ cases which 90% of our customers will never hit. Whenever we’re adding a new feature or find a bug we add a new test to the library to test for that feature/bug in the future.

When the test process is run for the first time a ‘master’ result is produced and a developer checks that the master result is correct. From then on any future runs are compared against the master. The results are summarised in a single file and we have an in-house utility to diagnose any discrepancies.

It works a treat and requires very little resources to maintain but most importantly it tests the essence of the product. The product as the customer experiences it. It’s invaluable in our pursuit of product excellence and reliability.

Okay, I admit that not every application has such convenient and concrete input/output requirements. However, if you can find an unobtrusive way to add even the smallest amount of useful automated testing to your development cycle I guarantee you’ll wonder why you never had something like this before. (Just remember to focus on the goal and not the process.)

Two extra changes are now required for out of process activation to work:

1. The AppID settings for the library needs to specify the DllSurrogate (leave blank to use the default surrogate process dllhost.exe), e.g.

HKCR 
{ 
    NoRemove AppID 
    { 
        '%APPID%' = s 'MyLib' 
        { 
            val DllSurrogate = s '' 
        } 
  
        'MyLib.DLL' 
        { 
            val AppID = s '%APPID%' 
        } 
    } 
} 

2. The component needs to specify the AppID

HKCR 
{
     ... default component registration ...
     NoRemove CLSID
     {
         ForceRemove (clsid) = s 'MyObject Class'
         {
             val AppID = s '%APPID%'
             ... rest of class registration...
         }
     }
 } 

That’s it.

What are you doing?

My development machine is just that, mine. I use it for at least 8 hours every day and, without sounding too weird, have a close affinity with it. When performing a task I have a pretty good idea how much pain the machine will be in, I can hear the hard drives working, I can see the CPU temperature increasing, I can feel the responsiveness of the machine slow. It’s all cause and effect. However, when I hear the computer working without my instruction, like a mother who’s just found her ever helpful toddler trying to put the carving knives away, I have to ask “What are you doing!?”.

Since I’ve been running Windows Vista there’s been a lot more of this surreptitious moonlighting. In fact as I write this my computer’s hard drive has been thrashing away for about 20 minutes and I have no idea why. I’m sure if I look in the performance monitor I’ll see something related to a system process but I’m still not sure exactly what. There’s something so… niggling, irritating, uncomfortable (I can’t quite think of the word) about the sound of the hard drive grinding away. Maybe it’s because it’s normally associated with the computer running much slower, maybe it’s the control freak in me, but either way it’s frustrating.

The Solution

My recommendation to Microsoft is that if Vista needs to do something that might slow my work down for more than a few seconds then ask me first. Put something in the task bar to remind me that a system administration process needs to occur and I’ll pick when I want it to run. Maybe when I go to lunch. Maybe when I switch the computer off. But whenever it is it needs to be at my schedule. Window’s Vista isn’t bad* but I think it could be a lot better if it remembered that sometimes you need to ask first before you do something.

* The major incompatibility changes, which caused us a not insignificant amount of work, were a necessary evil to make the OS and 3rd party applications more secure. (Why Vista requires quite so much more resources is not so understandable.)