From: mhirsch@volkl.princeton.edu (Michael Hirsch)
Subject: Re: AOL for help (was Re: GEOS and PostScript)
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University Department of Computer Science
	<Jan.5.05.04.27.1993.5618@pilot.njin.net>
	<1993Jan5.120217.4796@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:36:26 GMT

>>>>> On Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:02:17 GMT, johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (John D. Mitchell) said:

John> In article <Jan.5.05.04.27.1993.5618@pilot.njin.net>
John> birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag) writes:
	[snip]
>I would be very interested in learning
>
>a) the AOL addresses of the Georeps (since I _can_ e-mail them through the
>   AOL <-> Internet e-mail gateway, without spending money that I don't have
>   to begin with).

John> As I tried to say a long while back when this was brought up...
John> Please remember that the GeoReps are strictly *volunteers*.
John> They ride herd over the various GeoWorks areas on AOL.  They
John> aren't the answer people (though they end up doing an awful lot
John> of that because they do know so much).
	[snip]
>c) whether GeoWorks has given any thought to providing some other sort of
>   support (even just a UUCP e-mail drop would be better, for folks like me.

John> At the current time, AOL is (still) the official online GeoWorks
John> support forum.

I don't get it.  First you say that GeoWorks does not supply any
official suppoort on AOL, but rather the people there are volunteers
working (presumably) on their own time.  Then you say that AOL is the
official online support forum.

Well, which is it?  From your second description I would say that Shag
is right to be a tad miffed that the only online support costs $$.
But if the first description is true then his the objections are that
1) There is no official online support forum, and
2) The voluteers (with the notable exception of John) choose to spend
all there time on AOL.

My impression is that the AOL forum is more than just a bunch of
employees all of whom happen to spend time (and $) on AOL.  It seems
pretty clear to me that they are encouraged to do so by GeoWorks (I'm
willing to be corrected, though).  Until I find out otherwise, I will
be annoyed along with Shag that GeoWorks isn't spending any time
putting information out where I can read it.

After all, when I got DRDOS, I got drdostip.zip off of Simtel.  When I
helped my father buy an SVGA board that came without Windows 3.1
drivers we found the companies official driver on Simtel.  When I
realized that DRDOS had a new upgrade I found it on Simtel.  I have
found patches for Turbo C on Simtel.  Since that pretty much takes
care of all the commercial applications I own, I would say that every
other company I deal with puts information out where people can find it
without shelling out $$.

Surely GeoWorks has some bug fixes it could release.  Surely it has
some frequently asked questions to which it knows the answers that it
could publish electronically (that's what drdostip.zip was).  You told
me once that there was a Dvorak keyboard driver on AOL but it has
never migrated to internet (that I know of).  Remember all the hassles
Rudy had trying to get us a copy of launchmaker and iconeditor?  If I
were GeoWorks I would try to get them the widest distribution possible
instead of rely on the trickle down effect.

Boy, that's long.  My point is that GeoWorks could do a lot more to
get the information out to the public.  I don't mean to criticize
John, I think he is doing a fine job here, I only mean to  criticize
(constuctively, I hope) his employer.
--


Michael D. Hirsch		mhirsch@cs.princeton.edu    
Computer Science Department	Voice: (609) 258-1751       
Princeton NJ, 08544		FAX:   (609) 258-1771