On 23 Mar 2007 13:47:02 -0700, "runsrealfast"
wrote:



But a couple years ago, I had just looked at one-handle kitchen
faucets and wanted to review online what they had. Couldn't find a
one at the lowes site, even though there are 10 different models at
every store. I wrote them, but afaik it hasn't gotten better.

BTW, I rarely write companies, but in this case I thought there was a
specific bug they might find which would caused the faucets and 100's
or 1000's of other things not to display. And if they fixed one
thing, it make things work. Like maybe they were checking a code that
shouldn't have been checked and deciding not to display things with
this irrelevant property. Or failing to check one that mattered.

I used to be a computer programmer, and finding one item out of place
most of the time pointed to a mistake that caused many more problems
than just the one item.

Most programmers do their testing on a test system with test data,
usually a lot less test data than in the production system, which may
or may not adequately represent the real data. AFter the system goes
into use, they depend on people finding bugs, and should be diligent
in solving them.

Also, I don't think any software testers use dial-up, so they may be
oblivious to the issues facing users who only have dial-up. Someone,
a boss, should be on their tail to remember them, but they can end up
writting a webpage that is too slow for the dial-up user.

Mouser Electronics is one of these. Everything is in pdf and to see
anything from the catalog, you have to download an entire catalog page
in pdf format. Even at the library with their high speed connectino
this takes 3 or 4 seconds, and again if you move to the next page. AT
home with dial up it is just impractical. Fortuntely they will send
out a CD which doesn't depend on my internet connection.


I just ran into a similar issue. Was looking to replace the kitchen
faucet and looked online while at work. I figured I could do a little
homework before heading into the store. When the cheapest online on
was something like $89.99, and that was a clearance price. I went into
the store and and yes they did have that exact faucet for a couple
dollars less than online. They also had other similar ones for
anywhere from $10-$15 less than the cheapest online faucet available.
Then as I pushed the sliding display I noticed a similar one for about
1/2 the cost of the online one (cost me 52 dollars with tax). Sure the
quality is a bit less, but we are planning on redoing the kitchen in a
year or two and only needed to make a replacement b/c there was a hole
in the one we had. I'm just glad i didn't ask one of their sales
people for help.


John