On Monday 19 June 2006 13:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Flexibility: That's the key to this, isn't it? I think I figured that out
> also. At least I'm not the only one trying to point that out.
Flexibility yes, but more important than that, being able to roll my sleeves
up and fix whatever's broke without waiting for someone in an official
looking uniform to come by, look knowingly over the system, grunt a few
"hmm"s and announce that he'll have to order some parts in which may fix it
in a week. Or just as important, being able to either make the system (or
hire someone to make the system) do something that caused me to leap out of
bed one morning (scaring the shit out of my better half) screaming "Aha!
Eureka! If I can make the system do ${FOO} I will have solved a major
problem!"
Maybe I take my responsibilities too seriously, I don't know. I take a lot of
pride in being able to make the phone system, CRM app, hell anything I touch
here work FOR us, instead of us working to make the apps happy. I'm a huge
proponent of tech being here to serve us. I also hate, hate, HATE not being
able to fix something. That is why I gave up supporting Windows years ago.
I simply hate not having a good answer or solution for someone. I take it as
a personal failure.
I am not an old coot by any means (although my cootiness is rapidly becoming
apparent) but I've been bitten by closed, proprietary systems again and again
and again. I've got a highly trained sense of "ruh roh" -- So much so that I
can recognize the symptoms of lock-in before the sales critter's cologne has
a chance to saturate the waiting room.
Now they're getting smarter -- built-in VB scripting and XMLRPC or SOAP
interfaces are becoming the norm, and a lot of the big applications are
making their database schema available, but it's still a minefield of
"pseudo-flexibility" -- enough to make you think that you're getting what you
want (raw, unfettered access to your own data) but until you can actually
play with the system for a while and do more than just kick the tires you're
just grasping... And this pseudo-flexibility is extremely dangerous because
the managers that are sitting in on the marketing performance see the app
working, they hear words like "dynamic," "customizable" and "flexible" and
think that in a year when they ask you to hook the phone system up to the
coffee machine that it should be a trivial task because the sales guy showed
him in 5 minutes how customizable the HTML reporting screen was.
> I noticed you have faxing working. Can someone comment on how well that
> functions? I don't think that Aheeva is supporting faxing currently.
... there isn't anything to it. You don't send raw fax audio over the public
internet if you've got two neurons to rub together, but T.38 ATAs or
store-and-forward systems work without any trouble whatsoever.
My specific implementation has three fax machines going over a 1-hop SDSL link
between our office and our co-lo downtown where the PRI is located. No
issues outside of what we'd already have since our Xerox and Canon fax
machines are notorious for playing lip-service to the faxing standards. The
Panasonic one never has issues, unless it's talking to someone else's Xerox
or Canon fax machines. :-)
I'm cheating right now -- I have a second span on the T1 card going to a
channel bank to the machines. I used to have it hooked up to a TDM430 but
about 18 months ago that stopped working and I just haven't had the time to
get back into it and figure out what happened. For a new implementation
though I'd use any old T.38 capable ATA, even if you don't use the T.38
feature right now.
> This would be a great resource if we get to the next stage. Who can I
> lookup or call in MTL when I'm on vacation? I wouldn't bug you too much. I
> need the time away from here.
I'm in Waterloo, Ontario (well moving there next month) ... nowhere near MTL.
But I'm on IRC and the lists all the time.
-A.
