1SRC Podcast 179

[Alan G]

This week on the 1SRC Podcast: GPS Navigator gets a price cut, Palm ends email support, and PC World's article, "Is the Palm OS Dying?". [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=2080)]

[BaDZeD]

Thank you Alan for yet another great podcast.
E-mail is not really a good option anyway. A forum type solution is much more flexible as forums are searchable which goes a long way in eliminating redundancy (answering the same questions over and over) Also, much work is done by the community activists, which drives the cost of tech support even lower. =) So no, I do not believe that cutting email support is a bad move on Palm's part.
As far as PalmOS dying, I think it will live on as something similar to ALP's GHost emulator on the new platform. That will most probably mean that the development for POS5 will cease.

[Alan G]

My feeling is that applications will still be written for the Palm OS 5.x code base for at least a year after Palm OS II/Nova is released. I fully expect companies like NormSoft, Chapura, Astraware, and DataViz to quickly rewrite their applications for the new native environment, but I suspect that smaller companies and hobbyists to make the transition at a much slower pace, assuming that they switch over at all.

Alan G

[holvoetn]

Was there an email support channel with Palm before ? Wow, never knew that ... not that I would ever have used it, that's another story :rolleyes:

'People on patrol resolving issues ... volunteer their time ... helping customers...' I liked the first part of that quote, but the last part implies some kind of transaction. And this is where lately I am having a problem ...
I would like to point out that most of 'the patrol squad' are 100% volunteers on whatever forum they participate in. Yet sometimes people do post in a style DEMANDING someone to provide them an answer to their problem ASAP. That simply does NOT work. A lot of info is already available in all the forums you mentioned (BrightHand, 1src, Palm Help Forums, TreoCentral, ...) yet some people always seem to have an issue using the search function.
Even worse, usually those are also the people saying they never read the manual since they do not have time to do so.
But someone else then needs to make personal time available to answer their problem ? I don't think so ...
Usually posters like that will get an answer from me pointing them towards their manual. I refuse to provide answers in such cases, following the saying "Teach a man to fish ..."

Sometimes they are even too hard-headed to understand that :rolleyes:

[Alan G]

I would agree that people demanding support should be immediately directed to the search button or their manuals. When they continue to demand help, I usually just move on.

As for teaching people to fish, ya, skip the IBM WebSphere JVM thread on the PHF...people asking to have the software emailed to them with their post just below a post with a link to the software in it. Oy!

Alan G

[Dick Tracy]

I'm not obligated to post a reply to every forum post I read. And I don't.

The attitude of entitlement is not a deserving one IMO.

I'm still dismayed at the number of PMs for personal assistance I receive at PHF when my signature explicitly states that I will not reply to questions for tech support. I have noticed that this request now asks that PMs for tech support not be sent to Mods over at PHF and it covers the top half of the page on any page until one scrolls down.

Literacy problem or attitude problem? I haven't figured it out yet. :rolleyes:

As to "Is PalmOS Dying?" I believe it is being phased out once Nova devices appear. Palm did, after all, amortize Garnet only through 2010 on their books.

[AintNoSnitch]

This week's chat unavailable because of a preexisting NDA. Can't be snitchin, especially when you sign on the line!

I kid, of course! Except about the snitching. I would never.

Transcript for May 3rd, 2008 attached!