As in,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act%21

(I'm really surprised there's an entry for it, but it's definitely there.)

As far as I can tell, this crappy little program (which has a distinctly 
Windows 3.1 GUI) just stores contact details. A bit like... the contacts 
list feature of Outlook. All it seems to do is store and retrieve client 
information. That's its entire function.

Now, if the program did this especially well, you could understand my 
company deciding to use it. But it doesn't. It is the most unreliable 
crock of junk EVER! It is just so complicated to set up. And sometimes 
you set it up, and for no reason, it just won't work. And you have to 
set it up all over again. Sometimes it takes several attempts before it 
will work correctly. Sometimes it never works quite how it should.

The program keeps a local database in some undocumented proprietry 
format. When you first set this thing up, you have to email the 
application administrator and ask him to build a "blank database" for 
the new user. You put this on the hard drive and point the software at it.

The best part is that these databases are kept synchronised BY SENDING 
EMAILS! That's right. When you enter some new data into your local 
database and you want to propogate it to the other users in the company, 
you press a button and the software builds a database diff and SENDS IT 
IN AN EMAIL to the application administrator. He imports this into the 
master database. Periodically, he sends out emails to everybody to 
import into their local databases to bring them back up to date.

Yes, you heard me correctly. In the year 2008, people are trying to 
manually synchronise seperate databases by sending diffs back and forth 
by email. And if your database gets out of synch somehow, next time you 
send out a sync it can "corrupt" the master database, causing general 
disaster. You also have to be very careful about exactly how you update 
information in your local database, to avoid lost updates and other 
well-known database problems.

(There's also an "optimise database" option that has to be used only at 
certain times to avoid corrupting your database next time you import... 
You see what I mean about complicated?!?)

The best part is when you've set up a new PC with a blank database. You 
then have to import an "initial synch packet". Unlike the regular diffs 
which only contain updates, this packet contains EVERYTHING.

I'm doing such a process as we speak, actually. The full packet is a 
mere 6 MB in size. And yet, even on brand-new top-of-the-line hardware, 
it takes several *hours* to import all the data. The entire time, there 
seems to be very little CPU usage, but massive HD thrashing.

Like, WTF? *How* can it possibly take this long to process a mere 6 MB 
of data?? What the hell is it *doing*?! x_x

(I started processing at 2 PM today. It is now 3 PM, and currently 32% 
processed.)

Throughout all of this, I keep asking why the hell we're using this lump 
of crud. The answer I keep getting is "we don't have anything else to 
use". Why somebody can't throw together something superior in Access in 
about 10 minutes is beyond my powers of comprehension...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:

> (I started processing at 2 PM today. It is now 3 PM, and currently 32% 
> processed.)

...and still it continues... (83% now)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> (I started processing at 2 PM today. It is now 3 PM, and currently 32% 
>> processed.)
> 
> ...and still it continues... (83% now)

Damnit, IT'S STILL GOING! >_<

This isn't going to complete before I go home, is it? Grr...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> Now, if the program did this especially well, you could understand my 
> company deciding to use it.

It used to be all the shizzle ten or twelve years ago. All kinds of 
stuff interfaced with it, including form letter generation, tickler 
files, etc. Everyone tried to be compatible with ACT!

> The program keeps a local database in some undocumented proprietry 
> format. 

According to wikipedia, it's MS SQL Server. Are you running a recent 
version, or the Win 3.1 version? :-)

> Yes, you heard me correctly. In the year 2008, people are trying to 
> manually synchronise seperate databases by sending diffs back and forth 
> by email. 

Kind of makes sense if you think about traveling salesmen with 
disconnected laptops adding new contacts that other people don't really 
need to see promptly.  Needing to manually import the stuff seems kind 
of odd.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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>> Now, if the program did this especially well, you could understand my 
>> company deciding to use it.
> 
> It used to be all the shizzle ten or twelve years ago. All kinds of 
> stuff interfaced with it, including form letter generation, tickler 
> files, etc. Everyone tried to be compatible with ACT!

I see... I guess that would be why we have licenses for it then!

>> The program keeps a local database in some undocumented proprietry 
>> format. 
> 
> According to wikipedia, it's MS SQL Server. Are you running a recent 
> version, or the Win 3.1 version? :-)

The version we have is pretty old. It definitely does NOT use SQL 
Server! It uses flat files. And I don't see any Sage branding either...

>> Yes, you heard me correctly. In the year 2008, people are trying to 
>> manually synchronise seperate databases by sending diffs back and 
>> forth by email. 
> 
> Kind of makes sense if you think about traveling salesmen with 
> disconnected laptops adding new contacts that other people don't really 
> need to see promptly.  Needing to manually import the stuff seems kind 
> of odd.

Well, Microsoft Outlook seems to manage to do all this just fine without 
any special action on the user's part. You're out on the road, you read 
the local copy of your mailbox, you send out a few replies (obviously 
they don't "go" anywhere yet), compose new emails, note down new client 
contacts, etc. When you get back to the office, you connect, and Outlook 
somehow manages to automatically synchronise your local mailbox with the 
server copy - and even lets you continue working while it's doing it! It 
also never "corrupts the database" if you try to do operations in "the 
wrong order".

Why the hell can't ACT do any of this?? And given that it can't, why 
don't we just use the existing contact-sharing features already in 
Outlook???

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Why the hell can't ACT do any of this?? 

Just guessing, offhand, that you're running a version designed to fit in 
just a few megabytes of memory. You know, back when the question was 
"why would anyone need 64 meg of memory??"  ;-)

What does the copyright in the "about" box say?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Invisible wrote:
> Throughout all of this, I keep asking why the hell we're using this lump 
> of crud. The answer I keep getting is "we don't have anything else to 
> use". Why somebody can't throw together something superior in Access in 
> about 10 minutes is beyond my powers of comprehension...

We've had things superior to this for years:  Post-It notes.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:
> 
> We've had things superior to this for years:  Post-It notes.

They also are superior when storing passwords.

> Regards,
> John

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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