WWW access to Informix Bugs database
Quote:
> >> For the first time in a couple of years I've got something I want to
> >> look up in the Informix Bugs database, and I was hoping to be able to do
> >> it via the Informix Web page. But when I click on the "TechInfo Center"
> >> and enter my InformixLink login ID and password, it doesn't accept it.
> >> Is the TechInfo Center something you need to pay extra to access, over
> >> and above InformixLink? Or am I just doing something wrong?
> >> I'm hoping I don't still have to go hunting around for a 2400 baud modem
> >> to look something up on InformixLink, the way I used to, but I haven't
> >> been keeping up with developments, so maybe that's wishful thinking.
> >I've taken your journey. I thought I'd just call up and get a password, since
> >I buy tech support from them, and I explicitly stated I wanted access to the
> >TechInfo Center.
> >I received a login and password and joyfully sprang to the Web, only to be
> >frustrated.
> >Then I read the small print on something they sent in that package:
> >TechInfo/TechTips is "available with full-view InformixLink", which is
> >definitely not free:
> > full view w/10 hrs $400
> > full view w/50 hrs $1200
> > add'l hrs:
> > 10 $300
> > 50 $1100
> > 100 $2000.
Pay for the 10 hrs. The concept of hours of access to a web server is a
contradiction in terms. There is no way to measure this. You'l probably
retain your access forever (or until Informix comes up with some other
great idea of charging you a lot for knowing about all the defects they
put into their products). Be careful though. If they ask us we have all
kinds of ways to charge for web access which they could use, but should
we tell them...?
Quote:
> >They couldn't tell me this over the phone, I guess...
> If this is the case, why don't we start our own Bugs database? Who knows the
> bugs better than us? I have an Informix database running on the same machine
> as our Web server and I'd be willing to donate the resources...
While this is great of you, the number of defects and number of products together
would make it hard to maintain.
I do have access to the defect database via the web pages, and have found it
less than usefull. That is also true with the porting database.
The defect database is *one* big page with all bugs for each product (over 260.000
bytes for 4GL 6.xx family). It's a single line description of each bug with no
way of accessing any further information that I know of.
There is a monthly defects page for each product with some more descriptions.
The only way you can search any of this is to download the pages to your own
machine and use any local tool you might have to do text searchs on the file.
The port list is split in 4: Ports Orderable, Ports in Progress, Ports Pending,
and Ports Dropped. Within each of these there is one page per 14 day range saying
what porting activity happened in that time frame. Each page is sorted by machine
maker. To find usefull information you have to look through a lot of pages.
All this is hardly usefull to me!
It seems Informix hasen't understod that one can make interfaces between
web-browsers and a database so all the information would be searchable via
a standard QBE-screen. (They even posted a strange article on their web
server saying how difficult (or impossible) this is.) Maybe they should ask
their partner, Netscape, how to set up proper web-pages interfaced to a
high quality searchable defects and porting database.
What they have done seratinly can't make it easy for Informix nor Netscape
to market database access via the web!
May be a better defect database would be a good idea as a demonstration to
Informix of what can be done?
NM-data, Dalsbergstien 7, N-0170 Oslo, Norway
My opinions are those of my company
