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Friday, July 15, 2005

Found a Bug ?

With lotsa serious soul-searching (not soul-mate - duhh ;) going in the blogosphere, I wanted to write something lighter :-) Here is the outcome. (Acknowledgements: I was inspired by conversation with some of my colleagues)

Every Software has bugs. How do you market your software's user-friendliness, quality and at the same time make money out of the marketing blitz ?. Follow this technique.

Announce the following program for a long time, yes, not limited time.

Found a bug ? Win an iPod*
To participate in the program, you should find a bug in our software and submit entriy-form via our bug-reporting system, that we are yet to build. Only qualifying entries are considered for the unlucky draw. The chances of winning an iPod is one in zero.


*Terms and Conditions Apply:

1. You should not use a lens to read this terms and conditions. (Note, our font has been tested and approved to be not-readable with normal human-sight)

2. An expert panel from our developer group should agree that the reported bug is actually a bug. All decisions made by the developer group is binding and final

3. You may not report more than one bug. You will be disqualified if you have reported bugs in the past.

4. Very detailed step-by-step instructions should be filled out via our non-existent bug reporting system. The steps when followed by any person, should reproduce the bug. Also, the steps should be clear so that even a person, who does not understand the language should be able to read it

5. No other person, should have submitted this bug before. (Note, even entries that have been disqualified because of various reasons, would be considered as reported)

6. Bug should be reported within one-hour of the first sighting with screen shot at the time of the bug. Entries beyond one-hour will be disqualified

7. All bugs should first be attempted to be resolved via our state-of-the-art customer service center with the screen shot of the bug. You will be given a case-number that has to be attached to the entry-form.

8. You should wait atleast one-hour after you get the case-number to fill up the entry-form

9. You should give your email address which will ONLY be used for sending spam mails and you can not opt out of it.

10. ALL THE ABOVE CRITERIA MUST BE MET FOR THE ENTRY TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THE DRAW. ANY DISQUALIFICATION MEANS YOU MUST GIVE US AN iPod. As a customer-friendly measure, we plan on sending out self-addressed envelopes that wont be delivered without a stamp, that you MUST use to send in your iPod.

23 comments:

SamY said...

havn't u guys read through the law's that govern any written software ... one of em pertinent to this is -

"Bug's can neither be created not be destroyed, they can only be transformed from one form to another"

beware of letting the customers know this secret ... :p ... its a myth tho ... but @ the least, down here I'v seen it actually happen in person ... ha ha

cosmicblob said...

Good one - A humorous account of a not so humorous real life problem!

Check this out..do we need SPA (Software and Patch Administration) approved software nutrition labels?

http://hissa.nist.gov/~black/softwareFacts.html

SamY said...

cosmicblob: ez man!! ... just to add

definition of S/W Eng -

"On a Thursday night you are given the Empire State building, and the requirements ... 2 more levels @ the basement, a couple of large halls inserted b/w the 10 and 11th floor, and put a swimming pool at the top most floor. Ohhh yeah all this by monday morning"

and what dyu get :-?

not to give an excuse but the fact is when S/W fails ppl r fine with just restarting (thanks to training by MS) but for some mumble in most cases ... but no one wud want their car to fail such :( ...

n besided today companies including MS make business by keeping bugs in s/w ... if windows were ever bug free less ppl would be reliant on MS :) ... not ethical but thats how things work ...

so lets just njoi debugging things :) ...

cosmicblob said...

To err is human, to forgive is divine :) Let's err and then turn divine and forgive ourselves! Defects are an undeniable part of life....err..everything sounds philosophical on Arvinds blog - even software - ain't ?!! ;-)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

samy,

:-) nice one

cosmicblob,

SPA - lol, so now i have an attached philosophical tag to me ;) ?

samy/cosmicblob,

'a couple of large halls inserted b/w the 10 and 11th floor' :-))))

Anand,

will do dude

Robbie said...

Arvind:
I somehow wish that the people who design softwares think more about common computer illiterate man like me and not use bugs. I wish they sold stuff separately for people who arent tech savvy and for people who are. I guess its like this drug scientists designed thats works only on afro-americans. It got that company into trouble big time... anyway, appreciate the humor... sigh!

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Robbie,

'Appreciate the humor'. Thanks I appreciate it too :P

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Robbie,

Just to take exception, to your point about making a drug for afro-americans, the drug during clinical trials proved it had a higher success rate with afro-amro group and then FDA thought it'd be a good idea to target it to that group.

Doctors are allowed to prescribe it to others as well ;)

Nonetheless, back to software - do you like blogger ? does it have bugs ?

Robbie said...

Seems like blogger is working fine for me... gotta let you figure out where the bugs are now:P I cant see any E.coli or Salmonella...

Ram C said...

r u in the verge of converting some bugs for ur use and circulate it? better tell me in advance..

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Robbie,

My indirect point was that, there is so mucha software out there that does cater to non-tech-savvy junta

Ram,

Sure i'll let you know in advance, but terms and conditions still apply :P

Anand,

Will do, i have not trained my thoughts on nihilism yet...would have to do some thinking before talking ;)

Ganesh said...

arvind
kalakals

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Thanks Ganesh

Kasthuri said...

Really funny Arvind...

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Thanks Kasthuri !

Ganesh said...

Hi aravind
tried my hand at audio blog check it out.

Sriks said...

Golden rule :
There is always one more bug..:)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Sriks,

Not sure how many ppl would agree it is a 'golden' role ;)

jack said...

Arvind,
funny.BTW where you waiting for my comment??. One week no post :)?.Now that i have commented ,please go ahead and post the next one.

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Arun,
Thanks da :-)

Senthil,

If it will make you happy, yes :-) waiting for your comment. What were you waiting for, my next post ? :P

Have been very busy at work, no blog hopping either :-(

Will get a review out by this weekend :-)

Ganesh said...

aravind
ah aah pathi ezhuthirukken

Sriks said...

"Have been very busy at work"
--
doh da kali kalam, ippidi ellam achuna natula Tsunami enna pralayame varum..:))

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Anand,

Will do, i had been cut-out from the blog world for the better part of this week...

Sriks,

Yes, Ganguly ellam ran edukarappo varadha pralayam, ippo vandhuruma ? :P

May be i shd have added 'very very very very very' busy ? :-D