Hi,

As users of the HP ITRC (formerly "HP ESC") may have noticed, the ITRC
(IT Resource Center) has recently gone from bad to worse.

Ok...ok...you're right.  It went from worse to reallllly worse.

I have to ask:

   - why do users accept this?

   - why does HP think it's acceptable?

   - isn't there an HP manager *anywhere* who can look
     at the HP ITRC and say:  wow, this *sucks*!?

I probably should nod to fairness by saying: this is a lot better
than the dialup bug report facility we used to have to use
10 years ago.   But.   That's about all I can say *in favor*
of the ITRC.

Problems:

   1) performance

      If it were to double in speed, it would still be really slow.

   2) web page design

      The recent change makes it much harder for users of large
      monitors (with lots of dots) to read ... HP went out of their
      way to exert more control over the font size, resulting in
      tiny text.  Sure...this can be overriden, but *it shouldn't
      have to be*!  (Besides, the override mechanism screws up the
      majority of the rest of the pages in the world.)

   3) search engine

      Between insisting on "stemming" (finding "programmer" when
      you search for "program"), and incorrect searches
      (finding different results for "red and blue" vs.
      "blue and red", and 100-hit limits, and other problems
      noted publically through the years, there isn't much
      *good* to say about it.  (It's the Verity engine, I believe.)

   4) persistent failure to update previously seen software calls

      ...we have some with the "updated" flag that have been that
      way for a year, despite repeated viewings of the @#$% call,
      the darn flag won't get reset!

   5) technical knowledge database

      A poorly sanitized & inadequate subset of the real database.
      ...and that's just to start.

   6) netscape search-within-page broken

      The recent change broke the ability to use Netscape to search
      the text being displayed as the result of a search hit (or
      document-ID request).  I've heard reports that this is caused
      by pages that don't have proper "close" tags for <table>s,
      but I haven't investigated the cause yet.

   7) years worth of complete refusal on HP's part to listen
      to users' complaints about the system.

   8) lack of email bug submission mechanism, despite being requested
      for nearly a *decade*.

      Email bug submission means you don't have to have HP ITRC up
      and limping along when the user wants to submit a bug.

   9) Shamefully inadequate bug text submission

      Bug text is limited to 60 lines of 80 characters ...
      at least, officially.  With the new interface,
      you're limited to lines of 39 characters in Netscape (4.7),
      and 79 characters in MSIE (5.0).  Even if the Netscape bug
      is fixed ... *60* lines isn't enough for many bug reports.

   10) synthetic URLs.

      Do a KDB search...see the list of hits?  Click on one.

      Do another search...see the list of hits?  WHICH ONE DID
      YOU CLICK ON BEFORE?  Your browser doesn't know, because
      HP ITRC *NEEDLESSLY* uses synthetic URLs.

      Here's an example of one:

/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=2befb3d90fbc2a0e6a/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000052238294
      Here's a link to the *same* document after another search:

/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=7ed50dda00e07b441c/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000052238294

  11) Refusal to make documents publically & easily available

      There have been repeated requests that the HP ITRC put copies of
their
      publically available documents onto a publically accessible ...
      and robot/spider accessible ... web site.  Then, users could use
      their favorite search engine (e.g., Google, AltaVista, etc.) to
      search those documents.

      Users have also asked that the entire Technical Knowledge Database
be
      put on such a web server.  The requestors acknowledge that this
would
      let competitors see HP's bug reports, but accurately point out
that
      it would benefit HP more than them (IBM, Sun) :: because HP could
      say "*we* make our bug reports public...why don't you?".

   12) database update

      Have you ever *tried* to get contact information updated?


What can we do?

   1) bill HP for the time we spend using HP ITRC above (time above and
beyond
      what it ought to take).

   2) question the cost of our support payments.

   3) move to Florida...at least they know how to take care of voters!
      Wait...oh well.

   4) Lobby with Interworks and Interex to put pressure on HP to develop
a
      decent web support site.

   5) Complain to Ron Bousquet ([log in to unmask] used to work,
      but it bounces sometimes, so [log in to unmask] might be better).

   6) other ideas?


Why do I care?

   I use HP ITRC to look up bug reports, so I resent the extra time it
takes when
   it works, and resent it even more when it fails to work.

   I have this crazy idea that the HP 3000 and HP 9000 are *good*
systems,
   and that as loyal users we deserve a *good* web support facility ...
   and that maybe by rocking the boat, we can *finally* get the
attention
   of one of the crew...and get things done right!

Note: I'm not at all interested in hearing things like "it's better than
X" ... comments
like that waste my time and yours.  Comments like "Y's support site is
better because..."
are useful, but better directed to HP management.

Posted to: comp.sys.hp.hpux, comp.sys.hp.mpe

thanks,

Stan Sieler
[log in to unmask]