Conference 7.286::digital

    The AltaVista Search My Computer Private eXtension "pre-Alpha" release
    is ready for evaluation by our colleagues on the dec.com intranet.
    
    A self-extracting .EXE is available, along with release notes and a
    discussion area (implemented in AltaVista Forum V2Beta), at
    
            http://avteamroom.ljo.dec.com/avforum/ext/dispatch.cgi
    
    It requires Windows 95 or NT.
    
    Your immediate feedback would be very much appreciated.  We hope to
    release this to the Internet as soon as it passes the internal
    "shakedown cruise" phase, so -- if you're a willing searcher-surfer --
    all aboard please...
    
                         ... and thanks for any help you can give us!

    OBTW, permission is eagerly granted to forward the info in .1 to any
    friends/colleagues of yours, AS LONG AS THEY ARE WITHIN THE .dec.com
    INTRANET.
    
    We in the AltaVista SW Group appreciate it!
    

    Errrm,
    
    what does it do, please ?
    
    regards
    john

    Pardon the split in the URL...
    
    http://avteamroom.ljo.dec.com/avforum/ext/dispatch.cgi/s-px/browse/
    thread/toc-docNumber/decreasing/d/0/100008
    
    As I say, there will be some Official Marketing Words in that Forum
    real soon now.  In a nutshell it is an AltaVista Search that indexes
    the files on your own PC.
    
    You will find an increasing amount of user commentary in that Forum,
    and imho it would be best to join that venue rather than using this
    one.  (Good question though!!) :-)
    

    Dan,
       I have installed the software and I am pleased with it-some things I
    don't like etc but I will send them in through the right channels
    but....
    the NAME.Ugh- I assume it is prerelease name.
    What about something snappy like Alta Vista Detective or AV4ME(geddit?)
    or anything but the current name?
    cheers
    stuart

    Stuart -- Do I look like someone who does names for things?  (shudders,
    looks@self in mirror, sees MARKETING on jobcode, still disclaims) :-)
    
    More seriously -- as you know, the name of a product is right up there
    along with its function & its quality as a determinant of success in
    the marketplace.
    
    Your comment deserves a place (hell, imho an entire TOPIC) in that
    Forum.
    
    Remember please, most of the folks in AltaVista SW know only that
    "DECnotes exists somwhere" and THEY DO NOT READ THIS MEDIUM.  So if you
    want to raise an issue, do it on the Web please.  and Thanks!
    
    So **please** state your case.  Feedback of ALL SORTS is needed.
    

    I installed this product but when I attempted to build the index it
    bugchecked and failed.  I attempted to de-install it from my system and
    that failed.  Now I stuck with some software that I don't want and
    can't get rid of it.
    First pass, not impressed.  I already have a $30 product called Lotus
    Magellan that indexes the files on my system and works great.  One
    drawback is that Lotus de-funded development so the automatic
    application is back at Office 2.0 and it's DOS-base, but works.
    
    Already posted my notes in the AltaVista Search My Computer Private
    eXtension forum.
    
    
    	Regards,

    'Twould seem that we are experiencing "unnamed technical difficulties"
    with the AltaVista Forum V2Beta environment we're using to interact
    with you about the AltaVista Search My Computer Personal eXtension
    Pre-Alpha kit.
    
    Note that these "technical difficulties" have NOTHING to do with the
    Search product!
    
    The symptom is that after you've successfully registered in the
    commentary Forum, and you try later to log in as a Registered User to
    the URL 
    
    http://avteamroom.ljo.dec.com/avforum/ext/_w/dispatch-w.cgi
    
    and you give it your UserID and PassWoRD and you get the spelling and
    CaPItaLIzatIOn right and everything, and you keep getting rejected. 
    And you begin to wonder about Kreuzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome, aka BrainRot.  
    
    Something's clobbering the web-server's authentication, unsure what. 
    It's happened at least 4 times already today.  We're going to QAR it of
    course...  But not to worry -- during the USA east-coast working day,
    someone is usually around the NT https to fix this in fairly short
    order.
    
    Workarounds:  
    
    0) Wait 5 or 10 minutes, we may have fixed it... :-)
    
    1) Save your comments for later and simply come in as an anonymous
       reader -- via the URL
    
    http://avteamroom.ljo.dec.com/avforum/ext/dispatch.cgi
    
    2) Email [email protected] or DTN 226-2867
    
    3)   "   [email protected]                      2116
    
                                                        

re.6:


>    Remember please, most of the folks in AltaVista SW know only that
>    "DECnotes exists somwhere" and THEY DO NOT READ THIS MEDIUM.  

This could explain why the Forum product does not include some of the 
better features of DECnotes.

Dave.

    Which in turn explains why I don't use it...
    
    Laurie.

    I wanted to enter my comment in the FORUM, but the web is sol slow that
    I decided to post it here:
    After indexing about 1200 documents and 400,000 words, the indexing
    stop, the Win95 pop-up failure window came up declaring the coming
    shutdown of the application. Tried another couple of time to no
    avail...

    Well for starters, DECnotes is a far more mature asynch conferencing
    product than is AltaVista Forum...  and the rate of improvement is
    pretty fast (judging from the incremental functionality between V1.0,
    V1.0A, and V2).  One dissatisfier that (mercifully) has departed at V2
    is the truly wimpy "Anchor" and "Next" functionality, replaced by a
    true "unseen map" for each registered user and Forum.
    
    ... and OBTW the folks that are driving AltaVista Forum (including
    myself, from the Marketing side) are steeped, and deeply, in the long
    and honorable history of DECnotes.  The majority of the ISBU may not
    be, but the flame is alive.  The point I was making in .6 is that it
    may well be that the SEARCH drivers, and probably most of the ISBU's
    Managers, don't read this medium.
    
    As for the speed of access, sounds like an intranet economization
    problem to me.  I can access a V1.0 AltaVista Forum run by
    acquaintances at INSEAD Fontainbleu France with acceptable,
    webbish-feeling delays.
    
    Hope these reactions help pique your interest in taking a second look.
    
    /Dan
    

    Re: .1
    
    Hey, Mr marketing....
    
    Please get your prerequisites right.  It does NOT appear to run on NT
    unless you are running NT 4.0 beta.  NT 3.51 isn't good enough.
    
    Also, in the future, please indicate what the product your hyping
    actually does.  From the title, I couldn't figure out what this was.
    Cause I was waiting for another job to finish, I went looking and
    discovered that (1) it won't run on my system and (2) it doesn't do
    anything I want anyway. [I was thinking it might be a better interface
    to the production AltaVista search.]
    
    Steveg

    Please get your prerequisites right.  It does NOT appear to run on NT
    unless you are running NT 4.0 beta.  NT 3.51 isn't good enough.
    
    	Didn't know it at the time I posted .1; this point has been made in
    	the 'Forum since.  
    
    Also, in the future, please indicate what the product you're hyping
    actually does.  From the title, I couldn't figure out what this was.
    Because I was waiting for another job to finish, I went looking and
    discovered that (1) it won't run on my system and (2) it doesn't do
    anything I want anyway. [I was thinking it might be a better interface
    to the production AltaVista search.]
    	
    	See .4 in this string...
    
    	:-)
    

    I am on the Intranet and not at the INSEAD.
    I have set no proxy for .dec.com, localhost.
    In other words, I am as fast as I can.
    If you think I'll go faster through firewall(s), give me the URL...

re.12:

When can we expect V2?

Cheers,
Dave.

    Just FYI...  If you tried Build 120, you might want to reinstall 121.
    
    
      (And _in re_ .16 about .12, wherein I mentioned AltaVista Forum V2,
      real soon now.  There's an internal website where you can get all the
      scoop...
    
         http://insight.ibg.ljo.dec.com/
    
    
      )
    

    Dr. Dan,
    
    Regarding that page at insight.ibg.ljo.dec.com...  What is it that's
    supposed to (1) catch my eye as the place for "all the scoop" on
    anything you mentioned; (2) tell me where to go in the Forum milieu to 
    continue Notes-style discussions about *Forum* (your pointer in this 
    string is just for the local search thing); (3) help me see the 
    developing Forum culture to be reassured that Notes culture is not dying 
    but just being ported?
    
    I'm enthusiastic about the possibilities for these tools, and thank you
    for the help you've provided us -- but there still seems to be some
    wall of miscommunication about how to get plugged into the new
    *culture*.  (The new *technology* I've figured out.)
    
    Where do I continue this discussion wrt Forum?
    
    Thanks,
    Mark

When trying : "http://avteamroom.ljo.dec.com/avforum/ext/dispatch.cgi" I 
get the error :

HTTP/1.0 404 Object Not Found

... finger trouble or has it really gonne ?

    >>... finger trouble or has it really gonne ?
    
    It has really gone.  There's much worse news than that too...
    
    /Chris :-(
    

re .20

Don't just hint.  Out with it!

  The AltaVista group (you know, the "everything_is_named_AltaVista"
  folks, not the "real_AltaVista" group on the Left Coast) just
  laid off a bunch of people.

                                   Atlant

    Including Dan Kalikow... :^(
    
    Laurie.

    DAN got laid off? 
    
    
    Words fail me.

re: .23
>Including Dan Kalikow... :^(

I wasn't planning to post this here but...

          <<< LJSRV2::LP$DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]INTERNET_TOOLS.NOTE;3 >>>
                              -< Internet Tools >-
================================================================================
Note 3825.25   AltaVista Search My Computer Private eXtension kit       25 of 25
OZROCK::FARAGO "What about the Infobahn have nots?"  23 lines  18-JUL-1996 21:46
                           -< hasta la vista...baby >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Railroad??  With random knee jerk decisions like this I don't think we
>have the management capacity left to run a donut stand.  (nor a fish shop)

    Well, not only Dan (the marketing person setting up the internal
    webpage), but the entire engineering/documentation/testing team of
    AltaVista Personal Edition (my name not the ISBUs:-) of about 12 people
    in Australia have been downsized as part of an ISBU restructure.

    This little black duck is quite disappointed to say the least.  Obviously
    being on the opposite side of the planet makes it easier for management
    to downsize people.  There doesn't seem to be any rational reason why 
    one would get rid of people who have produced a product that 
the market 
    wants, with quick time to market, etc. etc.

    As a bonus, we get to stay until the end of September.

    This is not a goodbye note, but all the best to you all sailing in the 
    good ship digital.

    Rob Farago - Networks Engineering Australia - ISBU
    
    [email protected] - until end of Q1
    [email protected] - afterwards

I'm stunned. 

Dave.

    Is "the entire engineering/documentation/testing team of
    AltaVista Personal Edition...in Australia" the entire
    engineering/documentation/testing team of AltaVista Personal Edition,
    or a subgroup?
    

>    Is "the entire engineering/documentation/testing team of
>    AltaVista Personal Edition...in Australia" the entire
>    engineering/documentation/testing team of AltaVista Personal
>    Edition or a subgroup?
    
    Entire for the functions mentioned.  There were US based members of the
    team in marketing/usability.
            

Coincidentally, at this moment, Digital's home Web page has the flash:

	AltaVista Search My Computer pX preview software available

with links to a rather spiffy page.

PJDM

Yeah - spiffy page which says "The server may be down or unreachable. Try 
connecting again later."

				Steve

Yeah - I had grabbed the kit, and I just received a field-test
questionaire.  What's the point?

Kevin

    
               AltaVista Search for Windows 95 and Windows NT
              Preview Software Available on the World Wide Web
    
    ...AltaVista Search extended from the public Web to private PCs...
    
    MAYNARD, Mass., July 23, 1996 -- Digital Equipment Corporation today
    announced that a free preview version of AltaVista Search for 32-bit
    Windows PCs is now available for public downloading at
    http://altavista.software.digital.com on the World Wide Web.  With 
    this release, AltaVista extends its powerful search and indexing 
    capabilities to personal PCs, making the task of finding documents 
    on Windows 95 and Windows NT laptops, desktops and workstations as 
    fast and easy as searching the World Wide Web.  AltaVista Search My 
    Computer Private eXtension (pX) uses the same proven technology that 
    drives AltaVista, the Internet's award-winning search service, which 
    now handles over 15 million inquires a day.
    

    >Yeah - I had grabbed the kit, and I just received a field-test
    >questionaire.  What's the point?
    
    The engineers may go away, but the product won't.

Re: The engineers may go away, but the product won't.

My understanding (having sent out my share of them) is that the
point of a field-test questionnaire is to find bugs so that you
can fix them before the release ships.

How does that work when you lay off all the engineers who can
do the fixing???

Kevin

> How does that work when you lay off all the engineers who can
> do the fixing???

  We'll Manage. :-)

                                   Atlant