Re: Dedicated Z-wave sites?

["Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ceGdnWdPDegACx_YnZ2dnUVZ_vyunZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx
> No, I am saying (and research that I cited appears to agree) is that
> crappy
> drivers come from "good" companies *and* "bad" ones and it sounds as if
> one
> has to have a considerable amount of driver evaluation expertise to be
> able
> to tell what they can load on a CQ system.  I'm trying to determine how
> you
> implement what you claim to be immunity to the types of driver issues that
> plague other software applications.  I'm wondering how that's done in an
> environment where a driver can disrupt a data structure in the kernel that
> shits (too good a Freudian slip to elide!) er . . . *shuts* down the
> systems.
>

I'm not claiming immunity from bad drivers. I'm claiming that bad drivers
are NOWHERE as common as you seem to think, and that within a couple months
of the release of a driver for a highly used piece of hardware (the only
kind you should be using) many thousands of people will have used it in many
different configurations, and that's a pretty good sign that it will be safe
for you to use. The best thing to do when you need high reliability is to
'buy behind the curve'. Buy hardware that has been out long enough to be
heavily vetted.

> What I've said before I'll say again.  Bad drivers can come from good
> companies.  It depends on deadlines, access to needed interoperation HW
> and
> SW, competence of the programmers, complexity of the driver, etc.
> However,
> it's clear from your previous responses that you intend CQ to be
> installed,
> configured and maintained by professionals.  That means *they* get to
> worry
> about a client wanting to plug a new Panasonic Netcam into their Ethernet.
>

We'll, they do have to worry about it, but they also get to charge for it.
If the customer breaks the system, and they call the installer to fix it,
and it turns out to be the customer's fault, the customer pays. OTOH, if you
are doing it yourself, and you plug in the camera, and your system stops
working, you can sit down and draw some diagrams and within a few hours of
hard thought, you'll probably figure out that the camera is the problem and
remove it until you figure out what the problem is.

> Are you calling Panasonic a "junk" company or are you just impugning my
> buying habits in general?  (-:   I happen to own a lot of very high end
> equipment.  It's usually when anything inferior just won't do.  Browning
> is
> a favorite choice of mine because it's so reliable.  So is Nikon because a
> picture is only as good as its lens.   Sony is, too, because very little
> was
> able to match the quality and performance of something like the D8 DAT
> recorder.
>

No, I'm not calling anything junk. But, if it breaks your entire system when
you plug it in, then it obviously has problems. Look, if these products
broke systems all the time when they were plugged in, it would be pretty
well known and a trivial amount of research on the web would tell you that.
It's your responsibility to do the research if you choose ot to pay a
professional to do it for you.

> You've been talking about how Windows can be made reliable when
> sequestered
> deeply enough.  I've been implying that it's getting harder and harder to
> do
> that.  I find it more and more necessary to connect to the web for
> upgrades
> to SW and FW and having to deal with Windows installation breaking ANY
> time
> I upgrade any hardware.  In other words, I find your recommendations of
> isolation to achieve reliability to be increasingly less practical in the
> real world.
>

In the 'real world', our product runs on people's machines without problems
despite the horrors you seem to be seeing all around you. So, though your
concerns are theoretically true, as a practical matter, it works a lot
better than you seem to think. We just don't have users having these
problems.

> What happens when I plug it into my CQ server?  Will it break the whole
> thing down?  Will I be able to easily add a mass-marketed device like a
> netcam from a major market player to my CQ HA server or do I need to wait
> until you get around to coding for it?  Please explain!  I'll send you
> mine
> to evaluate if you're not sure how to answer the question.
>

If it breaks the whole thing, then it would be so disfunctional a product
that you should send it back. Whether it is supported or not depends. If it
can use a web client, then you can just embed a web browser widget in your
CQC interface to view the camera. This is the most common way. We will be
looking for some to support more directly in the future.

> That's not true.  I was one of the first people here to work with the XTB.
> Unfortunately, I am an early adopter of some types of technology.  I'm
> going
> to buy a Rozetta, just as I was one of the first people here to use
> Control
> Linc Maxi's from Smarthome to control all my house and unit codes from a
> single device.  I just bought three brand new items.  A multiple channel
> timer with voice labeling, a timer that's got a remote pager and an new
> X-10
> Pro LCD based mini-timer for X-10 that runs for a long time on two AA's as
> backup.
>

If you are, then you pay the price for that. What else would you expect? If
you are going to use untested stuff, then what is your complaint here? Yeh,
it might break something. This is not a suprise. But the bulk of people are
NOT going to do that. They will use well known, well vetted hardware because
they are interested in stability.

> I think that once Vista hits, with its very different way of doing things,
> your already incredible workload will double and you won't be able to keep
> up.  It's a pattern so common it's sad, really.  I've seen it, closeup, at
> least ten times, maybe more.  Those are the spectacular ones I can recall,
> where someone mortgaged his home to propel the software business.  This
> goes
> back to the days of 386MAX, built and marketed just blocks from where I
> worked 20 years ago.  When MS put EMM's inside the OS, the bottom fell out
> for third party memory managers.  Can you really afford to split your
> current level of resourcing when Vista arrives?
>

I'm not sure where you are getting this from. Vista isn't going to be that
big a deal for us. What exactly in Vista do you think is going to be so
difficult to support that we will end up being broken on the rocks and go
under? Please be specific. Are you a software engineer? If so, I assume you
have some specific concerns as to what could be that horrible. Personally, I
figure it will take a few days to make any required updates for Vista. I
think we can handle that.

And there isn't even that huge a need to move to Vista anyway. As alreayd
mentioned, mostly our system is running on servers in a closet and kiosk
style touch screens. The OS is not exposed and therefore the OS version is
not important. And our customers (being conservative about reliability for
their automation system) will not be rushing to to Vista anyway. They will
likely give it some break in time, as I mentioned above as the most obvious
means to insure reliability. So we have plenty of time to move to Vista.

---------------------
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd
www.charmedquark.com