Re: Switching audio via an Ocelot and SECU's

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"John W" <Don't_Spam_Me@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:up6dnYUgFtZUanzeRVn-sg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In spite of its quirks, the ADI forum is very useful.  It provides an
> excellent archive of information that goes back several years.  Searching
> across topics would be nice and has been discussed in the forum but iirc,
is
> a limitation of the software package ADI selected?  Once you get used to
it,
> you'll learn to love it - warts and all!

Everyone's got a hot button.  Mine is having to assemble bits and pieces of
information from a dozen different websites with different passwords, user
interfaces, rating systems, icons and all the other warts when Usenet,
coupled with a good newsreader and Google, can put thousands of related
topics at your fingertips.  It also offers the potential for thousands of
people to read your message and offer advice.  If a non-member found the ADI
page via Google and saw that there was a critical error in someone's advice,
he would have to register and get a password before he could post "That
suggestion will burn your house down."  I wonder if most people would
bother?

If you ask me how I feel as a customer I would say that ADI is making me do
a lot of extra work just to become interested in their product.  Out of all
the things I *don't* need to do right now, learning to navigate their
webforum and building a small applet to Google search their site and correct
for their dismal search engine is not high on my list.  Would you hire a
carpenter whose own front door didn't latch properly?  I see a high
correlation between a website that's got all sorts of warts with a product
that's got all sorts of warts.  People who pay attention to detail usually
pay it to everything they do.  The converse it true.

Smart companies maintain at least a shadow presence in the newsgroups.  Most
don't realize that they can't put an 18-year old clerk out there as their
company face, but instead must choose really, really net-wise and very
innately helpful and unflappable people.

Many small companies either try the 18-year old or put their CEO or chief
design engineer out on the net and it very predictably ends badly.  CEOs and
chief engineers wither under heavy criticism - it's their precious baby
that's taking fire and their egos run away with them.  So they can't really
be forum minders, either.  After trying one or the other to rep them on
Usenet, a company withdraws behind their website castle walls where they can
strike down any poster that's too critical.  At least ADI is searchable
through Google via the method Bill K. outlined.  Many company forums are
not.

AFAIAC, any forum that's not being constantly monitored by HA experts like
Dave and Bruce and so many others here isn't really giving me information I
feel comfortable with.  This is a tough crowd but it's a smart one.  It
hurts ADI not to have a better presence here or even some way to shuttle
info to and from CHA.  There's so much stuff at the ADI forum that's not
just ADI specific, but applicable to all home automators.   They'd sell a
lot more boxes if that discussion occurred here and not in "search only one
forum at a time" ADI land.

> wrt development, ADI is a small company and HA is only part of their
product > set.  A recent post by ADI asking what products are of interest
leads me to
> believe we will see some new development soon?

I know in my many trips round and round the ADI forum maze that people have
been offering suggestions for a long, long time.  Aren't they three years
late?  A dozen other companies have been putting their new protocol units
out for sale and ADI is *thinking* about some new stuff.  Danger! Danger!
Will Robinson!  There seems to have been a precipitous lack of focus on the
Ocelot/SECU/Bobcat in recent times.  People have been asking for two-way
serial Bobcats for a while, they've also been asking for RF.

I'm sorry to be so negative but when I see a website limping along like
theirs I just have to re-evaluate my willingness to commit to buying $1000
worth of their equipment.  I'd feel that I would have to buy a complete
duplicate set just to insure that ADI doesn't lose so much interest in the
Ocelot/SECU line that it folds leaving me without a source for spares.

Don't take any of this personally, please.  You're ADI user 27, I'm #1402.
You've had a lot more time to acclimate!  My wounds from their wretched
website are still bleeding!  :-)

--
Bobby G.