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'the big R.D.' |
ho you gonna call?
Situation 1: I get emails from joe.somebody@somewhere-on-the.net
requesting (sometimes almost demanding) current drivers and / or
installation help for sundry computer peripherals (mostly for modems and
scanners) which happen to be mentioned on this website. Since this site has been
active for a while (since '95) and includes a reference section on drivers for
components I have sold in the past (for the convenience of my actual customers),
I show up in many of the search engines. I am a consultant and my business is to
provide information to my paying customers. The website information is but a way
to advertise my availability and capability. It rarely pays much to give away
free service, so I only do it for fun. Lately I just politely refer them back to
the manufacturers site - where they could have (should have) looked in the first
place .. if and when I get time to dig out of the pile of incoming emails.
Situation 2: A while back one of my former clients, located in the far south
of the country below Canada, emailed my to say thank you for the lovely website
completed back at start of 2001, but that they were now looking at hiring a
local developer to redo the site. That's fine. Sometimes long distance development is somewhat
awkward. So I emailed back that the HTML / source code on the website was
current and thanks for the past business and good luck in future projects. Then I got several frantic phone messages left on my answering
machine and various emails requesting the user id and password to their website
at the internet hosting company so that the replacement developer can install
his modifications. Well. Why are you asking me? I've already been let go and,
although I was sent this information once way back in 2001, do not usually keep
passwords on inactive project files. This is akin to asking me to provide you
with your bank PIN number.
Eventually I dug back through my old email logs and found a
reference to the original ID and password in an email sent to me from the former
client. I hope it is still valid after all this time. The bottom line is that this client should have approached her
own web hosting company for this kind of information. They are the ones that
control access to her hosted website. They are being paid a monthly fee to
maintain the account and to serve her as their customer.
So, who are you going to call? I like being called. I can give
advice and consult support, but I can only really help you on items that I am
actually responsible and paid for.
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