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 Post subject: Curtains for Windows....
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:00 pm 
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Err, no, not the end of Windows but a certain piece of software that lets you set up different themes in Win10 (and before) and short of deeply messing around with the registry seems to be the only way to do this.

A while ago I tried out this app as I hate the appearance of Win10. But.... Not as great a variety of themes available as I'd expected, and none to my exact tastes, and no way of doing your own thing till you register. Also, it's quite a resource hog for what (little) it does - noticeable even on my quad i7 8GB RAM laptop, whereas something as complex as Winstep Xtreme has no noticeable impact on resources/performance. Worst thing in a way was trying to restore the default Win10 theme. It left a mess and had to dig around (partly in the registry) to get the default settings back as some theme or other left behind totally different screen fonts (that made them useless) and all sorts. Grrrrr!

Well, I posted (very polite, matter of fact and basically constructive) feedback in their forum, also indicating that I would most likely remove their app from my system. (I mean, it really is a piece of steaming pooh AFAIC.) Within 20mins it was deleted!

Now if I was in charge of a software company, I'd want to be damn sure that employees would know how to deal with a post like mine in an appropriate manner, as I'd hate to lose a potential sale (even at the ridiculous low price).

The proper way to deal with such a post would be to reply as soon as possible, politely, and explain why things happen and work the way that they do, and try to convince the potential customer to persist with the app and hopefully buy it. Etc. etc. etc.

I'm fairly convinced that if such a post were to appear in say the General Discussion forum, or wherever here, relating to Winstep Xtreme or any part thereof, Jorge or any of the other board admins would do exactly that and not simply delete it. Only makes good business sense. After all, the (potential) customer is always right (even when he's wrong and a complete ass). Well, nearly always.

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 Post subject: Re: Curtains for Windows....
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:31 pm 
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nexter wrote:
I'm fairly convinced that if such a post were to appear in say the General Discussion forum, or wherever here, relating to Winstep Xtreme or any part thereof, Jorge or any of the other board admins would do exactly that and not simply delete it. Only makes good business sense. After all, the (potential) customer is always right (even when he's wrong and a complete ass). Well, nearly always.


I didn't read your post (although I imagine who you are referring to) so I can't comment on your specific case, but let me tell you this: the customer is NOT always right. To me he is only right if he actually IS right.

As most here know I'm very easy going and will normally go out of my way to help, but I STRONGLY believe in NOT rewarding bad behavior: if the customer is an ass right off the bat he will definitely NOT have a pleasant experience with me. He will hit a solid brick wall instead (perks of owning your own business).

It doesn't usually happen in the forums (I think the fact that the posts here are public makes the trolls behave a lot better than they would in private), but over the years I've had a handful of confrontations by email, as I simply do not tolerate arrogant, entitled and/or disrespectful behavior.

If you're nice, you can get almost anything from me. If not...

Some people are just bullies used to get their own way, and they completely flip out when someone tells them NO or calls them out on their bad behavior/entitlement. I never lose my composure, but I don't back down either, unless they show me that they are actually right - at which point I have no problems in apologizing.

If during a confrontation the customer is able to admit he was wrong, or respects my point of view and goes back to being civil, I will be the first to extend my hand again because self-control and self-awareness is something I highly respect. If not and instead he keeps escalating... good riddance.

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 Post subject: Re: Curtains for Windows....
PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:40 am 
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Well Jorge, like I said, the customer's nearly always right, in general/generally accepted business practice. So, sure, there are always plenty of exceptions. Even so, having run my own businesses all my life I can tell you in my lines of work one often has to go the extra mile or hundred miles to accommodate a difficult customer/downright ass in order to secure the deal and get the bread (though with really difficult and/or nasty characters one just ups the price or gives up, firmly but always politely). Anything else could severely impact one's professional reputation and standing, and ultimately one's income. Of course, things are slightly different in your line, i.e., software marketing and support.

I certainly can understand your point of view though. Some people are just impossible to deal with. In those situations I often used to get my own back by extracting the urine out of someone like that but so subtly, they wouldn't even notice and on the contrary might even turn quite contrite. :D Kill 'em with good manners and apparent kindness. ;)

However, that wasn't the real beef of my post. Rather, it was that instead of dealing with a perfectly polite but (constructively) critical comment by trying to convince me to stick with the app and explain a few things with the aim of getting the sale (which they might have got actually), my comment was very swiftly deleted. Not the way to win punters and get sales.

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 Post subject: Re: Curtains for Windows....
PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 10:30 am 
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nexter wrote:
my comment was very swiftly deleted.


That's what I don't understand - they don't normally do that (as far as I know). I know you can be brutally blunt at times, ;) perhaps they took that the wrong way? Without reading your original post I can't really offer a fair opinion. :)

Anyway, in regards to the customer being always right: I understand that there are situations where it's in your own best interest to swallow a toad (when it's not your business or when huge amounts of money are on the line and you have a family to feed). However, as you said so yourself, that is not the case here.

Hope you understood I don't go off on a dime either, you should know me well enough by now for that lol. :) Just don't curse and be rude to the nice ladies at BMT Micro who are only doing their work - THAT I do not forgive.

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 Post subject: Re: Curtains for Windows....
PostPosted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:35 pm 
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winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
my comment was very swiftly deleted.


That's what I don't understand - they don't normally do that (as far as I know). I know you can be brutally blunt at times, ;) perhaps they took that the wrong way? Without reading your original post I can't really offer a fair opinion. :)

Anyway, in regards to the customer being always right: I understand that there are situations where it's in your own best interest to swallow a toad (when it's not your business or when huge amounts of money are on the line and you have a family to feed). However, as you said so yourself, that is not the case here.

Hope you understood I don't go off on a dime either, you should know me well enough by now for that lol. :) Just don't curse and be rude to the nice ladies at BMT Micro who are only doing their work - THAT I do not forgive.

LOL! Indeed I know you well enough Jorge - one should hope so after some 20 years, give or take, on and off. :) And I think I know you well enough to be pretty darn sure that you would not delete a post purely because it happens to be critical of your app (if it's all done 'playing nice' and not abusive) but would try to answer points raised and hope to still get the sale.
Indeed, I can be brutally blunt, you got that right Jorge, LOL. And age hath not mellowed me either. ;) I've never suffered fools, gladly or otherwise, and tend to do so ever less the older I get - life's too short to p*** in the wind. :P
But I did keep my post perfectly civil. I know better than to blow off - that never got good results anywhere. Pity I didn't keep a copy, else you'd have had that already.

As a by the by in re: blowing off, take people who (even today still) 'blow off' about MS and Windows. Only serves to make them look perfectly silly. Doesn't change a thing and doesn't help make Windows better, does it. Sure, I think Win10 sucks majorly in several/many respects and I think anything beyond WinXP or Win7 was a major mistake by MS, when they could and should have created a completely new, fully 64bit OS instead of continuing with what is basically a kludge that builds on NT, (which itself still had some 16bit code) keeping a lot of 32bit stuff and just making it 64bit compatible. In a new, fully 64bit OS they could have provided an emulation layer (as Apple did with MOSX for old Mac apps) to run existing NT-based apps, totally transparent to the user (unlike MS's XP emulation in Win7). But do I blow off about it all, or do I let MS have some critical but constructive feedback? Well, what d'ya think? ;) And MS, contrary to 'popular' belief, do listen to people. Like any sensibly run business.

Anyway, I think we do owe dear Bill and MS a certain debt of gratitude. Simply for this - Windows becoming the only ordinary desktop OS (if you discount Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD (?), and 'The Dark Side' - which really is only of interest to folk in the music industry and to gadget/brand freaks who believe in the gospel according to St. Steve) has meant that apps are far cheaper than they would otherwise be as developers sell far more copies on the one platform without having to port to x-number of others. On the whole, MS haven't done too bad a job really, although of course they could have done much better. We should always bear in mind that today's desktop OS, i.e., Windows, has to be all things to all men as it were, unlike a dedicated workstation OS. And that means, compromises, lots of them.

Just my never ever 'humble' opinions. :P

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