As you can see in this screenshot, there are two particular areas which I consider design oversights when they were apparently overhauling the GUI to make it look nicer. First is the appearance of the “menu” displayed when I expand “Computer” (it would be the same for any folder – I just have the others set to act as links, not menus). It appears as though they decided to use a generic Windows “context menu” container to display the file list, however you would figure that for the nice and fancy new Start Menu that they could have put a bit more “love” in there and made it look more integrated (such as you’ll get if you were to expand one of the items in the Start Menu list such as “Sticky Notes” or “Windows Virtual PC” in this particular screenshot). I think it would have made it look much nicer, complete, and more thought out.

The second pin in my rear is the redesigned Shutdown button and it’s corresponding context menu. It’s just plain horrid! Why couldn’t they have made it look the same as the other items above it like the “Computer” item for example? Or, heck, bring back the much more pleasant-looking Vista Shutdown buttons – those were well designed and I think more intuitive at quick glance; simple red power-symbol button, or having to read “Shutdown” in an ugly, oddly-sized button – what’s your pick?

Perhaps I will spend a few minutes and try to mock-up what I think would look nicer, though honestly I doubt anyone from the Microsoft Windows GUI team will ever come across this post, let alone this site

From: Steve Dorner
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 4:00 PM
To: Eli
Cc: Pete Resnick; Matthew Dudziak
Subject: Re: Fwd: RE: Fwd: Bad Mail Headers

At 12:31 PM -0700 10/20/04, Matt Dudziak wrote:
> GO GET the guy who wrote RFC 2822 to READ THIS EMAIL and see what he says.

I have. He says you’re wrong.

I’m not surprised, given that I’ve been involved in drafting things like MIME and 2822, and have had people like Pete Resnick (RFC 2822 editor), Dave Crocker (RFC 822 author) and John Vittal (RFC 733 author) using my software for much of the time.

Doesn’t mean we won’t try to pander to people who misunderstand things this way, but it does mean that, indeed, you may as well stop quoting RFC’s at us. Thank you for your effort, however.

The syntax issue aside, this part is patent nonsense:

> 1) the part after the @ is not HER IP address

There is absolutely no requirement that the LHS of a message-id be an identifier of the client performing the message submission. There are in fact situations where this is impossible, which is one good reason it’s not a requirement.

Now for those who don’t know, at the time of this email, Steve Dorner was the Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm Inc. That means he should be smart – he should be smart and he should be smart about his image to the public. As it turns out, Steve isn’t smart (because he’s *blatantly* wrong – which I will prove below), and he was quite rude – though I will admit I was getting fed up with Qualcomm telling me that I was wrong and their product wasn’t at fault.

Oh, I suppose I should mention this all came from me being a Mail Systems Administrator and trying to deal with a client using Eudora which was not following RFC specifications. The client was very upset that her product wasn’t able to send out email using our systems which she was paying for, and I tried to explain to her that the product had a bug and in turn tried to be nice and inform Qualcomm about the bug so they could fix it since it was pretty major.

Here’s a separate related email I had with other people to ensure that I was reading the RFCs correctly and that I in fact was correct, and Qualcomm was wrong – especially that arrogant Steve Dorner.

From: Scott Perry
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 6:40 PM
To: Eli
Subject: Eudora and their Message-ID’s with domain-literals not enclosed in “[ ]”

Eudora and their Message-ID’s with domain-literals not enclosed in “[ ]”

This is determined by RFC822 section 4.1, which describes the syntax of E-mail headers. It specifies:

“Message-ID” “:” msg-id

which means that the content of the Message-ID: header is required to be in the format of “msg-id”. The “msg-id” syntax is defined as:

msg-id = “<” addr-spec “>” ; Unique message id

which means that it needs to have “<” followed by the “addr-spec” format followed by “>”. The “addr-spec” syntax is defined as:

addr-spec = local-part “@” domain ; global address

So we now know that the part to the right of the “@” in a Message-ID: header must be in the format of “domain”. “domain”‘s syntax is:

domain = sub-domain *(“.” sub-domain)
sub-domain = domain-ref / domain-literal

where “domain-ref” ends up being the *name* of the computer. Section 6.2.3 permits IPs to be used in place of domains, *if* they use the domain literal format. The domain-literal format is defined as:

domain-literal = “[" *(dtext / quoted-pair) "]”

meaning that there is no question that the brackets are required in the Message-ID: if an IP is used instead of a domain name.

It’s a long, convoluted, and complex path getting to the answer, but it would be very difficult to argue that the brackets are not required when an IP address is used.

I’m not sure what position Scott holds, but he works for Declude Inc. which provides a mail filter for email. He outlined the RFCs perfectly, which was exactly how I had read them as well – so we were on the same channel and clearly proving Qualcomm wrong. However, Qualcomm wanted nothing to do with this problem – especially fixing it it appeared. I was overly appalled that they were so hostile towards me, though I suppose that’s what can happen when your company employs most of the people who write the RFCs for email! Just too bad they’re unable to implement their own work. Pathetic.

Anyways, there’s some fun for today – enjoy it while it’s still here. Always a chance that I’ll get some letter from Qualcomm lawyers telling me to remove this post or something – but in my defense, there were no “tags” on the emails saying it was private and personal, so tough luck!

I did notice a problem with RoboForm’s Firefox XPI toolbar plugin however, in that when you had a “minimalistic” window open (such as view source, or a JavaScript popup that had no toolbars specified), it would still attach the RoboForm toolbar to it at the bottom, usually hiding any horizontal scroll bar the window had. Now it’s not such a big deal to just click the little close box on the toolbar so I could use the scrollbar, but it is still very annoying since I tend to use the “view source” feature quite a bit. I also know that this is very much a bug in their program or adapter because I have other toolbars in Firefox which do not exhibit this same behaviour.

So I figured I’d be nice and bug-report the problem for them to ensure they were aware of it. I was somewhat surprised however with how their support staff (William, or so he decided to call himself since his Indian name is probably not “customer friendly” or something) has decided to handle it.

You wrote (2007/02/07 08:05 pm EST)
Hi,

With the RoboForm toolbar set to be attached at the top of my browser toolbars, whenever I “view source” in Firefox (and it creates a new minimalistic window), the RoboForm toolbar gets attached at the bottom of this new window, and seems to overlay the horizontal scrollbar (if present). I have also noticed the same behaviour when you get a popup window in Firefox.

I am running Windows XP SP2 with all the latest patches, under a normal user account with RoboForm2Go 6.8.4 running from a U3 usb key. My version of Firefox is “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1″.

I can send a screenshot if required – just let me know (I’m not sending one now in case that causes your systems any issues). I had checked your online FAQ but did not notice this issue mentioned anywhere so I am not sure if it’s known or not.

If there’s a fix (or if you’d like me to try a beta/patch), please let me know as I “view source” quite often and have to close the roboform toolbar all the time to use the scrollbar!

Thanks,

Eli.

John replied (2007/02/13 06:36 am EST)
This is already known bug. We are working on solution.

William replied (2007/02/18 02:06 pm EST)
Now we added option to RoboForm -> Options -> General: Attach to Firefox if Adapter is not installed.

Uncheck it and RoboForm will not attach to Firefox if its XPI is not installed.

You wrote (2007/03/26 06:45 pm EST)
Hi,

I am unfortunately still having problems with the RoboForm toolbar attaching itself to windows that it shouldn’t. I have upgraded to 6.9.1 (and also upgraded the FireFox adapter to 6.9.1) and I have unchecked the option to install the toolbar when the adapter is not present.

It seems to work sometimes that the toolbar isn’t displayed *if* my browser (Firefox) was already open before I launch RoboForm2Go. However, if I close my browser windows, then re-launch FireFox and “view source”, the toolbar is attached at the bottom overtop of the horizontal scrollbar.

Let me know if you require any additional information.

Eli.

William replied (2007/03/27 12:04 am EST)
you should uninstall XPI Adapter and never install it again.

only roboform can install adapter now — not you.

XPI Adapter from now on will only create problems.

You wrote (2007/03/27 02:56 am EST)
Hi William,

Ok, I have removed the Firefox XPI adapter now and it appears that the RoboForm toolbar is always attached at the bottom of my browser window, never at the top where the options are set to have it displayed. Viewing the page source also displays the toolbar.

I also enabled the checkbox for displaying the toolbar even if the XPI adapter was not installed (since I had to so the toolbar would display).

Eli.

William replied (2007/03/27 12:55 pm EST)
after you uninstall XPI adapter, you should reinstall RoboForm and check “Install Adapter” box in RF installer.

then it installs the new style Adapter that should do everything well.

you can also do it from RoboForm -> Options -> Adapter.
make sure you see only one new style (not XPI) adapter there.

You wrote (2007/03/27 04:52 pm EST)
Hi,

The RoboForm2Go installer does not have an “Install Adapter” checkbox, and the “Install Adapter” and “Uninstall All Adapters” buttons in RoboForm -> Options -> Adapter are both grayed out (under both Administrator and my normal user accounts) and I cannot click them (tried with Firefox open and also not open).

Eli.

William replied (2007/03/27 10:06 pm EST)
roboform2go can attach to Firefox only at the bottom.

upper toolbar is available only with RoboForm Fixed (installed on computer).

You wrote (2007/03/28 03:00 am EST)
Hi William,

Having RoboForm2Go only able to attach at the bottom of my browser window despite the options clearly stating it’s supposed to be attaching at the top would indicate a bug of some sort. Having to purchase/install the full version of RoboForm just so that I can have my RoboForm toolbar *not* attach on windows where the other XPI toolbars don’t attach is clearly not a fix I am willing to accept.

I would at this time like to request you escalate this ticket to your manager or to someone in the software development department of your company, as it is clear there is a bug (other Firefox XPI plugins do not have this problem, only RoboForm) in your product and I am attempting at helping you resolve this bug, however all your solutions provided to me at this time in trying to help me work around it have failed.

Eli.

William replied (2007/03/28 02:47 pm EST)
we removed this from Firefox page and it does not state this anywhere now.

now RF attaches at the top only if this is Fixed RoboForm.

RoboForm2Go attaches at the bottom for Firefox.

You wrote (2007/03/28 02:59 pm EST)
Hi William,

Please escalate this ticket to your manager. You do not seem to understand how to aid me in resolving this issue and I am starting to find your replies extremely unhelpful.

The option to attach at the top is right in the options for RoboForm2Go. I don’t care what your website says, it’s clearly stated and selectable as an option within the program.

It’s safe to say that at this point I’m extremely frustrated with trying to deal with William and his feeble attempt at grasping what the hell I’m trying to tell him. Hopefully I’m able to get the attention of someone a bit more in tune with customer support and actually get somewhere with this – like helping them fix the bug perhaps!

I’ve been using Linux for many, many years and I have used quite a few of the various distributions of Linux available over those years and have never been happy with any of them. I started off using Slackware about 9 years ago and just didn’t know enough about Linux back then to be aware of how much of a mess that installation was – but it was bad. After a while of upgrading the system manually (packages referred to grabbing the .tar.gz manually and reading up on how to configure and make the entire thing yourself back then), I was quickly aware of how much crap was on the system that just didn’t need to be there.

I eventually put my brains where my mouth was and got to work making my own distribution – straight from the ground up. I literally started with a blank drive and compiled everything I needed to boot the system. I figured out what packages I needed to boot and worked my way up, reading the documents of every package completely so that I could tweak everything to exactly how I wanted them to work (within the realms of how the programs were made to work of course). About a year and a half later, I had everything a basic web/mail/dns/ftp server needed, and every single service was perfectly configured – I made every configuration file by hand and made sure that each and every program was stripped down to what was needed and all the junk was pruned out – it was perfect and I was finally in heaven with a Linux distribution I could use, tolerate and be proud of using.

It had one massive drawback though – it had no package maintenance at all. Everything had to be compiled by hand. I kept my configure lines and tweaks in a file so I could look back on exactly how I installed something, and I’d spend the time to read up on any new changes a package had before upgrading which could sometimes take days to get right. At first I didn’t know any better though, because there really weren’t any good package systems that weren’t customized to one distribution or another. RedHat had it’s RPMs, and a few others adopted that package system but made it their own – but RPMs didn’t impress me much and I didn’t have time to see if they’d suit my needs or not, not to mention by the time I was looking for package systems, the requirement was already far too great and the distribution was seriously lagging behind in updates.

As it sits now, the distribution is sadly pretty much dead. Using an old 2.4 kernel and horribly old versions of everything else, I just haven’t bothered to touch it any more. I had been using this distribution in production for a while and my friends and I were evaluating newer distributions for replacing these older systems. We ended up deciding on Gentoo since it was pretty lean on initial install and it’s package maintenance system (portage) was pretty sleek. It also used source packages too, so you compiled everything on install which was good for security and stability of a server. I figured if I were to figure out how Gentoo worked and how I could make it as tolerable as possible, I’d have to switch to using it on my own servers too – so I did.

However, as impressed as I was with Gentoo, I was also still sad to have to give up my shiny perfect distribution. Gentoo is rather easy to upgrade using emerge and the various other toys that portage comes with, but the problems were easily apparent right off the bat; too many developers working on different areas and nobody really communicating between one another to set up some good, solid, organized standards. You get some core stuff with might have some sense of commonality when you look at the various configuration files and methods of installation, but then you go installing other common packages and notice that their maintainers chose a different way to put things together. What you end up with is a nasty dis-organized mess, and it’s really not fun to look at (or am I the only one who runs ls on almost every directory?).

Having what I call a “messy” server is an administrators worst nightmare, but I bet that 90% of the self-proclaimed “administrators” out there are completely oblivious to the mess they wade through every day (if they even touch their servers that often). Personally, I can’t stand it. It aggrivates me to no end having to wonder why my default install of Gentoo has an “apache” user and group, yet Apache is nowhere to be found on my system because I didn’t install it – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I know that given enough attention, Gentoo could be an amazing server platform – but it really does need a lot of attention. They need to come up with strict guidlines and rules for all contributors as to how packages will be installed, where their files will go, etc… It’s no small task either, but I know that if I can do it in 1.5years for the first time, a whole team of developers should be able to do it in much less, and come up with some really cool stuff.

I’m sure I’m just ranting in the wind here, but who knows – maybe something will come of this. I really hope that someone high up in Gentoo reads this and I’m given a chance to go in to more detail about all this, and I hope even more that they take my suggestions to heart and actually do something with them so that perhaps down the road some time Gentoo will look better than an LFS system from every angle.

That’s when I got out the nerd tools and did a whois lookup. Sure enough the domain was mine, but it had expired! Uhoh! First, I was supposed to get emails way ahead of time to inform me if my domains were coming up for renewal, and second… hoktar.com was about to expire today! Double crap! I quickly logged in to my registrar and renewed hoktar.com for another year – thankfully it was still up and working fine. I then checked on the 3 other domains which had apparently expired already and noticed that they had expired on February 4th! Wow, now that’s a long time to be down and me not notice. Something was up!

Turns out I never did bother to set up the managing email address for those 3 other domains which is where all my registrar stuff goes to (I had to redo my system a while back when my hdd died on me & didn’t set XP up as before since I was waiting for Vista), and on top of that bonehead move the account had a bunch of bounceback emails telling me domains were about to expire. Seems that I had also made a change to my email server configuration which prevented the registrars systems from sending me my renewal notices! And best of all, the most recent set of bouncebacks were telling me that on March 16th (that’s tomorrow) the domains would be deleted and I couldn’t renew them! A few clicks here and there and I had everything renewed and good for another year… phew!

Wow, what a huge stroke of luck that some idiot tried to sell me my own domains which caused me to renew them the day before they would expire and he actually could have sold me my own domains!

Moral of this story? Always check your renewal dates and make sure you can receive renewal notices from your registrar