There's an old joke about a repairman who is called in the middle of the night to fix a nuclear reactor.... I'm sure you're familiar with that one. The "vendor" in your example knew where to hit the machine, you didn't, ergo, you need to pay for the solution or find your own, which you apparently did.

that's capitalism not altruism in action, ...


>>P.S. Dissent is allowed on this board and tolerated. You don't know the backlash of private messages etc, that Michel and crew got when they banned JVP. We were allowed to express our frustration and rant and rave, but the final decision rests with Michel. It's his buisness and dissent does not imply that he has to capitulate to it.
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>Well my issue with JVP was not so much what he said - it was more of a space issue. I will bait and wait - maybe toss the line in a few more times - but JVP was making an industry of it - and he was a master - Sometimes he wouldn't even clear the echos of previous messages when he responded. It ate a bunch of thread space. Usually - once every four years, Michel has to deal with a bloated "Chatter" because of our rants during the election cycle. Maybe thats okay - but JVP would bait an ocean full of responses.
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>But that was okay too - my only real problem with JVP was that I though he may have been using those threads (and some had "artificial" or "stooged" responses) as a "source" to sell against VFP.
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>THe first time I met a marquee geek - he wasn't marquee then - was back in 93 when I picked up an FPW project (my only one). The project was working but the "???" printer control code feature was not sending the control codes to the printer.
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>So I get on Compuserver and find a FPW board and ask about the issues I was having with "???". I shutdown - go to bed - hoping someone with experience will respond.
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>Next day - I go back to the board - and almost magically my message is linked to another thread. Two guys on this thread are "stooging" a conversation about a program one of them is selling to overcome certain printer issues in FPW. They're talking back and forth - the "buyer" is saying how great the product is - and the vendor is graciously thanking him for the purchase.
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>It's someone we all know - the short of it is that the workaround was to just put a space before the printer control codes (??? " "+chr(27)+"&lp0" - or whatever). So I didn't have to buy the program that was the subject of the strange conversation my request was magically linked to.
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>I am sure the "vendor" in the "conversation" could have giving me the work around - but the prospect of my nickle seemed worth more to him than my appreciation or the benefits of an honest and ethical response.