John;

Please do not take offense at the following. As you know words convey 7% of the meaning of communication. If I “rubbed you the wrong way” let me know in private. Sometimes an attempt at humor goes off in the wrong direction.

I feel like you have presented an “ugly American” story. Yes, we are insensitive to the world and only think of ourselves. I do receive e-mailings from other countries announcing developer conferences. If I could attend I would but not all Americans have pockets filled with gold.

Perhaps due to the fact I live in a “rich and powerful country”, I should think that it is insensitive to broadcast such information outside of your own countries limits. Is it proper for other countries to inform us of their activities amongst developers? I do like to know what is going on in the world – even the application development world, as limited as it is.

What would be better – for no country to be allowed to e-mail advertisements outside of their boundaries or just select countries? Somehow I do not think we can do much about who receives advertisements or “junk mail”. In fact there may be more important things to concern ourselves with – like where is the nearest nuclear bomb/chemical/biological warfare shelter! There is a Bush on the loose or is it that Bush has something loose?

Tom


>Hugh
>
>Thanks for the "heads-up" re the quality of the offered service. Obviously you can achieve benefit from his service and already appreciate its value.
>
>Hopefully you also consider that people in Germany, Asia and (dare I say it) New Zealand, may not share your perspective re value. If such people received an e-mail offering training in the midwest USA, they may well regard it as Spam- unsolicited advertising for a product they cannot use. This does not mean the service is rubbish.
>
>I agree, these forums allow many people to state their piece. I also agree with you that we need to be able to consider other viewpoints without "knowing" we are right every time. In this case, the extensive "publicity" means that e-mailing people on UT re services is clearly a sensible thing to do. Presumably this is the result we wanted.
>
>Regards
>
>JR