Comment On It's Not Really a Problem

ha 6 figure access app... now thats funny


captcha fist!

Ow.

I wish I had the moxie to charge that much money for utter crap...

anonymous_coder():

Ow.

I wish I had the moxie to charge that much money for utter crap...

You should charge what the market will bear, not what it takes to make a profit. If the market will pay 6 figures for your software, you should charge it.

Next time your boss has a six-figure to spend on a simple database software, send the cash my way :) Serious, I'll do better than those guys.

Still can't figure out why people design pro stuff with Access. Use more than 10 users on the same database and the performance are simply stunned (literally stunned).

--free-rant--
For those of you who know WebIn<...>, it used to be a 5-figure-a-year VB6 app, until they changed to .Net (still using Access database backend though)...
--/free-rant--

This is why I need to come up with some piece of software that's marketable, I mean sell it to one company a year and you're good to go.

From what I've seen companies have little problem spending the big bucks on software systems if they can justify to themselves that they'll use the software for 5-10 years, that way they can carry the initial expense over a few years rather than taking one big hit initially.

More common than you'd think in "six-figure apps". More common than you'd think.

Poltras:

Still can't figure out why people design pro stuff with Access. Use more than 10 users on the same database and the performance are simply stunned (literally stunned).

Well, it's the number of concurrent users that matters, not the total number of users. And if this database is just used for recording who has completed what, then it has probably rarely got more than a couple of concurrent users.

I think that's the sum total I can come up with in the way of defence here ...

I wrote a six figure app once.

The first figure had it's hands over it's ears. The second had it's hands over it's eyes. The third had it's hands over it mouth. The fourth had it's hands over it's crotch. The last two got a room and enjoyed themselves.

This one was pretty incredible - layer upon layer of dreadfulness, getting worse every time.

haha, this is just like the Diebold voting machines! xD

Jason S:

This is why I need to come up with some piece of software that's marketable, I mean sell it to one company a year and you're good to go.

From what I've seen companies have little problem spending the big bucks on software systems if they can justify to themselves that they'll use the software for 5-10 years, that way they can carry the initial expense over a few years rather than taking one big hit initially.

The company presumably wasn't paying six figures for the front end, they where paying for safty training materials to train their employees, how much should a good up to date safty course cost?

The real WTF is all the tard's who would cheat on a safty instrution course, and that people who work at a computer all day would need safty training.

Speaking of which I hope we get some safety training around here, it's always nice to sit in the conference room and eat donuts while listening to some pointless ramble about depression and joint pain caused by repetitive stress.

Fry-kun:

haha, this is just like the Diebold voting machines! xD

Do Diebold Voting machines have Access as an backend??

How do I get a gig like that? I can make a piece of crap access app for 100k as well as anyone!

Though on a serious note, the company should consider a renegotiation on the price, as MS-Access apps are NOT client-server apps, as the progam is appearently advertised.

ha 6 figure access app... now thats funny

I've personally worked on a 7-figure Access app. It was... special. It was (rightly) held up as a "don't do this" example at a national (US) IT conference.

The developers should just kill themselves. Now.

A couple of jobs ago, I was forced to endure a couple of days of health-and-safety-in-the-workplace training. Like most of you, I type all day long. However, the PHB giving the training insistently told us that the company had a budget for any health and safety equipment we might need. I thought quickly, and told them that my vision was getting worse from squinting at my tiny monitor all day, and it would alleviate the eye strain if I could get bigger monitors and a better chair for posture.

They basically gave me everything I wanted. Then everyone else suddenly had the same symptoms.

Upshot: instead of them ordering 200 chairs and 400 monitors at once and getting a nice volume discount, they ordered everything one-off and paid full price.

Ice^^Heat:

Fry-kun:

haha, this is just like the Diebold voting machines! xD

Do Diebold Voting machines have Access as an backend??

You should look up the whole story. I think it was password-protected, using the same password the person who counts the votes uses. And the failing 'security by obscurity' software made it possible to make a trojan.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ describes some USA voting problems. It includes throwing away the original prints of the count by the authorities (the last means of control). And recounting always leads to errors.
http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English describes the dutch situation. Which is far better (because it doesn't use windows) but still not good enough.

Don't forget the nifty kickbacks that some execs get as an incentive to order six-figure software

“it’s really only a problem if they have Access installed.”

I'd love it if one of their training courses was "how to use access"

Dazed:

Poltras:

Still can't figure out why people design pro stuff with Access. Use more than 10 users on the same database and the performance are simply stunned (literally stunned).

Well, it's the number of concurrent users that matters, not the total number of users. And if this database is just used for recording who has completed what, then it has probably rarely got more than a couple of concurrent users.

I think that's the sum total I can come up with in the way of defence here ...

I think it's a limit of 5 concurrent users. The number 6 user will simply not be allowed in. I got around this problem once by simply adding a 5 minute inactivity timeout logout process.

But it really is an absolute idiotic WTF to have a $100,000 client/server multi-user application running with Access as the back-end when the full version of SQL Server is only a few thousand bucks (not to mention more secure).

Alex Papadimoulis:

His latest assignment involved installing some rather expensive (as in, six-figure expensive) safety training software

I hope every one of those six figures was '0'.

I think the six figures was for the content, not for the app. In fact, the likely costs were the lawyers who signed off on the content, and the liability insurance in case anyone got hurt following the safety instructions.

This reminds me of an application that I had to maintain once. I worked at a company that had just signed a big outsourcing contract with one giant (several-billion-dollars) company.

This application produced nice sales reports remotely. The interface was Excel-based, and the database was... Access. Yes, they had a wonderful server with a fine-tuned Oracle database, but some "developer" thought it was a nice idea to load all of the data into the Access database and *then* build the report.

The synchronization method was horrid. It deleted *all* of the data from the Access database before loading the new data, with no transactions, because Access couldn't handle the sync process inside transactions (overflow errors). It took 7 hours to load the data inside the Access database. Yes, seven hours.

Oh, and all the users and passwords were stored as plain text. And I mean *all* of them, not only the user/password tuple from the logged user. Oh, and no, the Access database wasn't password-protected.

It's even worse than the VB app that they used to calculate the "variable payment" for all of the salesmen. Hint: nobody was sure about the final values, not even the previous developers. It calculated the same values several times, and old system parameters were given new and mostly undocumented meanings.

I have to wonder if the same attitude extends to their safety material.

Module 42: Refueling a Nuclear Reactor
1. Bend at knees.
2. Use proper size wretches.
3. Wear eye protection.

...What about the instantly lethal radiation? “It’s really only a problem if fission products are involved.”

--RA

The first hurdle that J.F.L. ran into was the client program's requirements: Windows 95/98 or Windows NT/2000 only. This presented a bit of an issue, as one of the major reasons the company purchased the software was so that it’d work under Windows XP. Fortunately, after a quick call to tech support and a few hacks to the install script, J.F.L. was able to get the client software to install.

You know this is when the feeling of dread started deep in the pit of his stomach. I work for a small college and what we usually run into is software not made for XP and we have to adjust folder perms under "program files" since XP restricts it. And usually a registry hack to go along with it.

Not being a programmer, I would like to know this: Is it THAT difficult to write software for Windows that can be run as just a user and not Power User or Admin?

Ummmm.....this sounds a lot like an application that my previous company sold. And by "a lot" I mean exactly. From the access database, small resolution, and lack of XP support right one down to the fact that it is also a training program.

Does the application happen to be two words starting the the same two letters and often referred to as (XX)2?? (XX being those two letters).

If so let me know. I have a feeling you would enjoy knowing how it works. :)


email bcrais@dodgeit.com if it is

this is one of those things that just reinforces the obvious need for security professionals. Programmers and developers are great people, but they really need a security pro to look over their shoulders and tell them when they are doing something tremendously stupid

A few years ago we had fairly sophisticated time card system that worked like this. Five figure machines that would scan your palm to clock in and out all writing to a .mdb file with no database security. HR didn't go with a simple punch clock because it would be too easy to fake. The whole system was regulated to the junk room in less then a year.

The real WTF is that managers paid 6 figures for this bullcrap. There are some serious PHBs at JFL's workplace.

Ice^^Heat:

Do Diebold Voting machines have Access as an backend??

Of course not!!! You don't want everyone to be able to manipulate the voting tallies.

You only want Mr. Rove to be able to do that.

But it really is an absolute idiotic WTF to have a $100,000 client/server multi-user application running with Access as the back-end when the full version of SQL Server is only a few thousand bucks (not to mention more secure).

Hell, SQL Express is free, and with its cap of 4 gig DB size and utilizing only one CPU, it's still more than sufficient for things you'd use Access for.

Maybe he should have phoned up again, and asked for their money back.

"Not being a programmer, I would like to know this: Is it THAT difficult to write software for Windows that can be run as just a user and not Power User or Admin?"

Unless your program has an inherent need to affect other users or share state with them, it's trivial. If you need to share state, it might be necessary to spend a few days getting a clue before designing the software.

Anything that requires folder or registry permission hacks to get going should result in the vendor being asked to fix it, pronto, or get black-listed by your company. It's just incompetence.

Sigivald:

But it really is an absolute idiotic WTF to have a $100,000 client/server multi-user application running with Access as the back-end when the full version of SQL Server is only a few thousand bucks (not to mention more secure).

Hell, SQL Express is free, and with its cap of 4 gig DB size and utilizing only one CPU, it's still more than sufficient for things you'd use Access for.

It's even BETTER, Access has a 2Gb limit (and is also single-threaded)...

Nope. I guess the programmers of programs that "need" admin privileges must have some ulterior motive.

we've got an app based on access that's probably cost us a seven figure amount over the years. it is seriously bad, dependent on outdated dlls, values apparently defined in config files but just for fun hard-coded once or twice. it's known to corrupt its databases regularly. i once caught a glimpse of a part of the source-code, and scrolled through hundreds of lines without a single comment.

everybody knows and agrees that it's bad, from top management through the it-department all the way to the lowly data-entry monkeys. but there's no replacement on the market, and we've done the research, including industrial espionage at our competitors (they've attempted the same with us). and nobody is willing to invest the funds necessary to build a replacement, and running the risk that it /might/ not work... so the situation is just getting worse. (and the salary of those of us who know how to maintain the beast keeps rising :P )

I think it's a limit of 5 concurrent users. The number 6 user will simply not be allowed in. I got around this problem once by simply adding a 5 minute inactivity timeout logout process.

That's the max number of connections Windows will allow from unique remote machines under XP Home (though I believe the local machine may actually count as 1 of those connections). NT 4, 2K Pro, XP Pro, Server 2K3, etc all start at 10 and go up with additional licenses...

I forgot my posting name:

anonymous_coder():

Ow.

I wish I had the moxie to charge that much money for utter crap...

You should charge what the market will bear, not what it takes to make a profit. If the market will pay 6 figures for your software, you should charge it.

And niche markets are a beautiful thing.

discordia:

(and the salary of those of us who know how to maintain the beast keeps rising :P )

Nail/head interface time.

Rank Amateur:

1. Bend at knees.
2. Use proper size wretches.

Well, if the wretches have to bend their knees, they obviously aren't the proper size. Get smaller wretches.

I can sell you some.

mh:

discordia:

(and the salary of those of us who know how to maintain the beast keeps rising :P )

Nail/head interface time.

mind you, i'm not building my future on this. it is however financing my university studies.

What's worse than safety training? Living in a van... down by the river...

But seriously, I had a gig where the bozos in charge made us watch the "Fish" video - you know the one, about a fish shop in the pacific northwest, where all the crew are throwing fish at each other, and pretending to be all happy and stuff. It makes me gag just thinking about it. It was supposed to make us be a big happy team. The only thing it did was make us glad we didn't sell fish.

captcha: stinky (I kid you not)

Our company also introduced a 6 figure package, for timesheets and chargeable hour tracking.

It's web-enabled: meaning every single pc in the company requires a 60Mb file installed. We have over 2000 machines. It has to be installed under each login. You move machine, you must have the software reinstalled on the new persons login, and under your new login. This was after they told it was web-based. Those doing more than just time sheet access need admin rights to the machine.

The helpdesk told us that ideally we should be giving people domain admin rights.

And the database load has more than 256 columns....

Then they wonder why I treat them with such comtempt.

Anon:

Ummmm.....this sounds a lot like an application that my previous company sold. And by "a lot" I mean exactly. From the access database, small resolution, and lack of XP support right one down to the fact that it is also a training program.

Does the application happen to be two words starting the the same two letters and often referred to as (XX)2?? (XX being those two letters).

If so let me know. I have a feeling you would enjoy knowing how it works. :)


email bcrais@dodgeit.com if it is

Not only the original submitter would probably want to know it, but others, like me, are interested as well :) Care to add it to the side bar, or ask Alex for a trilogy?

On second thought, maybe it is better NOT to share it, since it might negatively influence our developing practices ;)

Dan:

Our company also introduced a 6 figure package, for timesheets and chargeable hour tracking.

It's web-enabled: meaning every single pc in the company requires a 60Mb file installed. We have over 2000 machines. It has to be installed under each login. You move machine, you must have the software reinstalled on the new persons login, and under your new login. This was after they told it was web-based. Those doing more than just time sheet access need admin rights to the machine.

The helpdesk told us that ideally we should be giving people domain admin rights.

And the database load has more than 256 columns....

Then they wonder why I treat them with such comtempt.

Fortunately it doesn't sound like the application that Stops All Production (but I could be wrong).

Ken Hagan:

"Not being a programmer, I would like to know this: Is it THAT difficult to write software for Windows that can be run as just a user and not Power User or Admin?"

Unless your program has an inherent need to affect other users or share state with them, it's trivial. If you need to share state, it might be necessary to spend a few days getting a clue before designing the software.

Anything that requires folder or registry permission hacks to get going should result in the vendor being asked to fix it, pronto, or get black-listed by your company. It's just incompetence.

I strongly suspected incompetence, but like I said I'm no programmer. These programs are usually included with the textbooks. I'm all for using technology to enhance the student's classroom experience, but these programs are quite often crap. I find it hard to believe that we are the only college that doesn't give students admin level access. Or the only college using XP. Or the only college that would like to have software that can be packaged into a MSI for ditribution via Active Directory. I could go on...

Matt Foley:

What's worse than safety training? Living in a van... down by the river...

But seriously, I had a gig where the bozos in charge made us watch the "Fish" video - you know the one, about a fish shop in the pacific northwest, where all the crew are throwing fish at each other, and pretending to be all happy and stuff. It makes me gag just thinking about it. It was supposed to make us be a big happy team. The only thing it did was make us glad we didn't sell fish.

captcha: stinky (I kid you not)

A previous employer did the whole Fish nonsense. It was supposed to boost morale by letting the employees have "fun" at work. Except some key management wouldn't attend the training, they rarely budgeted money for it and it wasn't supposed to impact your work.

We ended up with a "Fish Committee" that was supposed to come up with "fun stuff" to do with our own money. You can't force people to have fun. Some of the stuff employees were already doing on their own got rolled into the whole Fish thing and became boring.

"The password authentication works with Javascript; passwords are stored in the HTML source. But that's only really a problem if the employees are hackers who know how to view the page source or disable Javascript."

DavidN:

This one was pretty incredible - layer upon layer of dreadfulness, getting worse every time.

I've come here to escape the pain of my work - not to be reminded of my daily hell.

Ben4jammin:

Not being a programmer, I would like to know this: Is it THAT difficult to write software for Windows that can be run as just a user and not Power User or Admin?

Not it isn't, but until XP, you could depend on the user being admin because everyone was anyway, and all your dev tools requried privs, so your dev machine was admin and didn't break when it made adminny assumptions.

The end result is that the consequences of accidentally doing something stupid like installing keys under HKLM for a normal productivity app had no downside to you.

Starting with XP, windows as a power user is a lot easier to deal with and MS made a real push to get things working as nonadmin. There are still a lot of custom apps that need that stuff, so we'll be enduring them for a while.

/programmer