Hi I wanted to share a recent expierience that highlights the difference 
between open source support as exemplified by this list, AZPHP, and tech 
support as provided by a major commercial vender, HP.

This morning, I posted a query to this list regarding converting some 
data into a BLOB that could be understood by an interbase database. I 
got both a reply that gave  the specific solution to the problem, which 
was using the base64_encode function and a reply that lead me to 
information on various other functions that relate to PHP as used with 
interbase. THis will I'm sure prove valuable in the future.

Contrast that with the following HP expierience.

 Last week a hard drive died on one of my clients HP desktops. HP was 
prompt in shipping out a new drive, too prompt actually. They told me 
that included with the drive would be system restore disks. Not 
installation disks, which I would prefer, but system restore disks. The 
drive arrived on Friday even though they had said it would arrive today, 
so no one was there to recieve the delivery. Also there were not only no 
system recovery disks in the package, but there was also no return 
label. Fortunatley I already had system restore disks on had from a 
previous problem.


I have 3 business days to return the defective drive so I called HP to 
see about where and how to return the bad drive. They could give me no 
information and finally agreed to waive the 3 day return policy and 
fedex me a return prepaid shipping label.

I would characterize HP service as being totally incompetent. One of the 
main problems being the lack of willingness to listen to what the 
problem really is also a lack of attention to detail in providing a 
solution.

Thank you to the PHP list and especially to those who responded to my 
query. I'll post this to a couple of other lists I'm on.

Charlie
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change  you mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss