Re: Date of sale

On Mar 5, 9:22 am, Casper H.S. *** <Casper....@xxxxxxx> wrote:

There was a database which allowed us to reprint the
"yellow sheets" that come with our equipemnt, keyed of the serial number.

I was taking the piss :-). I was always just astonished that no one
thought to link that database to the support system, as I've had
numerous cases of people denying a machine exists or an incorrect
serial number (as in: one digit being wrong or something like that)
being in the support database for it, which could not happen if the
database either pointed at the database of systems manufactured, or if
serial numbers had checksums (ISBNs sorted that out a very long time
ago, for instance).

It was amusing to compare support calls to Sun and Dell:
* With Sun you'd generally go through a palaver persuading them the
system actually existed, was on support, and was not located on the
moon. This would take an hour and involve several irate phone calls
and the use of a chainsaw. Then they would fix the problem.
* With Dell they would always, instantly, know what the machine was,
what its configuration (when it left Dell) was, and who owned it. But
you would have to fix the problem yourself.

I don't know which is worse, really...
.