I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
Not good. Especially since we own some spare Mindready LLA licenses
that aren’t yet bound to a CPU ID, and they have to activate them.
Lesson: NEVER buy copy-protected software for an embedded application.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle <nagle@downside.com> wrote:
I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
Their last press release said
Decreased sales due to reduced orders from Nortel and Flextronics
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2005/15/c0127.html
Frank
Frank Liu wrote:
John Nagle <> nagle@downside.com> > wrote:
I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
Their last press release said
Decreased sales due to reduced orders from Nortel and Flextronicshttp://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2005/15/c0127.html
Frank
Mindready turns out to still be in business. They just have
a new policy of not answering the phone. They want to be
more “web and e-mail oriented”. Or so they tell me.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
“John Nagle” <nagle@overbot.com> wrote in message
news:df0c4c$qbm$1@inn.qnx.com…
Frank Liu wrote:
John Nagle <> nagle@downside.com> > wrote:I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
Their last press release said
Decreased sales due to reduced orders from Nortel and Flextronicshttp://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2005/15/c0127.html
Frank
Mindready turns out to still be in business. They just have
a new policy of not answering the phone. They want to be more “web and
e-mail oriented”. Or so they tell me.
The lesson still applies.
Once upon a time we wanted to buy a DVD-RAM driver for Solaris. There was a
great product out there, but they demanded locking it up to HW serial
numbers. We agreed to pay forward for several hundred units, but they would
not yield. We said ‘thanks, but no, thanks’ and designed the backup to work
over network.
– igor
Igor Kovalenko wrote:
“John Nagle” <> nagle@overbot.com> > wrote in message
news:df0c4c$qbm$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …Frank Liu wrote:
John Nagle <> nagle@downside.com> > wrote:
I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
They’re still in business. But Mindready support is now so bad I can’t activate
my paid-for license. Each installation of the software on a target machine
requires a separate key, generated for the FireWire device on that machine.
So you have to maintain a supply of licenses, which Mindready sells in the
form of sealed envelopes with certificates inside.
But the certificate isn’t enough to activate the driver. You have to
get the ID of the FireWire device (which requires running software on
the target machine), select a paid for but unused
certificate, and ask Mindready to then generate a specific
key for that target hardware.
This used to be done manually, by calling Mindready. After a day of
struggling to reach them by phone, they informed me that this is
now done online, and referred me to their web site.
But that didn’t work. First, I had to “register” with their
web site. This isn’t automatic or immediate; they make you fill out a form,
and then, at some later time convenient to them, they send you back a password.
So that cost a day.
Once “registered”, it is possible to log in and reach the “license
generator” page. Using this requires a 8-digit license certificate number, an
adapter ID, and a 4-digit “company code”. So I open one of the sealed envelopes
Mindready sold us, take out the “Software License Certificate”,
and find an 8-digit serial number, but no “company code”. The concept
of a “company code” is new; we’d never heard of that before. There’s
a “product code”, but that doesn’t work So I can’t generate a key.
Of course, they’re closed for the day. And remember, there’s no
phone support any more.
Note that I’m not even asking that Mindready transfer a license from
the broken machine to a working one. We bought an extra license, just
in case we had to do a quick replacement. In other words, we paid several
hundred dollars to Mindready specifically to avoid problems like this.
Even that didn’t work.
We’re three weeks from the DARPA Grand Challenge and Mindready’s
incompetence has cost us two days we didn’t have.
I would thus strongly recommend against buying any Mindready products.
If you do, figure on a few days of downtime any time you replace hardware,
and add that to the total cost of Mindready ownership.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
Just heard from Kareim Lechilli at Mindready about this.
He expressed unhappyness about the “Don’t buy from Mindready” heading.
He has asked me to provide additional information.
We bought these licenses from a Mindready distributor, EMJ
America, in October, 2003. Mindready has since changed
their key issuing system somewhat, and “old” licenses cannot be
easily activated online. Mindready feels that they should
not be publicly criticized for this.
Mindready is now working to resolve this problem and
has manually generated license keys for us.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
Igor Kovalenko wrote:
“John Nagle” <> nagle@overbot.com> > wrote in message
news:df0c4c$qbm$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …Frank Liu wrote:
John Nagle <> nagle@downside.com> > wrote:
I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
They’re still in business. But Mindready support is now so bad I can’t
activate
my paid-for license. Each installation of the software on a target machine
requires a separate key, generated for the FireWire device on that machine.
So you have to maintain a supply of licenses, which Mindready sells in the
form of sealed envelopes with certificates inside.But the certificate isn’t enough to activate the driver. You have to
get the ID of the FireWire device (which requires running software on
the target machine), select a paid for but unused
certificate, and ask Mindready to then generate a specific
key for that target hardware.This used to be done manually, by calling Mindready. After a day of
struggling to reach them by phone, they informed me that this is
now done online, and referred me to their web site.But that didn’t work. First, I had to “register” with their
web site. This isn’t automatic or immediate; they make you fill out a
form,
and then, at some later time convenient to them, they send you back a
password.
So that cost a day.
Once “registered”, it is possible to log in and reach the “license
generator” page. Using this requires a 8-digit license certificate
number, an
adapter ID, and a 4-digit “company code”. So I open one of the sealed
envelopes
Mindready sold us, take out the “Software License Certificate”,
and find an 8-digit serial number, but no “company code”. The concept
of a “company code” is new; we’d never heard of that before. There’s
a “product code”, but that doesn’t work So I can’t generate a key.
Of course, they’re closed for the day. And remember, there’s no
phone support any more.
Note that I’m not even asking that Mindready transfer a license from
the broken machine to a working one. We bought an extra license, just
in case we had to do a quick replacement. In other words, we paid several
hundred dollars to Mindready specifically to avoid problems like this.
Even that didn’t work.
We’re three weeks from the DARPA Grand Challenge and Mindready’s
incompetence has cost us two days we didn’t have.I would thus strongly recommend against buying any Mindready products.
If you do, figure on a few days of downtime any time you replace hardware,
and add that to the total cost of Mindready ownership.John Nagle
Team Overbot
The new Mindready keys didn’t work.
1394-OHCI Module Registered
SedNet 1394 LLA v3.1.1 (Jul 21 2003)
Installing 1394-OHCI adapter 000000:008888E48D… FAILED (Bad licence)
Unable to initialize IEEE-1394 driver: Invalid argument
ERROR: unable to initialize low-level driver
Unable to initialize FireWire interface.
llaStopAsyRecv (LLA_ASY_REQ) failed
llaStopAsyRecv (LLA_ASY_RESP) failed
Mindready’s activation system requires many steps, some of which
require manual transcription of long hex numbers, and until the very
end, after you’ve relinked your application (!) and loaded it
onto the target system, you can’t tell if it worked.
What happened here is that Mindready sent us a key for an
adapter id of “000000008888E4A2”, instead of “000000008888E48D”.
This may be due to the language barrier.
For a good time, call Mindready at 1-(877)-636-1394, and press the option
for 1394 technical support. See what happens.
Now we’re into a long weekend, we need to test our robot vehicle, and
we’re about to lose two more days, after losing three days to this already.
To recap, the software was working, but we had to replace a defective
computer, which invalidated the old license keys. All we’re doing here is
trying to get a system up after a hardware replacement. With Mindready,
this has taken us most of a week.
Consider this when evaluating total cost of ownership of a Mindready product.
I realize that Mindready management will be unhappy with this message.
Perhaps this will be a learning experience for them.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
Just heard from Kareim Lechilli at Mindready about this.
He expressed unhappyness about the “Don’t buy from Mindready” heading.
He has asked me to provide additional information.We bought these licenses from a Mindready distributor, EMJ
America, in October, 2003. Mindready has since changed
their key issuing system somewhat, and “old” licenses cannot be
easily activated online. Mindready feels that they should
not be publicly criticized for this.Mindready is now working to resolve this problem and
has manually generated license keys for us.John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:Igor Kovalenko wrote:
“John Nagle” <> nagle@overbot.com> > wrote in message
news:df0c4c$qbm$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …Frank Liu wrote:
John Nagle <> nagle@downside.com> > wrote:
I tried calling Mindready today, which offered some QNX support for
Firewire, and when I pressed 5 for tech support, got “that number is
not in service”. Pressing 0 yielded an answering service, which
could only take my number.
They’re still in business. But Mindready support is now so bad I
can’t activate
my paid-for license. Each installation of the software on a target
machine
requires a separate key, generated for the FireWire device on that
machine.
So you have to maintain a supply of licenses, which Mindready sells in
the
form of sealed envelopes with certificates inside.But the certificate isn’t enough to activate the driver. You have to
get the ID of the FireWire device (which requires running software on
the target machine), select a paid for but unused
certificate, and ask Mindready to then generate a specific
key for that target hardware.This used to be done manually, by calling Mindready. After a day of
struggling to reach them by phone, they informed me that this is
now done online, and referred me to their web site.But that didn’t work. First, I had to “register” with their
web site. This isn’t automatic or immediate; they make you fill out a
form,
and then, at some later time convenient to them, they send you back a
password.
So that cost a day.
Once “registered”, it is possible to log in and reach the “license
generator” page. Using this requires a 8-digit license certificate
number, an
adapter ID, and a 4-digit “company code”. So I open one of the sealed
envelopes
Mindready sold us, take out the “Software License Certificate”,
and find an 8-digit serial number, but no “company code”. The concept
of a “company code” is new; we’d never heard of that before. There’s
a “product code”, but that doesn’t work So I can’t generate a key.
Of course, they’re closed for the day. And remember, there’s no
phone support any more.
Note that I’m not even asking that Mindready transfer a license from
the broken machine to a working one. We bought an extra license, just
in case we had to do a quick replacement. In other words, we paid
several
hundred dollars to Mindready specifically to avoid problems like this.
Even that didn’t work.
We’re three weeks from the DARPA Grand Challenge and Mindready’s
incompetence has cost us two days we didn’t have.I would thus strongly recommend against buying any Mindready products.
If you do, figure on a few days of downtime any time you replace
hardware,
and add that to the total cost of Mindready ownership.John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
What happened here is that Mindready sent us a key for an
adapter id of “000000008888E4A2”, instead of “000000008888E48D”.
Pop down to the dairy and buy the spare 000000008888E4A2 adapter sitting on the shelf. 
Sorry, couldn’t help it,
Evan
Evan Hillas wrote:
John Nagle wrote:
What happened here is that Mindready sent us a key for an
adapter id of “000000008888E4A2”, instead of “000000008888E48D”.
Pop down to the dairy and buy the spare 000000008888E4A2 adapter sitting
on the shelf. >
Sorry, couldn’t help it,
Evan
It’s an integrated FireWire controller in an embedded computer in
a shock-mounted box on a robot vehicle. This isn’t consumer gear.
It looks like we’re stuck for the weekend. Is Monday a holiday
in Canada?
It’s entirely possible that our visual road-follower will not be
used in the DARPA Grand Challenge because of this screwup.
We’ve lost crucial test time.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
“John Nagle” <nagle@overbot.com> wrote in message
news:dfaslk$nfn$1@inn.qnx.com…
Evan Hillas wrote:
John Nagle wrote:What happened here is that Mindready sent us a key for an
adapter id of “000000008888E4A2”, instead of “000000008888E48D”.
Pop down to the dairy and buy the spare 000000008888E4A2 adapter sitting
on the shelf. >
Sorry, couldn’t help it,
EvanIt’s an integrated FireWire controller in an embedded computer in
a shock-mounted box on a robot vehicle. This isn’t consumer gear.It looks like we’re stuck for the weekend. Is Monday a holiday
in Canada?It’s entirely possible that our visual road-follower will not be
used in the DARPA Grand Challenge because of this screwup.
We’ve lost crucial test time.
Darn… ever thought of disassembling that silly library and bypassing the
license check? It is entirely possible to do within a day (or night for that
matter) for someone experienced. Perhaps go to qnx.org.ru forums and post
your problem & object code
Mindready or not, I would suggest to avoid software that requires HW-tied
key for deployment in the field. How ever great customer service might be,
it’s just a recipe for disaster. Phones go dead, holidays happen, hosting
company loses power, webservers go down or get bogged by viruses, etc. And
it tends to happen just at the right moment.
Microsoft’s variant is somewhat tolerable because of two reasons - they have
30 day grace period and replacing few components (up to 3 on desktop PCs
AFAIR) does not invalidate the activation.
Vote with your money and never buy software encumbered by protection schemes
like Mindready’s.
– igor
Yet another update.
Tried generating a key with the Mindready online license generator
at their site. Put in all the correct numbers (which we can do now
that Mindready gave us a “customer ID”, which wasn’t on our license
purchased back in 2003) and got back “UID is different from the
one in our database.” Apparently they not only issued us keys for
a bad adapter ID, as detailed in the previous message, but they
put that info in their database, and now our paid-for license won’t
work.
The Mindready LLA isn’t a bad product, except for the licensing
hell.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
Evan Hillas wrote:
John Nagle wrote:
What happened here is that Mindready sent us a key for an
adapter id of “000000008888E4A2”, instead of “000000008888E48D”.
Pop down to the dairy and buy the spare 000000008888E4A2 adapter
sitting on the shelf. >
Sorry, couldn’t help it,
Evan
It’s an integrated FireWire controller in an embedded computer in
a shock-mounted box on a robot vehicle. This isn’t consumer gear.It looks like we’re stuck for the weekend. Is Monday a holiday
in Canada?It’s entirely possible that our visual road-follower will not be
used in the DARPA Grand Challenge because of this screwup.
We’ve lost crucial test time.John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
Once again, we see how well copy protection improves a company's bottom line! Instead of stopping pirates, it's stopping the legitimate user, _and_, as an added bonus, generating negative press for the company and their product.I would thus strongly recommend against buying any Mindready products.
If you do, figure on a few days of downtime any time you replace hardware,
and add that to the total cost of Mindready ownership.
This kind of thing ticks me off enough with video games, I can’t imagine
how livid you folks must be.
–
Chris Herborth (cherborth@qnx.com)
Never send a monster to do the work of an evil scientist.
Monthly QNX newsletter - http://www.qnx.com/news/forms/newsletter.html
We finally got the Mindready software up on replacement hardware.
It took a week, about four support calls, several E-mails, and a
call to the venture capital firm that finances Mindready.
But it’s back up.
Mindready has been very helpful since we were able to get
their attention.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
Chris Herborth wrote:
John Nagle wrote:
personal-opinion
Once again, we see how well copy protection improves a company’s bottom
line! Instead of stopping pirates, it’s stopping the legitimate user,
and, as an added bonus, generating negative press for the company and
their product.This kind of thing ticks me off enough with video games, I can’t imagine
how livid you folks must be.
/personal-opinion
John Nagle wrote:
We finally got the Mindready software up on replacement hardware.
It took a week, about four support calls, several E-mails, and a
call to the venture capital firm that finances Mindready.
But it’s back up.Mindready has been very helpful since we were able to get
their attention.
John,
Please be aware that this newsgroup is a resource to post technical
questions regarding QNX specific DDKs. It definitely is not a soap
box for your issues with Mindready or their licensing scheme. If you
wish to bring your complaints about Mindready into a public forum, you
should do it using your own resources (like your own website).
I for one am tired of reading threads masquerading as relevant technical
issues.
Cheers,
Adam
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.
On Unix, I am limited only by my knowledge.
–Peter J. Schoenster
Adam Mallory wrote:
I for one am tired of reading threads masquerading as relevant technical
issues.
“Masquerading”? How could you possibly mistake a thread titled “Don’t
buy from Mindready” as a relevant technical issue?
(I’m not saying that it belongs here, only that it’s not really
masquerading.)
Wojtek Lerch wrote:
Adam Mallory wrote:
I for one am tired of reading threads masquerading as relevant
technical issues.
“Masquerading”? How could you possibly mistake a thread titled “Don’t
buy from Mindready” as a relevant technical issue? >(I’m not saying that it belongs here, only that it’s not really
masquerading.)
I didn’t say I was fooled into believing it was technical from the title
Masquerading is false outward show or a pretense of some type, it says
nothing to the fact of actual belief by others. Thus is really is
masquerading (gown, mask and all).
–
Cheers,
Adam
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.
On Unix, I am limited only by my knowledge.
–Peter J. Schoenster
Adam Mallory <amallory@qnx.com> wrote:
Hm… qnx.cafe (general discussion) might have been more appropriate, yes.
-David
Wojtek Lerch wrote:
Adam Mallory wrote:I for one am tired of reading threads masquerading as relevant
technical issues.
“Masquerading”? How could you possibly mistake a thread titled “Don’t
buy from Mindready” as a relevant technical issue? >(I’m not saying that it belongs here, only that it’s not really
masquerading.)I didn’t say I was fooled into believing it was technical from the title
- that’s silly. The point is the existence of this thread in a QNX
specific DDK newsgroup. The placement of a thread here suggests that
the poster has some technical and salient topic related to QNX DDKs to
discuss. From reading, one can clearly see it is anything but.Masquerading is false outward show or a pretense of some type, it says
nothing to the fact of actual belief by others. Thus is really is
masquerading (gown, mask and all).–
Cheers,
AdamQNX Software Systems
[ > amallory@qnx.com > ]With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.
On Unix, I am limited only by my knowledge.
–Peter J. Schoenster
–
David Gibbs
QNX Training Services
dagibbs@qnx.com
Adam Mallory wrote:
Wojtek Lerch wrote:
Adam Mallory wrote:I for one am tired of reading threads masquerading as relevant
technical issues.“Masquerading”? How could you possibly mistake a thread titled “Don’t
buy from Mindready” as a relevant technical issue? >I didn’t say I was fooled into believing it was technical from the title
- that’s silly.
But this is about whether it tried to fool you, not about whether it
succeeded.
The point is the existence of this thread in a QNX
specific DDK newsgroup. The placement of a thread here suggests that
the poster has some technical and salient topic related to QNX DDKs to
discuss. From reading, one can clearly see it is anything but.Masquerading is false outward show or a pretense of some type, it says
nothing to the fact of actual belief by others. Thus is really is
masquerading (gown, mask and all).
If you saw me in a women’s washroom, would that automatically prove that
I’m masquerading as a woman, or would that depend on my clothes and hair
style and makeup (if any)?
Adam Mallory wrote:
John Nagle wrote:
We finally got the Mindready software up on replacement hardware.
It took a week, about four support calls, several E-mails, and a
call to the venture capital firm that finances Mindready.
But it’s back up.Mindready has been very helpful since we were able to get
their attention.
John,Please be aware that this newsgroup is a resource to post technical
questions regarding QNX specific DDKs.
Well, actually this is about a technical problem with a QNX-specific
device driver kit. The Mindready Low Level Adapter library is a library
to assist in the development of drivers for FireWire devices for QNX.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
John Nagle wrote:
Well, actually this is about a technical problem with a QNX-specific
device driver kit. The Mindready Low Level Adapter library is a library
to assist in the development of drivers for FireWire devices for QNX.
Sorry John, I must of misunderstood. Which QNX DDK product, with which
you are experiencing problems, are you referencing in your initial post?
–
Cheers,
Adam
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.
On Unix, I am limited only by my knowledge.
–Peter J. Schoenster