The "Jackson Dean" Incident

Hey everyone,

I tried out Sageline's EHTD, and I have to say, I'm really not very
impressed. In my opinion, the "enhancements" it supposedly adds to your
help files don't seem well thought-out--and many don't even work.

The idea of having a modeless interface is a nice idea, but the actual
implementation here is sloppy and full of bugs. For one thing, I
couldn't get the "enhanced forward button" and "enhanced back button" to work at all. Another problem is that EHTD ignores your default start
page and gives you the navigation window only, which is annoying.

Simply making the navigation window modeless seems like a good idea at
first, but after using it, this doesn't really seem like the way to go.
The WinHelp 2000 technology that comes with RoboHELP (and doesn't incur usage fees) does a better job of solving the problem. By selecting
"Enable WinHelp 2000 Explorer View" in RoboHELP, you get an interface in
which the navigation pane and the content pane fit neatly together in a
single, neat, tri-pane window. Having a separate navigation window is
sloppier and less appealing. For one thing, when you open the first
topic, the navigation window gets covered up. You end up having to move the windows around and resize them, which takes time and is annoying. Isn't the goal here to make WinHelp LESS annoying?

Speaking of resizing, this brings me to a major, major bug in the
Sageline software--resizing the content window. Ironically, the ability
to resize windows is one of the selling points. But when you try to
maximize or otherwise enlarge the content pane, it creates the newly
sized window but LEAVES THE OLD WINDOW THERE, overlapping it and
covering up the new window. It doesn't redraw the screen, so the result
is a big illegible mess. I tried it on several different help projects
that I converted to EHTD, and it happened each time. I'm working on a
Windows 98 system. This doesn't happen with help files I generate in
RoboHELP, which resize fine.

And these are just the bugs I've been able to find playing around with
it. Who knows what bugs the end help user might run into that I haven't
noticed? The bottom line is, better to go with a product that's been
thought through and tested like WinHelp 2000.

Jaskson.



<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Jackson Dean
Technical writer
Philadelphia, PA

jackson,

When you say 'leaves the old window there" do you mean a topic that is in a
secondary window? Did you designate this window as always on top? this
sounds like the condition you are describing. As for having ethd recognize a
start topic, this is quite easy to do. Rather than wasting bandwidth
explaining it, I'll encourage you to contact paul or bill directly and they
will explain how to do it.

As to your contention that the robohelp method is free, that's not quite
true: part of its astronomical cost is licensing fees for redistributable
components.

I've found that the permanent tri pane layout that comes with robohelp's
synching table of contents creates it own set of problems, particularly with
small screens. it also lacks some important functionality included with
ethd. So while I appreciate its simplicity, it's not appropriate for every
situation.

Chris Tonjes

Jackson,

Welcome to the Winhlp-l list. I am sorry you had problems with EHTD. We
would have been glad to discuss the issues with you to see if they were
resolvable but I will try to address the specific issues you raised on the
list.

>>The idea of having a modeless interface is a nice idea, but the actual
implementation here is sloppy and full of bugs.

If you could detail any bugs we would be happy to address them. All of the
issues you raised, except for the last one are design decisions based on our
initial framework and feedback from beta testers and other people in the
industry.

>>For one thing, I couldn't get the "enhanced forward button" and "enhanced
back button" to work at all.

I am not sure what the problem is here. Did you have a problem using the
feature with the included help files, since they have each that
functionality enabled? Was there a problem with our wizard implementing the
function in each of your defined help windows? Do the Forward and Back
buttons work on your History tab? Without a little more information it is
difficult to know where your problem lies.

>>Another problem is that EHTD ignores your default start page and gives you
the navigation window only, which is annoying.

Standard WinHelp behavior is to launch the Help Topics dialog at startup. If
you launch your help file using a WinHelp command-line argument it starts
the selected topic. We could add functionality to allow the author to decide
whether to launch the WinHelp default topic at general help launch, but none
of our beta testers suggested that functionality as an addition to the way
WinHelp currently works.

It is rare that a help system is started to the default help window, unless
it is an online book format. Most help systems are accessed through the
program interface and start at specifically designed topics.

>>Simply making the navigation window modeless seems like a good idea at
first, but after using it, this doesn't really seem like the way to go.

While there are times when a docked navigation window is useful there are
times when it isn't. You should understand that we did not start out to
mimic the HTML Help tri-pane view, as does WinHelp 2000. We started out
enhancing the existing WinHelp Topics dialog. There are plans to allow the
window to be docked or undocked (similar to HDK) in a future release.

>>Having a separate navigation window is sloppier and less appealing. For
one thing, when you open the first topic, the navigation window gets covered
up. You end up having to move the windows around and resize them, which
takes time and is annoying. Isn't the goal here to make WinHelp LESS
annoying?

Yes, the goal is to make WinHelp less annoying. Whether the help window gets
covered depends on where you put your help windows on the interface. EHTD
remembers both size and position, but at first launch uses a default
position, just like existing WinHelp. It would be possible to include an
option to let the author decide where to put the EHTD dialog at first launch
in a future version, but that wasn't a requested feature by any of the
testers.

>>Speaking of resizing, this brings me to a major, major bug in the Sageline
software--resizing the content window. Ironically, the ability to resize
windows is one of the selling points. But when you try to maximize or
otherwise enlarge the content pane, it creates the newly sized window but
LEAVES THE OLD WINDOW THERE, overlapping it and covering up the new window.
It doesn't redraw the screen, so the result is a big illegible mess. I tried
it on several different help projects
that I converted to EHTD, and it happened each time. I'm working on a
Windows 98 system. This doesn't happen with help files I generate in
RoboHELP, which resize fine.

If you mean that when you resize the EHTD dialog window, you get two
instances of the dialog, then this is an unreported problem and one that did
not occur on any of our testing, either on Windows 98 or other systems. Do
you by chance have one of the first generation DVD video cards? I have heard
that a lot of applications have been having problems with the first
generation of DVD drivers. We would like to be able to duplicate your
problem, if you could help us, since this is the first we have heard of
anything like this.

Thank you for reviewing EHTD and we look forward to considering all the
issues you have raised. If you would give us your contact information we
would be happy to call you so that we could resolve the one issue with the
screen redraw on your system.

Sincerely yours,

William Meisheid
Sageline Publishing/Sageline Software

Winhelpers,

Earlier today i responded to a curious message posted by "Jackson Dean,
Technical Writer" (allegedly of philadelphia pa) regarding ETHD by
sageline software. This strange message was half ethd bug report, half
robohelp sales pitch. After offering diplomatically phrased suggestions
to "jackson", I began to wonder about the validity of his problem, as
well as his chosen alternative. While his ETHD problems were somewhat
vague, his robohelp praise was incredibly specific.

Wanting to find out more about "Jackson" I looked at the header of his
message. In so doing, I discovered he used a free email service. Since
many people use free email services from work, I figured that if I ran
tracrert, I would be able to resolve the IP address the message was sent
from and therefore find out more about "Jackson"

The IP Address from his address was 207.137.10.2

When I ran tracert, here is what I discovered:

Tracing route to smtpmail.blue-sky.com [207.137.10.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 186 ms 169 ms 150 ms arc-9a.norva.mindspring.net
[207.69.130.169]
2 175 ms 150 ms 129 ms cisco-f1-0-0.norva.mindspring.net
[207.69.130.1
9]
3 187 ms 190 ms 159 ms cisco-2-a11-0-1.atl2.mindspring.net
[207.69.230
205]
4 195 ms 189 ms 159 ms Hssi10-0-0.GW1.ATL1.ALTER.NET
[157.130.64.117]
5 185 ms 160 ms 185 ms 103.ATM3-0.XR2.ATL1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.232.38]
6 161 ms 159 ms 189 ms 294.ATM2-0.TR2.ATL1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.232.106]

7 185 ms 189 ms 209 ms 109.ATM6-0.TR2.CHI4.ALTER.NET
[146.188.136.10]
8 175 ms 189 ms 209 ms 198.ATM6-0.XR2.CHI4.ALTER.NET
[146.188.208.225]

9 176 ms 179 ms 209 ms 194.ATM9-0-0.BR1.CHI1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.208.13]

10 305 ms 300 ms 280 ms 137.39.23.50
11 285 ms 260 ms 289 ms pos0-3-155M.chi-bb3.cerf.net
[134.24.29.209]
12 315 ms 329 ms 360 ms pos0-0-155M.sfo-bb3.cerf.net
[134.24.46.41]
13 365 ms 319 ms 379 ms atm10-0-155M.lax-bb1.cerf.net
[134.24.29.41]
14 294 ms 310 ms 290 ms atm1-0-622M.san-bb6.cerf.net
[134.24.29.141]
15 280 ms 300 ms 349 ms pos10-0-0-155M.san-bb2.cerf.net
[134.24.29.105]

16 307 ms 299 ms 319 ms selectnet-gw.san-bb2.cerf.net
[134.24.34.26]
17 316 ms 319 ms 289 ms selectatm1-gw-s1.Select.Net
[207.137.9.226]
18 354 ms * * am2.Select.Net [207.137.10.206]
19 368 ms 409 ms 369 ms bluesky-p50.Blue-Sky.Com [207.137.10.1]
20 * 499 ms * smtpmail.blue-sky.com [207.137.10.2]
21 498 ms 459 ms 419 ms smtpmail.blue-sky.com [207.137.10.2]

Trace complete.

It seems that "jackson dean, technical writer" of philadelphia pa is
actually a Blue Sky employee posting his message from Blue Sky's mail
server. Or Perhaps blue sky has opened an east coast office.
Regardless, it appears that "jackson" is yet another unethical marketing
device from blue sky.

I cannot fathom the reason behind this juvenile charade, especially
since it is directed against two people who are giants in the industry
and who conduct their business on an ethical level that is so far above
most other organizations that they may have lost opportunities because
of it. Two people who give selflessly, and ask nothing in return. Two
people who patiently have acted as an unpaid techical support department
for blue sky by answering the many questions posted on this list by
frustrated people who've spent hundreds of dollars on software that,
truth be told, has not always been of very high quality. It is ironic
that "jackson" characterizes ethd as "sloppy" and "full of bugs".
Perhaps "jackson" doesn't remember robohelp 4 or robohelp 5....

What is the point behind this and other overly agressive marketing
tactics? In this case, Blue Sky is trashing one of their most effective
allies. Sageline trains many people on the east coast, and I would
venture to guess that most people purchase robohelp subscriptions after
their training. How could someone feel so threatened by a product that
costs less than $100 with a teeny tiny marketing effort directed only at
real wireheads that they would make up criticisms and attribute them to
a false person? And I thought the "17 new tools!" and "Y2k Compliant"
sales pitches were over the top.

It's a hell of a way to treat your friends.

Let's all ask our sales rep (the next time they call, which should be
any minute now for most people) this question: "How Low can Blue-sky Go"



Chris Tonjes

Help University applauds the detective work performed by Chris. We too
salute Bill Meisheid and Paul O'Rear of Sageline Publishing, for their
contributions to our industry are well known and highly appreciated.

However, the true identity of Jackson Dean of Philadelphia, PA remains a
mystery to us all.

Who is Jackson Dean?

Help University will send a complimentary shrink-wrap copy of Sageline
Publishing's EHTD to the first person to correctly and publicly identify the
real "Jackson Dean!" You must be able to prove your claim.

To save occupying the list with non-technical items, please email your
answers to info@helpuniversity.com, and we will publish a recap of the
answers in a future posting.

Sincerely,

Alec Sonenthal
Help University, Inc.
www.helpuniversity.com
Co-sponsor of Info Online '99, scheduled for April 20-22, 1999 in Orlando,
FL.
www.io-conference.com

This entire e-mail is my opinion only.

I publish the unofficial RoboNEWS newsletter. In late 1997, I stated that,
in my opinion, the version 5 release was a poor beta and should not have
been shipped. They disliked this so much that they had their attorney write
me a letter accusing me of all sorts of bad things, including, if I recall
correctly, restraint of trade, libel, and other nasty things. And that I was
saying lots of mean things that weren't true. (I have maybe 50 emails from
various lists and personal e-mail from people begging for help trying to get
that version to work) Of course, after I stopped laughing handed it to my
attorney for a response.

We traded letters for nearly 5 months. In my opinion, they were very nasty
and eventually told me that they would never let me back on the Robolist. Of
course, nothing they accused me of was true but I still had to pay my
attorney to respond to all this nonsense. And I lost hours dealing with it.

In my opinion, if this trace is accurate, I believe they would do it. In my
opinion, they have a good product, generally, but you can expect to hear
from their attorneys about your post. In my opinion, they don't go away
quietly. In my opinion, it is the way they are. In my opinion, they do not
tolerate deviations from the line that "Blue Sky is great, Blue Sky is
good". In many ways, in my opinion, it is too bad. In my opinion, they
prevent learning things they need to know about the user base and what we
need.

All of the "In my opinions" are to cover my butt so we don't start trading
letters again. My attorney said this is necessary to get the point across
that this is my opinion, which I am allowed.

It may slow the letters from the lawyers.

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!

> Are there any open-sourced winhelp or htmlhelp authoring utilities
> available? Would anyone else be interested in working on something like
> this?

Although not "open-sourced" our products have open interfaces.
They are also distributed on a time-out shareware basis.
We are a Microsoft ISV.

One of our biggest problems is that we cannot hope to overcome the big
budget mass marketing campaigns that RH can afford, even though we are one
of the top half-dozen Help authoring tools.

I don't have a problem with companies promoting themselves via News
groups and lists, but if the original claim of this thread is true then
it's not very ethical. Perhaps "Jackson Dean" is an over-enthusiastic
employee who does not have the official RH seal of approval?

I know that some time ago one HAT producer was in the habit of using
News:comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.winhelp to "plant" helpful questions,
which gave them the opportunity to plug the latest feature of the product.
I am in two minds as to whether this is ethical, but suffice it to say
that we have never resorted to such tactics [thinks: is this why we are
not as well known outside Europe...hmmm]

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Hall, Eon Solutions Ltd.
http://www.eon-solutions.com

EasyHelp/Web Windows Help Editor for Word 6,7 and 97
EasyHTML/Help CHM file creator for Word 6,7 and 97
SHG2MAP converts WinHelp hotspots to HTML image maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris,
I've always had my suspicions about the
sleaziness of Blue Sky but could never really be specific. BTW
I do use RH 7.0 and think its pretty okay. (I try not to use RoboHTML
Help.)

Have you sent this BS or the RoboList? I would really
like to see this thread continued, because its too bad that what
a few people at Blue Sky do diminishes all the good work of so many
others.

Charlie Kyle
Stamford, CT

I know I'm behind the times here (actually, I'm 7 hours ahead of most of
you, but never mind that technicality). I'd like to understand (now that
I've received an offlist explanation of sorts), why Blue Sky didn't just
ship the second CD for its subscribers also?

This reminds me of a marketing practice that I saw at a company where I
worked years ago. They made a point of separating between the freelance
contractors and the employees - sounds fine so far - but what was the whole
difference? A calendar.

I, as a freelancer, could have understood if they had given the employees
bonuses, presents, etc. but to differentiate because of a small thing like a
calendar - thus generating bad feelings among the tens of contractors was
just stupid. Employees didn't feel better because they got their calendar -
we just felt - disgusted.

I know what a CD costs - roughly comparable in today's world to...a
calendar. Blue Sky - the subscription plan is supposed to be your
"guaranteed sales" area. We are your "loyal" followers and we stake our
money - in advance, on your product. Do you think the few thousand dollars
you saved by not providing the CD to your subscribers justifies the bad
feelings you are causing?

My opinion - ship the second CD and make a grand gesture worthy of the
company you used to be. When I first started with RH - back with Version
3.something, I was amazed by your product. I really liked 4 - but you've
been going down since then, with more and more bugs and less and less
support. From what I've heard - 6 and especially 7 put you back up there as
the industry standard - I hope you will start to act that way and reward
your loyal followers, rather than throw us the seconds. For what it is
worth - I personally am responsible for adding several companies and many
users to your clientele. I'm sure many of the subscription people can say
the same thing.

Paula

Oops. Thanks Sharon Burton..
IN MY OPINION, some of the things that
some of the employees of Blue Sky do
are very sleazy.

This is my opinion only. It's just my opninion
about Blue Sky Sleaziness (BSS). Thanks
for letting me share this opinion.

Charlie Kyle
Stamford, CT

Awesome letter Sharon!
At the upcoming WinWriters conference, we hope to see Paul and Bill receive
"Waldens". I've already voted and bought my ticket to the dinner and am
ready to applaud loudly. They have each helped me, via this list, to become
a better help developer. If it were in my cultural tradition, I would be
giving them some part of my paycheck. (however, since I'm female, that
would be a pretty small bit HA HA)

Anyway, I remember staying on RH4 and skipping 5 entirely, using 5.5 for
about 2 months, sliding quickly through 6, and now I'm on 7. whew! what a
long, strange trip it's been. (in my opinion)

When we find out who Jackson Dean is, I suppose we will find out what this
was really all about. When I first started using electronic mail (a system
called Laurel), we received a manual titled "Laurel Etiquette." Among other
things, it warned us against masquerading. Always bad form in real life,
and online. in my opinion.

--Lorraine Kiewiet
(San Gabriel Valley chapter of STC, your neighbor practically!)

Sounds like we might need another type of award: the "Jackson." Company with
the most obnoxious marketing... most disruptive WinHelp list member...

- Scott M
smiller@portal.com

Thank you! I wanted to cover my butt but also provide more useful info about
the really nasty behavior of BS. They have a generally good product but the
corporation is very nasty.

You are a close neighbor! If you are on the council, have you heard about
the all council meeting at my house March 6th at 2pm? I tried to email all
local leaders but don't have all the e-mail addresses. If you are just
interested in being a leader, you should come. It is a way for us to all
meet each other and start generating relationship/ideas/etc.

In my opinion..... of course!

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!

I love it! I have an idea who can be the first winner... They can list it
with all their other awards...

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!

I would have expected a response from B-S about this by now. Since they
have not responded without prompting, perhaps they will do so with this
invitation.

In the last month or so, I have noticed a distinct change in the
attitudes of some of the B-S representatives. In off-list activity, I
have been given cause to believe that B-S intends to improve their image
with their "discouraged" audience.

I would lie to believe that this incident is not an authorized (let
alone, planned) incident that was dreamed up by the devious minds of the
old-timers at B-S.

One other thing: There is the possibility that the hoax is "Jackson
Dean." I do not recall seeing this posting. (But then, I have been
filtering a lot of my mail lately.) I admit, based upon my (and others')
previous experience with B-S, this seems the more unlikely scenario.

So, B-S. What are you going to do about this? Will you take SPECIFIC
action to address this issue? Can you demonstrate that the message in
question DID NOT come from anyone in your organization? Or if it did,
that it was an unauthorized use of your facilities? Will there be
corrective action?

Best Regards,

Lee Kimmelman
mailto:kimmelman@appliant.com


My Opinions! Mine! MINE!

Hi all,
Here's my two cents on the recent Jackson Dean shenanigans.

Recently, a new poster named "Jackson Dean" trashed Sageline's new Enhanced
Help Topics Dialog EHTD tool (www.sageline.com) and praised Blue Sky's WinHelp
2000 feature. Some excellent detective work by one of the listers determined
that this Jackson person appears to be a Blue Sky employee.

Jackson's post (which I choose not to reproduce here) was juvenile, mean-
spirited, aggressive, unprofessional, and certainly uncalled for. I would go
so far as to say that this person should probably be relieved of his duties.

However, I'd like to suggest that perhaps his (or her) post was the action of
a single demented individual acting independently of other Blue Sky employees.
Until we learn otherwise, we must assume this to be the case. We should not
condemn Blue Sky Software because of one individual's post.

I happen to think that Blue Sky produces a pretty good Help authoring tool.
Not perfect perhaps, but then no tool is perfect. I don't necessarily agree
with everything Blue Sky does, but that's my right.

And we have the ultimate say in all this, don't we? Collectively, we can
choose to use RoboHelp, or we can choose a different tool. The decision is
ours. I have used RoboHelp for nearly five years now, and it certainly gets
the job done.

I do not view Sageline's excellent EHTD tool and WinHelp 2000 as competitors
in any way. To me, they're both simply alternative methods of presentation, in
the same way that I consider HTML Help as an alternative to WinHelp.

So before we condemn Blue Sky, consider the source of the Jackson Dean
post...an immature, insecure person who was attempting to do something useful
to help his or her employer...and failed miserably.

Now let's ignore Jackson's tacky post and get back to business.

-Steve Brownstein
Ceridian Employer Services
duenorth@aol.com

> Hi all,
> Here's my two cents on the recent Jackson Dean shenanigans.
>
> Some excellent detective work by one of the
> listers determined that this Jackson person appears to be a Blue Sky
> employee.

Why am I not surprised? I've used RoboHelp since the Deluge but
I've become less and less enchanted with it and Blue Sky
particularly as their incremental "upgrades" always seem to cost a
'mere' $399 and seem to go 'out of fashion ' oh so quickly.

Not one of their 'upgrades' are worth the fare demanded. Yet if
you're deeply into a project there's very little choice. At least that
was true in the past. I'd wager that Blue Sky has rubbed too hard
against Microsoft; some of their avariciousness has obviously
rubbed off.

Still - it may be that MS will be their undoing. The new HTML Help
'standard' is easier to implement; less arcane. In time the need for
RoboHelp will dwindle and it - along, hopefully, with Blue Sky, will
fade away into oblivion.

Leo
====

Leo D. Bores, M.D.
8049 N. 85th Way
Scottsdale, AZ 85258
FAX:602-998-1552

Then please tell us the identity of Jackson Dean, and also tell us when he
will apologize to the list..........
-----Original Message-----
From: David Fisher <davidf@BLUE-SKY.COM>
To: WINHLP-L@ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA <WINHLP-L@ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
Date: Monday, February 08, 1999 7:33 PM
Subject: Blue Sky Software corporate policy state


In the past few days, there had been some discussion on the WinHelp-L list
and the RoboList.

Let me take a moment to clarify Blue Sky Software's corporate policy. It is
against company policy for any employee to falsely represent Blue Sky
Software or to misrepresent his or her identity.

David Fisher
VP of Marketing
Blue Sky Software Corporation
davidf@blue-sky.com =

In a message dated 09/02/99 00:36:38 GMT, you write:

<< Let me take a moment to clarify Blue Sky Software's corporate policy. It is
against company policy for any employee to falsely represent Blue Sky Software
or to misrepresent his or her identity.
>>

Just as a matter of logical analysis it is apparent that as David Fisher has
not specifically stated that . . .

in this matter BSS corporate policy has been adhered to,
and that Jackson Dean is not employed by BSS or represents BSS,
and that he is not a pseudonym of any BSS employee,
and that his activities are not in accord with BSS policy,

. . . we are still left with the suspicion that JD represents BSS and that JD
is a real name.

<gg>

Alan Lloyd
alanglloyd@aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Tonjes <ctonjes@MINDSPRING.COM>

>Then please tell us the identity of Jackson Dean, and also tell us when he
>will apologize to the list..........


I think that a public apology to Sageline Publishing is also in order.

While they're at hit, how's about also faxing, mailing (glossy full color),
and telephoning the apology to every customer and potential lead in their
database.

By the way, our tech writer, after reading all the recent BS voodoo on the
robolist, has asked me to investigate other help authoring tools so we don't
have to be associated with BS (take these letters either way) anymore.

jim

Here is additional information to address your concern.

Last Friday Blue Sky software received fax documents claiming someone from Blue Sky, representing himself/herself as Jackson Dean, sent a message with some unkind remarks to WinHELP-L regarding Sageline's new Enhanced Help Topics Dialog EHTD tool. There is no Jackson Dean employed by Blue Sky Software.

We are researching this allegation, and we are already studying internal procedures to determine steps we can take to ensure that situations like this cannot occur.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Jerry McCorkle
Blue Sky Software Corporation
Phone 619-551-7418

Dear Jerry,

Your statement below is not operative. (or perhaps it is and you've
inadvertently let the cat out of the bag). "jackson" did not represent
himself as a blue sky employee. A number of us though his problems with
EHTD were strange, since we could not duplicate them and because EHTD has
been thoroughly tested. We also thought the wording in his praise of
Robohelp was odd.

Upon examination of his message I deduced that it originated from Blue Sky's
mail server. In order to buttress this deduction, I tried today to use Blue
Sky's mail server myself. I was blocked from doing so, and a record of my
attempt was sent to Blue Sky's mail administrator. Therefore, I can say with
confidence that "jackson's'" message came from Blue Sky.

Unless strangers off the street are allowed to wander in, download EHTD and
compare it with Robohelp, create a subscription to the winhelp list, then
post their thoughts pseudonymously, it seems likely that "jackson" is a
misguided hoax perpetrated by someone employed at Blue Sky.

I don't think anyone on this list is upset by criticism. After all, that's
part of this list's function. But what is upsetting is the gross breach of
netiquette represented by perpetrating this hoax, along with (what I would
argue is) an abusive way of treating customers.

If you've seen any of the messages in this discussion, you've probably
noticed that although we all buy and use Robohelp over the years a
reservoir of bad feelings toward Blue Sky has built up to the point where it
can no longer be ignored. Trashing a prominent member of the online
communications community (and one of Blues Sky's most effective advocates)
turns off people further.

I think I speak for the entire list when I say some sort of apology, rather
than generic statement of the obvious, is in order.

It would go a long way towards mending fences broken by Blue Sky's past
conduct.


Chris Tonjes

Blue Sky Software would like to reiterate that it is not our policy for any employee to falsely represent Blue Sky Software or to misrepresent his or her identity. We take the "Jackson Dean" issue very seriously, and have implemented corrective internal action to guard against the occurance of any similar incidents in the future. Our industry-leading products speak for themselves.

Blue Sky Software created the RoboList as a forum for our customers to share their ideas and solutions for issues pertaining to the RoboHELP family of products, and we encourage everyone to utilize this resource to the fullest. We have been striving to improve communication with our customers, so that we can better incorporate your feedback and suggestions into our products and services. Many of you have participated in our recent customer audits, surveys, and focus groups. We also plan to introduce a number of other feedback mechanisms, so we can ensure that our products best meet your needs and ultimately make your job easier.

Blue Sky Software is committed to serving you - the RoboHELP community. We value our relationships with all our customers, and truly hope that you will not hold our dedicated employees responsible for the the misguided actions of one individual.

Sincerely,
David Fisher
Vice President, Marketing
Blue Sky Software Corp. 

What I and other WinHelp list members would like to see is that you are
using the available email tools to find out who at BlueSky sent the
dishonest message from BlueSky pretending to be a WinHelp list member. You
*can* find this out and let us know your response to this person's actions.
That would put teeth in your statement of policy.

Thank you.

Lani Hardage

My keen eye and grasp of "management-speak" says that they have found
someone guilty, taken disciplinary action, and made as much of an
apology as they can make without opening themselves up to additional
liability (i.e., a fired employee has legal rights too). And then too,
it is just barely possible that they had a firewall breach that they do
not want to publicize at all.

So, I personally think it's time to let the "Jackson Dean" issue drop.
(However, in future, if I see a resume from someone who left Blue Sky's
employ around this time - well, I'll look at it long and hard.)

Now, where are all of those WinWriters-related social event messages
that so clogged this board last year, when I was not going?

Tom O'Shea
Semaphore, Inc.
NYC, NY