July 18, 2005

Dear beta.microsoft.com, Since when does filling out my name, physical address, email address (again), primary email address (again?), and my phone number qualify as filling out a survey?

I guess if your survey was based on how many people would fill out a form in which they:

- Were fully aware you already had the above information as you have used it (and had it verify it was still correct - or - answer even more questions stuck to the bottom of the form before being able to pass Go (still waiting for my 2 Benji's on that one) many times when asked to use your passport to sign in.

- Given the above you were still desperate enough to get your hands on whatever beta was being offered that you filled out the form if not with a slight lingering hope that after hitting submit there would actually be some real questions to answer (how sick is that?)

- or -

- To save the added support cost that would be incured answering the question "how come my mouse doesn't work like normal and what am I supposed to click anyway?" (this was for Monad, the Microsoft Command Shell (msh) preview) (:QuickNote: btw - all the MacAttackers yacking it up right now because of the obvious slam on Windows users... you use a Mac, what the hell you laughin' at? Do you even know what a command line is - or - better yet, where you can actually find one? No, the address bar of your browser doesn't count as a command line.:) you decided to make people jump through hoops such that natural selection would take place and reduce the number of people who actually would go to the beta site in the first place, to then be turned off by the "survey" further reducing those willing to continue...

Actually, thats not such a bad tactic... Maybe I should be commending rather than condemning... Hmmm... I'll have to think about it. If you don't hear back it means we're cool. If you do, then you'll know right away we're nothing even close to such a phrase ;) :D

Oh, for those interested, via Chris Anderson:

I'm frustrated that the Monad folks still don't "get it" from a stand point of distributing a beta, but if you have a passport account you can get a copy of the beta through http://beta.microsoft.com. Use the guest ID of "mshPDC", select "Microsoft Command Shell", select "Survey" in the left column, and 48 hours later you should get access. Why can't they just make it a link?