Digital Insider #13

[Imban]

I really don't get the whole "what if my computer crashes" argument, though. It's not like they had a replacement policy if your house burned down. This way, they actually do offer a "disaster recovery" process and off sit back up.

The MTBF of your average hard drive is much, much shorter than that of your average house.

Or, in other words, I've lost a hard drive and all the data contained on it approximately once every 3 years over my lifespan. I've lost my house and all my possessions contained within it never. I believe that I am not a statistical outlier in this respect.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I played around with a version at Gen Con UK that was about 95% of what Didier showed off in the column. I thought it was awesome at the time, and I can see some small changes now that make it even cooler. Now if only I could run it on my Mac. . . .

I know I might get flamed for saying this but it will run on your Mac if you can run an emulator with Windows XP and the service pack 1 3.5 version of .net.

That is what I am doing.

 

[Vanuslux]

Re: the Paypal option and canceling auto-renewal- I do specifically remember that Randy acknowledged both of those concerns in one of the previous Digital Insiders (either #11 or #12, probably the latter) and said they were working on it.

I would also add the opinion that Paypal is not any more secure than your typical online credit card transaction. It does need to be available, but I don't really understand why someone would be willing to PP and not use a credit card. Sounds like superstition to me.

Not all online transactions are equal. If you give your credit card info to campusfoods.com, it gets faxed to the resturant...every little bit of it...and ends up on a piece of paper that usually just gets tossed in a wastebasket. With PayPal, I only have to give my information to one company, rather than several individuals...and I'm fairly sure PayPal doesn't hand over my account information to anyone I pay with it, which is what often happens with credit card transactions.

 

[mac1504]

The MTBF of your average hard drive is much, much shorter than that of your average house.

Or, in other words, I've lost a hard drive and all the data contained on it approximately once every 3 years over my lifespan. I've lost my house and all my possessions contained within it never. I believe that I am not a statistical outlier in this respect.

CDs, thumbdrives, and internet storage (most online mail systems are free) provide great back-up sources. You're definitely right about MTBFs, that's why I always have a secondary back-up and in most cases, a tertiary back up (off-site) available as well.

 

[Zaukrie]

CDs, thumbdrives, and internet storage (most online mail systems are free) provide great back-up sources. You're definitely right about MTBFs, that's why I always have a secondary back-up and in most cases, a tertiary back up (off-site) available as well.

What he said. I too have experienced hard drive failures, which is why I regularly create backups. That's much easier and cheaper in this case than in hard copy. And, you can always call CS and get your copy if you lose it, that was the point. The complaint that it isn't always there just doesn't ring to me as a problem. Plus, I'd bet money that in less than a year that changes somehow.

MTBspillsofpoponyourmag is also smaller than house failure, as is forgetting it on the bus, or lending it to someone and not getting it back......but I don't want this thread to derail into digital vs hardcopy again.

 

[malraux]

My objection to the files only being dl-able for a short time isn't that its hard to store them, its that it makes the online reference harder to use. For example, the compendium has customized monsters listed. Click on the source and it takes you to that pdf.

 

[ki11erDM]

I am disappointed in the choice to use only .net

.net 3.5 is a really great tool... that has nothing to do with any problems it might or might not have. that is all about the programmers, no matter what environment if your programmers dont know what they are doing it will suck... DDI is looking like it is not going to suck.

 

[garyh]

I subscribed to DDI today. My wife's running Scales of War, so we wanted to keep getting that, and I've liked a lot of the Dragon content and am interested in the e-tools.

My initial gripe is all the bonus tools are Flash-based, and my work PC doesn't have new enough Flash, nor do I have permissions at work to update Flash. At least they ought to work at home. The Compenium is not Flash, and works fine - and is much more useful than I expected in my short time playing with it. I really hope the Character Generator isn't Flash...

EDIT: I also very much applaud the custom power cards. Extremely useful!

 

[malraux]

I subscribed to DDI today. My wife's running Scales of War, so we wanted to keep getting that, and I've liked a lot of the Dragon content and am interested in the e-tools.

My initial gripe is all the bonus tools are Flash-based, and my work PC doesn't have new enough Flash, nor do I have permissions at work to update Flash. At least they ought to work at home. The Compenium is not Flash, and works fine - and is much more useful than I expected in my short time playing with it. I really hope the Character Generator isn't Flash...

EDIT: I also very much applaud the custom power cards. Extremely useful!

Flash is better than .net stuff, as flash is cross-platform.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Having to remember to DL issues to keep access to articles is approaching unacceptable IMHO. Online transactions should be able to handle that w/o me having to do anything. Its just silly to force me to store data locally instead of having that be part of the subscription.

My guess is that this is not a technical limitation, but rather intended to discourage people from buying a month's worth of access, downloading several years worth of Dragons, and then not renewing for another year or so.

But then, if a few back issues (even a few dozen) is all it takes to get someone to give DDI a try, it seems like a pretty reasonable tradeoff. So maybe my theory isn't very sound after all.