Tektronix has lost their minds

It can be worse. Have you tried the ST site lately? The only way to find the SPICE model for a part was via a web search engine, theirs did not find their own (!) part. Then there is usps.gov. Yesterday I had an outgoing overseas letter of 1.4oz, so more than the usual 1oz worth of postage. Under rates ... nothing, except useless stuff like lists of things you can't send. Then they have a "calculator". No matter how often I clicked, it came back with a postage of $18.20 and sometimes "no product was selected". So I just doubled the usual postage and crossed my fingers that it's enough.

Oh, and if Tek is somehow dear to your heart write to the CEO. That is usually the one and only way to find someone who will listen. At one large semi mfg where I did that this triggered a midsize earthquake, and change happened prontissimo.

The rapidly rising level of incompetence found among web site programmers is mind-boggling.

You must be doing something seriously wrong-- I get $1.92 with just a few clicks (assuming a more-or-less normal letter envelope).

Maybe you tried to put a decimal in the weight field? I don't think I would ever try that.. probably wouldn't work.. just round it up to the next ounce.

It would have been the smart thing for the web site to tell me that :-)

This is not likely anything to do with the programmers. They just do what they are told. All these things at Tek are most likely management decisions.

Rick

Now that might be a programmer issue. Silly to not let a user include fractions of an ounce. Expecting a user to know that this value has to be rounded and giving an error like, "no product was selected" is total crap!

Rick

In the case of Tek, yes. Although if I were a programmer and someone told me to do such stuff I'd consider that writing on the wall. Time to look around. In the case of USPS stating "No product selected" while one was selected is clearly a programmer error. And no such excuse as "Oh, that only works on IE" :-)

I suspect s/might be/probably is/. Same issue with telephone numbers, credit cards, etc. The *machine* should be able to accept any reasonable format from the user and convert that to its own internal format. Lazy "web developers" more interested in appearances than functionality and the damned kids won't stay off my lawn! ;-)

Sounds more like a design and specification issue. If it's a programmer issue, then it's also a (lack of) testing issue.

I ran into something like that with an equipment manufacturer that sells through distributors, reps, and dealers. They demanded that the manufacturer take down its web site and refer all prospective sales to the dealers. The compromise was that the manufacturer would setup a login system, that would record contact information, and forward them as leads to a designated dealer by territory. My guess(tm), is that something like this might be happening with Tek.

The next step is possibly to refer all documentation, support, and repair issues to the dealers, which will effectively destroy service.

Yeah, last time I got info from Tek I subsequently received a telephone call from the local distributor referring to the products in question specifically.. unfortunately for them, I had to tell them that I had already ordered and received the scopes from an outfit in California weeks before, and their service and price was considerably better, so don't bother darkening my virtual doorway again.

That's 'cause they knew you were checking from Toronto, and therefor couldn't immediately put the knowledge to good use.

If password strength is the worst thing in your life today, you live a charmed existence. Put your favorite password in twice or however many times it takes and move on.

bullshit registration stuff is obnoxious. They're just going to spam you, so there's no reason to pretend security is key.

The best thing to do is give your money to another company.

My DPO2024 is OK, but it takes forever to boot up. "Force Trig" seems to do nothing. And it has a weird pseudo-persistance thing that can't be turned off, and makes scope photos ugly.

Time to move on.

Our 1 GHz 4-channel Rigol is a fabulous scope. I'm thinking about getting a 5-GHz class digital scope, and it will probably be Agilent.

Of course Tek scopes used to be better than Agilent's (not to mention Rigol's) and easier to use, so you may be condemning yourself and you employees to years of inconvenience to save a minute of work on a web- site, but that's your choice.

But not if the other company's products aren't as good.

No they didn't, I was pretending to be in Fremont, CA. ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The last decent Agilent scope was the 130C. It has been steadily downhill from there.