Friday 5 March 2010

The Importance of Good Support!

Hi all,

How are you today?
It has been a long time since my previous post, so long that a year finished and a new one has started, welcome to the great 2010!

There were some reasons for staying away all this time but the main one is that something is going on that I couldn't talk about and believe me, it has been really hard not to speak about it! So I prefered to stay quiet.

Bad news, I still can't speak about it, what brings me here today is something else.
Some days ago I started searching for an online repository for some experiments I'm doing and I was looking for a free but high quality service.
I was being really exigent with the service because, although I'm still using it for free, the time will come when I'll certainly need to switch for a non-free service and, obviously, I don't want to start all over again!

I believe that having a free service and the quality of it can show a lot of the company's culture and it works well with me.

Ok, back to the story. After trying some services (some of them with really good conditions) I was starting to get frustated, I couldn't make them work. Ok, I admit, it was mostly due to my lack of linux experience (I am using Jolicloud remember) and that's already frustating for me but, above all, what was really driving me mad was the fact I couldn't get any help. Well, I got some in one of the services but I think they didn't have the patience for a confused “free user” (again, the culture).

I really wanted a good service and I was trying to start using Git (another new thing in the mix), so I continued looking for it and, guess what, I found www.indefero.net . Simple and very well done!
Because of my previous experiences I was a bit skeptical at first and I almost thrown my netbook against the wall when I realised it didn't work, again!
And then it all changed!
Ok, opening contacts (that were easily accessible)... I didn't realise it was a weekend day and late, I was distracted by my experiments, so I sent a quick e-mail to Loic d'Anterroches asking for help and went to bed.

On the next day, after some laziness, I turned on my netbook and didn't expect what was in my Inbox! An answer to my e-mail and sent just few minutes after I left on the previous night (and they're in the same time-zone as me)! - Blimey! Brilliant! - I thought.
After some chatting with Loic, we finally solved the problem and I was happy until I realised I couldn't check-in code!!! Back to Loic and he answered as if he was already waiting for it, brilliant again!
The problems continued, later on to realise it was my weird piggyback mobile connection messing with ports, but I was so sactisfied with the service that I really wanted it to work, so I decided to switch from Git to the SVN repository (yes, they have both).

It all works now and I own it to Loic an Indefero's amazing support (and patience)! I actually learned a lot in the process.

I'm not sure if it was noticiable on the other side but it was great having someone helping after so much frustration. They were great on every single detail and that's why they deserve this post and this new client!

I am still impressed. Thanks.

See you later,
Diogo Neves

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