Have you come across the latest software product known as "Girlfriend"?
Girlfriend is a piece of software that was designed to meet requirements of both the leisure and utility market, providing mobile facilities, facilities for home entertainment, and also undertaking a management role under which it takes care of repetitive and monotonous tasks that you want to avoid doing yourself.
A sneak preview of Girlfriend showed off the mobile facilities well. A lovely looking piece of software, well dressed for presentation, with some exciting hints of what might be found inside the package later. Attempts at this early stage to access the home entertainment parts were met with "permission denied" messages.
The test release of Girlfriend performed well in terms of mobile facilities, and the home entertainments module was now operational too. Users found that the basic facilities were quick and easy to use, but that the more unusual and advanced facilities needed some prior research and were sometimes quick tricky to get working. Resource sharing facilities especially tended to be awkward, with some versions of Girlfriend shutting down completely from time to time with no apparent reason. The test release also supported a few of the repetitive tasks, which were done efficiently and well.
Girlfriend 1.0 was the first version which you had to install on your own system and pay a fee for rather than running from a CD / binary download for free. Although extra repetitive management and repetitive tasks were supported, they tended to be less cleanly performed than the few that you saw in the test release. It was also noted that Girlfriend 1.0 installed a whole lot of other pieces of software that were needed to help it run, such as Toothbrush and SinkTidy.
In a piece of software that you'll be using long term, such as Girlfriend 1.0, there are other things that needed to change too. Some of the quick and easy home use facilities became unusable at time when there was a heavy loading on the utility tasks, and some of the mobile facilities starting looking very much less pretty. Some of the advanced features settle down well, but other which had worked before ceased to be usable. And the cost of ownership rose - the space taken grew, as did the resources needed to host the software, and unexpected additional items had to be purchased from time to time. But, overall, Girlfriend 1.0 was an excellent piece of software - far more going "for" it than "against".
For release 2.0, an upgrade was required to provide extra storage facilities for the Daughter package that now came with Girlfriend. Many of the resources of Girlfriend were taken up with servicing the Daughter package, with the mobile and home entertainment modules being severly limited in their capacity. However, the daughter package was a delight even though it was very different indeed to the inital preview that had been seen just a couple of years previously.
A new version of the software is, I understand, to be released in the near future. It will require a full, non-transferable license to run it, it will be limited to a single processor. The marketing folks have decided to rename it "Wife".
The above article is base on an idea from last week's delegates ... (written 2007-10-10, updated 2007-10-21)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
Z300 - Politics and Religion [216] Cheap purchase - votes paid for with selfish promises - (2005-02-15)
[257] Politics gets nasty. Must be an election coming up. - (2005-03-25)
[280] Spotted - the local MP - (2005-04-15)
[289] MP for Devizes, Wiltshire - (2005-04-23)
[301] General Election day, UK - (2005-05-05)
[313] Making bona fide international marriages more difficult - (2005-05-16)
[326] UK Tax payment totals and where the money is spent - (2005-05-27)
[335] Sad priorities - (2005-06-03)
[377] A Strengthened City - (2005-07-14)
[384] Managing conflict and disappointment - (2005-07-20)
[415] Campaign Drift and efficiency. - (2005-08-15)
[469] Yesterday was Kiss and Ride - (2005-10-19)
[505] Would you steal ... petrol? ... a training course? - (2005-11-26)
[539] rich and famous - (2005-12-23)
[602] MP face to face - (2006-02-12)
[607] On being British - (2006-02-14)
[671] Both ends of the animal - (2006-04-05)
[674] Wiltshire to get an extra MP - (2006-04-07)
[682] Iran has enriched uranium ... - (2006-04-12)
[696] Is than an uphill or downhill task? - (2006-04-23)
[750] Almost everyone loses - (2006-06-07)
[780] Separation and Integration - (2006-06-27)
[875] Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones - (2006-09-22)
[967] Realistic on line shoot'em up - (2006-12-05)
[1003] Room at the Inn, Guy at the station - (2006-12-21)
[1060] What a relief from the tax office. - (2007-02-01)
[1109] False imprisonment - a contrast from the news - (2007-03-15)
[1135] Government pressure on me to shut up after I make the papers - (2007-04-05)
[1175] Local elections - choosing who to vote for - (2007-05-03)
[1247] An afternoon at a public enquiry - (2007-06-27)
[1260] An inspirational business talk from one of our prospective MPs - (2007-07-06)
[1350] FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) Western Region - (2007-09-13)
[1428] Travel Across Wiltshire - the game - (2007-11-11)
[1526] Carers at work - court case changes - (2008-02-01)
[1573] Budget tax increases hit vehicle market - (2008-03-14)
[1579] Rome, and the faith of Rome - (2008-03-17)
[1729] Back from the future - (2008-07-30)
[1769] July child ponders on August children - (2008-08-23)
[1872] Barack Obama wins US Predidency - (2008-11-05)
[1881] Wiltshire Council says - part 1 - (2008-11-13)
[1882] Wiltshire Council says - part 2 - (2008-11-14)
[1987] One Cheer for Local Democracy - Asda in Melksham - (2009-01-11)
[2012] The Wiltshire Police - (2009-01-29)
[2028] Things people say on the phone - (2009-02-06)
[2075] Supporting Parkinsons and Trains - (2009-03-11)
[2178] Melksham Candidates for Wiltshire Unitary Election - (2009-05-12)
[2206] Spot the odd one out - (2009-05-29)
[2257] Ramblings on church and state linkage in Melksham - (2009-06-25)
[2270] Wiltshire - a chance to improve life for everybody - (2009-07-05)
[2279] Understanding the new local government structure in Wiltshire - (2009-07-11)
[2288] Wiltshire Community Area Partnerships - (2009-07-15)
[2353] All change - Wiltshire Parliamentary - (2009-08-13)
[2640] How is your tax pound spent? - (2010-02-18)
[2689] Can my dog eat potatoes? Doggie Dietary Research, and political sleaze! - (2010-03-23)
[2712] A more informed decision than ever before - (2010-04-08)
[2740] Melksham Hustings at George Ward School - (2010-04-26)
[2752] Voting day - UK General Election - (2010-05-06)
[2757] Bodicea, Lincoln, and our new MP - (2010-05-09)
[2792] Should Government compete with private industry? - (2010-06-03)
[2824] A pint of Black Rat, and a lazy barman - (2010-06-25)
[2856] Two sides of the coin - (2010-07-06)
[2864] Changing with weather and seasons - (2010-07-10)
[2870] Old prices - what would the equivalent price have been in 1966? - (2010-07-14)
[2948] Melksham shamefully makes the national headlines - (2010-09-07)
[2971] Should the public sector compete with businesses? and other deep questions - (2010-09-26)
[3051] Positively reforming the system - could it be done? - (2010-11-14)
[3264] Alternative Vote (AV) - explaining and an example - (2011-04-25)
[3313] What does our MP do on a Bank Holiday? - (2011-05-30)
[3323] Is Melksham town centre dying? - (2011-06-11)
[3325] The Olympic Torch, and Melksham House - (2011-06-14)
[3438] Melksham to become a part of Trowbridge? - (2011-09-13)
[3592] Are we one man, one vote? No, and we never have been. - (2012-01-26)
[3676] Rising prices, changing habits and society - (2012-03-31)
[3806] 2011 Census results - initial figures for Wiltshire. - (2012-07-17)
[3845] Good cause giving - getting the charity beggars off the street - (2012-08-21)
[3905] How should we choose our Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner? - (2012-10-27)
[3921] On rememberance, on war, and on preventing the war cycle - (2012-11-11)
[4079] Melksham Area - Unitary Council results, May 2013 - (2013-05-04)
[4223] Democracy - alive and well with the beauty pagent starting up again - (2013-12-16)
[4275] Eurpoean Elections, and other elections ahead. Some thoughts on campaigns and policies - (2014-05-08)
[4286] Reaction in Radstock to new First bus prices - (2014-07-12)
[4343] Politics and the railway the connects Wiltshire - (2014-12-06)
[4354] Wiltshire Police - assuming someone is guilty just on the say-so of a member of the public? - (2014-12-16)
[4476] Upcoming election - Chippenham Constituency - the major candidates compared - (2015-04-29)
[4485] Misusing statistics? - the seedy side of election campaigning - (2015-05-04)
[4489] Election results - what if we had a party list system? - (2015-05-08)
[4548] Melksham - two small townships, or one big one? - (2015-10-22)
[4597] Not standing as your local councillor - (2015-12-18)
[4614] PC Plod - alive and scaremongering in Wiltshire? - (2016-01-04)
[4625] Where does Wiltshire bus subsidy money come from? - (2016-01-19)
[4720] Celebrating our diversity rather than discriminating for it - (2016-11-02)
[4725] Writing Python 2 such that Python 3 is easy - (2016-11-06)
[4729] The oldest part of Los Angeles - (2016-11-23)
[4734] Thoughts on the new Blackmore Ward of Melksham Without Parish - (2017-02-22)
[4735] Revisiting - should I stand for Melksham Without Parish Council in May? - (2017-02-24)
G997 - Well House Consultants - Newsletter Lead Articles [1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
[1065] Graham Ellis - an Introduction - (2007-02-05)
[1136] Buffering output - why it is done and issues raised in Tcl, Perl, Python and PHP - (2007-04-06)
[1224] Object Relation Mapping (ORM) - (2007-06-09)
[1318] Well House Manor - feature comparison against the old place! - (2007-08-24)
[1488] New trainee laptop fleet for our Open Source courses - (2007-12-30)
[1545] Letting new visitors know we provide training courses - (2008-02-19)
[1600] Cambidge - Tcl, Expect and Perl courses - (2008-04-04)
[1663] Python in an afternoon - a lecture for experienced programmers - (2008-06-01)
[1754] Upgrade from PHP 4 to PHP 5 - the TRY issue - (2008-08-15)
[1819] Calling base class constructors - (2008-10-03)
[1912] Book now for 2009 - (2008-11-29)
[2052] How was my web site compromised? - (2009-02-24)
[2119] Make your business a DESTINATION business - (2009-04-05)
[2253] Walks in and around Melksham, Wiltshire - (2009-06-21)
[2370] C++, Python, and other training - do we use an IDE - (2009-08-21)
[2425] Weekend and Christmas Promotion - Well House Manor Hotel, Melksham - (2009-09-26)
[2538] Open Source Training Centre and Courses for 2010 - (2009-12-16)
[2743] Public Open Source Training Courses running this summer and autumn in Melksham - (2010-04-27)
[3202] Telling you something about us in just one line - (2011-03-15)
Some other Articles
Converting from postal address to latitude / longitudeControlling and labelling Google maps via PHPWell House Manor - a year onError logging to file not browser in PHPNew software product for warmblooded programmersDelegates of all shapes and sizesAn email update for past guests and delegatesMonitoring mod_jk and how it is load balancingFirst Great Western - information for customersUsing a MySQL database to control mod_rewrite via PHP