[Dx4win] New TQSL not ready for prime time

Fri May 24 00:38:12 EDT 2013

Hi Rick,

You sir are also entitled to your opinion. I stand by my comment that it's 
"Not Ready for Prime Time". Your perception I was making a "Cheap Shot" is 
off base and I will say it's certainly not my intent to take a "Cheap Shot" 
at what I'm certain will be a fine piece of software.

I had seen the mention of the improvements and went to the ARRL link to 
download a copy but found the announcement which I cut & pasted with 
quotation marks into my message.

Please note the last sentence from the announcement:

>>"These defects have been corrected, but we must test the corrected version
>> before publicly releasing it. Expect the public release within the next 
>> 10
>> days."

Where I come from this is pretty much the same thing as saying it's "not 
ready for prime time". I'm also confident in 10 days or so it will be.

You asked me to explain myself so I'll make this attempt; I'm an RF Engineer 
for a worldwide wireless telephone and data service provider. As much as I 
enjoy concentrating on the "RF" portion of my job it requires more and more 
"Software" and less and less "Radio" these days. I am responsible for 
software testing on both the networks and handsets, bleeding edge technology 
I assure you. That said there's only so much of a good thing I can take. 
When I come home after a big day of bug squashing I like to spend some time 
with the family and maybe after helping with the homework and tossing the 
baseball with my son I sometimes like to turn on the rig and talk to some 
folks around the world. The last thing I want to do is another beta test, 
haha! I leave the task to your very capable hands and the other hams who 
like to tinker with software. To each his own - the bottom line for me when 
it comes to ham radio software is I'd rather tinker with the hardware and 
try to "work a new one" instead. Meanwhile I have the experience to 
appreciate better than most what kind of brainpower, blood, sweat, & guts 
goes into software development. I hope this gives you enough background on 
my situation to believe I intended no malice and was not taking a cheap 
shot.

So let me make it perfectly clear I am a big fan of DX4WIN, LOTW, & TQSL. I've 
been using DX4WIN since around 1998 and it's the best, most solid logging 
program around. Like anything else it has it's quirks but it's solid as a 
rock which I appreciate. The same goes for LOTW & TQSL. The stability and 
security make it the premier electronic QSL system others would do well to 
emulate (there I go, probably stepping on toes again).

My hat's off to the development team and all the folks spending their time 
and energy to get it ready for public release. Say maybe y'all could give me 
a bit of help with getting VoLTE ready for prime time! For my sanity's sake 
thank goodness there's still a tiny bit of radio at the end of all that high 
powered IP....

Sincerely 73,

Joe W4WN - Amateur Radio Software E_N_D  U_S_E_R Extraordinaire  :-)  Heck I 
don't even load up Jim Reisert's stuff until everyone else has tried it out!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Murphy" <k1mu at arrl.net>
To: "DX4WIN" <dx4win at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Dx4win] New TQSL not ready for prime time

> Joseph,
> You're entitled to your opinion. However, to say it's "Not ready for prime
> time" is incorrect, particularly for DX4WIN users.
>
> The only serious problem found in 1.14 was for Mac users that are trying 
> to
> upload duplicate QSOs to LoTW. None of the testers reported this problem
> prior to the final release.
>
> Please note that the major performance problems with LoTW several months
> ago were caused almost entirely by people uploading massive logs
> repeatedly, so this defect really shouldn't matter unless someone is
> deliberately trying to deny service to other users. There's an easy
> workaround for people running in to this problem on MacOS.
>
> Of the other problems you mention, the invalid zone problem is already
> fixed with no TQSL update needed. The command line problem isn't anything
> normal users would run in to, and has no impact whatsoever on DX4WIN 
> users.
> Actually, the Mac problem also has no impact for DX4WIN users, either.
>
> So, sure, stay with what you have - you get no usable error messages when
> certificate imports fail, you're allowed to upload QSOs with incorrect
> zones without being warned, you can upload QSOs to Logbook as often as you
> like, you can upload logs that'll get rejected by Logbook because your
> certificate has expired, you can't upload directly to Logbook, and you'll
> be allowed to upload using locations where there's no valid certificate
> (which Logbook will reject). You won't be notified when the fixes for the
> minor problems are available, and can't automatically update to fix any
> defects.
>
> If any of those problems are issues for you, there's an updated version of
> TQSL available on the sourceforge site -
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/trustedqsl/files/TrustedQSL/ - so please
> give the update a try. We're doing what we can to improve the user
> experience and appreciate constructive comments.
>
> I'm having a hard time undestanding the point of your message. Please
> explain.
>
> (Apologies, but the team has spent a lot of personal time trying to make
> TrustedQSL better. Taking cheap shots ticks me off, and this is a cheap
> shot.)
>     -Rick
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 8:33 PM, Joseph Orsak <jorsak at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> I think I'll be waiting a good long while before trying the new Trusted
>> QSL:
>>
>> "May 21, 2013: From the Trusted QSL software development team - We
>> announced last week that TQSL 1.14 would be available today (20 May 
>> 2013).
>> However, three defects were reported last week:
>>
>>   a.. Incorrect behavior when the user specifies the wrong ITU zone
>>   b.. Incorrect behavior when TQSL is invoked via command line without 
>> the
>> -l switch present
>>   c.. Incorrect behavior when processing an ADIF file containing 
>> duplicate
>> QSOs when TQSL is running on MacOS
>> These defects have been corrected, but we must test the corrected version
>> before publicly releasing it. Expect the public release within the next 
>> 10
>> days."
>>
>> http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Joe W4WN
>> ______________________________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>> Rick Murphy, CISSP-ISSAP, K1MU/4, Annandale VA USA
>>
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