Another review for Marah Marie...

Marah Marie wants me to take a look at her latest "review"; a review that you can see here.  It seems from her various comments, and a post on her blog, that she is quite upset that I have not completed said review yet, claiming that I "[refuse] to talk about [her] review". 

Actually, I didn't *refuse*, the review simply wasn't finished yet.  This is not a short blog post, there was a delay while I and a member of the IE team investigated possible causes of MM's Internet Explorer Gallery problems and I've been trying to find out what the situation is regarding any character/word limits that may be automatically applied by our version of Community Server to comments made by non-administrators  - and, believe it or not, I have a paid job to needs attention and which pulls in some pretty long hours.  Not only that, I prefer to take my time with articles such as this one, in hopes I will avoid errors (Marah Marie would be well served by following my example - by slowing down, completing due diligence and the necessary research, and taking her time when writing articles she may be able to avoid publishing "reviews" that are full of errors in future).  (I see that Susan Bradley, the mvps.org Site Administrator, has responded to Marah Marie's allegations that I messed around with MM's comments, which means that this blog post can finally go live - in short, MM's allegations are untrue).

MM also said in a comment to my blog that "arguing back and forth between each other's blogs is petty and stupid", a stance that seems to be at odds with her later actions.  I'm sure you will agree with me that the diatribe about me that she posted to her blog can be classed as arguing back and forth (and worse) but such is life - you can rest assured I don't intend to respond in kind ;o) 

MM also said that she wouldn't grant me a backlink "in this or any other lifetime" then proceeded to give me said backlink anyway (sadly, her backlink hasn't resulted in any more than the slightest blip in my various hit stats, which is a pity - I won't mind at all if more of her readers were to see this latest article - in fact, I hope that they do!).  Anyway, the woman has complained, stridently, about a perceived lack of further attention to her later review, and I feel bound to accede to her request.  Let's get to it shall we?

[Drum roll] .... The Review commences!!!!

 

image Marah Marie says:

In my first review IE 8 Beta 2 was slow to run and load pages and even crashed, evident when Task Manager revealed Dr. Watson moving into action to shut IE down. Dr. Watson couldn't do it even after it offered to send an Error Report about the crash to Microsoft. In the video I finally killed Dr. Watson's processes manually, at which point IE performed "crash recovery" on the one tab it was unhappy with - weird, and extremely interesting to watch, if you're into that sort of thing.

Sandi says:

I've said it before, but it bears repeating.  Because MM positions herself as a "reviewer" who not only lists specific performance statistics, but also draws conclusions about cause and effect with regard to problems experienced during testing, MM needs to identify not only the "symptom", but also the "cause" of her problems.  Marah Marie needs to complete an in-depth diagnostic to work out why Dr Watson is failing to manage IE crashes properly (assuming it is IE that is crashing, as distinct to something else pulling IE down), using Process Explorer or similar, so that we have a complete picture as to why IE is exhibiting problems.  

It takes a high level of skill to be able to take advantage of the full extent of Process Explorer's abilities and drill down to the root cause of a problem (yes, I know, MM claims to have been using the program for years, but that doesn't mean she understands everything that it reveals, or that she is able to use it to its full potential).  If MM does not feel confident that her skills and understanding are sufficiently advanced to work at such a high level, then at the very least she should test IE when it is running in No Add-Ons mode to rule out third party interference.  Also, she should run IE with no other IE or internet aware applications running.  And she should also NOT install software such as Tredosoft which muddies the water way too much (you will see my reasoning about Tredosoft later in this article). 

She mentions that "one tab" was a problem - the most logical next step is to examine the site that was being displayed in that tab and start a diagnostic process to work out what, on that page, was causing a problem.

Let me illustrate why it is important to do more than just scratch the surface.  Mark Russinovich, the creator of Process Explorer, was also having problems with his wife's home computer.  He noticed that IE was taking up 50% of CPU resources, and dllhost.exe the other 50%.  An inexperienced person would assume that IE was the "cause" of at least half of the problems being exhibited by the computer, yes?  Well, they would be wrong if they decided that the problem was IE's fault - on the contrary, it was a third party add-on for IE that seems likely to be the cause.  After digging into the threads attached to the IE process he discovered, in the end, that the culprit, as far as IE was concerned, seems to be Flash (or an application that was using Flash), not Internet Explorer per se.  This is a very important, but subtle, distinction.  As for dllhost.exe, the culprit that was taking up the other 50% of CPU resources turned out to be Roxio software that was installed on the system (cite: The Case of the Slooooow System, Mark Russinovich, 24 September 2008)

It is because of discoveries with regards to IE such as those described by Mark that those of us who work on IE issues on a day to day basis ALWAYS recommend running IE in No Add-Ons mode as one of the first diagnostic steps when IE is having problems.  Heavens knows that after 10 years of diagnosing, troubleshooting and fixing errors involving IE I know of what I speak.  Further advice on how to troubleshoot IE (advice that needs to be updated for IE8, but which is still, for the most part, relevant) can be found here:
http://www.ie-vista.com/known_issues.html

 

Marah Marie says:

The reasons I removed Dr. Watson are two-fold - one, it's meant to work as a "debugger", diagnosing problems with software to include in Microsoft's Error Reports, but the program crashes so much itself, and cause so many problems by failing to work properly, that it's more of a hindrance than a help on the average computer.

Sandi says:  Dr Watson may crash on Marah Marie's system but that is not standard behavior for Dr Watson, nor is it "normal" to see such symptoms on an "average" computer.  Further investigation is required to discover the root cause of her problems.

 

Marah Marie says:

The other reason I removed Dr. Watson is obvious - IE 8 will never work correctly with it installed. The proof is in the video. I had re-installed XP Home on the computer I used for my IE review the week before, and in my fog of super-old-agedness I completely forgot to remove Dr. Watson, like I usually do, which I discovered as I was videotaping IE 8 in crash-action.

Sandi says:  Marah Marie's claim that "IE 8 will never work correctly with [Dr Watson] installed" is absolute nonsense.  The only "proof" supplied by the video is that there is something wrong on Marah Marie's machine.  To repeat, there are problems involving Dr Watson on Marah Marie's system but that is not standard behavior for that program, or normal for an "average" computer and further investigation is required to discover the root cause of the problems.  I have 5 different systems running IE8 Beta 2 in this household, NONE of them have Dr Watson removed, none of them have Dr Watson disabled, and NONE of them exhibit the types of problems that Marah Marie experiences.

 

image Marah Marie says:

To remove Dr. Watson, follow the steps in this order:

   1. Look in the mirror and repeat after me: "Microsoft does NOT want me to follow this chick's advice to remove Dr. Watson. I may destroy my computer if I do so - AT MY OWN RISK. I'm crazy enough to do this, anyway."  >>etc etc etc<<

Sandi says:  Why not just disable Dr Watson instead of going through all that rigmarole - Microsoft released a KB over a year ago that explains how to disable Dr Watson simply by deleting one registry key.  At least when you follow the KB's instructions you can reverse the process if you are so inclined.  Marah Marie, on the other hand, describes a multiple step process that involves deleting files and registry keys AND she fails to remind her readers to keep copies of said keys and files, just in case they want to reverse the process. 

 

 

Here is the KB article about disabling Dr Watson:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188296

This article may also be of interest - Description of the Dr. Watson for Windows (Drwtsn32.exe) Tool (This article describes the Dr. Watson for Windows program error debugger tool included in Windows XP):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308538

 

Marah Marie says she used:

A five year old eMachines W2247 desktop with a licensed OEM version of XP Home with Service Pack 3 installed. It has 1G of Kingston DDR RAM, an AMD Athlon XP 2200 1.80GHz processor, a 40G Samsung hard drive for file storage, and a recently re-formatted 40G Western Digital hard drive that holds the operating system. This computer is very, very fast and has never given me hardware or BIOS problems.

Sandi used: 

My XP machine is even older and was built back in Win95/98 days (I'm not sure which, I've had it for so long).  It is a home built system (yes, I really do get my hands dirty and build my own PCs) running XP SP3 with 804MHz CPU and 320MB RAM, and a 75 GIG hard drive (OS and data on the same partition) - 44 GIG free - the reason so much space has been taken is because the poor old box has a primary role as jukebox - every CD from my music collection has been copied on to it.  I can't remember the brand of hard drive, again because it was put in too long ago, and the brand is of little importance anyway.  Video card: Radeon 9250 (newer than the rest of the system but getting long in the tooth).  Sound card: Creative SB Audigy 2 (again, newer than the rest of the system).  No "hardware or BIOS problems" either. 

 

Marah Marie says:

My tests are as follows <<etc etc etc>>

Sandi says:  I'm not going to address her speed results - page load times and rendering times and the processing of javascript times etc invariably vary from computer to computer, and sometimes from day to day and are also affected by myriad variables - installed software, speed of computer, speed of internet connection (and whether there are any problems or slow response times at any of the hops between her PC and the target web site), cache settings, size of cache, age of cache, etc etc etc.

 

Marah Marie says:

Even with Dr. Watson completely uninstalled, pages still load too slowly, so obviously one has little effect on the other. The only difference is Tab Recovery time is nearly instant without it, a speed difference that anyone who watched my video can appreciate.

Sandi says:  Without network sessions, more specifics about installed software, her computer settings, and basic information such as a pathping, and other diagnostics it is impossible to tell why pages are loading slowly, and what is causing the latency. 

With regards to Dr Watson, I do wish MM would take the next logical step and work out *exactly* why Dr Watson is struggling (again, I refer to Russinovich's experiences, and 10 years of my own experience). 

For example, there is a known problem with a file called "dbghelp.dll" that can cause Dr Watson to load *twice* and freeze a computer.  Different versions of dbghelp.dll include different functionality.  The file has been distributed with myriad third party applications, and it is possible that an application on MM's system has placed a version of dbghelp.dll on her system that is compatible with the application distributing it, but not with other software on her system.  Such problems are one type of DLL Hell that Microsoft has been unable to prevent thus far.

There are generally two copies of that file, one is \windows\system32 and one in \windows\system32\dllcache.  If it were up to me, I would check both directories to see what version is installed.  If there are different versions I would rename the older one, and replace it with a copy of the newer, and see what happens.  Again, DO NOT DELETE THE OLDER ONE!!!  Rename it by appending OLD to the original name.  If there is only one version of dbghelp.dll on her system then things get more complicated.  The version must be identified and checked for compatibility with her system.

When we start to consider the potential negative affects of Tredosoft, things get even more murky. 

 

Marah Marie says:

I want a right-click context menu to add an open tab to Favorites, and I want the ability to open each new page in it's own background tab. These are the two features of the Tab Mix Plus add-on for Firefox that I desperately miss in other browsers, including IE.

Sandi says:  Ok, the right click context menu to add an open tab to Favorites is a good idea.  With regard to opening a new page in its own background tab - let's go back to basics (again) for a few moments - MM needs to hold down the Ctrl tab when clicking a link, or right click a hyperlink and select "open in new tab".   She also needs to ensure that the option to always switch to a new tab when it is created is *disabled*.  There is also a tab setting automatically open all links in a new tab (or window).

 

Marah Marie says:

I want free add-ons for IE 8 that add value to it, not the ones that I have to buy in Windows Marketplace. Why should I pay to gussy up IE when I can get so many of the same features for free in Firefox and Opera? It doesn't make sense. That alone will keep me from switching to IE as my default browser.

Sandi says:   MM needs to click on Tools, Manage Add-Ons, Find More Add Ons to open the Internet Explorer Gallery then click on "Toolbars and Extensions".  Yes, there are free add-ons, lots of them.

 

firefox Marah Marie says:

I want everything in IE to work or else Microsoft should remove the non-working features. For example, I can't add more search providers to IE's search box because some script on the Search Provider page tells me I don't have IE 8 installed. That's when I visit the page in IE 8! I mean, what the hell, Microsoft? And Web Slices? Outside of a small handful of web sites, no one's using them, so the much bally-hooed "website interactivity" WebSlices offer isn't there. What's the point of keeping this feature?

Sandi says:  Once again, what Marah Marie is experiencing (see her screenshot) is not standard behavior for IE8 Beta 2 and is yet more evidence that something is screwy on Marah Marie's system. 

I have been chatting with a contact at the IE team, and he has been able to reproduce the error by using IE8 Beta 2's Developer Tool to change IE8 Beta 2 to "Browser Mode: Internet Explorer 7".  It should also be noted that the Internet Explorer Gallery web site is coded to check a browser's UAS.  We have also been able to reproduce the symptom using Firefox:

The next question is *why* is MM seeing the problem when using IE8 Beta 2?  We suspect that Tredosoft may, to quote the IE team member, be "doing something odd".

With regard to web slices, it is to be expected that they are rare at the moment - IE8 is, after all, still in Beta, and there is every chance that web site owners are hedging their bets, waiting to see if Web Slices make it into the final release of IE before investing any time or infrastructure into introducing the feature on their web sites.  To be honest, I think it is just a little silly to write off WebSlices before IE8 has gone gold and web site developers have had a chance to introduce the functionality (or not, depending on their whim).

 

 

------

Now, finally, I hope you'll forgive me for addressing a few points from Marah Marie's other blog entry:
http://marahmarie.livejournal.com/16368.html

 

imageMarah Marie says in the comments:

According to her, if I don't use a clean "production" computer (whatever the hell that is) with nothing running except Internet Exploder Beta Ate Too then I'm not doing "due diligence". To me, "due diligence" is using a normal computer with normal programs on it - just as "normal customers" with "normal computers and programs" will use after Beta goes Gold. They will tell you why IE 8 sucks much better than I can.

Sandi says:  The minute Marah Marie installed Tredosoft on to a computer used to review Internet Explorer she was no longer "using a normal computer with normal programs on it".  Not only that, due diligence does NOT refer to "using a normal computer with normal programs on it" - due diligence relates to ruling out as many possible causes of problems experienced as you can before allocating blame or coming to a conclusion, or, to put it another way, "carefully confirming all critical assumptions and facts".  Due diligence also means reading all Release Notes and other documentation.

 

Marah Marie also says in the comments:

Oh, and yes, at the time of my video review, I was using Multiple IE by Tredosoft. So what? I hate to mention it, since I know she's going to have another meltdown over it, but yes, I had versions 4, 5, 6, and 8 on my computer at the time.

For the second review, I had all those versions plus Tredosoft's IE 7 Standalone installed, which I was using to help someone in [info]s2_bloggish, where I often help out others with their style sheet problems...

Sandi says:  

My answer to Marie's "So what?" question is this.  Marah Marie is using what I (and others) call a *hack* to run multiple versions of IE - an *unsupported* hack, mind you.  It's not the first time I've seen problems caused by trying to "beat the system" and run multiple versions of IE at the same time.

There is no longer a good reason to use hacks to obtain access to multiple versions of IE on the one PC.  Microsoft offers Virtual PC for free, and even offers pre-build VHDs for free especially so that developers can test web sites and IE dependent software against various versions of IE without having to use multi-boot PCs, without having to invest in additional hardware, and without having to use hacks that are known to cause problems and unreliable test results.

The pre-built, time bombed, VHD are available for download here - the images will expire in January 2009:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en

Images available:

Windows XP SP3 with IE6
Windows XP SP2 with IE7
Windows XP SP3 with IE8 Beta 2
Vista with IE7

It is true that there are no pre-built VHD with the long since superseded IE4 or IE5, but there is nothing to stop MM from building her own VHD with those versions of IE.

Cite:  http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/12/16/504864.aspx (2006)  "Side by Side install of different versions of IE is not a supported configuration. If you hack your system in order to do this, you run the risk of destabilizing it or having crashes, such as the issue addressed in this blog post. There is no Microsoft supported mechanism for running different versions of IE on the same system. I would suggest using Virtual PC and having different virtual systems with different versions of IE if it is necessary to have access to different IE versions." [Al Billings, Microsoft]

Cite: http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/05/03/93238.aspx (2006) "Its all well and good to experiment and play but please, don't start yelling if you break things ;o)" [Me]

 

image Marah Marie says:

"She later claimed my comment got caught in her spam filter, but I think she marked my comment as spam herself, and moved it out of her spam box only after I sent her another comment complaining that she wouldn't publish my first one.

Sandi says: 

Community Server does not include such a functionality.  It is not possible to mark a comment as spam at my own behest so that it moves into the spam box, and then move it back later.  Heck, it is not possible for selectively mark comments as spam at all.  All that is possible is to "Edit", to "Publish", or to "Delete" comments. 

Here's a screenshot of the Community Server comments management window - as you can see, there is no way to mark individual comments as spam.

image

 

Here's a screenshot showing the Comment Editor - nothing there either. 

edit  

 

And here are my spam settings - as you can see, there is no on or off option, and some settings are grayed out.

image  

Marah Marie says:

When she did finally publish my comment she carefully left off the last half of it, then accused me in her reply of not answering her questions! How will anyone ever know when she won't publish my comment at full length?"

Sandi says:  Community Server does allow for comments to be edited, but I DID NOT edit Marah Marie's comment in any way, which the msmvps.com Site Owner and Admin has confirmed.

After considering the facts, I can only think of two potential causes for what MM claims happened - either MM made yet another mistake when copy/pasting her comment or there is a character/word limit for non-admin posts (although I would expect that any auto-snipping by the CS software to be recorded in the SQL records). 

Why do I think MM may have been copy/pasting?  Because the last question and answer in her comment are transposed: 

Screenshot:

image

It looks to me like 4) is quoting me, and 3) is responding to said quote.  Such a mistake is not something you do when typing a response directly into a comment window.

 

-----

XP test machine (desktop) 

stats

Published Wednesday, October 08, 2008 8:51 PM by sandi
Filed under:

Comments

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

you're showing your age again Sandi!! i wasn't even using a keyboard back then :p

he hehehehe j/k

Thursday, October 09, 2008 5:13 AM by Brian Madsen

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

There is extensions for Firefox which give in Accelerators and WebSlices. (Activities and WebChunks)

Thursday, October 09, 2008 5:15 AM by Calvin

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

Sandi - something just occured to me...

i wonder if MM is going to make her blog private again? wipe history and all that and then put it up to the public again as she did last time?

Regardless, i think you did good...

(now we just need IE to run multi-threaded and silverlight to work on the 64-bit version and i'm happy)

Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:48 AM by Brian Madsen

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

@Brian,

Thanks Brian.

It doesn't matter if her blog is made private, or she deletes anything, or changes anything - there are screenshots.

And watch it with the comments about my age buster! :oD

Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:19 AM by sandi

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

Just to respond to Brian's comment (I'll respond to Sandi's review of my latest review and her other points on my own blog, where I don't have to worry about character limitations or comment screening or comment moderation or comment editing or comment spam filtering that MVPs do purely to make life difficult for us readers):

I set my blog to "Private" over the weekend to keep Sandi off of it. There was no other reason for that.  I literally felt violated by her intrusion of it. Sandi went and read the comments to a political debate piece I ran asking my friends and others, "Who won?" the VP debate the other night. Sandi then not only misinterpreted a comment I made about Diggers influencing my software choices (I was "j/k", as you like to say, Brian) but she even drew conclusions as to what sort of person I am and how much my words should be trusted based solely on her misinterpretation of that one comment.

I want my friends and I to feel we are in a "safe" situation at my blog, where comments to my posts are not dissected and misinterpreted for the entire world to see, so as a blindly "defensive action" I locked the entire journal up so no one could see it- since if I'm going to hide it from one person- which I don't like doing- I'm going to hide it from everyone - which I don't like doing, either.

I took the 24 hours or so that it was locked up to think about what to do...I considered making the journal friends-only, but it has always been a 100% public blog with no friends-only or private posts on it, with no comment screening or spam screening- purely public and open to all - which is how I like it. I don't like to hide anything.

So when I brought it back I brought it back intact. No editing by me was done to any of my posts and no posts were deleted, no comments were deleted (and LJ does not allow me to edit other people's comments, so that's not an option, anyway).

I have not changed or touched one word on my blog. The only change I made was I locked up the political debate post so the public can no longer see it. I didn't want to do that, but I felt I had no other choice. My friends can still see it, just not the world at large.

Since her misinterpretation of my comments on that post led me to feel violated and misunderstood, that one post will stay locked up - forever. I don't like the way Sandi made me *feel* in regards to it.  

This comment is long, so I am copying and pasting it into Notepad in it's entirety just in case Sandi gets "creative" again.

Thursday, October 09, 2008 12:44 PM by Marah Marie

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

pwned

Thursday, October 09, 2008 2:24 PM by C

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

@Marah Marie

1) You are referring to the comment by "Peter"? I recommend the use of "emoticons" in future to help casual readers avoid misunderstandings - emoticons are universally understood, even if a reader/commentator's first language is not English.

2) This blog site's administrator (and owner and the person who pays the bills) has already explained to you why spam filtering is enabled.  Therefore, you well-know that its use has nothing to do with making life difficult for readers.  On the contrary, it is to make life difficult for spammers, and easier for those of us who have our blogs here.

3) I have comment moderation enabled for obvious reasons.  And, I don't like Captcha - it is too often broken and, to repeat what I have said before elsewhere on this blog in the past, Captcha does not protect from trolls or people who want to behave like twats.

4) You claim to feel "violated and misunderstood" and claim that you don't feel "safe"????? Lady, you need to stop stop write flame-posts about people and software and companies, and stop abusing people by writing articles like the one you did about me (and about Julia Allison before me and who knows who else before her), if you want to stop being a lightning rod for negative attention, and if you want your world to be sweetness and light, and your blog to be a "safe situation".  

After having a closer look at your blog, it has become clear that you have a tendency to "get personal" far too often.  You need to stop attacking the *messenger* with profanity and vitriol, and instead do all you can to make sure you only address the *message* without the use of profanity and vitriol.

5) Your double-standards are amazing.  How can you say that you want you and your friends to feel "safe" on your blog whilst at the same time saying whatever you want, however you want, in whatever way you want with no regard to *other* people's feelings, and without avoiding profanities, or references to 'douching' and sand in certain parts of the female anatomy?  Sorry MM, but the World Wide Web does not work that way. It never has, and it never will.  Basically, you get back what you send out, and the way you write, and how you say things, is reflected right back at you. 

There is an old saying - you should treat others the way that you want to be treated - this is something you fail to do - and I am VERY proud of the fact that I have not written about you in the same way that you have written about me, and Julia Allison.

I am amazed that you express concern about how others make you "feel" in light of how you write about others.

6) This blog site's owner and administrator has told you that no human being got "creative" with your comment.

Now, with regards to your still to be posted response to this article, remember that you said in a comment to my blog that "arguing back and forth between each other's blogs is petty and stupid".  Bear that in mind when you are writing your response.

I reserve the right to say nothing at all about your still-to-be-published response if I feel that I will be doing nothing more than repeating myself, or if I think that you just don't get it.  Once I realise that my correspondent is not heeding my advice then there is no point continuing the conversation.

And, to be honest, since familiarising myself more with your writings, I have come to the conclusion that you are at a disadvantage, both from an experience perspective, and from a technical knowledge perspective - I have seen too many basic mistakes when you review various pieces of software to be able to come to any other conclusion.  For me, there is no honor in winning a debate when my opponent is at a disadvantage.

Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:01 PM by sandi

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

You really are tiresome. Let me explain why as quickly as I can since I have a new review of your review of my review to write - someday, at this rate.

"1) You are referring to the comment by "Peter"?" No. Brian. Here:

msmvps.com/.../1650233.aspx

"Sandi - something just occured to me...

i wonder if MM is going to make her blog private again? wipe history and all that and then put it up to the public again as she did last time?"

Sandi: In this instance I was unclear.  I was asking about this:

"Sandi then not only misinterpreted a comment I made about Diggers influencing my software choices (I was "j/k", as you like to say, Brian) but she even drew conclusions as to what sort of person I am and how much my words should be trusted based solely on her misinterpretation of that one comment."  -

I believe that you are talking about the comment by "Peter".

"3) I have comment moderation enabled for obvious reasons...Captcha does not protect from trolls or people who want to behave like twats."

Aw. Have you ever heard of "deletion" in case someone is too much of a "troll" or "twat" for you, with your delicate, ladylike sensibilities, to endure? You put up more walls to commenting than Fort Knox has guards. Please.

Sandi: I have heard of deletion, and I do delete - I simply delete trolling and twats *before* their comments goes live, instead of *after*.  That way they don't get even a momentary gratification from seeing their diatribes reach the light of day. 

I still read each comment, therefore any "delicate, ladylike sensibilities" are irrelevant.

"4) You claim to feel "violated and misunderstood" and claim that you don't feel "safe"?????...".

Ahem. Julia Allison made a four-foot wide layout and you entreat me not to remark upon it? On top of that, Julia Allison is the laughing stock of Silicon Valley (maybe you and a few others represent a passable exception to that rule). She markets herself as a body attached to a pretty face. I'm not inclined to say nice things about that. Pseudo-celebrity in the public eye = fair game. I wasn't that rough on her, nor did I say anything that hundreds, if not thousands of people have not said before me.

Sandi: On the contrary, I entreat you not to get so damned nasty in your writings, and when you are discussing whatever via comments.  And, my mother taught me years ago that just because somebody else says something nasty does not mean it is ok for me to say it too.  I find it hard to understand why somebody who gets so upset when people says bad things about them (cite: your Politics of blogging article) thinks it ok to do the same (and worse) to others.

Edited:   "Peter"  You went into a post on my blog that had nothing to do with you and reprinted my comment there about something else, took it out of context, then sat back and waited to laugh about it with all (3 or 4) of your MVP friends. That was here:

msmvps.com/.../1649182.aspx

Edited:   "Peter"  You wrote about me: "Anybody who thinks that Digg is a reliable resource, and stops using antivirus because Digg told them to, should not be reviewing ANYTHING."

Trying to trash my online reputation much? And going into a post that had nothing to do with you, then twisting my jokingly-meant words to my friend Bob out of context much? Shame on you.

"After having a closer look at your blog, it has become clear that you have a tendency to "get personal" far too often."

No. Not true. I would never have written a word about you, had you not written a word about me. You put me in the public eye,  and went out of your way to make me look like an idiot, therefore you are now fair game too.

Sandi: Actually, it was an email from a reader of this blog, who in turn found you via a Google Alert, that put you into the public eye - that, and the very fact of your "review".

Julia Allison is the only person I can recall remarking upon besides you, and only because she is so...exceptionally blind, and she inconvenienced many people with her completely atrocious layout.

Sandi: And that makes your post ok?  Sorry, but no - not when you veer off from criticizing her website and start getting personal. 

BTW, I'm betting that the 8800px is a simple typographical error, but I'm sure you wrote and informed her of it, yes, and "pointed out where [she] may be right, and offer[ed] her constructive criticism for the rest of it".

You seem to take offense that I hate on and rant about software and companies? It's nothing personal. Ranting, and trying to point out to others what I think is wrong with software and/or companies is simply what I do. Instead of arguing why I'm wrong or how I could've done it better, point out where I may be right, and offer me constructive criticism for the rest of it - because I don't hate Microsoft, even if I do pretty much hate IE. Instead of saying, "Hey, that may happen on the average customer's computer", you instead insist I test under sparkling, pristine conditions. That's where I take issue with you. That's where it becomes personal - you won't give me an inch.

Sandi: Ok, so let me get this straight.  Your require me to "point out where [you] may be right, and offer [you] constructive criticism for the rest of it" while at the same time stating that you will "rant about software and companies" because that is "what you do".  Are you seeing an inconsistency here?

I don't believe I ever insisted on "pristine" or "sparkling".  I did, however, object to the presence of Tredosoft because it corrupts/distorts test results, it is not a supported configuration, and using such hacks are known to cause problems. 

The fact that you are using an unsupported configuration (aka Tredosoft) when reviewing IE makes said review inappropriate, and your results untrustworthy.

Continued [and copied to Notepad] over possible space limitations...

Sandi:  I'm looking forward to seeing the completion of your comment.  I must admit, though, that I am beginning to feel uncomfortable with my responses.  I feel like this response is too close to targetting the messenger rather than the message AND that our dialogue is going nowhere in any event.  Therefore, you should assume that I will not continue to respond for much longer.

Thursday, October 09, 2008 10:22 PM by Marah Marie

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

"Now, with regards to your still to be posted response to this article, remember that you said in a comment to my blog that "arguing back and forth between each other's blogs is petty and stupid".  Bear that in mind when you are writing your response."

I intended to respond only on your blog to your article. I never intended to write on mine about it.

Three things changed my mind:

1.) That you screen comments, so there is no flow to this "conversation" at all, and I don't know from one minute to the other if you will even publish my comments, though so far you've done alright with that.

Sandi: My blog, my call, my choice, and not an uncommon protocol.

2.) That my first comment features a missing ending, which really aggravates me and shows a lack of "due diligence" on your part to print the comment in full before you accuse me of not responding to your questions, and...

Sandi: Actually, the only thing about your mishappen comment that did not make sense was the fact that the last two paragraphs (question and answer, numbered 3) and 4)) were transposed.  I had no way of knowing that anything was missing.

3.) That is just plain easier to respond to you on my blog than it is to try to say what I need to say in this tiny cramped little comment box where I can't use HTML or preview and edit *before* I  post.

Sandi: The comment box can be resized to be nearly as deep as your browser window - look at the bottom right hand corner of the Commen Editor Box (which can be resized) and the compose pane (which can also be resized).

So yes, my stance on that has changed since I wrote about not wanting to give you a much-needed backlink. I'm sorry if that upsets you. You're not much for emailing people before you rip their reviews to shreds in public, so I really have no choice but to respond either with comments here or posts to my own blog. Posts to my own blog, considering the problems with the comment system here, are much easier and much more under my control. Live and learn.

Sandi:   Since you're on the topic of contacting people before writing public stuff, I went searching on Connect (the official feedback site for IE) and on the official technical support newsgroups to see if I could find anything there about your reported problems before I wrote my articles and didn't find anything.  So, as far as I'm concerned it is "six of one, half a dozen of the other".  Of course, if you had posted to either forum, and can supply a link, I'll be more than happy to apologize for not finding it.

Lastly, since you are so keen to point out and make much hilarity over both the types and amount of mistakes I make...and you had better pay attention to this, because this will be repeated on my blog for all to see sooner or later - you make a lot of mistakes yourself. You're the biggest hypocrite I've ever run across in this regard. Check this out - you got your title as an MVP over a MISTAKE. Read about it here, since you seem to have forgotten:

msmvps.com/.../default.aspx

From your article: "Back in 1998 Microsoft offered Microsoft Outlook as a free download for a short while, and I was silly enough to install it and, most importantly, **I forgot to turn off my antivirus software**."

Wait Sandi - you *forgot* something? I thought I only did stuff like that...not you.

Sandi: Yes, but that was in January 1999, and I didn't write an article ripping into Microsoft about it either.  I went and asked for help.

From your article: "Predictably, the install ***screwed up my system*** quite nicely, but the worst damage was done to Internet Explorer.  Javascript caused me grief, java applets refused to run and animated gifs refused to animate."

"Well...I got in touch with Microsoft support...The PSS technician...specifically told me I should get the attention of an MVP...Jon Kennedy who, apparently, knew all there was to know about IE.  So, I think it may have been on New Years Day in 1999 I found Jon Kennedy and sure enough, he knew the fix immediately.  As they say, the rest is history."

Interesting that you get an MVP title as a reward for your mistakes, when you forget stuff, and "screw up your system", while I just get flamed on your blog for the same sort of things. Maybe you should learn from your mentor's example [Kennedy] and be a bit *kinder*, as he was to you.

Sandi: <sigh> Again, I didn't rip into anybody when things went wrong.  I went and asked for help.  AND, I didn't get MVP status for my mistakes.  Let's include the bit that you deliberately missed out in your quote:

"As they say, the rest is history.  I hung around, realized I actually knew the answers to a lot of questions, answered a lot of questions over the course of the year and was offered MVP status that October."

I found other *mistakes* of yours, in the order of "big whopper, whoops" kind of mistakes that you've talked about on your blog when I visited it the other night, but I can't find those posts right now...gosh, I must be getting "forgetful" or something. Just keep posing as a perfect, mistake-free person, and make sure you hold everyone else to that standard, too. Alright?

Hypocrite much?

Sandi:  Ok, let me get this straight.  First you quote what I wrote on this very blog where I admitted my mistakes, then you try (incorrectly) to say I got my MVP "as a reward for [my] mistakes", you acknowledge that I have talked about other mistakes on my blog, and then you say that I am posing as as "perfect, mistake-free person"?  That really doesn't make sense and is a contradiction in terms. 

Oh, and I['m copying this comment to Notepad too, since I know you're going to hate it. You

Sandi:  My dear girl, you over-emphasise your impact.  I do not, and have never said, that I "hate" you or your comments.   I consider it to be totally illogical, and silly, to profess to "hate" a person who you have never met, purely because of a series of words on a page.  May I suggest that if you used fewer 'throw away' lines when corresponding with people that things would go much easier for you, and your statements would not be discredited quite so easily.

And yes, as you can see the 'mystery of the disappearing content' has happened again.... this entry also ended up, at first, in the spam folder (I went looking for it after you mentioned "four hours ago" in that other comment of yours).  I reckon that it is when comments are moved to the spam folder that they are being snipped by CS.  It will be interesting to find out if we have discovered a known, or unknown, bug in CS.

Thursday, October 09, 2008 10:55 PM by Marah Marie

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

Well, I finished the second half of my response four hours ago, just minutes after you posted my last response. No, this is not constructive for either one of us at this point, but you brought up issues in these comments, and I am simply *responding* to them as best as I can.

"I feel like this response is too close to targetting the messenger rather than the message AND that our dialogue is going nowhere in any event."

Your entire rant about my last review (and some of the comments you left for me on it) addressed the messenger quite personally and painted her (me) up as an idiot. Like: "Just chalk that up to another one of her mistakes". Ha ha. You are so blindingly brilliant. That's why I addressed you personally in return on my blog. You still don't see that the way you reacted to me crossed the line from "professional" and "helpful" right into personal attack? Not my problem.

I have engaged in comment exchanges, email exchanges, and blog exchanges with people at many companies, including: AOL, Google, GoStats, UtipU.com and I'm probably (oh, no!) *forgetting* a few others and in all cases every person I dealt with at those companies was very polite and respectful to me - even when I was critical of their company or their product. You are another breed altogether.

Again, Sandi, copying and pasting this comment to Notepad. You don't have to respond to any of them if you're getting tired of it. Perhaps I'm too energetic and just wearing you out. Just print them if you would be so kind so I don't have to copy and paste them to my blog, OK?

This is the only response I can make - repetitious but appropriate.

Friday, October 10, 2008 1:50 AM by Marah Marie

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

"You're the biggest hypocrite I've ever run across in this regard. Check this out - you got your title as an MVP over a MISTAKE."

Uh, no she didn't.

"As they say, the rest is history.  I hung around, realized I actually knew the answers to a lot of questions, answered a lot of questions over the course of the year and was offered MVP status that October."

She got her MVP because she STUCK AROUND and helped to answer other peoples problems for such time until MS decided to give her an award for having done so much there.

She could have quite easily got the help she needed then left, and wouldn't have got the award.

That's really quite a logic leap.

Friday, October 10, 2008 7:36 AM by Steve

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

@Steve,

I admit, I was surprised that she thought she had even half a chance of getting away with that piece of wordplay ;o)

@all,

There's more discussion, over on vitalsecurity.org <waving at Paperghost>:

People arguing on the Internet is always humorous:

www.vitalsecurity.org/.../people-arguing-on-internet-is-always.html

A new challenger appears! (with 6 comments at time of writing):

www.vitalsecurity.org/.../new-challenger-appears.html

Friday, October 10, 2008 8:51 AM by sandi

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

Oh, and one last thing, regarding MM's claim that "And according to this graph, which shows the amount of visitors she gets on her blog each day, she needs more traffic! I wasn't going to be the one to give it to her, but on second thought, what are friends for?" [underlining my emphasis]

whos.amung.us does NOT record "the amount of visitors {I} get on my blog each day".  On the contrary, it records **the number of people reading my blog SIMULTANEOUSLY at any given moment (HTTP only - RSS views and subscriptions are not included)**.

You see? This is why "due diligence is so important" - whos.amung.us has a FAQ page that makes things quite clear.

Friday, October 10, 2008 9:59 AM by sandi

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

In conclusion...

Marah Marie has posted an apology - a well thought out apology, for which she receives my thanks.  M's apology is, of course, accepted without reservation:

marahmarie.livejournal.com/16832.html

Sunday, October 12, 2008 7:34 AM by sandi

# re: Another review for Marah Marie...

Forgive me for posting late and for feeling the need to ask this.  

I'm a former Windows server admin (moved on to Unix) who had stumbled across Marah's blog a couple of months ago while trying to figure out if I were the only one unhappy with Firefox 3.  I read that Dr. Watson piece and found it somewhat humorous as I've had numerous encounters with odd Dr. Watson errors that, admittedly, likely had causes rooted in the homegrown software our servers run but were usually little more than annoyance errors and not worth the time it would take to do a deep dive to diagnose the cause (especially considering the number of techs on staff vs. number of servers exhibiting such issues and  MS's standard refusal to touch third party software unless really pushed).  I'm not sure what the uproar is over the article nor why it was met with such disdain.  I personally read it as more of an opinion piece than a technical guide.

A couple of questions came to mind reading this rebuttal however.

First, there was a quote from Marah, "I had re-installed XP Home on the computer I used for my IE review the week before, and in my fog of super-old-agedness I completely forgot to remove Dr. Watson, like I usually do, which I discovered as I was videotaping IE 8 in crash-action."

and a reply: "The only "proof" supplied by the video is that there is something wrong on Marah Marie's machine.  To repeat, there are problems involving Dr Watson on Marah Marie's system but that is not standard behavior for that program..."

As far as I'm aware, Dr. Watson is software debugger.  While hardware (or more likely drivers) might be causing the errors, it seems odd that they're only happening while IE8 runs.  She admitted to only having reinstalled the OS just a week prior.  Granted she may installed something third party within that timeframe that may be causing her problem but within one week?  

So is it reasonable to expect the average user to need to call up MS for something like the Flash issue referenced or use Process Explorer troubleshoot these issues themselves?  Does it seem odd that the link to the slooowness issue lead to a story which fingers Flash as the culprit but can't offer even a possible fix?

Was he able to duplicate the issue using another browser, say Opera or Firefox to rule out any possibility that it might still be related to how Windows/IE handles Flash?

Lastly, rather than publicly lambasting a blogger for going off half-cocked about a rather poorly understood Windows debugging tool (the good doctor can be quite vague at times) wouldn't it have been more prudent to have extended a bit of knowledge and possibly some help behind the scenes and then perhaps offered more insight to random passersby than, "she's full of it, Dr. Watson runs perfectly fine on MY machines!".

I read Marah's apology and I admire her for that as I'm not sure I could have done it.  I would think that, while you've accepted her apology, you might at least perhaps extend one of your own for failing, as a representative of Microsoft (which for better or worse you are), to be professional, courteous, and helpful?

For what it's worth, I don't feel the need to write comments often and none of this should be construed as defending her technical observations.  I'm just quite dumbstruck at the combative attitude of someone who I assumed is supposed to have above average customer service skills.

Monday, October 20, 2008 4:07 PM by David

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