Informix needs your help! (again :>)

Informix wants to briefly meet with a few *non-expert* users of OnLine databases to influence our design of a new Informix product which may end up on your desktops before too long. The best news is that the only thing you (or your non-expert co-worker) have to do is tolerate the presence of one or two Informix tech-types in your workspace for an hour or two. You'll have a receptive audience, no "questionaries" or "tests", and we won't try to sell you anything. If you might be willing to let us listen to you for a while, and you work within driving distance of Menlo Park, CA, we want to hear from you. (I realize I am posting this to usa, but I'm not sure which local posting area is sufficient). *** Details *** In the past, we've listened to many of you who are experts in administering OnLine. Now, we need to listen to some of you (or co-workers of those who are reading this) who have a job *other* than administering OnLine, yet end up occasionally having to deal with some aspects of OnLine as a secondary task. Does a picture of your (or your co-worker's) work-day resemble one of these? * You work in Sales Support, Customer Service, CAD/CAM, or any OnLine-data-using department within a larger organization, and you spend most of your day dealing with the tasks that comprise the bulk of your non-database main job. Your company has a central MIS group that administers your databases, but your department also has a local OnLine database. Once in a while, you take time off your main job to fiddle with some aspect of handling the local database: you have to see that a new user has access to data; or you have to backup the local database. Sometimes there's a problem with OnLine or your server, and after making some attempt to handle it yourself, you are the one who contacts an OnLine expert in MIS to handle the problem for your group. You may or may not have ever taken on the task of restoring OnLine data from a tape back into your system. Or, * You work in a department that is responsible for pulling information out of OnLine databases into formal or informal reports. Maybe you or others in your department create forms or "batch" queries that you modify occasionally as the information needs of your department change. Sometimes your queries run more slowly than you'd like, or you run out of disk space, so you ask a senior OnLine administrator in your organization for help. Perhaps you and your co-workers create small OnLine databases of your own. Basically, the person we want to hear from is aware that you have some connection to an OnLine database; occasionally, you have to deal with that fact. You have picked up at least a bit of knowledge about administering OnLine (or about connected databases or users), but your real job keeps you too busy to become very familiar with details of administering OnLine. When there are problems with not being able to get at data in a timely fashion, you rely on an expert in your organization (or an outside VAR) to set things right. If this description fits a co-worker in your San Francisco Bay Area organization, could you please pass our request on to him or her? A brief, informal visit from one or two friendly Informix types may end up making your encounters with OnLine a bit friendlier in the future! Please contact: +=================================+================================+ | Rob Weinberg | Technical Product Manager | | Email : robertw@informix.com | and Usability Guy | | Voice : 415-926-6754 | [imagine your ad here] | +=================================+================================+ -- +=================================+================================+ | Rob Weinberg | Technical Product Manager | | Email : robertw@informix.com | for Product Usability | | Voice : 415-926-6754 | [imagine your ad here] |