Jump to content

Picture Sheffield Change?


Guest Danny

Recommended Posts

They changed the language used for the search from Perl to PHP, though the database itself appears to be unchanged. I have no idea why the search is so slow or clunky. My best guess is that the person who wrote the PHP hadn't got much idea what they were doing. If the workings of the front end "next" button is an example of the really easy stuff, what the heck does the rest of the code do? Back to the drawing board Sheffield Libraries (Though last time I went in they no longer had any decent "teach yourself PHP and MySQL" books on the shelves ).

Right, the Picture Sheffield database started about the time the libraries installed their first real-time management system. However, none of the systems on the market offered this facility, so Picture Sheffield was contracted to a specialist company who set up the database and hosted it.

Since then the main library system has changed twice, and the latest version is maintained by Crapita.

Now, this is purely my speculation, but perhaps they've revamped PS and it's now in the hands of the above company, which in my opinion could account for the degradation in the service, and the lack of anticipation of the knock-on effects for users.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the latest version is maintained by Crapita.

That says it all really doesn't it?

Glad to see they have few fans

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad to see they have few fans

They probably have trouble with the maintenance contract on those as well

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I get older it seems that many changes that take place are changes for the worse.

Especially in computers, someone who thinks they know best makes a change to suit themselves and messes things up for everyone else :angry: !

It's not just computers Dave , it's every new thing you buy today whether it's a camcorder ,

DVD/ HD system, mobile phone you name it.

It is as though we are moving backwards instead of forward, everything seems to have to

go the long way round instead of CLICK and you're there first time. Things take much longer

to access, very frustrating. :angry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not just computers Dave , it's every new thing you buy today whether it's a camcorder ,

DVD/ HD system, mobile phone you name it.

It is as though we are moving backwards instead of forward, everything seems to have to

go the long way round instead of CLICK and you're there first time. Things take much longer

to access, very frustrating. :angry:

OK

Computers are the worst offenders, they are supposed to make life easier and faster, so why do we spend so long in front of them?

I spend a lot of time doing backups, installing updates, running security scans etc, when really I should be using the computer to get things done.

Then there are bank ATM machines. The old cashiers, being unfriendly as bankers often are, used to keep you waiting ages. An ATM machine should be capable of responding you your requests straight away at the push of a button. So why are they programmed to display the words "PLEASE WAIT" on the screen and then go into a pause mode for a bit before they respond?

Then all the other electronic goods like mobile phones, DVD players etc. Many claim that their user interface is "intuitive" but it is anything but. Surely most of these devices have been designed by idiots with sadistic tendancies to require the imputs they need to make them work, - and then you have to remember the cac-handed method they have devised for next time, - but another make of the same device works totally differently with a completely different set of illogical logic.

Most modern changes are designed to make money, not to be useful.

Remember what Edison said as it became the basis of all modern inventions.

Why invent something once when you can reinvent it a thousand times.

In other words make something new that hardly works (like Edisons Phonograph) then sell it to everybody. When everyone has got one and there are no sales left in it then improve it slightly and sell the improved, but non-compatible with the original version, then carry on like that forever so that all these devices, many of which are excellent in their own right now have built in obsolecence and create a way in which you will pay out over and over again for a slightly "better" version of the same thing. Starting with the cylinder playing playing phonograph, we have had, the disc playing gramophone, the electric gramophone, the record player, the reel to reel tape recorder, the cassette tape, the 8 track cartridge, the Compact Disc and the MP3 digital download all sold to us within a century. But at the end of the day all we wanted to do was listen to a bit of music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The BBC Domesday project in 1986 was a case in point. 12" laser disks, the technology never caught on, and they've only recently managed to retrieve the data!

Woody Allen used to do a story about the problems he had with his domestic appliances. In the end he got them all together in the living room and told them he knew what was going on, and to cut it out or there'd be trouble. A couple of days later his TV went on the blink, so he gave it a thrashing.

A few days later he had to visit an office on the 15th floor of a skyscraper. He got in the lift, which was the latest type where you just said your floor number. Between floors the lift said "Aren't you the guy who beat up his TV?" then went up and down at high speed and threw him out in the basement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The trouble with technology these days is that it now has computer in it. Plus in order to get things smaller the same chips do multi-tasking. So if you press a button to do one thing it does another instead :huh:

In fact some are so like computers they even use the same bits. My nephew had a BT vision box that didn't work, so we took it apart and found a standard hard drive of 148GB inside that is used on computers. It's now in my computer as drive G,H,I. because it was split into 3 sections, but it works :)

I rather suspect that who re-set up Picture Sheffield probably had problems of getting the software to do what it did on the old one. A lot of software companies have closed down, though you can get something like the one you have used, they never are the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The trouble with technology these days is that it now has computer in it. Plus in order to get things smaller the same chips do multi-tasking. So if you press a button to do one thing it does another instead :huh:

In fact some are so like computers they even use the same bits. My nephew had a BT vision box that didn't work, so we took it apart and found a standard hard drive of 148GB inside that is used on computers. It's now in my computer as drive G,H,I. because it was split into 3 sections, but it works :)

I rather suspect that who re-set up Picture Sheffield probably had problems of getting the software to do what it did on the old one. A lot of software companies have closed down, though you can get something like the one you have used, they never are the same.

I can accept that new software won't run on old computers as the software probably requires some newer hardware features of new computers.

However, you can't get old software to run on new computers either. As though you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

We have lost many excellent programs, and their accumulated data files!! :angry: this way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...