Sorry to offend anyone on here that works for BT/NTL but these two companies continue to astound me with their incompetency. Granted they are both very large organisations, however, they fail to do anything correctly first time.

Both at work and at home I have struggled with all aspects of their services. Like getting a surveyor to one of the building sites has taken me over two months. NTL, despite my landlord phoning them several times to disconnect HIS service, deny that he has applied for his service to be discontinued.

Christ, I don't think NUFC lot could do worse than these two.

Grievance aired, TA! :-)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Answers

We have company here in Hull called Kingston Communications, who are currently trying to get everyone on-line via their TV sets. I have had about 5 letters from them offering me this service as I am a valued customer. I am already on-line with them via my pc, they can change it over at very little charge etc... then last week I get a nasty letter from them saying they have cut me off, for none payment. After several heated phones calls via my mobile, they evetually agreed they were in the wrong, but didn't appolgise for the problems caused. I am presently forwarding on to them an invoice for the mobile phone calls and inconvenience caused :o)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

it always amazes me why Databases are not more unified and why the data feeds onto particular areas. left and right hand etc, work for what was AT&T so know all about left,right, head and feet knowing what each other is doing...

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

I'd really be interested to know just how complex databases really are? As in....is it really so difficult to create one central db and feed info from various scattered db's into a central location so everyone can access the same info at all times? All this talk lately reminds me of my former company which was a nightmare of different db's(and only got worse through a series of mergers and buyouts).

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Ooooh yes please. Can we have the contract for the disk units? One (small/medium) UK telecoms company I deal with have a pretty huge database already. Multiply that by the number of similar organisations and it gets collosal. Backup/recovery, reload/reorg etc would be totally impractical.

In reality, data is sensitive. Few organisations would want somebody else looking after it for them when access might be gotten from elsewhere - we've already had comments about large organisations and their ability to manage things. Yes, I know about outsourcing etc.

It shouldn't be too difficult to manage connections between d/bs. However, the inclination must be there to do it, and as I said, data is very sensitive.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Database merging is hell on earth. Usually it's just an historic thing, but it can be truly horrendous.

Pal of mine worked for Standard Life in Edinburgh. Huge, huge organisation. Over the years they were at the leading edge of computerisation. They started (say) with life assurance. Then when they'd proved that could be automated they moved on to Pensions etc. What they ended up with was a dozen systems, these probably all fed some summary level system up higher that allowed them to work out company figures.

At the lowere level if Macbeth had a life assurance policy and a mortgage and a pension with them he had three accounts. The names and addresses may, or may not, be the same so you couldn't merge things easily. You also have to bear in mind how many MacBeth's there are in Scotland.

The Halifax are trying to launch their on-line bank afresh so that hey can get all the data in up front and be able to spot that Macbeth has life insurance, mortgage and pension but has no ISA, or whatever. Even them starting from scratch is proving fraught.

Databases are a wonderful idea, it's just the idea keeps changing.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

My, we have all the experts here, nearly forgot we seem almost the Toon IT army. Interesting stuff really and just goes to show, nowt is as easy as it first seems. Mind you sending marketing material to people who are dead takes abit of explaining......

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

I don't know TM, if you find out what they want you could clean up...:-)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

I have yet to work out how to merge my data bases. I got so wound up trying I eventually got my PA to type one into the other.#

Ruddy stupid Access

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Jay, if they're both in Access then view the data in Datasheet mode and sort the columns so that they are the same as the one you want to move the information to. Then copy and paste. If you get the columns properly matched up you can't go wrong. You can copy it into Excel and sort the data there if you feel uncomfortable doing it in Access. Trust me - it's not that hard! (as the Bishop said to the actress)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

If you haven't done it before, though, take a copy of the database you want to add the info to and try getting it right on the copy first...if it all goes wrong, you don't know me, right? ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Hmmm - all this talk about Excell, Access and even Standard Life (I was working there last week when in Edinburgh). Thing is, NUFC's computer system doesn't run Excell nor Access. But I do know which one it does run, and it's pretty proprietary. Now, I do know a man who if I could, (sorry, if he could) be given access to their system, could sort it all out for them straight away - for a fee.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Egads...this database stuff does sound complex! As for Screacher's suggestion, I move that we band together and mount a Greenspun Place coup of NUFC corporate. There's enough knowledge and talent on this board to clean the place up in no time! Power to the People! :-)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Naa. There's nowt wrong with databases. Mostly they work, particularly if the locking mechanism functions correctly and you can do outer joins. Mostly the problem is with the eejits who write the data models badly and then don't document them.

Give us a working oracle instance, a hard copy of the data model and I'll merge the databases of the world.

BTW Mac, my insider at the Halifax tells me there's nothing wrong with the data model for their online banking, it's more to do with the fact that they're running NT and can't keep the machines stable. I can see Screacher crying with laughter here....would you trust your online transaction processing to NT/SQL server?

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2000