I’ve just received an email from a french guy that was baffled by the fact that both companies GHI & Phidgets were allowing me to talk of each other on their respective forum and that both of them also shared informations and tips to help me make Domino and Phidget boards working together…
I can say here that I was proud to tell him that even commercial companies can think at “individuals” and can have a hobbyist mind sometimes, thus helping such individuals to successfully manage their projects.
I know that there’s still some commercial interest behind all this, but to me this is “the rule” : you can’t receive without sending. Here, my “sending” consist in sharing the result of this collaboration.
For any skeptics, I say that I have not received anything from the two companies except some experience points on this forum. Nobody can say that I was bribed.
So what ? Well, I just wanted to share what I think is good news : there are still some open-minded people here, despite possible suspicions of business interests.
Sadly, most companies are only concerned about making money so it is became somewhat automatically assumed that companies wouldn’t have a talk with you if you are a hobbyist!!!
GHI not only welcome beginners, we even made a whole website/forum/products/book/open-source-devices…all for users like yourself…users that love technology All for free, we still make somewhat little on the boards to help maintain everything you see on this website. GHI main website is what brings in the money but this one is more/less a fun place for everyone, including GHI employee
GHI is on everyones side even if you didn’t buy anything from GHI, just see the forum here, as long as the user is doing their homework. What GHI doesn’t like is lazy-butts We do not like users that never read anything then come to us saying “How do I pick my nose?”. We have seen MANY and still receive emails/phone calls from many lazy users but this didn’t stop GHI from being open Did you notice that all 100% documentation, forum, email, phone/fax number are available with no registration crap? Almost 90% of companies now do not put their phone or email on the web
I realized that GHI was open minded when they bashed a product they are selling, directly on the product page. (Really tiny Nokia Color LCD)
Open minded doesn’t mean bad though, especially when GHi is doing really unusual things like offering free consulting hours for experienced users. I have yet to see any other company do anything nearly that neat, except for Sparkfun with their $100-free-day.
Josh : let’s say you’ve made 2 daily jokes in one day
About the lazy-butts, there will always be, mainly because we leave in a world of assistantship (right term ?). Why bother studying/thinking/trying by yourself if someone else can do it for you (and for free if possible) ?
But I don’t care that much with such persons because they won’t go very far. They will get instant reward while the others will get knowledge. Knowledge that will help to go further. Skimming will be done over time…
The fact is, though, that it’s pleasant to be able to talk about (possible) competitors without having to hide or only suggest their names. It’s not always possible elsewhere.
… and why not to ask for fast, simple answer rather than spent days inside manuals ?
Then I also can help others much easier, without thoughts like: “I had to spent so much time learning this, so Why in hell shall I give this away for free???”
So please, be patient to us, lazy newbies ;D You never know who and when, having good experience with your responsiveness, will come back with big order for development of really profesional embedded product ;D
[quote]So please, be patient to us, lazy newbies You never know who and when, having good experience with your responsiveness, will come back with big order for development of really profesional embedded product
[/quote]
We have thousands of FEZes out there. Can you imagine if no one did their homework and asked questions that are answered by the book or documentation?
It is not much…read the book we are offering for free and go through the tutorial…step by step. If you are struggling along the way, we are very happy to help and when you are done and you need more help then we are here ready fro your questions.
We will take care of you if you ordered one FEZ Mini or you are ordering thousands…we are only asking users to do their homework, not more
Look around the forum. We are helping everyone very promptly and almost everyone here is a hobbyist who only bought one board We spent long days making books and documentation so it will be NOT FAIR for some users to have to read to learn and others to just take advantage of the support and never do any work
By the way, users that ask good questions get good answers, from GHI and from other users. This is not only GHI. Other users tend to skip pointless questions :o
All for free, we still make somewhat little on the boards to help maintain everything you see on this website. GHI main website is what brings in the money but this one is more/less a fun place for everyone, including GHI employee 
We do not like users that never read anything then come to us saying “How do I pick my nose?”. We have seen MANY and still receive emails/phone calls from many lazy users but this didn’t stop GHI from being open 
