By William LaMartin, Editor, Tampa PC Users Group
lamartin@tampabay.rr.com

Is the Internet losing its grip? Last month I mentioned I had checked an account with Google for their AdWords advertising campaign and it showed I owed $60,182,653.00-a bit above my $5/day limit. When informed, they responded that it was just a technical error and would be corrected.

This month I have experienced problems with online orders from Gateway and Amazon-again technical problems.

The Gateway problem was simply that an order I placed for a replacement keyboard for my new computer (spacebar not working properly) apparently never got placed. After waiting a week, I called them and got a person within one minute. Unfortunately, it took that person and two other people almost an hour to get the keyboard on its way again. My impression is that the people I have dealt with at Gateway over the phone in the past were considerably more efficient than this last group. But my email tells me that a new keyboard is on the way. However, email is not always a true indicator of your order status as my Amazon story indicates.

Amazon.com gives our group a referral few of 15% for books ordered through the link at our site. But on software or electronic items that can have a high price, the fee tops out at $10. Anyway, if I want something that Amazon has and their price is as good as any other reputable (not all online merchants have a good record) seller, then I order from Amazon, except that I purchase most non-technical books from a local bookstore.

I had been looking to upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio to Visual Studio .Net-a $549 item. When I was about ready to buy, I noted that Amazon was selling it for $465, as good a price as I had seen, so it was time to order. And the user group would get $10. Additionally, Microsoft was offering a $300 mail-in rebate for orders placed before September. So the net price was pretty good ( I paid $400 with no rebate for the upgrade to Borland’s Delphi). Further, on such a large order I was to get free shipping if I didn’t mind a few extra days for delivery. That is where I made my mistake.

After placing the order, I would check its status at Amazon every few days. Nothing happened for the first few days, then a message that the order was being prepared for shipping and could not be changed appeared. That stayed there for five days until I lost patience and sent an email to Amazon-and to my surprise received a very quick response that I should ignore what the web site said. The order had shipped. Two days later I got an email message from Amazon saying that my order was delayed and would not ship for awhile. I promptly copied that and sent it with a reply to the first message I had received. A quick response to that said that, like the web site, there were other parts of Amazon that were confused and that my order had indeed been shipped and I should receive it within six days. One hour later the order was delivered by UPS. The next day I got an email from Amazon saying that my order had been shipped.

Does it sound like the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing at Amazon? Two other times in the last four months I have tried to order items from Amazon that the web site said were supposed to normally ship within 24 hours, but which were, in fact, very much out of stock. One was a programming book, Windows Script Host Programmer's Reference, and the other was a digital camera. I had to cancel both orders, since right after ordering, I found out that the item would be delayed a couple of extra days, then a week, then not available until the middle of the next month. That was OK for the book, but not the camera. I finally had to give up on the book too, though, because it apparently really is temporarily out of print. I think Amazon had better get their database people on the ball-or hire a few back that they may have fired in a cost cutting move.

Success Online Now to how the Internet can really help you. For years I have done a little electronic/electrical work where I need a small butane torch and 3/32 inch, white, heat shrink tubing. For years I had bought the compressed butane cylinders from RadioShack and the heat shrink tubing from a local electronics store, which closed, then from a local music store, which is now also closed. RadioShack no longer carries the compressed butane cylinders-because of lawsuits, it was suggested-and another local music store said there was no longer much interest by musicians in heat shrink tubing. So, as I have done so much lately, I turned to Google.

An Internet search produced not only the cylinders, but also the site of the manufacturer of them and the torch they went with. Apparently the lawyers have not yet put them out of business. I also found several electronic supply sites offering the size and color of heat shrink tubing I needed. I placed my online orders and had the items within three and five days, respectively.

Visual Studio Dot Net Professional Earlier I mentioned getting VS .net. (See the small dot. That is the way it should be written.) Since Dot Net has been in the news a good bit lately, perhaps a few comments are in order. My first comment is that it is going to take me a year to figure out this new programming environment that combines C++ .net , C# .net Visual Basic .net (and as a free download J# .net) into one development package that installs three GB of stuff on your hard drive. You need Windows NT 4, 2000 or XP Professional as an operating system on the system where you do the installation.

It is described as a platform for building XML Web services and applications. I have been going through the walkthroughs to learn how to do such things using VB .Net as a language. And I can tell you this is not your father’s Visual Basic. But as I have more time to devote to it, I am sure it will begin to be easier.

By the way, to run a Windows program created with it requires that the client computer have the .net framework installed. That is a mere 20 + MB download from Microsoft. Perhaps it is already included in XP. So you can see that this will not immediately replace the regular Visual Basic as a programming tool. u