The Complete Conflict Compendium

     You trundle home from the local Mac dealer, carrying your latest software purchase, eager to experience the joys of JumbleManager.  You install it, and restart your machine, beaming with joy.  Your Mac, on the other hand, just sits there, flashing and making rude noises.

The Problem 

     Undeterred, you set about trying to resolve what is clashing with JumbleManager, and after three hours of restarts, you find it was ScragIt.  You are eager to tell the world about this conflict, so you post your discovery for the world to see.  The response is: "Yeah, great, we discussed that three weeks ago."

     It appears that many of us spend our time reinventing the wheel every time we install a new application, extension or control panel.  We merrily load up something that someone else has already discovered will not work.

The Proposal

     I propose an end to this.

     I am compiling "The Complete Conflict Compendium" with a few learned colleagues, including Mark Brooks, the editor of this fine journal.  This regular digest will detail all of the clashes and conflicts that people have discovered.  It will list the stats on conflict reports and give you an easy way to determine if something will work on your system, before you spend your hard earned cash to get a nasty surprise.  Where solutions exist, it will describe how to work around the conflicts.

The Pitch

     What is the price?  Your input.

     In order to compile the database, I need users, developers and support people to report their discoveries to me.  These reports need to be in a common format, one that I can easily transfer into the database itself.

     Please e-mail your reports to me at dslipp@pinc.com.  Please start any conflict reports with the word Report and any other messages with, well with any other word.  This will help me configure an auto-import bot to suck information into the database.  There is a sample form at the end of this article.  I have written what the bot will expect to find in each paragraph in parenthesis.  The bot will be looking for the paragraph numbers in order to do its import thing, so please stick as close as you can to this format.

     The Complete Conflict Compendium will be posted as a text or setext document, but will eventually move to an interactive searchable Web page.  I expect to have the Web version available shortly (defined as - Real Soon Now, but without an overwhelming sense of urgency).

Example Conflict Report

To: dslipp@pinc.com 
From : nowhere.man@nowhere.lan
Subj: Report

1. JumbleManager, Jumble Software, support@jumble.com 
(The first offending item, its publisher and their e-mail address)

2. ScragIt, Scrag Works International, confusion@scrag.com 
(The next offending item, its publisher and their e-mail address)

3. (The third offending item, its publisher and their e-mail address. Leave it blank if it isn't needed)

4. PowerMac 6100/66 
(The machine, include RAM or other parameters if they matter)

5. System 7.5.1 
(The System version)

6. Freezes on start up 
(The symptoms)

7. Conflict Catcher 
(How  you isolated the conflict)

8. Confidence - 3 
(How confident you are)

9. Both companies contacted by e-mail. No reply within 48 hours from either company. 
(What you've done to talk to the publishers.)

10. Force ScragIt to load before JumbleManager. Reduce ScragIt cache to 256 K. 
(How you solved the clash)

Conclusion

     Well, this is another of those things that will work wonderfully if people pitch in, and fail miserably if they don't.  I know that everyone of you has come upon conflicts.  Please take the time to send them in to the Complete Conflict Compendium.  The web site will be published here when the HTML version is online.  

Thank you.