Ancestry.com does not just produce Family Tree Maker, they also blog about it
on the Family Tree Maker blog. There is no separate Family Tree Maker blog,
Family Tree Maker blog
is shorthand for the Family Tree Maker posts on the
official Ancestry.com blog.
The Family Tree Maker blog has presented informative post as well as a few stinkers. Their last post is one of the worst they've ever done. The title is extremely promising: Family Tree Maker: Improving Performance. The moment I saw that title in my RSS reader, I hopped over to the Ancestry.com blog, eager to discover what they are doing, or perhaps already had done to improve Family Tree Maker's lacklustre performance in their latest Family Tree Maker Service Pack. What I found was a slap in the face of all Family Tree Maker users.
The Family Tree Maker: Improving Performance blog post does not announce that Ancestry.com has fixed some performance issues or is about to do so. Instead, it consists of a six steps you should take to increase the performance. That still doesn't sound too disappointing. Perhaps it is possible to improve start-up speed by tweaking some hitherto undocumented parameters. No, not even that. These are the six step you should take:
These six step you can take
do not make me feel warm and fuzzy about
the informative and helpful advice I just received. It is remarkable that this
is essentially the same information as Family Tree Maker knowledgebase article 5142: Family Tree Maker 2008-2011 is running slow, how can I fix this?, first published on
2010 Oct 3, that's about two months ago. If the knowledge base article is worth
repeating on the Ancestry.com blog, then why wait two months to do so?
Anyway, let us consider these six steps
one by one, and what each of those six pieces of official advice is telling us about what Ancestry.com thinks about you, Family Tree Maker user.
Of course it slow! What did you expect? You bought our advanced modern software in the unreasonable expectation that it would perform well on that rusty piece of antique you dare call a computer. Never mind that Family Tree Maker 16 runs just fine on it. You forgot to check our perfectly reasonable minimum requirements. Let us rephrase those minimum requirements for your slow, aging brain: You should go out and the buy the fastest machine you can find. That will solve all your performance problems. Our software isn't slow, your poor excuse of a computer is. There is nothing wrong with our software.
Now listen up buddy. We are sick and tired of hearing that Family Tree Maker
doesn't perform well. We don't want to be reminded that Family Tree Maker 2008
was Alpha quality software that we sold to you promising a bunch of tools to quickly
build your family tree. Yes, we were lying to you, because we were just after
your money. But, darn it, we gave you Family Tree Maker 2009 for free! For
free! The massive drop in sales revenue cost me my year's end bonus! So don't
you start whining that we had to provide a free update after releasing such an awful
product. I already told you we don't want to hear that anymore. Don't remind us
about the entire Family Tree Maker 2009 upgrade debacle either. You got it for free,
okay, so it is only fair that we asked you to jump through some marketing
hoops. Reminding us that we couldn't even organise a free upgrade isn't a
positive contribution to this discussion.
It is time for you to face a hard fact, pal: Whining customers do not help us make better software. Developing software costs money. Want better software? Pay us
to make it so. Don't complain that Family Tree Maker 2010 is slow,
but go to our web store to buy the upgrade to Family Tree Maker 2011. And oh, don't you dare complain about the price. This is Ancestry.com software, you simply pay a premium for
our quality brand. No, it isn't faster, it may even be slower, but you have to
buy it anyway. My bonus depends on it. Besides, if you keep donating your
hard-earned cash for the clunky software we produce then perhaps one day
we will make a new version that solves the worst performance issues. Have faith,
donate. I need my bonus.
So you bought the latest, fastest machine and bought the very latest version, and
now you think that entitles you to demand that the software performs adequately? Who do you think you are (we sponsored that by the way, could you tell?). You are such an incorrigible optimist.
You saw the menu option, didn't you? Did you think we put it in for show?
We'll explain it one more time, so that even you understand
it: you are supposed to use it all the time. If you don't run the Compact File tool every time you use Family Tree Maker, performance will suffer. Do run the Compact File tool, and Family
Tree Maker will perform way better. Really. You won't believe the enormous difference it makes.
Heh now, what's that? Wait a minute, adding the compacting time to the start-up
is unfair! You can't do that. You are so mean to us. We make the best family
tree software. If only you understood that, you wouldn't complain so much.
Our software is great.
You have duplicate individuals in you tree? What are you, crazy?! Our software
wasn't designed for that! We make quality software for professional
genealogists, who don't make stupid mistakes like that.
What kind of genealogist are you anyway? Don't you know that you shouldn't have
duplicate individuals in your tree? Don't you
understand that duplicate individuals increase the size of your tree, and making
navigating it inefficient? Do you have any idea how much even a single duplicate
individual upsets a finely tuned application like Family Tree Maker? Having
duplicate individuals is wrong, so we don't design for that.
I am through holding your hand. Our software is for professionals, not for
beginners who still have duplicate individuals in their tree. Duplicate
individuals! Unbelievable...
Yes, Family Tree Maker crashes on start-up when it doesn't
have Internet privileges. Of course it does. Didn't you read our Family Tree
Maker 2008 press release? It clearly states that Family Tree Maker 2008 offers
seamless web integration. Seamless, you know. That it crashes on start-up isn't
a defect, it's a feature! That is how seamless our web integration is! Isn't our
software grand?
Now, this integration really is very, very seamless, but we excel so much at creating
industry-leading family tree software, that you can still turn it off using the
ground-breaking Go Offline
menu item. We designed this
option with such care and dedication that choosing it will immediately improve the
performance of the software significantly. It's like a magic performance switch and,
to top it off, you can go back online any time. What's more, we'll even magically turn online mode back on the next
time you use our advanced family tree software.
We designed Fastfields to help you work faster. It is in the name, duh. We
are very proud of this feature. Yes, we know that practically every other genealogy
application already had it, that it is not difficult to implement, and that we
are just playing catch-up. Yes, it is true that even the aging Personal Ancestral File has it,
but we don't consider that fact relevant at all. We came up with the cool name, so
the Fastfields feature is unique to Family Tree Maker. No other vendor has the cool name.
Now, to really work fast, you have to turn Fastfields off. The reasons
for this are complicated, and a mere user like you would never understand the
technical intricacies involved. However, I have been
authorised to inform that it is definitely not because we messed up, and somehow managed to
make this simple feature a real drag on the processor, rest assured that that is
just a vicious rumour spread by jealous competition. It's complicated, really
complicated. Just turn of Fastfields to enjoy fast fields.
To summarise, if you don't buy the fastest PC, if you don't upgrade
to the latest (and greatest! promise, ha-ha!) version of Family Tree Maker, if you don't run
the Compact File tool every time, if you didn't check for duplicate individuals,
if you are working online or using Fastfields, then all your Family Tree Maker
performance issues are your own fault. So stop bothering us about it, okay?
It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the low quality of Family Tree Maker.
We are the industry leader, our software is the best. Any problems you are
having must therefore be your own fault. Have a nice day.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.