At work, we're using CAST 5.0 for Oracle (build 1007). It's a good product, but as with all software, it has bugs. I wanted to report some of them today, and had a look at the software documentation. There was no "Report bugs" entry under the "How to..." section, but there was plenty of contact information under "Welcome/Contacting CAST - Office Locations". This linked to a "quick email form" for "Sales, Product Support or General Inquiries".

Too bad the link was dead. A little unprofessional in 2006, specially since it's been on Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes of Web Design in 1999.

Well, let's not have that mess up the road to the grandest goal of all time: Fixing bugs. So we'll have a go at the referenced "CAST Web Site"... Can anyone say "404"? Dang. Over we go to the base URL. Next stop: The CAST 5 Overview. CTRL-F bug. Nada. Search form "bugs" & click. I got four results, which can be summarized as follows:

  • Patting themselves on the back (Update: sorry, the link is dead) for providing good technical information
  • A two years old release note (Update: sorry, the link is dead) with a dead link to a "Bug Fix List" (Update: sorry, the link is dead)
  • A customer story (Update: sorry, the link is dead) of the horrible bug-ridden system they had before CAST
  • A 3.8 MB "Corporate presentation for IT management" (Update: sorry, the link is dead)

A Google "bugs" search delivered essentially no new information. Googling for "contact" on the site finally gave a result. However, the contact form was only linked (Update: sorry, the link is no longer relevant) from relatively obscure pages, required me to submit my full name, function/title, email, and company name, and the selection list for the reason for contacting them had no "Bug reporting" entry. Well, I'll submit them under "Product support", and see what happens.