A Good Example

I got a great email today:

Hi Phil,

From the diagnostic information that was included in your email it looks like your computer uses the Intel Integrated Graphics chipset of the 810, 845, 855, or 865 series. Unfortunately, these graphics accelerators do not implement the 3D texture mapping features needed by Photosynth.

Regards
Aditya Mandlekar
Microsoft Live Labs – Photosynth Group
http://labs.live.com/photosynth

This email is great for two reasons: first, now I know that someone is actually reading email I send to the Photosynth team. Second, Aditya took the time to write about why my graphics card is incompatible. I'm still kind of bummed that I can't try it out (at least on this computer), but now I know why it doesn't work and what to do about it.

Eventually I'll try Photosynth again, both because I know what went wrong and because I know it wasn't a result of the developers being lazy. (I've run into similar problems in my own projects, and when you have specific product specifications to meet, there's not much you can do.) Good job, guys.