[argyllcms] Problem when buying an instrument

One thing I had a lot of trouble with is that the names the vendors use
for products keep changing.  For example, after studying the argyll web
site, I decided to get an Eye One Pro but I couldn't find it for sale
anywhere including the Xrite website.  Graeme informed me that the
instruments generally remain the same and the different package names
refer to different software configurations.  I ended up ordering the Eye
One Photo LT package, and when it arrived, the documentation made it
clear the actual instrument was the Eye One Pro, but there was no way to
tell that beforehand if you didn't already know it.  Similar remarks
apply to the Eye One Display and Eye One display LT, which from the
point of view of argyll are the same instrument. To confuse matters, the
Eye One devices are also designated i1.

All this can be pretty confusing to a beginner.  I know that it is
hopeless to keep up with the marketing hype, but if the argyll
documentation made a stab at explaining what it can, it would help
people like me who are trying to decide what to buy.

I know all this is trivial to an experienced user, but it seems
sometimes to become an experienced user, you have to start off by being
one.  Neophytes not only have to learn new things, they have to give up
mistaken ideas which they may not even be conscious of.  As someone who
taught calculus to freshmen for over 40 years, I'm very familiar with
that effect.  A certain amount of bootstrapping is necessary to learn
any new subject.  In a sense you already have to know it in order to
learn it.  Being aware of the problem helped when teaching mathematics,
but even so I wasn't always successful.
-- 
Leonard Evens <len@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Mathematics Department, Northwestern University

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