Next two-week review

[mouser]

anyone want to volunteer to do a guest review next?  i need to check myself into a mental health clinic to recover from that last review of screencasting tools.



remember we have a two-week process now so it gives you a bit more time.

June 13 - part one, overview and table of software in that category with short descriptions and screenshots.
June 20 - final review

id be happy to help a lot and i'm sure others here would be too, and maybe we can choose a category that won't be quite so contentious..

screencasting was another specialty tool with a high price; might be nice to do a more general tool at a reasonable price next..

how about best password manager, or form filler? or weather tool for your tray?

[moerl]

Or what about Newsreaders? It's a very current thing. Newsfeeds that is
I'll come up with more ideas I'm sure. That's all I can think of right now. I'm frying my brain with Java right now

[mouser]

usenet newsreaders or rss feed readers?

usenet newsreaders definitely deserve a review, but thats going to be a hard one and its a bit specialized so lets save that one for later.
rss readers is also quite specialized though i'm guessing less difficult to review.

[moerl]

I meant the latter, but of course the former is just as worthy of a review. Agreed on the complexity level, let's find something simpler.
I'd be very, very interested in automation tools. Just like your Find & Run tool, (by which, btw, I was very impressed from viewing those screencasts!). ActiveWords seems to be extremely popular in this regard, and I have never before used such an app. I'd be very interested in a review of this kind of app.

[mouser]

a review of such tools would be very useful, but problematic.. for the very reason you suggest, because of Find and Run Robot.

i haven't really considered how to handle such a situation where one of our programs would be a candidate in a review.

if a donationcoder.com does not win an award for its category, there is no problem.  the problem is if we published a review that said our program was best, i think it would be met with some skepticism..  so maybe it's best we avoid such reviews until we are sure we aren't going to win the award

[moerl]

LOL.. good point. But what's wrong with having a great program here that might just make the cut? I know it might look weird, but if you write professionally and stay objective in the whole process, and if you stay fair like you do with all the other great reviews, I see nothing wrong in giving one of DC's programs the award. That's if it truly beats the others. The advantage in having one of DC's programs in the test is that you can use it as a reference for such tools, because you understand extremely well how it works and what's important about it. Plus you would get an opportunity to try out new ones, and would see what's out there besides the DC one, which eventually might inspire you to improve upon your own program
Dunno.. I think it's possible, as long as we stay fair.

[Dragonrider]

What about the freeware "Whois" review I'm currently writing up?  It's in its early stages, I've looked at about 10 different pieces of freeware so far, was thinking of comparing them to payware (but can't afford the price), and haven't even gotten to simtel.com or a few other sites I know of yet (only trolled download.com, nonags.com, shellcity.net so far).

My criteria is whois's being used as a tool to discover where a piece of spam/phish Email has truly come from & why it's necessary to have these kinds of tools on a person's PC.  But I'm open to suggestions & comments if your game.  This of course means it won't go in the forum section you set up mouser.

Regards
Dragonrider

[Dragonrider]

BTW:  I agree with Shangnyun.  As long as the author isn't involved, it really isn't a problem.  This of course excludes mouser for all of his programs, but then again, he needs a rest. 

Regards
Dragonrider

[mouser]

As long as the author isn't involved, it really isn't a problem.  This of course excludes mouser for all of his programs, but then again, he needs a rest.

i think this is still going to be problematic..
up until this point i have been heavily involved in all the review.  and whoever does the review would feel some pressure i'm sure to be nice to my programs.

this might just be one of those cases where the best thing to do is simply not review these kinds of tools, and leave it for another site; let's not be so deluded to think that there aren't other good review sites that can cover these things

would see what's out there besides the DC one, which eventually might inspire you to improve upon your own program

absolutely, i'm certainly not saying that people on the forum shouldnt point out good ones, recommend ones they like, point out flaws in my apps; hell by all means do so.  most of the apps i make i like to improve to make them as good as the best app in their class, if i can.  certainly a program like Find and Run Robot i have every intention of making the best in its class, and would love to hear about features that should be added to make it so.

i try to add a page in the help files of all my programs listing similar apps, and i encourage people on the forum to talk about programs that are similar/superior to mine.

i'm just suggesting that a forum review/award might be a bad idea.

[mouser]

dragonrider,

i definitely do not think that reviews have to be as long as some of the ones i have done; god help us if they did.
but, i am a little concerned that whois tools might not be "meaty" enough for a full review.

also, if you are only looking at freeware tools, that might be a bit of a problem for a full review since our reviews are supposed to encompass all programs, including but not exclusively freeware.

i think a related subject that would be worthy of a full review would be network information suites, that inlcude whois, ping, traceroute, etc.
but thats a pretty involved review and i'm not sure you really want to get into all that.

we definitely want to draw a distinction between our full main reviews, which give out awards and are expected to be long(ish), and have a somewhat consistent style and approach, and mini member reviews, which can be whatever our members want them to be; so my comments are just about trying to strike the right balance there.

[mouser]

the more i think about it, the more i also think we need to alternate between power user specialty tools and general tools.
i consider screencasting a "specialty" tool, (and so is something like whois) and i'd like the next review to be more general.

maybe add things like: image viewer, file finder, file explorer, clipboard tool..
( i think all of those above other than file finder are bound to be controversial)