Recent Posts

1201

Living Room / Re: How to manage large clipart collections?

« Last post by Dormouse on August 16, 2010, 01:14 PM »

Extensis Portfolio is worth every penny of its $99.95 price tag (single user edition).

-app103 (August 16, 2010, 12:20 AM)

I make it $199.95 for the full version with the $99.95 being for the upgrade. And prices twice as high in the UK (and nearly that in Euroland). Decent product, but definitely at the pricey end.

1202

Circle Dock / Re: cranioscopical: "Markham what we could do to further the project."

« Last post by Dormouse on August 06, 2010, 08:52 AM »

The first point I would make is that developing a successful business strategy requires vision, and a lot of time and consideration (often, but not always accompanied by market research) or a great deal of luck. It's not something to be rushed at.

Secondly, AFAICS, most small software vendors have nothing that remotely resembles a strategy that will  even break even on costs (if their own time is given a reasonable value) and nor do they have strategies that are likely to maximise their income. So I wouldn't just jump to a sale and pricing scheme you see used elsewhere.

The next point is that open source or free can be a route to making more money than selling software. Look carefully at the business models of RedHat and Canonical. In some ways Evernote is even more interesting - but I may come on to that another time. Genuinely working with OpenSource gives them the support of the OS community and software and being OS and free gives their products a lot of publicity, buzz and users (with associated bug finding - and bugs are an important issue for business sales). They then leverage that into addons/products that they sell. The first proposal seems to come closest to this, but with the addition of a few artificial limitations typical of many small software vendors. But to make this work you actually need to have a clearly defined addon/product that you will sell to a carefully defined market. I can see the possibility of a CD for businesses, but it would need careful consideration, individual tweaking and high quality sales/marketing/manuals and support to work. [I don't mind discussing details off forum; I'd suggest not discussing anything in public that might help competitors]

The open/closed source issue is an interesting one that I'm not going to address. But I would suggest that you look at how many downloads you have against how many sales or downloads the copycats/pinchers are making. And then, if you have even more publicity & buzz and are free, what scope is there really for them?

Selling CD to all users, however low the price, is fraught with difficulty. Your user base is used to free. And from what I've seen of the posts/questions likely only to use free in the vast majority of cases. The competition is mostly free. My guess would be that your first year would be your biggest as you convert some users into customers; declining after that because your free publicity and mouth-to-mouth recommendations would be gone.

One problem you have is time. Current situation is unsustainable. Changing it will require some initial funding at least. With that number of users, torrents are feasible, and all the solutions mentioned above and elsewhere are worth looking that. Distributing downloads would reduce costs, but long-term you want people visiting your site, so I'd personally only go for solutions that required that. I would strongly suggest having advertising on the site (and managing it carefully as a source of income and also making sure that your image is protected - not something that many sites do well); not something you are able to do whilst on the DC server, I assume. Looking at the numbers, this might be more than sufficient on its own to pay your costs; but you would want to maximise the number of pageclicks agains the MBs of downloads. Your server usage is your big variable cost atm (the other being time spent on support); your fixed costs are the coding time. Ideally you want your variable income to vary in line with (but be higher than) your variable costs; advertising can be a very good way of achieving this. Ideally, you would also have your fixed costs at the lowest possible proportion of total costs (assuming variable income to exceed variable costs) as that gives you personally the biggest return on your efforts. If you get seriously into sales/marketing etc, then you should be able to make these variable too.

1203

General Software Discussion / Re: Whoa, this gal hates MS Office 2010 -- 5 Reasons Why You Don't Need It

« Last post by Dormouse on July 23, 2010, 01:23 PM »

These points are pretty vacuous. 3/5 about price, 1 about the ribbon (which has been contentious for 3 years now) and 1 about a minor feature. Since most people can get hold of a very cheap version, the upgrade price issue ultimately matters to few. And it seems to me that the version of the ribbon in 2010 is very much better than that in 2007. I certainly find 2010 a compelling upgrade from 2003 & 2007 whereas I saw few advantages in 2007 to compensate for learning the new interface.

All versions are much better than OO. Softmaker Office has some advantages for those who like the old menu system but doesn't have equivalents for all the members of the suite.

1204

Living Room / Re: warmouse

« Last post by Dormouse on June 30, 2010, 01:34 PM »

The whole thing looks pretty shambolic to me. References on the warmouse.com site are to sales in a number of regions (including UK), but the price on the site is only in dollars and a US state is a required part of the address.

warmouse.co.uk does exist (with a ukstore directory), but hasn't been updated since 25th June and not showing anything on the net. I haven't checked to see if it is the same business, but I assume it would be.

As a mouse biased person, I would be interested in this (though worried about quality and ergonomics) - but the organisation of everything doesn't give you confidence in them or their product.

1205

General Software Discussion / Re: If you think OpenOffice is a competitor to MS Office 2010, think again

« Last post by Dormouse on June 16, 2010, 01:37 PM »

I find 2010 much better than 2007 & 2003. Used to have both of them installed - now just 2010. Mostly just easier to work with.

Haven't really seen OO as a competitor for some time. I'm not sure what its changes actually do, but they don't seem to make it better to me. Textmaker & friends seem a better, different alternative.

That said, for my producing my own stuff, I always use other programs and not office suites.

1206

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by Dormouse on June 12, 2010, 03:40 AM »

(Though I'm honestly not so hard on Microsoft ("karma"). I've seen enough of the good that they do and never get credited for. The ONLY press that Microsoft gets is bad press. If Microsoft cured cancer, the press would scream that they didn't cure lukemia. Microsoft simply cannot win. Ever.)

-Renegade (June 12, 2010, 12:01 AM)

Hmmm.
MS are still sneaking unwanted stuff onto computers with their security patches, see theReg (orig from ArsTechnica). They even grey out the ability to uninstall.

1207

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: TeraCopy Pro for $9.00 (only for another 9 hours or so though)

« Last post by Dormouse on June 09, 2010, 02:59 AM »

Regarding the price, it seems the author is reducing the price as the last half price sale had it going for $11 with the normal non-discount price being $22.

-Innuendo (June 08, 2010, 09:16 PM)

I think it's just the Euro/Dollar conversion rate that changed.

1208

Living Room / Re: Approaches to computer builds

« Last post by Dormouse on June 05, 2010, 05:32 AM »

I feel like if you're going to be cheap, you're better off buying two computers or more.

-Paul Keith (June 05, 2010, 12:53 AM)

I would note that my approach, while being cheapskate, is not actually cheap.

Probably  the cheapest way of buying is to buy complete cheap/moderate systems when there is a good deal going. I was looking to build a cheap/moderate system a few months ago, then saw a review of one in a magazine. Company I hadn't seen before, but quite a bit cheaper than I could buy the components for and they were all decent components. Bought it instead of building; works perfectly well. Looked at the same company for my current build - but price for that sort of system seems about 2-3 times as high as I can do it building it myself.

1209

Living Room / Re: Approaches to computer builds

« Last post by Dormouse on June 05, 2010, 05:19 AM »

Sorry if I missed your question. I couldn't narrow it down and I interpreted that you want a perspective of how different people approach their computer building.

-Paul Keith (June 05, 2010, 12:53 AM)

Sorry, there wasn't really a question as such. Just got fascinated by how many different approaches there are to computer builds when reading the Superboyac thread. My needs & his, very similar; approaches to the build, quite different. And in the thread, lots of different approaches implicit in the recommendations.

Most discussions tend to be structured around components/recommendations or usage, but it seems to me that even if everyone shares exactly the same knowledge and usage, we'd do it differently. And probably even if we are going to end up with exactly the same components and computer, we'd get there different ways. I found the different ways of thinking more interesting than the actual recommendations. I possibly should have just posted at the end of the thread - but felt that would be diverting an old thread that wasn't mine.

But yes, I would be interested in anyone's perspective on doing this.

1210

Living Room / Approaches to computer builds

« Last post by Dormouse on June 04, 2010, 09:10 PM »

Having reached the point where I feel I need to build/rebuild a computer for my own use, I reread Superboyac's thread for any ideas & info I might pinch and it struck me how many different approaches there are to the task. My needs/situation are very similar to his, though I do a fair bit of image stuff. Neither of us need gaming rigs and neither of us change computers often. In recent years, my approach has mostly been to go cheap on the basis that I don't need to pay more in most areas and I will only pay more for things I think I specifically need.

This time I mostly need more speed. I nearly always have lots of apps open and my current computer (only bought as an emergency stopgap 4 years ago, when I didn't have time to fix what was my primary computer - still haven't found time to do it) is getting bogged down. Partly that's because it needs stripping back down & having everything reinstalled (well, on the things I  am still using); I always used to reinstall Windows every 3 years or so anyway, though I've not found it so necessary recently. So that means lots more RAM (the current 2GB tends to be 90%+ used most of the time + the same amount of paging). I have a naive belief that this sort of usage will benefit from as many cores as I can get (not that I'm clear that there is really much evidence for that; and it might well be the number of threads that matters more - and Intel beats AMD clearly there). Image processing benefits from multicores & lots of RAM anyway, especially with increasing file sizes. And moving stuff around will benefit from usb3 & sata3.

So that leads me to AMD (cheap & good for IG) new chipset mobo & the slow 6 core CPU (I'll take my chance that a fast 4 core would have been more productive for me). 8GB RAM (in 4GB sticks so I can double up later if I need). I can always add a graphics card later if needed. I'll try the integrated sound - and if I don't like it, I can go back to my old relatively high end sound card; will be nice to get my speakers working again.

I'll probably put them into a very old full tower I have (I can always change it later if I don't like it). I'll start by using HDDs, DVDs & floppy drives I already have (I know there's no need to use floppies, but it is nice to be able to read floppies I might come across). I'll also test the system with a PSU I already have before doing anything else; though I know I will get a new one when I make my mind up which to get. I will also need a new HDD for the OS drive to get the best startup speed; don't like raptors, so am thinking of trying a SSD - but might wait to see what the price of one with sata3 is. I'll keep my monitors, input devices etc. Will install W7 (bought my copy last year & haven't touched it yet).

So, a very cheapskate & piecemeal approach. Reluctantly buying some of the latest stuff because I believe (probably mistakenly) that I'll get a productivity gain with the new features. The full build will probably spread over a few months & I'll keep it to Linux until I've got it all together. And then I'll add the software (gradually), keeping both computers in use, and then really cut back on the progs on my current computer and/or reformat it and start installing from scratch there too. As I've found in the past, having a spare available can be critical if you have work/deadlines that must be done/met.

1211

General Software Discussion / Re: PikyBasket replaced by Copywhiz

« Last post by Dormouse on June 03, 2010, 11:18 AM »

We really wanted to be frank in conveying why we made the changes to PikySuite.

We have had 4 products till now (Notezilla, RecentX, PikySuite & QNP). We are completely enthusiastic about Notezilla, RecentX & QNP. We enjoy selling them because of their quality, idea & design.  Somehow we were not satisfied when selling PikySuite to our customers. We wanted to deliver the best to our customers.

-conceptworld (June 02, 2010, 11:43 PM)

Being open is good.
Wanting to deliver the best to your customers is good.
Realising that one of your products is not good enough is OK - and certainly better than ignoring reality.

But charging customers who had bought the deficient product an upgrade price for a move to a revised, presumably better, product is much less fine - especially when the upgrade price is a fairly standard one (50% off). For products I like, I personally virtually always upgrade when the upgrade price is 75% off and never upgrade when it is less than 34% off; I think about it carefully when it is in the middle as your 50% is. Given that upgrading customers have been making do with (or probably not using) a product you consider deficient, it would have come across much better if you had offered them a free upgrade.

1212

Living Room / Re: How to Sell Linux to Schools

« Last post by Dormouse on June 03, 2010, 11:08 AM »

MS Office is the standard and will remain so until major players switch away from it. Switching just because a software suite is "free" is not a good enough reason if the software switch involves massive retraining and additional support costs when the software does not work in a way that is intuitive to the end-user.

-Josh (June 03, 2010, 10:41 AM)

But which MS Office? 2003, 2007, 2010?

2003 & 2007 appear radically different to most users and the alternative office suites - OO etc - seem as much (or more) like 2003 as the later versions of MS Office do.

And for most users, who just use computers as they have been set up for them, adjustment to Linux rather than Windows comes very quickly.

1213

General Software Discussion / Re: PikyBasket replaced by Copywhiz

« Last post by Dormouse on June 02, 2010, 09:13 AM »

Many users felt that the previous version (PikyBasket) was not easy to use. We agree to them completely. The new version Copywhiz is simpler & more intuitive.

-Conceptworld

So that's $10 please.

I am thoroughly unimpressed.

-tinjaw (June 02, 2010, 07:54 AM)

Indeed. Who wouldn't be?

1214

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PuranDefrag V7 now free for home use

« Last post by Dormouse on May 23, 2010, 06:35 AM »

Does anyone have any idea how Puran Defrag (the free version) compares with Perfect Disk? 

-cyberdiva (May 22, 2010, 08:10 PM)

I'd be interested in this too. I have Perfect Disk (2008 - I got rather irritated by all the requests to upgrade, when I wasn't clear about the benefits) but now find that I tend to use Puran. Not that I have anything set to auto defrag, and I don't tend to defrag frequently.

1215

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Virtualization Manager 9.5 Free until 5/24/2010

« Last post by Dormouse on May 22, 2010, 05:48 AM »

IIRC, the way they work versions now is that 9.5 is the same as 10 (the most recent version) but will be without WinPE (or whatever). There was a description of the system on GAOTD comments at some point.

1216

Living Room / Re: Google Search

« Last post by Dormouse on May 19, 2010, 04:54 PM »

But it's not just Google that does this. Same results from Ask, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo (and others I assume - I gave up at that point).

1217

General Software Discussion / Re: RAMdisk on XP 32bit - brainstorming!

« Last post by Dormouse on May 15, 2010, 09:22 AM »

I notice that the SoftPerfect RAM disk is coming up at BdJ tomorrow ($9)

1218

Living Room / Re: Must Login to BDJ to See All Future Deals Now

« Last post by Dormouse on May 10, 2010, 01:36 PM »

It's Iconico now isn't it?

All seems very strange to me. I'll not sign up. Might mean I lose a few progs I might otherwise buy - but I have to be around on the day anyway. Mostly it will mean less exposure for BdJ and its clients, so the decision seems quite bizarre. The forums are either worth going to or not; I can't see people being forced to them. Tracking people should already be possible through IP - but this will lead to names etc, so that might be the difference.

1219

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?

« Last post by Dormouse on May 06, 2010, 04:54 AM »

I have Snagit 9 installed, and it may be the most advanced clipboard you can have, but... I don't use it! It is not to my liking.

-Curt (May 06, 2010, 04:48 AM)

I also have Snagit, and like it very much. But I don't consider it a clipboard manager as such - I use it for capture and some editing.

1220

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?

« Last post by Dormouse on May 06, 2010, 04:52 AM »

When I looked, I found ClipMate the best, and I've never seen anything to give me any cause to reconsider.
I found Dittoto be the best free program at the time, and would be very interested to know if anyone thinks there a a better free alternative to it now.

1221

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Dormouse on April 30, 2010, 10:56 AM »

So it still worked... they just didn't have an image to restore because iPhone 4.0 OS is not out yet.

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 10:46 AM)

Except it didn't, because they didn't have the means to make it work. Only Apple did.

1222

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Dormouse on April 30, 2010, 10:33 AM »

Where do you get that it was not workable?  They wiped the data remotely.  You can do the same thing with MobileMe.  It doesn't make the phone unuseable- it just wipes it to remove your personal data.

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 09:08 AM)

From the original Gizmodo article:-

Thinking about returning the phone the next day, he left. When he woke up after the hazy night, the phone was dead. Bricked remotely

Now I don't know if it was just data wiped or bricked. But dead and bricked is what they said.
And what you would expect Apple to be able to do on the secret prototypes they allow to float around in the community.

1223

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Dormouse on April 30, 2010, 07:45 AM »

For a prototype iPhone that's fully workable and not akin to the used market at all?  And has extra features that you won't find in any iPhone?  I defy you to find any judge that would value that at less than $100.

-wraith808 (April 29, 2010, 09:43 AM)

Except it was quickly not workable at all. So used phone of unknown origin, that doesn't work. Value low.

OTOH, after (presumably) some digging around it was thought worth taking to Gizmodo. They paid $5000. $5000 is more than $100. Except they were really paying for their expectation of a big scoop and not the phone itself since they expected to return that to owner after checking what it actually was and publishing.

1224

General Software Discussion / Re: Review of 7 Cloud Storage Services

« Last post by Dormouse on April 29, 2010, 06:04 PM »

And how can they possibly say what they say about Carbonite without concluding that it should be avoided? And how can they say that they didn't bother looking at Mozy because it was just like Carbonite?

Pretty random selection of services too.

1225

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Dormouse on April 29, 2010, 06:00 PM »

The legal definition of theft in this case is defined by California code- and it is a bit wider than your comment takes into account.  There is a legal responsibility in California to return found material. 

-wraith808 (April 29, 2010, 04:40 PM)

Actually, there are variations between the criminal and civil codes and the effort required to return an article is arguable (and certainly will be argued if it ever ends up in Court). If Gizmodo had bought and then kept the phone, there's no question it would have been theft. But they publicised it in a way that Apple had to notice; that can be construed as an attempt to draw the attention of the owner to the presence of the item. I can't remember what the original article said - but iirc then it was unwise of them to say they bought the phone. Paying money as a reward for possible Apple related info is possibly more defensible as well as being closer to the truth. It is hard to see very much positive about the original finder's behaviour - accepting $5000, in whatever guise, for handing over an object to someone you know is not the owner can't be justified, though it doesn't necessarily mean that the phone was stolen. From the Gizmodo side, most journalists would be happy to pay large sums for a good scoop which is what they actually paid for (though I had never really twigged exactly how much money some of these sites can play around with). I'm not sure that all the things they have said would have got through a publishers' legal team in the form they said them in though (not that I've read much of what they have said/written directly), and that opens up the possibility of some trouble for them.

I don't think the IP thing is a major issue. At best, what can be seen by opening the phone is a minor secret - it will soon be public anyway - so its value is fairly limited. But Apple will have a right to get any info taken from Gizmodo that they took from the phone and still have - should be a civil matter though.

It's interesting that the police seem to be going after Gizmodo rather than the original finder.