Hmm...Shades, xtabber, and Darwin all present usage scenarios that I find myself in...thumb drives that grab a different drive letter any time you connect them to the system are particularly a pet peeve of mine.
Giveawayoftheday is no longer my friend. Once upon a time, they would give away a free piece of software & it was yours to keep. Forever. It couldn't be upgraded, but hey...it was free! Life was good. Then The Darkness came. Giveawayoftheday became GiveawayofTHATday. They still gave you a free piece of software that was not able to be upgraded, but it was wrapped in a proprietary installer that only allowed you to install that piece of software on the day it was given away. Wait 24 hours & it was no soup for you.
Totally unusable for anyone who reinstalls their OS. Ever.
However, it's still not $27 worth of functionality for a USBSR lifetime license so I got to digging. Google didn't turn up anything worthwhile regarding a price break except expired deals. Being a chronic packrat, though, prompted me to check my old emails to see if I had any leverage there. Hmm....found an old expired freebie 1-year license for USBSR from 2008 (No! I don't need help with my "problem"!
)...and figured what would be the harm? I plugged it into the Zentimo web site and what do you know? It qualified for upgrade pricing! Must be because it was an actual license and not a "you're free to use this certain version number ONLY" kind of deal.
Now down to $29.95 for a lifetime license for the 'superior' of the two versions for just a couple bucks more. I was feeling better about my ability to get a better offer with no cash outlay, but Zentimo and USBSR aren't worth $27-30 to me...maybe half that. I've done enough internet transactions, though, that I had one last potentially powerful trick up my sleeve: <dramatic pause> currency conversion.
Crystal Rich's online checkout provides a wealth of different currencies which can be used for payment. I'll save you all the trial & error that I had to go through by saying that paying in Rubles is the way to transactional happiness. Every other choice gives one a 50% discount off of $59.90 to leave one with a net price of $29.95. Choosing Rubles gives one a 50% discount off of $33.10 to leave one with a net price of $16.55, which just happens to be charged in US dollars to your credit card (I don't know why) saving you the expense of foreign transaction fees as well.
$16.55 was close enough to half of $30 so I bit giving me a lifetime license to Zentimo for a total out of pocket cost of $16.55. That's a fair price for the usage I'll have for it.
Interesting tidbit of information I discovered: Existing USBSR customers can upgrade on the web site to a lifetime Zentimo license no matter the length or status of their USBSR license. Existing Zentimo customers, however, don't seem to have a mechanism to upgrade to a lifetime license anywhere.
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