Special User Sections > General Review Discussion

Vote for what Review to do Next

<< < (3/9) > >>

mouser:
i quit jot+ and was not able to migrate my notes but just thought i would start over.. i still use the old jot+ version 2 to read my old notes file when i need it.

believe it or not i have been using a help file making tool to hold my notes - i thought i was being clever as it would enable me to make cool compiled help .chm versions of my notes.  however i overlooked the fact that such a feature is mostly useless for me.

i plan to use Clipboard Help+Spell to keep my notes when i finish the program :)

ps.
i like working at night.

we have some keynote (freeware) fans on this site, and i also like treepad.

rjbull:
Treepad and Keynote aren't the only free ones.  There's also (at least)

Action Outline Lite  http://www.greenparrots.com

TreeDBNotes Lite  http://www.softviewer.com/treedbnotes/

Treeline  http://www.bellz.org/treeline/index.html
(this one uses XML as its native file format)

My Life Organized (MLO)  www.mylifeorganized.net

I assume EssentialPIM has a hierarchical organizer too, but the free version doesn't have a file import function to ingest pre-existing text files, so I didn't look further.

plus a myriad of payware...

BTW, ShadowPlan, the Palm PIM, also uses XML, but its Windows version doesn't seem to be as good.

Renegade:
Just a question, but here goes...

Do you generally approach software vendors for licenses to do your reviews?

I never got an email or support ticket from you when you did archivers and I would have given you a license for your review. I know that a lot of other software vendors will give you licenses to do reviews with. e.g. If you did FTP clients, I'm guessing that Mark from Rhino Software would give you one for FTP Voyager, and I'd bet that Chris would give you one for ClipMate for a clipboard extender review, etc., etc., etc.

I know that if I were doing reviews, I wouldn't bother with a program if I had to work with a non-registered version - the program just wouldn't make it into the review unless it's pretty much an industry standard program. The only thing that they'll expect is that you don't distribute the license.

It would be very difficult or impossible to do a competent review of Web Log Analyzers without licenses. You'd have to have licenses to do it, especially for analyzers like ClickTracks. The demo is exactly that - a demo and isn't useful for a review of its functionality. Other programs are similar. Then again, there's the time it takes to do a review. If you need to go back and check something, it would be hard if the trial expired.

If you haven't already started asking for review licenses, you should consider it. Most software vendors will be more than willing to give them to you for free.

There are some that won't though. I really doubt that if you did a Sound Editor review that you'd get anything from Avid / DigiDesign for ProTools, and unlikely that you'd get an Access license from MS for a personal database review. However, it would still be worth asking. You might luck out and get someone that's in a good / generous mood.

When asking for a review license, it would also help to tell the software vendor which market segment you're writing the review for. e.g. For Sound Editors, there' no way that you'd ever get a ProTools, Sequoia, or Pyramix license, but you might get a Samplitude V8 master or an Adobe Audition license, and I wouldn't rule out a Sound Forge review license. There are a lot of other ones out there of course, and I'd bet that you'd get a Blaze Audio review license and a lot of others as well.

I know how the licensing works and I've even talked to some of the technology licensors like the guys at Dolby, and they're not opposed to software vendors giving out licenses for product for reviews. (FYI - Vendors have to pay royalites on a lot of things like Dolby Digital, MP3 encoders, etc.)   

It would also help if at the end of each review you posted something like, "Our thanks go out to Mike at SuperSoftware Co. for donating a review license for SuperSoftware HTML Editor." People like that kind of thing.

Anyways, just my 2 cents....

Cheers

mouser:
heheh - i love your avatar veign :)

so far we have not asked for any review licenses; there were only a handful of cases where the shareware versions were limited in functionality and where we did not already own a copy of the software.  our general approach has been to view such limitations in the shareware versions of programs (as opposed to the standard time limits) as a bad thing that deserved criticisim.

we did ask acdsee for a review copy of acdsee8 prior to our review, but they were too disorganized to provide one to use in time, and they didn't want us saying anything about it anyway, for reasons that might drive a competent pr person insane.

however, it seems likely that we are going to run into cases in the future where getting review copies that remove functionality limits would be essential to doing a certain review, and your advice is very welcome - now that we have some serious reviews under our belts i gather that such things may be easier to get (and easier to insist on if they want to be included in the review), and we do try to make sure we thank and acknowledge any such gifts from companies.

as i've remarked before, my impression is that you can really divide companies into 2 categories.

there are those that don't respond to emails in a timely fashion, if at all, don't care to talk about their software, don't care about our site or reviews really, aren't interested in discounts, donating copies, etc. and just have some flunkies handling customer service.

and then there are the companies which have real people you can interact with.  they care about their program, they want to make it better, they care about your opinion, the review, etc.  they are interested in our web site, they like to talk, they are amenable to offering discounts for our members or doing something in the way of working with our members, etc.

it's hard not to really want to support those in the second category, even when their program isn't (yet) as good as the best program from a company in the first category.

Renegade:
heheh - i love your avatar veign :)-mouser (September 17, 2005, 02:51 AM)
--- End quote ---

:) Thanks! Halloween is coming up soon, so I figured it would be appropriate :)

it's hard not to really want to support those in the second category, even when their program isn't (yet) as good as the best program from a company in the first category.
-mouser (September 17, 2005, 02:51 AM)
--- End quote ---

 :D LOL! I know what you mean. It's hard to like someone that won't talk to you and to not like someone who's nice.

I'm a member of the ASP, AISIP, and ESC, so if you want some help getting licenses from members of those software organizations, I can probably help talk to some of them. But honestly, I think most of them would give you a license anyways. Another thing though, before you actually email anyone, let me know and I can post in the private newsgroups which will make your job a lot easier.

Cheers,

Ryan

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page