Author Topic: compared with Check and Get (Read 129,276 times)

JeffK · « **on:** April 02, 2005, 09:18 PM »

I use Check and Get, which I have found to be very good. Check and Get has a flashier interface than Website Washer but I would have to say C&G is more cluttered.

Jeff

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** April 02, 2005, 11:27 PM »

great to thave some discussion here about the alternatives!

i'm afraid people will get the impression when reading the reviews that i'm doing an advert for a particular program. it's true that in the reviews i'm doing now i'm picking programs i really feel strongly about, which accounts for some of the hyberbole, but i really do want people to know about the alternatives and go check them out and see for themselves what they like best.

Check&Get def. seems like the closest competitor to WSW (http://activeurls.com/en/)
I also found the UI a bit cluttered and distracting. you can see some of the guidelines that i look for when considering user interfaces: http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/uithoughts.html.

as ric was pointing out before, it would be useful for people if we would discuss (before the award when possible) specific features that are important and how the dif. programs stack up.

one thing that c&g seems to have that WSW doesn't is the ability to store some extra snapshots of past states of the webpage, for comparison later; could be useful in some special cases.

i don't think c&g can compare to wsw in terms of being able to specify match&ignore patterns which is critical to making such a tool work..

btw,
if/when we have a situation where a considerable # of people disagree with a review and like another program better, i would be willing to approach the author of the other program and convey this and ask them if they want to provide a discount to members, as a kind of counter-offer to you guys.

or actually, anyone who reads these forums is very welcome to contact other authors of competing products and tell them that they are very welcome to come here and post about their program and why they think we might have underestimated it's value, and tell them that they are very welcome to offer a discount to our members. might be a really fun idea to have the competitor programs post in here - the more variety of opinions the better here in the forums. maybe i will formulate an official email to send to companies of programs i've evaluated for a review expressing this.

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** April 03, 2005, 12:11 AM »

i updated the section of the review on alternatives to more prominently mention check&get.

JeffK · « **Reply #3 on:** April 03, 2005, 02:11 AM »

Quote from: JeffK on April 02, 2005, 09:18 PM

I use Check and Get, which I have found to be very good. Check and Get has a flashier interface than Website Washer but I would have to say C&G is more cluttered.

Jeff

C&G tends to have too many lines and colours in each of its GUI compared with WW which has nice clean lines and open spacious look. As mouser points out that "match and ignore patterns" enables the user to identify only the significant website changes they are interested in.

Jeff

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** April 04, 2005, 09:42 AM »

btw i asked Martin if he would mind extending the discount to his Local Website Archive program (http://www.aignes.com/wsarc/index.htm), which is the program that can keep multiple snapshots of web pages and can be used with WSW, and he extended the discount to this product as well; use the same code.

dis · « **Reply #5 on:** April 06, 2005, 11:45 AM »

Quote from: JeffK on April 03, 2005, 02:11 AM

C&G tends to have too many lines and colours in each of its GUI compared with WW which has nice clean lines and open spacious look. As mouser points out that "match and ignore patterns" enables the user to identify only the significant website changes they are interested in.

Hi there!

The new version of Check&Get (v3) will be released soon. The new version will be able to define the custom web-filters to ignore/monitor partial content of web-pages. Also, it will have the "Keyword Monitoring" feature. And more other improvements.

Any suggestion of user interface improvements are welcome! I am contantly working on improving the user interface and appreciate any help and suggestions.

Sincerely yours,
Dmitry Skorniakov,
http://ActiveURLs.com

JeffK · « **Reply #6 on:** April 06, 2005, 11:59 AM »

I love your C&G program, Dmitry. For my needs the "ignore if only x text boxes/images/links change" functionality works fine. I don't dislike the interface. I think the program is as good as WW but it looks like it's no longer a secret how good it is.

Jeff

dis · « **Reply #7 on:** April 06, 2005, 02:17 PM »

Quote from: JeffK on April 06, 2005, 11:59 AM

I love your C&G program, Dmitry. For my needs the "ignore if only x text boxes/images/links change" functionality works fine. I don't dislike the interface.

Jeff, thanks for the support. Check&Get is evaluating, so you will see the new features there anyway. But, nobody force you to use them. The improved version of "ignore XX changes" will still be there.

Quote from: JeffK on April 06, 2005, 11:59 AM

I think the program is as good as WW but it looks like it's no longer a secret how good it is.

Without any doubt WW worth the good review. But (on my opinion), this article is very looks like to advertisement. Anyway, thanks to the author of the article that he mentioned about my software in it.

Sincerely yours,
Dmitry Skorniakov,
http://ActiveURLs.com

Jibz · « **Reply #8 on:** April 06, 2005, 03:29 PM »

Quote from: dis

Without any doubt WW worth the good review. But (on my opinion), this article is very looks like to advertisement.

It's a very nice tool, and so is yours. But (in my opinion), that reply sounds a little like sour grapes

.

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** April 06, 2005, 07:08 PM »

everyone take a deep breath.

i'm really glad that dmitry came to the forum and made a post. i want authors of programs mentioned to be welcome here.

as the WSW review states, C&G is probably the closes competitor to WSW in terms of features and functionality, and as the review says "you should try Check&Get for yourself and see what suits you best."

dmitry, please read around the forum and the site, and you will learn more about the philosophy of this site, and why we might take offense to you suggesting that our review is an advert. the whole point of the review section is to indentify the best program in a class (in our opinion) and explain why. all of the awards so far have been programs that i personally love, that's why they were chosen. so if they sound lauditory, it's because that's how i personally feel about them; i've been a registered daily user of WSW for many years now and so my love for WSW obviously shows through.

i welcome you to post about C&G here and describe features you think people might want to pay special attention to; if you want to offer our members a discount to compete with WSW that would be welcome to; I do stand by my conclusions about C&G and WSW but I appreciate that different people have different needs, which is why I suggested people evaluate both. If you look at the features we liked so much in WSW you might find some positive suggestions for C&G.

C&G is an excellent program and definitely worth people trying before they make a final decision about which program to buy.

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** April 06, 2005, 07:17 PM »

one more thing to add: this site is all about software fanatics, and i'm sure you'd find many people here, including myself who would be happy to try new versions of C&G and offer feedback and constructive suggestions. of course the suggestions might be useless but on the other hand if you think it would be helpful to hear what a hardcore WSW thinks about a given feature or a given proposed idea, or some user interface decision, please feel free to ask and I'd be happy to take some time to try to offer a constructive opinion.

dis · « **Reply #11 on:** April 06, 2005, 08:11 PM »

Dear Mouser,

If I occasionally offense you – please, take my apologizes for it.

I see that you use this software for many years, used to its interface, know its tricks and at least you just love this software. I see that you tell what you think and I can only congratulate Martin Aignesberger with such enthusiastic and devoted customer.

You know, Check&Get was growing mainly as bookmark management and organizing software (with web-site monitoring features), so I have not seen any competition between C&G and WSW in the past. But it seems these products become closer to each other by functionality, so more and more articles begin to compare them.

I will investigate your website more closely and I am ready to discuss the discounts for your members with you.

With the best regards,
Dmitry Skorniakov,
http://ActiveURLs.com

P.S. The beta-testers wanted to test the new version of software. If somebody would like to participate in beta-testing, please go here:
http://activeurls.com/en/beta.htm

dis · « **Reply #12 on:** April 06, 2005, 08:26 PM »

Quote from: mouser on April 06, 2005, 07:17 PM

if you think it would be helpful to hear what a hardcore WSW thinks about a given feature or a given proposed idea, or some user interface decision, please feel free to ask and I'd be happy to take some time to try to offer a constructive opinion.

Thanks for your offer!

I think it's no sense to test the current version now due the significant changes in interface will come in v3. If you subscribe as beta-tester I will inform you by e-mail when the beta version be finally ready...

Dmitry.

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** April 06, 2005, 09:09 PM »

thanks dmitry

and please do keep us updated on the progress of v3..
feel free to post here when its available for beta testing.

-mouser

jpfx · « **Reply #14 on:** June 21, 2005, 12:39 AM »

I've been trying wsw, c&g and copernic tracker.
copernic was too limited for me and didn't last very long on the pc. wsw is lean and mean but overpriced (especially as I missed the discount). I didn't like the idea of paying extra for site archiving either.
I've saved the best 'til last, c&g v.3 beta most suits my needs. Seems to be quite fast too. v3b allows you to use regex for filtering changes which can't be bad. Also you can get the pro version for 39.95 http://secure.emetrix.com/order/product.asp?PID=3765587&DC=beta50 which was icing on the cake for me.
As far as I know this is the first beta but it's running really well.

mouser · « **Reply #15 on:** June 21, 2005, 01:24 AM »

the new version 3 beta does sound like they are adding some key features they have been missing:
http://activeurls.com/en/beta.htm

hwtan · « **Reply #16 on:** January 24, 2006, 01:23 PM »

Quote from: dis on April 06, 2005, 11:45 AM

Hi there!

The new version of Check&Get (v3) will be released soon. The new version will be able to define the custom web-filters to ignore/monitor partial content of web-pages. Also, it will have the "Keyword Monitoring" feature. And more other improvements.

Any suggestion of user interface improvements are welcome! I am contantly working on improving the user interface and appreciate any help and suggestions.

Sincerely yours,
Dmitry Skorniakov,
http://ActiveURLs.com

I was interested to see if Check & Get would fit my needs, especially since I missed the discount. However, judging from the date of the post, it does seem that v3 is taking a very long time.

Any chance of a rerun of Website Watcher discount?

mouser · « **Reply #17 on:** January 24, 2006, 01:28 PM »

we had a 2nd discount period of website watcher that ended in december.. if martin is feeling in a good mood he might do another sometime in the future, but probably won't be for a while.

if it's any help, although wsw is not cheap, it's an incredibly active project, he's always improving it.. as you can tell from my review it's one of my favorite programs.

aignes · « **Reply #18 on:** January 25, 2006, 08:10 AM »

Quote

I was interested to see if Check & Get would fit my needs, especially since I missed the discount. However, judging from the date of the post, it does seem that v3 is taking a very long time.

Any chance of a rerun of Website Watcher discount?

ethan, as you have missed the discount, you can contact me directly by email to get one afterwards if you are interested in WebSite-Watcher. You can find our email on our website...

hwtan · « **Reply #19 on:** January 26, 2006, 12:42 PM »

Thanks to Martin for the very generous offer.

f0dder · « **Reply #20 on:** January 28, 2006, 03:07 PM »

Martin rocks!

rudra · « **Reply #21 on:** May 11, 2006, 05:34 AM »

Dmitry ,

"..The new version of Check&Get (v3) will be released soon......."

It has now been over 1 year ago. Is v.3 comming out soon ??

I am allready an owner of Check&Get ,but I miss some functions that seem to come
in v.3. After 1 year one would think that it is now time for an update.

Still waiting.

rudra · « **Reply #22 on:** May 15, 2006, 11:10 AM »

A new beta of "Check&Get 3" has just been relised.

Finaly ! ,

but still beta.

any comments ? ( on the new functions ? )

dis · « **Reply #23 on:** May 15, 2006, 01:31 PM »

Hi,

Thanks for the interested in my software. Sorry for the delay with new version.

It's a beta just because I need to prepare some documentation and update the website.

In addition, it should be localized to the other languages.

Currently it supports English and Russian. I think next week it will support German, Dutch, Indonesian and some other languages.

You can use beta-version - it seems to be quite stable.

In addition, I am offering the 50% discount for Professional version of Check&Get till the release of 'final' version 3.

Here is the link:
http://secure.emetrix.com/order/product.asp?PID=3765587&DID=37653640&ID=&Q=1&DC=beta50&CUR=

Thanks again for your interest!

Sincerely yours,
Dmitry Skorniakov,
http://ActiveURLs.com

rudra · « **Reply #24 on:** May 15, 2006, 04:24 PM »

Hi Dmitry ,

Thanks for coming forward with more info.

The new beta does "feel" stable ,more "clear" and faster also.

It was a good ide to remove the fancy look ,that is realy not so important if
it also makes the software slower.

But there still seems to be some room for small improvements at the top (topbar) ,to give one
a larger view or space (if possible).But this may maybe require a deper change of the script.

But your work goes in the right direction.

Thanks for the 50% discount for Pro. But can you offer some discount for an Upgrade to Professional License ?
,since I allready have the newest Personal version.