Thanks for the comment about the pricing. It may not be obvious but more of our time is spent on OmniGrowl than any other application we develop. To get the tidy notifications it gives from so many sources, it requires constant updating and creative text formatting tricks, as well as keeping up with tech changes (for instance the radical change in MobileMe calendars). Honestly this should be a $25 application in terms of the time involved in development. Thank you for considering our perspective on this.

I honestly don't care how much time and effort it took to make OmniGrowl, or to keep it current, and supply and demand has never worked that way anyway. People only care about what a product is worth to them, and as I've said, this isn't worth much. Sorry, but that's the way the capitalist model has worked for at least 1200 years.

Let's not forget "profit motive" in a discussion of capitalism. Without incentive and the ability to stay in business, supply and demand mean little.

So, to bring this post back around to the application here, I happen to think $12 is a fine price, take it or leave it. A computer is only as good as its suitability to task and that, is almost fully dependent on software to make it perform useful functions. If you can afford a $1000 or more computer, of any make, you can afford some software to make it work, or do you buy a razor and then never any razor blades because they are too expensive? Sorry for the tirade here at the end, but come on...do you work for free, GeoProf?

It seems that people want to talk more about the definition of "Capitalism" than the actual program here. It's unfortunate that we have to slog through these irrelevant comments to find an actual reviews or a constructive critique.

Because of the honor-system approach to shareware we use, OmniGrowl will very occasionally display shareware reminders even for those who registered, but only once after major updates. If for some reason you see it any more often than once after a major update, please contact support by email as this should not happen. Let me take the opportunity to note that there have been more than 32,000 downloads of OmniGrowl on MacUpdate alone, while total payments for it over its history are unfortunately probably just a couple of hundred. That's sad. But we're committed to this honor-system policy.

For the record, although we did not agree with the sense of dire urgency of the tone of this person, we have taken to heart these concerns.

Although for many years WBC has sent out betas to groups of people who have reported problems with a particular version, without any complaint, from now on we won't do this without asking first.

Also, we were not at all "very offended" when this person "suggested" we "should use Bcc". She stated that she was "very surprised" and "upset". We simply tried to explain our view on the matter. She responded to her professed privacy concerns by sending out a blanket email to everyone on the original list, which we felt completely contradicted her position.

At any rate, we regret the whole incident.

I agree on the website comment, the MacUpdate page is far more informative than the developers own webpage for OmniGrowl.

Thanks for the comments. I'm aware the web site needs redesign but its never been a priority. I'd rather focus on making useful applications than web design, as it's just me out here. Still I'll take it under advisement!

I suppose it's one of those things where if you can't even find a full feature list on the apps own webpage, you start to wonder if the app itself might be unfinished. Also might make one wonder about support issues.

I've demoed OmniGrowl in the past and it's a very nice application. But had I stumbled across it outside of MacUpdate, I might not even have given it another look.

Something as simple as a changelog, a basic overview of features and at least a full list of the main features added in the newest version might be a bit more reassuring. A screen shot or two would also help.

Hope this doesn't come across as negative, it's purely constructive criticism. The app itself seems great, it's just the "packaging" that might turn some people off.

Just the reply from the developer bumps this up a notch in my book, sometimes I don't even get replies from (or get very delayed responses from) devs to which I've paid money for licenses and contacted for support.

You asked for it... you got it:

http://www.woodenbrain.com/

Total redesign! Enjoy, comment, post, etc. This is the first official public announcement.

WoodenBrain Developer: Some days ago I noticed your website changes, and I believe all your apps' pages here at MU have had their associated URLs updated to reflect the changes you've made.

Wow, now that's what I call taking suggestions to heart! The new website is light years beyond the previous one - great job!

great work! The new website is much, much better than the previous one. I like it. Thank you for you hearing to customers needs and wishes. :-)

Thanks for your encouragement (and prodding ;-) on this. Since I last posted the notice I've further improved the web site: the side bars now all have roll-over buttons and the web forum is complete. Now back to the thing that matters: product development!

Thanks to MacUpdate for so quickly updating the product links. How DO you guys keep "track" of all this? ;-)

it should not show any SMART notification if the disk is verified. there must be something unusual with your setup. Please email woodenbrain at kagi dot com and we'll look into it on Monday (leaving town for weekend). in meantime, go to Growl preference pane and configure OmniGrowl and disable the SMART notification.

Hi Scott. Unfortunately I wasn't able to fix this issue because I need more info if this persists. Do you have an English system? What is the actual message that comes up? If the SMART status has the word "Verified" in it no notification is supposed to appear. Please email woodenbrain at kagi dot com. Thanks.

You must go into the OmniGrowl preferences to set your last.fm user name. Do this by using the preferences script or by pressing cmd-, right when omnigrowl displays its welcome notification.