FRANK REIFF  There pretty much is.. I floated the idea with my alpha tester group and well.. it didn't fly.

What's more there's of course the links to the decade of web page links, google ranking, reviews, name recognition, etc to take into account.. besides to my great surprise the majority of the people I asked actually liked the current name :-)  
(Version 8.28)

FRANK REIFF  The long name is a left over from its early days in 1994.. but has stuck.

Services and contextual menu items are mandated to be explicit and unique by the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and it's usually a good idea to follow those to preserve that "Mac feel".. so it needs to be at least "A Better Finder Rename".

The ellipsis is indicated when the selection does not result in immediate action but brings up a further dialog, so we get to "A Better Finder Rename ...".

Leaving the version number out isn't a good idea because you can have (and many people do have) both version 7 and version 8 installed at the same time..

It would have been better to call the product "Renamer" or something shorter when it came out :-)  
(Version 8.27)

FRANK REIFF  Yes, the system service is available in the context menu as soon as you activate it.

The new version 8.28 has detailed instructions which are also available on my blog:

http://www.publicspace.net/blog/macbreakz/2009/08/28/snow-leopard-update/

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Frank  
(Version 8.27)

FRANK REIFF  Good tool, but unfortunately let down by restrictive one-machine-at-a-time-only licensing.

In other words, if you have a laptop and a desktop machine on the same network, you need to quit Typinator on one machine to get it to work on the other. Or you can pay full price for each machine.

It's a crying shame that a good product like this is let down by such a poor licensing policy.

I've paid for it once, but I'm not going to buy 5 more licenses just for the privilege of actually being able to use it wherever I happen to be. I'd hope they'd see reason and remove this stupid limitation, but this has been posted a couple of times already by other people.. to no avail.

I didn't even get a reply to my email enquiry about this.

I've switched to TextExpander which works just fine, isn't burdened by a restrictive license and is SYNCHED via MobileMe.

If you only have a single machine, this isn't a bad option, but if you have multiple machines (and who hasn't these days?) it's a definite no-go.  
(Version 3.4.1)

FRANK REIFF  The trouble is the Sparkle auto-update framework crashes in 64-bit mode on the PowerPC G5..

If you've got a moment, get in touch with me at reiff@publicspace.net; I don't have a G5 testing machine at the moment (both PowerMacs blew their cpus), but there's a new version of Sparkle so it's possible they've fixed the bug..  
(Version 8.18)

FRANK REIFF  Ok, then as a new year gift, I've dropped the price by 5 $/EUR.  
(Version 8.0.7)

FRANK REIFF  A name is a funny thing. I've had a lot of criticism for choosing the name "A Better Finder Rename" over the years.. so I floated the idea of changing the name with my alpha testers for version 8 with the result that roughly 50% were horrified (it's a great name! it does just what it says on the box! Thanks for staying away from those stupid names that people give their programs these days, etc.), 25% found that it was long overdue (but vehemently disagreed on what a more suitable name might look like) and 25% said they didn't really care.

Funnily enough, my most recent app "The Big Mean Folder Machine" certainly strays away from the A Better Finder Something mold and I got lots and lots of unprompted comments about how cool that name is. Then when I started actively asking people about what they thought of the name, it turned out that a lot of people hate it.. they just don't write about it.

All this just goes to show that you can't find a name (or for that matter an icon, but that's another story) that pleases everyone; or even nearly everyone.

I personally like "The Big Mean Folder Machine" much better "A Better Finder Rename" and would have been happy with "The Big Mean Renaming Machine", but it takes all sorts ;-)

It's a big deal changing the name of an existing product, but I was prepared to do it in order to get a really great name that would be more universally loved.. but such a name does not seem to exist, so it's not worth the pain if there's no gain..  
(Version 8.0.6)

FRANK REIFF  Hi,

The issue with 1.1 on Leopard has been resolved in 1.2.

If you experience any problems with any of my software titles, please email me directly so that I can help you.

Best regards,

Frank  
(Version 1.2)

FRANK REIFF  Hi,

Please contact me directly so that we can sort out this problem together.

It sounds like you might have several versions of the program spread through your hard disk and that you are not using the "default" Applications location for the program.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Frank  
(Version 7.7)

FRANK REIFF  Ok, it's scheduled for 7.1.5.. :-)  
(Version 7.0)

FRANK REIFF  Hi,

Let me explain why it takes so long for the product to 'edge' toward version 7. It's because I don't want to make you pay for an upgrade every few weeks..

My policy is to make really major changes (such as the complete rewrite that I am currently busy with for version 7) for whole version numbers only. That's where you would have to pay for an upgrade, unless of course you own a forever upgrade.

New features (some small, some large) are added with each point release, often as a reaction to user feedback, suggestions, etc. It would be a shame (I think) to keep all these changes back for a year or more, just so that I can then claim to have made all these super improvements over night..

Minor improvements and bug fixes simply get a x.x.x version number; nothing to get too excited about, but definitely worth fixing immediately.

I think that this way you get 10 free semi-major updates per version, immediate bug fixes and something really major every 1 to 2 years.  
(Version 6.9.5)

FRANK REIFF  Two corrections:

1) the tool on its own costs 19.95 not 39.95

2) if you buy now (in fact if you have bought sometime in 2005) you will get a FREE upgrade to version 7

I wouldn't dream of making people pay an upgrade just after they bought the tool and never have done so in the past. People who don't want to pay for upgrades can purchase a forever upgrade together with the initial purchase for 34.95 or indeed purchase one later.

The first public beta of version 7 will be out (if the Gods are willing of course) in the middle of September.

If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to contact me directly via email.  
(Version 6.9.5)

FRANK REIFF  If you prefer "Command-Space", you can change the hot key combination in the "System Preferences..." pane. Version 1.0b6 only takes a few seconds for indexing. I very much appreciate feedback so please feel free to contact me with suggestions at reiff@publicspace.net.  
(Version 1.0b6)