PHALERON  CAUTION!

This version requires a licence upgrade for pre-v3.5 licensees.

This is strange, given that we are not up to v4 yet. Be prepared to downgrade after trial period runs out.  
(Version 3.8)

PHALERON  Michael,

I sent you an email concerning the loss of data by clicking on your username and sending a message. I can't remember the exact procedure, but I was left with an impression that my message was sent. If you need my help, get in touch with me. I'll see what I can do.  
(Version 2.2)

PHALERON  You mean land mail? I went to your site but found no email link.  
(Version 2.1)

PHALERON  There are some serious issues with this version. All files were lost. I was able to recover part of my work by using TimeMachine but it seems the more recent work is gone.  
(Version 2.0)

PHALERON  Bookmarks are unpredictable. Problems include:

–Inability to click-select and highlight bookmarks (intermittent)

–Inability to change bookmark stacking order (intermittent)

–When bookmark stacking order is moved, the old position is retained resulting in 2 bookmarks.

Other issues: Side panel limited width adjustment  
(Version 2.0rc3-232)

PHALERON  Five more updates and we're into version 6. I would certainly like to see where DragThing goes from here.  
(Version 5.9.4)

PHALERON  Thanks for your help, without which I wouldn't know it was there. The last feature I mentioned is still missing (?). Say I created comments to various verses and want to review them but cannot remember the actual verses to which they belong. How do I access them (the comments) without first navigating to the verse?  
(Version 2.0rc2-228)

PHALERON  I like the direction MacSword is taking. However, I believe some improvements are greatly needed before it can become a useful tool, such as:

Better bookmark management by allowing nesting folders, or else, a provision for user-defined categories.

Direct access to commentaries from the verse (Biblical Texts) layout (i.e. when verses are colourised, showing the presence of commentary)

Ability to view "next" commentary without having to guess the verse under which it exists. If this exists already it isn't obvious.  
(Version 2.0rc2-228)

PHALERON  It seems Image Tricks Pro is out of development, without an update for the past couple of years (or 3?). I purchased the last version with high hopes to seeing more in terms of filters and UI controls, with much confidence in the BeLight name– a confidence now in question.  
(Version 2.4)

PHALERON  Two things I would like to see in DateLine are:

A pref setting to disable activating iCal or equivalent app.

The addition of Contactizer Pro as a default calender

I love the simplicity of this utility.  
(Version 0.63)

PHALERON  It does not seem to work on 10.4 any more.  
(Version 0.9)

PHALERON  Contactizer (which I have been using since its debut) could always be more, so I will not rate it from a wish-list perspective. At the time I wanted to get Daylite, which I could not afford. CP came at my budget's borderline and I bought it thinking I was getting second best.

Since then I have seen CP refine the interface and workflow and add features that could have well justified a version upgrade (or two). The app is extremely stable. I cannot remember it ever crashing on me, not even during a period of severe hard disk issues. It is the app that is always running in the background (though I recently discovered it does not need to), allowing me to stay on top of my business.

The interface is comprehensible and relatively easy with a good depth of features. The custom email templates are great. Associating one client to another is easy. Everything is so easily accessible, emails, URLs, work files, related contacts, related tasks, etc. There are some weak areas like the ability to form custom client checklists and ratings, gant charts, sending batches of more than 20 mails, yellow page support for all EU countries, but I anticipate the next version will not disappoint.  
(Version 3.7.2)

PHALERON  Looks like the price for this application is classified information.  
(Version 2.1)

PHALERON  Nice to see a browser that still fits on a floppy. Compared with Safari (66MB unzipped) it's amazing it can do as much.  
(Version 1.7.8)

PHALERON  I am not sure if this will be entered as a new comment, or under my previous one, as indented. In response to the developer: I would like to help any way I can by submitting the details you ask. Email me with details.  
(Version 1.2.3)

PHALERON  Getting error:

sh: line 1: xattr: command not found (127)  
(Version 1.2.3)

PHALERON  It does so little, but it does it so well.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PHALERON  This security update proved to be a complete disaster. Upon installation I was prompted to restart the computer. Waiting well over 20 minutes for the system to load, I decided to force-restart. The black screen then came on, prompting me to log on manually, which I did countless times but with no effect.

After more than half a day of trying several remedies and 3 separate calls to an Apple technician (who insisted the problem could be fixed by fixing the permissions from the install disk) the System could not be resurrected no matter what I tried. I had to install a new System and used the rest of the day updating from the original disk version.

Not a very good experience.  
(Version 2008-008)

PHALERON  At $1,800 per user this application could not possibly appeal to the freelancer - as good though it may be at doing what it does - but to the conglomerates out there, the Saatchis, the McCanns, the BBDOs.

The problem is that, number-wise, such heavyweights are a minority among the plethora of smaller companies that, in today's reality where both salaries and profits are but a fraction of what they used to be just a decade ago, cannot indulge in the philosophy of "money is no problem."

Bottom line: Expanding your software client-base mandates a sane licence fee.  
(Version 9.0.4)

PHALERON  BananAlbum seems like a nice flash implementation but the license applies to one website. According to the terms:

"A license will be tied to a particular website. Outside that domain an icon will be shown. You can publish albums under any subdomain or subfolder."

So, anyone who might have ideas of using it for client work should either abandon the idea or be willing to fork out $40 per site.  
(Version 6.0)

PHALERON  BLUESTAR I think you missed the point. Yes, it takes only a few seconds to launch Disk Tracker, but more often than not you don't launch it every time you slip a CD in the caddy. So, when you suddenly need to look up your database for that file, in that CD, which you have not yet inventoried, you need to first find all the uncatalogued CDs, import them into Disk Tracker, and then begin to look for that item.

This is why it is a very useful feature, and one that Disk Tracker had once decided to be important enough to design into the software.  
(Version 2.4b9)

PHALERON  Does anyone remember CyberDog in the early Mac OS 7 days? CyberDog was - in my opinion - the best browser ever conceived, and one never again attempted to this day. It had the ability to create and save a browser document with many pages, each of which could hold various-sized frames linked to predefined web-pages. If I remember correctly it had the ability to place custom text -- resembling a layout app in a sense. When the document was opened all the pages began to load at once.

Well, SplitBrowser is reminiscent of CyberDog. I Certainly like to see where the developer is headed with this.   
(Version 0.4.6)

PHALERON  Yes, I support the previous statement. Let's stop designing for the elite who own the latest and greatest. There's so much of that going on with Leopard.  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  I do like the simplicity of this application, though it may be a little too simple at this stage for my preferences. Also, it follows the current trend of being a little too cryptic in function. Though creating a new client was nearly straightforward, creating a job for that client was not at all obvious. The "Infos" button in the Clients frame opens a window to enter data. What does that data represent? Where is it used, and where does it show up? The same is true for the Numbers button. I have no clue as to what it does, what it means, or where it is used.

More comments:

1. While I appreciate that German numbers use the decimal comma in place of the period, this is unworkable for those who use a period.

2. Dates should permit both American and European date formats

3. The xml core is very welcome, but, I found no way to export the data.

I will be keeping an eye on this one. If the developer is diligent, Kunden can rise to the top of its class. Best wishes.  
(Version 1.3)

PHALERON  I would like to confirm that CanoScan Toolbox 5.0.12 does not recognise the plug-in (although version 4.1 does). Here is to a new low for Canon support software for the MacOSX platform.  
(Version 5.0.12)

PHALERON  This application has a long way to go before it is worth $50. Let's start with that "Multiple Choice" usually means a "multiple" choice selection, i.e. several boxes being checked simultaneously. Of course, the actual multiple choice feature is missing which is, really, the most basic of all question formats.

Moreover, how about clustering questions on one page (which, of course, requires the ability to create pages in the first place), and skip logic branching, etc.

It is a fair start, but far from being a real quiz tool at this time.  
(Version 2.1)

PHALERON  Has anyone tried running this successfully on an Intel Mac? I find it strange that no mention of Intel compatibility (or plans for it) is made anywhere on the developer's site.  
(Version 4.0.8)

PHALERON  Absolutely marvelous! Looking forward to giving it a second look.   
(Version 1.1.2)

PHALERON  Here is a problem that is occurring more and more:

Developers are creating software that are potentially very useful and dump them on the web without any instructions whatsoever. Clonetool Hatcher is a case in point. No instructions, no hover descriptions of buttons, not even a crystal ball. Where does one go after launching the application? Does the "Clone HD" pertain to the original system that should be cloned, or the clone produced from the original system?

I will refrain from rating this software because I suspect it works well, but, I hope to see a little more effort from the developer in making this product more useful to people like myself who are not so well-versed in geek lingo like Prebinding, Hatch, etc.  
(Version 1.1.1)

PHALERON  I gave this version a low rating for the simple reason that utilities (even free ones) should not be developed for the very latest OS at the expense of previous ones, even when updates are mandatory, for compatibility reasons.  
(Version 2.0)

PHALERON  I have the same problem as the previous user. Upon installation of Diogenes on a newly reformatted disk, any word search prompts me to find the tlg database. I assume this database must be located somewhere on my computer, for why else would an open-save dialogue box open as a prompt. But, information on where this database may exist cannot be found anywhere.

Questions:

Where is this database? (Is it on my computer or on the web?)

How do I connect to it?

PS: Diogenes was installed and worked (relatively well) on the same disk before it was reformatted (via clean install). I am not sure why it worked then and not now.  
(Version 3.1.6)

PHALERON  I think this is one of the all-time best icon sets ever crafted for the Mac  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  This should have been a great utility except for its refusal to save files that include non-Latin characters. So, if your folder happens to contain such characters you're out of luck. Looking forward to seeing this issue addressed. It's an otherwise excellent utility.  
(Version 4.0b3)

PHALERON  The Help for SpotInside is in Japanese (and has been for several versions now) so I cannot consult it for troubleshooting the following problem:

Textual searches work only for the main hard disc. Searches on peripheral discs bring up the volume directory (folders, etc), but not the files which subscribe to the textual query.

Is it something I am doing wrong, or have others experienced the same?  
(Version 0.7.7)

PHALERON  Is there anywhere one can find out what new Little Snitch 2 introduces over the previous version? I looked at the developer site but could not find any info.  
(Version 2.0b9)

PHALERON  This program (at least the demo version I tried) has some serious issues with reliability. I like the interface a lot, especially the payment feature and the file-based timer triggers, but I would not trust it with time-tracking.  
(Version 3.1.7)

PHALERON  The best thing about DiskTracker was the ability to automatically catalogue inserted volumes through the Finder, without the need for launching the app. Unfortunately, this OS9 feature was never replicated in the OSX version, and moreover, the utility became a true deadware. Even with a new version in the works (?), I would not trust a developer that remembers once every few years to develop this once-great and powerful app.

I am still looking for a utility that can archive volumes without it being launched. If anyone knows of one, let me know.  
(Version 2.4b4)

PHALERON  At first glance, Hourly has the look of a very mature interface, and employs a new approach to project management that is more reminiscent of Merlin, than iBiz and the rest of it's siblings.

I will be keeping a close eye on it, and hope that some key features will be worked into the design soon. Such would include: Payment records, holdings (for the Europeans), multiple currencies, invoice design, etc.

All the best to the developer.  
(Version 1.0b3)

PHALERON  The window shown on the screenshot does not open for me. No instructions found either. I assume all that will be in place by version 1.0, but for the time being, I could not test the product.   
(Version 0.42)

PHALERON  This is a very helpful tool.

I do wish it had a dragable file icon at the top of the window, much like Preview (and most other graphics programs). I often need to drag a file from the current window into a non-default app that is open in the dock, for further adjustments. ImageBrowser does not currently allow for this.  
(Version 0.94)

PHALERON  Does not seem to load properly on Intel  
(Version 2.5)

PHALERON  I stand corrected.

Upon further examining the interface. PixelStick does offer a way to constrain movement, albeit not via key combinations. Perhaps the current method is better; I am not sure at this point. But the feature exists. Thank you again for such a neat tool.  
(Version 1.1.1)

PHALERON  Excellent!

Incorporating the ability to constrain movements would make this a perfect graphics tool.  
(Version 1.1.1)

PHALERON  I avoid viewing flash pages on my mac, and have stopped designing sites that use flash. The few flash "tricks" customers want can be partially achieved with Ajax. The rest don't bother with. The headache is not worth it.  
(Version 9.0.47)

PHALERON  This is supposed to be a universal package, and yet it fails to install on an Intel mac. The same was true for their previous beta. The message I get is that my computer does not meet the requirements (!?).  
(Version 3.0.2b)

PHALERON  I have resisted rating this app until one feature was added, which I thought was essential: the showing of enclosed sub-projects in a folder.

Today, this feature has become a reality. I have been using iGTD for a little while and it is, in my opinion, the best in its category. Amazingly, it is also free. A big thanks to the developer.  
(Version 1.4.3)

PHALERON  One of those silent workhoses that make your work a little easier. Good stuff!  
(Version 100)

PHALERON  This is one fine browser! The only reason I use Safari more, is out of habit.  
(Version 2.0)

PHALERON  I believe Inbox had the chance of becoming the best GTD application on the Mac platform. But, development was buggy, slow, intermittent, and seemed more like hobby work than the full-fledged application it initially appeared to be. With the coming of iGTD, this chance is, unfortunately, about to be lost, because iGTD is already on many desktops, functioning, without time limits, and being continually developed, while hopes for seeing an impeccably-working Inbox is - at least for the moment - non-existent.

If the developer was smart, he would have offered the app for free till all the bugs were worked out and would have retained the large following that had till now been waiting with bated breath.  
(Version 1.1)

PHALERON  I think iGTD is shaping up quite, and the developer seems to be diligent and hard-working. I have had a couple of complains for a while but have waited, hoping to see them fixed in the interim. They are:

1. The application "calls home" upon startup without warning, or a preference setting to turn it off.

2. I have never been able to use the "link" field, whether to insert a URL, or a local file path. The field is just not clickable.  
(Version 1.3)

PHALERON  â€¢ I have recently purchased a licence for MathType 5.1 but I am very unhappy with it. Some of the problems I have been experiencing are:

• Causes InDesign to hang when long strings (15 characters plus) are placed.

• Does not retain CMYK settings, but reverts to RGB, turning my K100 black into a 4-colour black.

• The title field in the save dialogue occasionally lumps all characters in one space, making the saving process nearly impossible.

Wrote to vendor, but is completely unresponsive.  
(Version 5.1)

PHALERON  There are several free applications that can more or less achieve the same goal. Yep, SpotMeta, QuickSilver, VooDooPad, Journler, FolderGlance, or even the Finder, by using aliases within context-specific folders (something I already do). I am sure InfoValet has taken this idea a step further, but I cannot see me paying 50 bucks for it.  
(Version 1.0.4)

PHALERON  Application and plugin snapshots from non-Mac desktops are a sign either of snobbish disrespect or of not having been beta-tested on the Mac. I stay away in either case, no matter how attractive the features may seem.

Mr. developer, please get a mac if you're going to solicit the Mac community.  
(Version 3.0)

PHALERON  Many good, simple colour utilities have been written for the Mac, but this one is the one I most often use.  
(Version 1.2)

PHALERON  My sincere gratitude to the developer for making this useful, and very much appreciated tool free. I have a real problem with the older Adobe app palettes which seem to be smaller than norm, and which, on a res-ed up screen are impossible to see. I have been using the Assistive devices display command to magnify the numbers till now which is very, very time-consuming, but this should help immensely.

If it can be further modified and used out of the dock or the menubar it will be perfect.

Thank you.  
(Version 1.1)

PHALERON  This is not a fair evaluation with it being the first version, but here we go:

The voices are certainly better than Apple's, but the accent is often placed on the wrong syllable (although the word is spelled correctly) and sometimes it is mispronounced. For instance "spellchecking' is pronounced "spellkecking." Incidentally, I could not find spellchecking. Neither could I drag text selections around.

I also found it to be a problem that when text is read on another application (e.g. Safari) and a text box opens with the selected text that is read-out, the user cannot then go to another window, or else the box closes and the reading stops. As a result one has to refrain from all work while the text is being read.

On the positive side, I really like the voices. The places where TextParrot runs smooth, it is a joy to listen. Playing the fast-forward is surprisingly comprehensible (maybe even preferable). Much, much work has to be done to get this program to be smooth, but in my opinion they are already ahead of the competition. Good luck!  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  This is a great idea, but in my opinion, it has two flaws:

1) I get a gap during playback, every time the widget searches for the lyrics online.

2) The text can be neither selected, nor pasted into the iTunes song prefs

Fix these two items and I will quite likely keep it running regularly in the background.   
(Version 1.7.1)

PHALERON  Looks very, very promising, provided it's priced for small, do-it-yourself proprietorships that are just starting up.  
(Version 0.8.7)

PHALERON  I am not very happy with Stuffit. They used to have a great product once.  
(Version 11.0.1)

PHALERON  I have had a problem with DragNDrop for several versions, in that it would get confused and send my target window backwards (when multiple windows overlapped), making screenshots of intended windows impossible. This version seems to have fixed this problem. Thank you.

A second issue I have is that DragNDrop cannot take snapshots of dialogue windows. A dialogue window dims when out of focus. When I click the "selection" or "window" button on SnapNDrag the dialogue box dims and the snapshot captures a dimmed window. In contrast, Command-Shift-4 permits screen capture with windows in focus.

Aside the above issues, I like DragNDrop a lot.  
(Version 2.1)

PHALERON  I am certainly a Bryce fan, but does one rush out to buy a new version simply because there is one out? No demo, no interface screenshots or detailed specs -- just BUY it?

Come on DAZ! Get something out there for us to look at, and maybe we'll place an order.  
(Version 6.0)

PHALERON  Super!  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  The concept behind Daylite is quite remarkable. I have nothing but praise for the interface and business sense that has gone into it. All the info is right there in front of you in one click.

But the performance rules this application out for me. First of all it is slow, and doesn't play well (or not at all) with existing Apple core 10.4.7 technology like Mail and iCal, but requires these databases to be imported externally, or use additional pluggins (at your cost) to link up to your mail. It is interesting to see that in comparison OD4Contact info collection and presentation (out of nearly 500 contacts, and over 2000 emails) is instantaneous, whereas Daylite churns away at every turn.

Moreover, we are at version 3 and the handling of UTF8 fonts has actually got worse than in ver 1 (I reported this during my ver 1 tryout also). While an initial run of a client-list db with non-Latin characters went on without issues, upon relaunch all UTF8 characters turned up as questionmarks, making the db unusable.

There was also a conflict with the DMI pluggin which caused Mail to hang.

I want to encourage Marketcircle to develop this application further, and make it a truly Mac app. Drop the DMI as an extra. Connect directly to Mail and iCal using the existing databases. If need be, drop Openbase. There is just so much potential in this app which is going unrealised.  
(Version 3.1.2)

PHALERON  $319.00! This has to be a joke, right?  
(Version 1.51)

PHALERON  First of all, Thanks for remembering that there are people out there still using 10.3.  
(Version 3.0)

PHALERON  It is quite interesting that my basic calculator (came with my Mac) disagrees with the image shown here:

784.33

*15%

= 117.65, not 117.67

which makes:

784.33

-15%

=666.68, not 666.66

of course I don't have the time to find out which program is right.  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  I think I'll wait for the next update, in 2018  
(Version 4.7.3)

PHALERON  That is the first thing that went through my mind, though I am sure the developer has good moral values, and probably a very nice program. But, better safe than sorry.  
(Version 1.0b1)

PHALERON  Let me first say this program has an interface to fall in love with; simple, uncrowded and instantly comprehensible. However, it will not burn data on CD. I tried to burn a working folder to a new Imation disk using my internal drive, and was alerted it could not write the disk. I then tried it on an external CD-writer, and got the same alert. After that I used Toast to write the same folder on the same CD without a problem.

MacOSX (10.3.9)  
(Version 2.2)

PHALERON  I am still on 10.3.9, so this may or may not be true. For those interested in saving $15, download Spark, a fantastic little utility (in my opinion) for configuring hot keys, etc. I am so used to it, I forget it's there.  
(Version 1.9.2u)

PHALERON  Version 2.5 will not start on 10.3.9. Interface needs a major rethink, in my opinion. I have stopped using it as of a few months ago and have gone to a Filemaker solution, built from scratch. I have also been looking into iRatchet, which I think has great potential and the developer is really great.   
(Version 2.5)

PHALERON  This is the first version that does not work for me. Specifically, the start-up light indicator shows red for Apache, and green for MySQL. I reverted back to the earlier version which works great.

Regardless of this issue, MAMP is the most treasured web tool in my Mac arsenal.  
(Version 1.1)

PHALERON  Although I had no qualms installing Photofont, after being prompted to read the entire agreement - something I hardly ever do - I discovered I was giving Fontlab permission to conduct an audit to verify compliance. I take this to mean a computer may be inspected "at any time," if the developer so decides; something I think users should be aware of before hitting the "agree" button.  
(Version 1.0)

PHALERON  Why the satanic symbol for an app this useful?  
(Version 2.00)