BLLOYD  DFS support? Ability to enforce policies without extending Active Directory Schema? Integration of Kerberos and Smart Cards?

Those are 3 small features.  
(Version 5.0)

BLLOYD  As we're being snarky, perhaps we could read the "requirements" section on THIS VERY PAGE. It states:

REQUIREMENTS

Version 5.5.0: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

Version 5.1.5: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Now if you can't grok the requirements there, perhaps at least it inspires enough curiosity for you to go visit the site (where it says MORE INFORMATION) and do a little research :-P  
(Version 5.5.2)

BLLOYD  Yojimbo is not the "swiss army knife" of information organizers. Its forte is text. So no video, no audio, no Pages/Keynote/Excel files.

There are other apps that do that -- Together, DEVONthink, EagleFiler, etc.

What Yojimbo excels at is text. And it EXCELS. It is fast -- LIGHTNING fast. Search is great, tagging is great, and it is outstanding for RTF, plain text, PDFs, Web Archives, bookmarks, serial numbers, and tags. I used DEVONthink for 6 years prior to switching to Yojimbo a month ago. And since I moved all my non-text documents to the Finder and tagged them, I can find them and sort/use them more easily (DEVONthink will export stuff to the Finder but it is impossible to figure out the results without opening them in DEVONthink as it changes their icons in summary).

I moved all my RTF documents to Yojimbo, and tagged them. Now browsing and searching are VERY fast, and I get one feature DEVONthink never had -- sync of notes across machines, automatically, via MobileMe. YAY! This is more useful to me than almost anything; given the convoluted workflow that involved DropBox I had before.

So, in summary, if you want a kitchen sink, this isn't the app for you. If you want a text-based information scalpel, that's Yojimbo. And after a month, I am happy to open and use it every day. DEVONthink, while powerful, was for the most part drudgery. I still use it when I want to OCR some documents, and that's about it. I don't miss it.  
(Version 2.0)

BLLOYD  So I wonder.

If the "upgrade" price for those who purchased previous was $10 but the "new purchase" for people who didn't have a previous purchase, would you then be happy?  
(Version 3.2)

BLLOYD  A surprisingly good summary :-)

I've spent much time, as I suspect you have, evaluating the options and have largely come to the same conclusions. I was using DEVONthink for years and it truly is a "kitchen sink" with great search, but it's seriously ugly like the byproduct of two siblings who married in Kansas.

In the end, I moved my PDFs, Keynotes, and other associated documents to Finder folders. And I now store bookmarks and RTFs in Yojimbo 2.0, which is absolutely BLAZING fast compared to DEVONthink. And it's been a happy mix for the last while. I do like having most of the stuff in the Finder, and I use Leap to organize and tag them; it looks quite nice and can provide assistance in tagging that DEVONthink may have in, say, 2.0 pb 27 :-(  
(Version 8.01)

BLLOYD  The anger over this becoming "adware" are ridiculous.

Yes, there are ads. Or, you have the option of paying to remove them.

That price? $10.

Yes, some people paid in the past. I, personally, paid for NNW Premium in the past. That was like 4 YEARS ago. Then it became free, and now I have to pay again to remove the ads (which are VERY small). So I did. Do I feel chaffed that I had to pay again? Not really, frankly, because it is 10 DOLLARS. For something that's been around and is the best on the market, I don't think 10 DOLLARS every 4 years is outrageous. It works very well, and I seriously use NNW at least an hour a day to get good summaries of the news.

There is, frankly, nothing that's close to NNW from a feature/quality standpoint. Vienna, NewsFire, all of 'em aren't in the same league. You can cut off your nose to spit your face, but NNW is a good app.

I'll also note that I have been using 3.2 since the first betas came out. I haven't had a crash in at least 6 weeks, and it is running 14 hours a day, every day.  
(Version 3.2)

BLLOYD  So they owe you free updates in perpetuity?

I really don't understand this rationale. If you use Acorn on a daily basis, and paid like $3 as part of the bundle, then a $20 upgrade isn't outrageous 6 months later. You're effectively paying $23 for the "latest and greatest" version of a $50 app.

Unless you think you are the person who should have last word on how frequent the updates are. I mean, c'mon, just beause you bought the Mac Heist bundle doesn't mean the developer owes you anything, least among them free upgrades 6 months later.  
(Version 2.0.2)

BLLOYD  ZX, just because NNW uses a lot of RAM doesn't mean it would benefit from going 64 bit.

If it were using more than 4 GB of REAL RAM, yes. But while it's a "hog," it's generally using ~150 MB of RAM for me. And much of this is thanks to Webkit (Safari is typically my #1 "hog" application, and it has been fairly frequently optimized for leaks).

I can see actually on 10.6 that NNW hasn't leaked much (2336 bytes is _nothing_):

Ocho:~ blloyd$ leaks NetNewsWire

Process 15553: 426436 nodes malloced for 73250 KB

Process 15553: 67 leaks for 2336 total leaked bytes.

So anyway, I don't know that NNW would benefit from going to 64 bit. That said, I'll bet Brent goes 64 bit with NNW 4.0, whever that shows up. He's blogged about it a few times.  
(Version 3.2b25)

BLLOYD  SOHO Organizer and Things are quite separate as far as applications go. What's with the silly comparisons?  
(Version 1.2.3)

BLLOYD  Such an awesome tool. A _real_ plug-in (i.e. not an InputManager or SIMBL "hack") so it's completely compatible with Safari. Blocks all Flash, and you have the option to enable on a one-off basis or for specific sites.

No more "surprises" on web sites, and it saves a lot of CPU when you go to sites that are Flash ad heavy. On portables, this will also save you some battery life, and probably save your privates a bit as well if you use the machine in your lap.  
(Version 1.5fc2)

BLLOYD  A request for a 64 bit version is a little ridiculous. There's no advantage for an RSS reader. At least, I'd hope it doesn't need that much RAM to function!  
(Version 3.2b24)

BLLOYD  Not that I've seen.  
(Version 3.2b19)

BLLOYD  Sure, you paid for NNW 4 or 5 years ago. Prior to the acquisition by NewsGator. Whether that should make the upgrade to the "no ads" version cheaper than those that have never paid, I can't say. I'm sure it was long ago.

The fact that the former version (3.1.7) was totally free, and synched with NewsGator, for free, with no ads, seemed odd to me. I mean, what was the business strategy? I think the ads are an acceptable evil for now, and I'll see what the upgrade options are to paid once it's available (4.0?).

Given the NewsGator and MobileMe synching is going away as of the end of August, staying with the older version is an option... if you don't want to sync.  
(Version 3.2b6)

BLLOYD  iStat Pro really is great. A beautiful, functional, low-impact "dashboard" of what's going on on your Mac.

I've used iStat Pro on and off for years; I was using iStat Menus because it was easier but right now it's incompatible with 10.6 (they know about this and will be addressing it), so I'm back to iStat Pro which is really a very nice dashboard widget.  
(Version 4.9)

BLLOYD  It is not calling home. The calls are on the local network, to ensure if you paid for one version, you're using one copy on the network at a time.

If you are not connected to the network, it runs just fine.  
(Version 3.0v355)

BLLOYD  The price looks like $50 to me?  
(Version 2.3.3)

BLLOYD  Lotus Notes does NOT do everything this application does.

Daylite is more in the same league.

Full-fledged CRM applications are typically fairly expensive. Elements SBM is quite a bit cheaper than SalesForce.com, which is fairly equivalent (but with more maturity and more functionality than this app). This is a nice looking, well functioned CRM app that is a hosted service. Its closest competitors are SalesForce.com and SugarCRM. Daylite has you host the database itself.

For a sales organization these prices are not really out of line. It's not consumer pricing, and confusing it as so misses the model. Of course, the people who crab to high heaven about the $50/year pricing on Daylite's iPhone connector also miss the mark with how cheap it is, all things considered.   
(Version 1.1)

BLLOYD  It's not like Tiger is getting any _newer_  
(Version 1.3.4)

BLLOYD  This is like the dumbest product name ever. For decades, Majordomo has been the name of mailing list software.  
(Version 1.0)

BLLOYD  This darned thing... I just got through spending about an hour inputting salary, dividends, interest, withholdings, etc.

It says "I'm going to check for errors now... should I update first?" so I say OK.

Well, it UPDATES all right, but it DOES NOT ASK ME TO SAVE! ARGH! I guess I'm used to auto-saving of data, but FOOSH, it did NOT save, it just updated itself, quit and restarted, and LOST ALL THE DATA I just entered.

I can enter the stuff again, but COME ON, GUYS, A WARNING AT LEAST?!?!  
(Version 2008)

BLLOYD  The FILING is free, it's not that the PRODUCT is free.

Duh.  
(Version 2008)

BLLOYD  Preferences->Shorcuts. Change "Search in LaunchBar" from command-space to something else.  
(Version 5.0b4)

BLLOYD  Wow. Startup takes a few seconds for me... not sure it's any slower at all than 3.3 was.  
(Version 4.0.1)

BLLOYD  This is a great application for mapping/tracking GPS data and workouts. It looks fantastic, and has a very responsive developer. Comparing workouts and tracks is easy, and after using it for a few weeks I'm happy I've moved to it from Ascent (which is a great product as well, but it's not as pretty as this one).  
(Version 1.3)

BLLOYD  Of course, right now the app is $40 and not $50 (taxes excluded). Why grouse about the full price when there's a 20% discount for early adopters?  
(Version 1.0rc3)

BLLOYD  Clancey, just change Spotlight's shortcut to something else (I use option-space) in the Spotlight system preference and the default LaunchBar settings will work fine.  
(Version 5.0b3)

BLLOYD  You could have a look at rubiTrack as well. Wow.  
(Version 1.9.10)

BLLOYD  I have been a long time user of DEVONthink, and a long time "tinkerer" with all sorts of applications in this area, including Yojimbo, Together, EagleFiler, and others. I had kept coming back to DEVONthink because it was flat-out superior in search, stability, and speed. But it really bugged me that it was ugly, couldn't be customized as I wanted, and lacked a number of "modern" features like tagging and smart folders.

DEVONthink Pro is immensely powerful and customizable, but the implementation (custom applescripts) left a lot to be desired. Plus, it is unable to view unsupported file types (Pages, Keynote, Excel, etc.) and it permanently munges Word files to RTFs on import. Not great, but I tolerated it.

So I had kept looking at alternatives, including EagleFiler, but EagleFiler also was on the ugly side (IMO) and lacked customizable smart folders. So, not enough to tempt me to switch.

As I waited for DEVONthink 2.0 (and waited...) lo and behold, along goes EagleFiler 1.4. The GUI is overhauled, true smart folders are there (that I can define myself), it supports all file types... and unlike Together, the search is actually powerful. So I give it a try, and migrate all my data over.

I come up with a few snags (file naming, titles, etc.) and within an hour find scripts that help me batch change everything. Awesome! And it's full of good surprises. After a week of use, it keeps getting better... so we have a product that searches well, looks nice, is flexible, and is fairly fast (DT Pro is still faster, but EagleFiler is certainly tolerable).

So, IMO, for document management, flexibility, searching, tagging, organization, etc., EagleFiler is now the top of the heap. Certainly enough for me to plonk down the $40... given many of the features it has (save OCR) are only present in DT Pro Office which is $150.

Nice work, Michael. I'm somewhat shamed to admit that the GUI overhaul had a big part in my final decision, but hey. It's Mac software. We're fickle like that :-)  
(Version 1.4)

BLLOYD  RouteBuddy is a very "Mac-like" GPS application for the Mac, and I have been able to successfully create waypoints and routes and upload them to my Garmin devices (Nuvi 660 and Oregon 400t, neither of which are "officially" supported, but both of which work with the device).

In 2 days of use, I've found it much nicer to use than Garmin's Bobcat software, which seems _so_ focused on showing my waypoints for the local gas stations and McDonald's. What I want, really, is to put in some waypoints for places I want to visit, or to hike to. And RouteBuddy makes that fairly straightforward... though the lack of any Topo maps for it is a bit limiting.

It's faster than Bobcat as well, for me.

I have had a couple crashes with the app, mostly when moving around and scrolling in/out. One of the big pains with this, that I've found, is that if you find and "save" a bunch of waypoints, but then RouteBuddy crashes, you lose everything you've done since the last time you quit the application. That IMO is _not_ nice... stuff should be written out instantly to avoid this. I don't want to have to trawl through and do everything twice.

Also, the map info they use, while good, has some inaccuracies. I mapped my parents house in Scottsdale, AZ and it came back with a City address of "Deer Valley." Though it put the house in the right location! This is not directly a RB problem, but because it's the maps they use, it certainly affects them. This is with the latest (2008-04) maps as well.

So in the end, it's $150-$170 for an application plus US or North America maps compared to what Garmin is offering for free. Worth it? Right now it seems like it has some legs, but let's see it get some more in terms of features and stability, and quick.  
(Version 2.2)

BLLOYD  Not sure what's going on in your case, but it _does_ work for me. It has worked fine for the year that I've had it.  
(Version 2.4)

BLLOYD  Lesson... read the release notes.

10.5 only.  
(Version 2.0)

BLLOYD  Nope.

Looks like you'll have to upgrade to 10.5 if you want to use it.

Note: there are many APIs in Leopard that aren't in Tiger. If developers want to leverage them, that means they have to write Leopard-only applications or else do 3 or 4 times the amount of work to support Tiger.

Your choice is to upgrade, and use apps like EverNote and Delicious Library 2, etc., or to not upgrade, and not use them.  
(Version 1.1a)

BLLOYD  Well... it looks interesting.

I have a couple IMAP/SSL accounts, and Outspring took a minute or two to configure (it defaulted to non-SSL, and one of the IMAP accounts is SSL only). But then I got it working and it has a number of ways of tweaking the UI that are different and useful.

It's "brain" was also interesting... a number of my messages it suggested places to file them (3 of 4 were correct), and on a few messages it suggested replies (one was appropriate, the other no so much -- a message where my wife gave a suggested list of people to email a birth announcement to, it suggested an auto-reply of "thanks, heading out for a bike ride I'll be back by 7 can you take the dog out when you get home?" would have gotten me in REALLY hot water. But... I got a good laugh at least. The brain probably needs a little more time to adjust... and to develop some coping mechanisms for the female half of or species :-)

So that said, right now using Mail in combination with MailTags and Mail Act-On can do most of the stuff that Outspring Mail can do, though it's more manual. This does seem interesting, though, and with some further refinement maybe could be worth continuing to montitor.

As for the price... tricky subject. I wouldn't pay $95 for the product as-is. Still, if it really saves productivity down the line that's not so much $, given MailTags + MAO is around $50.

The UI is okay... I really prefer the buttons to Mail's, though the folders ain't got no alibi. It *is* nice to be able to customize which IMAP folders can and cannot be seen, and the preview mode is novel but I'd need to spend more time adjusting it for it to be useful.

I'd give it a 4/5 on promise and maybe a 3/5 for where it is right now in the scope of things... price not being considered.  
(Version 1.0.5)

BLLOYD  Whatever this 1.2 download is, it's corrupted.

It downloads a .bz2 compressed file, and if you extract that you get a .bz2.cpgz file. If you extract that, you get a .bz2 file again.

The only way I can get it to extract is to use BetterZip and extra the package, as the default BOMArchiveHelper app won't do it.

So you get an Opal 1.2 DMG file, which when double clicked notes "no mountable file systems."

FAIL.

This isn't an issue with MacUpdate per se, as the downloads from the developer site (and their mirror) exhibit similar behavior.

Perhaps they should try a better packaging mechanism next time. I've used .bz2 archives before and they've worked (LaunchBar is compressed this way), though frankly straight .dmg files are nicer, and they can compress as well. Maybe not *quite* as well as .bz2, but 2.6 MB versus 5 MB for a download these days is pretty trivial.  
(Version 1.2)

BLLOYD  I used it for a few months on the Mac after using the PC version and it was about the same... pretty bare-bones.

A friend then let me know about Ascent by Montebello software which is *fantastic* and IMO worth the $35 over this free software. I've been using it for about a year and have been nothing but pleased.  
(Version 2.1.1b)

BLLOYD  Also see from this developer:

Bunny Rabbit Easter egg hunt!

Available this June.  
(Version 1.1.8)

BLLOYD  Leap is a pretty neat application -- basically it fills in a lot of key search functionality (saved searches, easy "search by kind," etc.) that Finder actually has (by way of having the ability to use Spotlight, but which Finder doesn't expose easily.

So Leap makes it very easy to find things (by a regular search, or by tags) and to save queries, etc.

Though I will say the changes from b5 to b6 have confused me a bit... it used to be the default saved searches were in the left pane and now they're in a drop down. Also, there are some terms that I'm not certain fit perfectly... "Bookmark" is really a saved search... or at least it looks to be?

It's going to take me a while to adjust to b6... the behavior of the application has changed pretty markedly... Maybe it's just that when you start it it defaults to "tagged files" which means that in my case *nothing* shows up. I have to go to the drop down and select something (e.g. applications or all preferred file types).

Also with the drop down, it's a bit odd to construct more complicated searches... e.g. all excel documents modified in the past week. I must manually pick "last 7 days" and then after the search crunches, pick excel spreadsheets in the list. I think I like the old way better where the options were always in front of me and I just clicked.   
(Version 1.0b6)

BLLOYD  They're very differnet products. Pathfinder is basically a finder replacement. It has lots of gadgets, whatzits, etc., which is nice if you want that.

Leap is really an uber search/tagging tool. You're not doing typical "finder-ish" things, but rather organizing or searching to find things easily and quickly. By type, by time, etc.

Now true, Spotlight in Leopard can do a lot of this. By saved searches, etc. However, the UI of Finder for creating searches is NOT so intuitive.  
(Version 1.0b6)

BLLOYD  This mail plug-in has been fantastically useful for me. I'm not using all of the functionality, but rather just adding tags to messages (waiting, follow-up, etc.) and using the OmniFocus plug-in so I can quickly move to-do items as follow-ups over there where I manage them in a centralized location.

I tried to work with Leopard's to do functionality but it had some real limitations which made it unusable for me (specifically, if you have a few hundred to-do items over the course of all time with Leopard, which I did, it breaks down).

The developer has been fantastic in quickly resolving issues, and in adding much needed functionality. This is a core productivity application for me, along with OmniFocus and Circus Ponies Notebook I can efficiently keep track of whatever I need to, and follow up in a timely manner. Nothing falls through the cracks anymore.  
(Version 2.2b24)

BLLOYD  Did you apply the ATI Firmware Update that was released a couple weeks ago prior to updating to Leopard?

I'm having no issues with the ATI X1900 and Leopard, and I've been running it for a while.  
(Version 1.0)

BLLOYD  I just tried Vienna... and have a really tough time seeing how you could consider it "better."

Heck, it dumps all your feeds in a linear list in the left pane! That won't work for me with my 100 feeds... totally unmanageable.

Plus, I couldn't find a way with Vienna to set custom refresh times on a per feed or per-group basis.

NNW has a ton of functionality, and if you actually use a large # of feeds and want to customize that (e.g. only refresh personal stuff daily, but refresh work stuff hourly), then NNW gives you tons of options, and Vienna gives you far fewer.

Sure, Vienna is free, but free doesn't affect the quality of the product one iota... it only affects the price.  
(Version 3.1b16)

BLLOYD  This is a fantastic app for me -- I have a Garmin 305 and use it when road and mountain biking. It downloads from the Edge perfectly, and shows a map, my route, and all the info from along the way (speed, altitude, gradient, etc.).

It is WAY better than the Garmin software -- both the PC and Mac versions of it. I was using the Garmin software for a while because I didn't know this existed... then a friend pointed it out and I tried it out and bought a license within an hour. It's already excellent and it's maturing and updated quite frequently.

Always great to find small software developers to come out with specialized Mac applications like this. Hooray for Montebello Software (I wonder whether it's named after the 5 mile, 2200 foot climb in Cupertino, CA... looking at the web site I sorta think so ;-)  
(Version 1.7.3)

BLLOYD  If you want a good Mac application that works with the Garmin, look at Ascent by Montebello software.

I just found out about it last week -- it is FANTASTIC for cycling/hiking/running/whatever GPS use, specifically with the Garmin Edge and Forerunner computers.

Works with Google Earth, gives you ALL sorts of data... it is FAR better than the apps Garmin gives you.  
(Version 1.1)

BLLOYD  rofl. does the name have anything to do with the types of pictures which are typically downloaded off usenet?  
(Version 0.9beta)

BLLOYD  Well...

There hasn't BEEN a "stable" release since July of last year. So that's back a ways, eh?

1.1b24e?!?!

What the heck does THAT mean? I see it has 4 changes (one's a filter change) over the previous release. The "3 new lines of code a day, let's throw it on MacUpdate" is about as shameless as VueScan in using release sites as marketing. Call me when I should wake up.  
(Version 1.1b24e)

BLLOYD  TAO's versioning scheme couldn't me more lame if it rode the short bus to school every day for the past 19 years.

Ship 1.1 already. Updates should be tested and then you can make 1.11, 1.12, 1.13, yadda. Or 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3.

1.11.21a? Good God. When was the last "release" version, 1996?  
(Version 1.1b22a)

BLLOYD  Yes it is a lot more than an expensive PIM. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of improvements over 1.9. I find the UI so much better and *my* use of the product is so much better, that it can't even compete.

You've found one feature that doesn't work as well as in 1.9. And hey, I'll bet you there are more bugs in 3.0 than there were in 1.9, for now. They had to pick a point to ship, and I've had pretty good luck so far.

Still a few things I want to see in there -- I'd suggest you submit feedback with a detailed explanation of the functionality that worked in 1.9 and no longer works in 3.0. They have been EXTRAORDINARILY responsive throughout the beta, but the unfortunate reality is that if they waited for EVERYTHING to be in there before they shipped, it would be a LONG time.  
(Version 3.0)

BLLOYD  Ummm... sparse images (such as what FileVault uses) are not a fixed size, and are what you should use from disk utility. They are growable.  
(Version 1.0.5)

BLLOYD  How do 4 changes qualify as a major release #?

This thing is going to be at version 47 by next Friday :-P  
(Version 7.0)

BLLOYD  The more the merrier, I guess. I just can't help but wonder how this application could possibly sell well in light of:

NetNewsWire Lite which is free, and looks to have similar/superior functionality, tested over 4 years of use.

NetNewsWire which has been the class leader for 3-ish years, and has definitely superior functionality, by far.

Shrook.

NewsFire.

Safari having RSS support built in.

A host of other solutions. Talk about "me too."

I don't mean to discourage application development, but following along, 4 years behind the competition, with nothing compelling and new to offer... not the best business model I've heard of.  
(Version 1.0)

BLLOYD  How many of these freaking Sudoku games are there? My MacUpdate RSS feed is basically completely polluted with them... there are like 25 updates to different SuDoKu games per day.

Between them and VueScan, there's no room for anything else in the 25 RSS updates :-(  
(Version 1.0)

BLLOYD  I registered when the first beta came out 6 weeks ago. I haven't gotten a single email from them yet.  
(Version 1.0b2)

BLLOYD  Why would you use this when OS X includes Keychain Access for free, and does all this with a decent search function?  
(Version 5.1.5)

BLLOYD  I have used MenuMeters for about 2 years. It's been reliable, solid, and uses very few resources. Easy to see if something is awry, and launch the appropriate app (if necessary) to get more details.

5 stars, all around!  
(Version 1.3)

BLLOYD  Uh oh... Yojimbo!

http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo/index.shtml

Looks pretty similar. Though it uses OS X's built-in SQLite instead. Very similar in concept, though Yojimbo easily indexes PDFs and has very good integration with Spotlight.

YJ can't yet do nested collections, though... which could be a bit painful. Have to see, but BareBones has a pretty good reputation.  
(Version 4.0.3)

ANONYMOUS  That's backwards, you shill.

This app takes a PDF and lets you edit/modify it in Word. That can be VERY useful.

The reverse isn't interesting at all... because if you have Word you can just do print->save as PDF and you have your PDF.  
(Version 1.1)