THEVALRUS  RapidoWrite causes strange keyboard behavior in Mail, Address Book, and Safari which render all three nigh-unusable. "Leopard compatible" my keister.  
(Version 2.2.1)

THEVALRUS  Great idea. Maybe consider allowing export to HTML tables too? They're just as big a pain to write as LaTeX ones.  
(Version 0.2)

THEVALRUS  "...and it seems to work."

That's the kind of confidence I like in my software developers! ;)  
(Version 0.1)

THEVALRUS  Ok, let me expand on that initial reaction.

Vim is, of course, the best text editor. This implementation of it does by far the best job I've seen of balancing Vim-ness with Mac-ness; it preserves all the wonderful Vim keybindings but also supplies OS X goodies like multiple windows (which the vastly inferior "Carbon Vim" had led me to believe was downright impossible), pretty tabs, transparency, and plenty of other goodies. I had been juggling TextMate and Carbon Vim, but this new contender puts Vim way out ahead again. I suspect that's exactly where it will stay until TextMate adds modal editing: ha! Not likely.

Long story short: Bjorn Winckler, you're my new hero.  
(Version r300)

THEVALRUS  Since people at my university tend to just assume you have MS Word, I was excited about this program, thinking it would allow me to stop having to fire up NeoOffice every time I wanted to read a syllabus. While it shows promise, it's not quite there yet. Importing of .doc files is really spotty: I often get page breaks in places that clearly aren't where they were in the original document, and tables are usually hopelessly mangled. Still, I'll be jumping on every point update of this app hoping these issues get fixed, because everything else about it is really nice.  
(Version 0.9.8)

THEVALRUS  Possibly the best name for any app, ever, anywhere.  
(Version 1.0b8)

THEVALRUS  Doesn't do anything for me, and by that I mean the software literally has no effect on my computer.

Wait, I take that back. The star trails appear in a square in the bottom left corner of my screen which seems to be about 400x400 pixels. Weird.  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  For the record, the new version works perfectly for me, even with loads of other running apps. Kudos to the dev.  
(Version 1.7)

THEVALRUS  I'm not sure how to "back up" a claim about a piece of software that doesn't work for me as it should, but nevertheless I'll concede that my previous review was sort of unfair. I did quit all my other applications and try again, as the dev suggested; the problem persisted, so it's not just my own error that caused it. Still, it's pretty clear that mine is an unusual case, so I'll offer a new rating of five stars to offset my previous one and get back in the good graces of the dev so he doesn't blow me off when I email him for support. Like I should have done in the first place. ;)  
(Version 1.6)

THEVALRUS  A great program for those teachers who don't know how to do basic arithmetic and should therefore probably not be teaching.  
(Version 1.0.2)

THEVALRUS  Obviously, blatantly does not work; spaces beats unevenly. Unusable.  
(Version 1.5)

THEVALRUS  Really nice to have something to take the place of FocusLayer. I agree with all the feature requests but this is already really nice.  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  "Funktionality" is the best result of non-native English speaking ever.  
(Version 1.5)

THEVALRUS  Not necessary. When you make a change, ToyViewer opens a new window with the changed image in it; the original image is still around and in order to "undo" your change, all you have to do is close the window with the modified image.  
(Version 4.90)

THEVALRUS  How the mighty have fallen.  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  HOLY FLRLGLHHM

LaTeX-specific features?! I've died and gone to heaven. Developer, you are the super winner.  
(Version 0.14.0.1)

THEVALRUS  Good God what has happened to this browser. Crashy; opens ads in a separate, frontmost page (I briefly thought it had somehow become a magical browser that *only opened ads*); huge tab bar taking up the bottom eighth of the window. Beta though it may be, this needs cleaning up, bad; it makes me not want to use the final product.  
(Version 2.0b2)

THEVALRUS  I think I was about to make this exact comment. Like, I was going to independently produce a verbatim copy of it. Okay, not really. Anyway, consider this comment seconded.  
(Version 5.5.1)

THEVALRUS  Guys, I don't suppose it occurred to you that it's not the widget's fault; it didn't happen after an upgrade or anything, and furthermore PearLyrics does the same thing. Presumably that lyrics site didn't want people to be able to access their lyrics without going to the actual site, so they started feeding that ad to any external0 client that came sniffing around.

That said, though, Harmonic really isn't that good at finding lyrics, which is unfortunate because everything else about it works nicely.  
(Version 1.5.2)

THEVALRUS  Ridiculously awesome game that quits randomly on Intel macs. Generally I can go for 10-15 minutes before something trips it up. :(

If it weren't for that, it would get 5 stars across the board. I'd love to be able to play this game all the way through but given its stability right now, that's not very practical.  
(Version 0.0.6)

THEVALRUS  OH MY GOD, YOU ARE A SAINT. I can't possibly tell you how long I've been looking for something like this.

I can't give it five stars just yet but I'll be keeping a close eye on this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  
(Version 0.0)

THEVALRUS  "Html is a complex scripting language?"

I think that's all you need to see to know that this isn't worth a download.  
(Version 1.4.1)

THEVALRUS  Oh God, another one.  
(Version 0.5)

THEVALRUS  Textpander was free when the original review was written.

Also, "far from better" means "worse."  
(Version 1.4)

THEVALRUS  Just so you all know, this is $20 at macZOT today, although personally I don't understand why anyone would pay even that much for it.  
(Version 1.1)

THEVALRUS  However good or bad the software itself is, it cannot be denied that that is one of the finest screenshots ever devised.  
(Version 4.0.1)

THEVALRUS  Gorgeous, for sure, but Haplo has some good points. The page dock is better in theory than in practice, due to the massive amount of space it takes up at the bottom of the page. Perhaps if it were transparent and the page could be seen behind it...? I don't know.

Also, no bookmark bar; instead, I have to use this panel thing. It looks nice, but it takes me a hell of a lot longer to get to bookmarks in folders that were in Safari's bookmark bar.

I'm always eager to try a new version of Shiira, but it seems like they sacrificed a lot of usability in this one.  
(Version 2.0b1)

THEVALRUS  Every time you guys correct someone's spelling and/or grammar, an angel gets its wings. I just want you to know that.

And yes, I'm dead serious.  
(Version 0.6)

THEVALRUS  Like GrowlOut, this software needs a much more detailed description. I have no idea what it does from reading the one up here.  
(Version 0.5)

THEVALRUS  A more detailed description of what this software actually does would be helpful. The current one is incredibly uninformative.  
(Version 0.3)

THEVALRUS  Actually, I meant that it turned all the white text in OTHER apps a light shade of pink. One day later, though, I can now say that perhaps it was just an optical illusion caused by looking at green-on-black for a long time. ;)  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  Awesome app, great for getting some actual writing done. But I think it turned all my white text a very light shade of pink. I have no idea what the deal is with that.  
(Version 1.0b3)

THEVALRUS  I don't like the appearance of the theme much, but I absolutely endorse the standalone installer. I read the developer's comment about wanting to keep theming alive, and think that's very much to be commended.  
(Version 3.1)

THEVALRUS  Unsatisfactory. Doesn't even recognize complex numbers, and not only crashed but brought my system to a grinding halt when I tried to enter:

y = 2x + 5

x = y + 2  
(Version 1.3.3)

THEVALRUS  Recommend a better one, please. This is the best free one I've found on OS X.  
(Version 3.22)

THEVALRUS  Taskman: Stop whining. Life goes on.  
(Version 0.4)

THEVALRUS  Indeed.  
(Version 1.2)

THEVALRUS  As an extra bonus, it crashes more often too.  
(Version 9.0b1)

THEVALRUS  Bling is antithetical to class.  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  XGestures is better. Like, $5 better.  
(Version 1.5)

THEVALRUS  Actually, they're using this program to write Vista. Weren't you wondering why it keeps getting delayed?  
(Version 1.1)

THEVALRUS  I hate to dogpile on you here, developer, but...

Who am I kidding? No I don't. The suggestion that anyone would pay $15 for this is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who uses MacUpdate.  
(Version 3.0)

THEVALRUS  Great browser, but it still screws up the rendering in LiveJournal comment fields. And others, as I recall. I had hoped they'd have this fixed by 1.0, but I guess I'll have to stick with Safari.  
(Version 1.0)

THEVALRUS  Great game. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to access the command line options, which is a shame because I'd like to run this without sound and in windowed mode.  
(Version 0.23.1)

THEVALRUS  Cute but totally pointless since I have a web browser open all the time anyway. Shiira is a pretty good browser, and it pains me to think how much time was spent on this little bit of pointlessness that could have been better used to improve Shiira itself. (Hence my score of 1 for "value," even though it's free.)  
(Version 1.1.1)