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It's not clear what the benefit of this product is over systems like PHP or Ruby on Rails. The documentation seems rather sparse, you have to pay for an enterprise deployment (unlike the free PHP or RoR). As for language maturity, Ruby at least is a very mature, very sophisticated language. Yuma looks like a species of Visual Basic. I'm not sure why I'd want to use, much less buy, this product. |
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Still a fun game, even in 2007. If you're a fan of Pac-Mac, Donkey Kong, Lode Runner, or similar puzzle-arcade games, you'll like this one. The simple animations are just fine -- Halo is fine for Halo but it would be overkill here. Truthfully, fun, puzzles, and gameplay are what it's all about here, and I'd trade that for flashiness or "zazz" any day. And hey, it's free. Try it out. |
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This product is a huge waste of money if you want to copy CSS-protected DVDs to your iPod or other portable devices. Many Hollywood movies and DVD sets of TV series have CSS encoding and are totally useless with Popcorn. Skip this program and get the FREE, functional, and easy-to-use DVD2Pod, or use Handbrake. Although Popcorn is easy-to-use in itself and has a polished interface, the ease of use and stability of the program have zero value if the basic function of the software -- copying DVDs to my iPod -- does not work. That's why I give this program one star in those areas. If Roxio enables the major function of this software, I will revise my rating. |
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Great product. The best browser on OS X...._except_ for Firefox's extensions! Now I'm sure that it's extremely difficult to support Firefox extensions in Camino's Cocoa interface. Perhaps some kind of adapter layer would do it. But bottom line, those things are really great, and frankly, while I like Camitools as much as the next guy, even the most motivated developer can't keep up with an ecosystem like Firefox's extension authors. Perhaps a plug-in layer for Camino itself, modelled closely on Firefox's, would be a good start. That way, others can adapt the good extensions to Camino themselves. Camino is still my first choice. But if it had Firefox's extensions, it would go from being arguably the best to being the indisputable champion of browsers. |
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Quicksilver is really an amazing application and is almost there in terms of implementation. But it has two flaws that are real deal-breakers. One, it's too crashy. Two, and more importantly, it's too slow. The slowness can sometimes be phenomenal, on a quad-core 2.5 GHz PPC with 8GB RAM. I don't care to find out what it'd be like on a slower machine. Quicksilver has an open plug-in architecture, which is a great idea. But the documentation for these plug-ins is hard to find; I have never found it. Do I blame Quicksilver for the failures of the plug-ins? Well, partly, yes. An end-user perceives it all as one system, and it can be hard to figure out. The real way to figure out these issues is to visit the forums. I like QS a lot, I think it has a great deal of potential, and one day I might switch back, for now I am using Butler. I find that app to be quite fast and efficient. It's only taking up 126 MB of RAM on my machine, whereas on my laptop, QS is using 262 -- and I expect that to go up over time. Verdict: QS is a great program but it needs TLC with a view to fixing crashiness, speeding up the app greatly, and using system resources more gently, before it will be the top choice. |
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Bartas Developers, Thanks for your comment. I had previously read the page you describe. I note however that it does not describe the potential downsides of activation technology. It does not observe, for example, that the technology might fail for unknown reasons -- servers down, network problems, bug in the software, etc -- and in that event, the purchaser may not be able to use their software for possibly days, or that (I'm sure, correct me if I'm wrong) Bartas assumes no responsibility in this event and will not provide any form of compensation for lost productivity etc. This is just one example of the problems of activation, one that has actually bitten me with a different piece of software. The page does not mention that while Bartas' present management may be fair and honest, allowing activating software on one's computer is an invitation to abuse -- that if activating software becomes the norm, sooner or later someone will abuse it, even if Bartas continues to be scrupulous. But abuse of activation schemes is not only certain to occur in the future; it has already happened with other products such as music, in which the number of CDs that may be burned has been reduced, after the purchase was already made. Consumers have no guarantee that you will not change your terms to more restrictive ones later, such as allowing only one installation, or requiring a phone call for each install after the first; nor is there any guarantee that future software will not extend the activation concept, for example, by requiring contact with Bartas everytime the computer's IP changes. Network activation is intrusive and it removes consumer control of legitimately-purchased software. Once the principle is granted that you have a right to invade consumer privacy, there is no principled reason this cannot be extended bit by bit to more and more invasive and controlling methods. When customers purchase your product, they are also betting on the fair-dealing attitude of your company. But for a company that has already made clear it thinks little of the consumer's privacy or rights with regard to the purchased software, there is no assurance that you will not adopt increasingly intrusive tactics in the future. In this event, I doubt you'll take out a newspaper ad to make the negative implications clear; they will be buried in the fine print of the new EULA. And those who bother to read the EULA and who disagree will simply be cut off from upgrades. Your assurances that the software will continue to work in your absence are just that: assurances -- the consumer has no way to test or verify that, and no recourse if it's wrong. Further, your page on activation does not mention the possibility that your company may be purchased later by someone who is less honest or less fair than you. It is very easy to imagine these less-honest owners turning off all older software, requiring customers, for example, to purchase an upgrade. Things like this have already happened and they will happen again. I hope you will reconsider your decision to use activating software. Many companies make plenty of money without that technology. Speaking as an avid consumer in the Mac market, I pay for all software that I use. It is my pleasure to financially support those who benefit the Mac community. But network activation is a serious black mark next to the name and reputation of any company. It hurts Mac users and the Mac market. As I said, my policy is to use such software only in dire necessity -- when it is absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. In my previous post, I noted that free (as in beer) software exists that delivers the most important transcribing features of your software. While I feel your product is good, and while you seem personable, as long as you choose to treat your customers like thieves, I would encourage potential customers to consider the security of their purchase, the security of their computer, and the effect their purchase may have on the market (namely encouraging more, and more invasive, activating software). Consider this especially in light of the available alternatives, which you can download at an unbeatable price -- free. |
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Note that Transcriva is a "phone home" activating product that requires an Internet connection and communication between your computer and the Transcriva servers. In addition to the obvious security issues of this scheme, you also lose control of your legitimately-purchased software. For example, if Transcriva goes out of business, if you can't reach their servers, or if their activation process doesn't work for any reason, then you cannot use their software. We all change computers from time to time, and a company like Bartas can go out of business or discontinue a product without notice. If that happened, you would no longer be able to use the product. The good news is you don't need to put yourself in that position. The Express Scribe software at http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html is quite competitive with this software and is free. No activation, indeed no cost at all. I suspect only the most hard-core transcribers may need the additional features offered by a tool like Transcriva. My personal policy is to use activating software only if it is the best value in the field in terms of price, and if it offers unique and necessary features that I desire. But Express Scribe gives me all the features I need and is free. Bartas justifies its activation scheme by saying it lowers the price to the consumer, yet theirs seems to be the highest-priced product in the field. This suggests that their real reason for invading your privacy and removing your control over the software you purchased has a lot more to do with their greed than your savings. Just something to think about. |
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This is a good MP3 player on features and I wish I could give it a good score. But for me on my new dual 2GHz G5, I get _frequent_ skipping, popping and cracking on a wide variety of MP3 files -- files that play fine using Audion or even on my laptop. Other people have reported the same symptoms. I've tried everything to fix this, without any luck. While this is a terrible problem that makes iTunes borderline-unusable for me, there aren't many other good options out there. Audion is a good start, but it has no smart playlists, can't sync with the iPod, no library management at all, and it hasn't been developed in ages. I'd welcome any other alternatives I might look at, even X-Windows-based systems. On the plus side, iTunes has the features I just mentioned -- smart playlists, iPod sync, and library management. It's got nice features like sound-level adjustment and an equalizer -- you can even set equalizer settings per song file. You can also share your songs over the LAN, or if you're clever, between any two machines. This last feature, while valuable, seems flaky -- for me it seems to stop working after a while for no apparent reason. I wish iTunes had tools for removing duplicate songs and merging non-duplicates from another library into my iTunes library. And its randomness algorithm when playing a playlist randomly doesn't seem very good -- my impression is that some songs get recycled much more frequently than others. Despite these qualms, iTunes is an excellent piece of software -- aside from this popping music bug. Were it not for that, I would rate it four stars on features, four on ease of use, five on value and four on stability. As it is, I rate it two on features, four on ease of use, two on value and four on stability. If you don't have popping and cracking problems on your platform, then I'd recommend iTunes, with the caveat that one day you may acquire a platform where this problem recurs. |
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