askSam dead?

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 11, 2013 at 08:17 PM

I think of AskSam the same way I thing of InfoSelect.

When I moved into the Windows world in 2002 I soon became familiar with both programs.

I bought IS at one point, discovering it didn’t behave very well, and that support was lacking.

Multiple posts on the support forums saved me from Ask Sam, as did its price, which was even more exorbitant than IS.

Ask Sam at least had trials, which IS didn’t have until the last few years. So I tried AS on 30 day trials a couple of times, and realized I’d probably be disappointed if I actually bought it.

Both programs may have been promising, good even, at early points in their history. But unrealistic pricing, poor customer support, a myriad of problems transferred from update to update, version to version, have all brought IS and AS to the point where their future is in doubt.

AS still intrigues me - but it needs development in capable hands, and with an eye to the cloud - that’s a must these days.

IS limps along and, sadly, some of the people who’ve used it since its earliest day, still praise it, unaware of modern alternatives.

I don’t use MyInfo or Surfulater as much as I once did. But I have both housed in the cloud, and they still function. Both are good programs with developers who are responsive to their customers.

I take heart that Surfulater is developing a new, cloud oriented product. Like many I use Evernote a great deal, but maintain that it still lags as an information manager. Only in the recent issue of version 5 did EN include a highlighting capability, for which I am grateful. I think Neville has a much better handle on what information management entails than Evernote’s developer has.

MyInfo and WhizFolders are both great programs, but I fear for their future if they’re unable to adapt to a cloud oriented world.

Another sign of change: while we might see software costing more than $100 as pricey, many of the newer apps for desktop and mobile are bought on a subscription basis. That may be more fair for developers, but it means we may easily end up paying more than we would have previously been willing for a single program.

The change which surprises me most is my own shifting to the cloud as much as I have. I had begun, of course, with Evernote. And then when I had two computers going at a time, it was a way of being able to work on the same documents regardless of what machine I was on. And I realized that while I had never backed my Windows computers up b/c of the bother, that now I had a bother-free way of doing.

The final shift to the cloud came in March when I bought my Nexus7 - everything (almost) everywhere. I capture to and read from EN primarily on the Nexus, Often I do writing in EN on the laptop. I can tweet from anywhere (almost). Shaw, my Internet provider has dozens of free hot spots throughout the city, so I am not beholden to a cell phone company.

Technology and software driving each other, and us, seemingly at an ever-increasing speed. What it means is we could well see much better programs than AskSam or InfoSelect bite the dust. Very interesting. And we have not yet seen what will be.

I apologize for my ramble.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Price and features are not always correlated. AskSam Pro costs $395,
>much more than most of the programs we discuss here, yet it is one of
>the least-well supported—and they can’t even keep their servers
>running. It is also poorly developed. While Scrivener costs $45, and is
>one of the most feature-rich applications I’ve ever seen. It is also
>continually and smartly developed.
> >Which is not to say that you should avoid higher-priced applications. I
>love Tinderbox and TheBrain (sounds like a cartoon show), both of which
>cost more than the average app, and feel I’ve more than gotten my
>money’s worth.
> >Steve Z.