Forum Posts Feed
UltraRecall v4 update worth it?
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by quant
Aug 24, 2009 at 09:31 AM
Daly de Gagne wrote:
>And questions asked are not always answered promptly by the UR folk.
You are right, not ALWAYS. But I’m yet to find developers that answer as fast in a consistent way for years. Please, be realistic! Has one of your questions not been answered for days? Was it maybe when you had that big rant here some time ago when you lost some data in UR? ;-)
>If Jan had not, we might not have a version 4 of UR today.
Please, again, be realistic. Sure, Kinook spends 100s development hours to prove Jan was wrong.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 24, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Let’s look at what Kinook did: They announced they were ceasing further development of Ultra Recall, then they retracted that announcement without any explanation. If, in fact, further development was not going to happen, don’t potential new customers have a right to know that? When one customer made a point of telling others about this on their forum, he was banned from the forum.
I agree with Daly that it is perfectly reasonable to question the ethics of people who behave this way.
While I doubt that Kinook would go to the trouble of issuing version 4.0 just to prove Jan wrong, Jan’s reaction could very well have demonstrated to them that to keep UR viable, they had to keep developing it, and I think that was Daly’s point.
Regarding Tom Davis at Zoot, another big thing he has going for him is the advocacy of a credible journalist, James Fallows, no small thing. It is frustrating that Tom doesn’t include any information about what has been changed in his minor updates to Zoot, but any time I’ve written to him directly with a technical question, I have gotten a swift response. And he has never, to my knowledge, censored anyone or tried to. This is why I generally trust Tom and am willing to have patience with the glacial-seeming pace of development.
Steve Z.
Posted by quant
Aug 24, 2009 at 11:52 AM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
> ... If,
>in fact, further development was not going to happen, don’t potential new customers
>have a right to know that?
we have the saying “IF the dog didn’t sh.t, he would be dead” ...
> When one customer made a point of telling others about this on
>their forum, he was banned from the forum.
The user was consistently bringing up NON EXISTENT statement. Do you see the difference?
>Jan’s
>reaction could very well have demonstrated to them that to keep UR viable, they had to
>keep developing it, ....
Sure, and you believe that? Jan’s reaction demonstrated that he didn’t understand that Kinook refuses to talk about this issue (which was not fair from Kinook, but there you have it) as they haven’t answered several such questions in the original thread. Others got the clue ...
Posted by Gorski
Aug 24, 2009 at 01:30 PM
Daly de Gagne wrote:
> Until I read your last line - the gratuitous, snide comment that your nickel isn?t wooden, unlike Jan?s 2 cents.
> Then I wondered what your motive was.
It was gratuitous. It was a play on the phrase “Don’t take a wooden nickel,” meaning I didn’t think some of Jan’s statements were factual, as I explained. He ended his post by referring to it as his two cents, thus the wordplay. My motive was that I didn’t want to leave Jan’s statements about UR floating out there on the intertubes unchallenged.
> Because it seems to me there?s a lot of merit to Jan?s criticisms of UR, in addition to the fact that the UR folk treated him very shoddily.
> In the process you manage to find fault with Zoot?s founder for not being forthcoming on progress unless you ask him.
Jan’s experience with UR was his experience and he’s entitled to it. I’ve had good experiences with UR.
Jan called UR “sleazy” compared to Tom (and Pierre). My point was that there are plenty of things about the way Tom does business that could be viewed in a different light if you choose to do so. I have no experience with Pierre so didn’t mention him, but I have been a long-time registered user of Zoot.
I think it’s interesting that you will go to great lengths to excuse Tom’s faults but seem less willing to cut UR any slack. The help file is a good example. Longtime users of Zoot know that for years it never even HAD a help file, and many complained about it and it took Tom a long time to create one. UR has a help file, but many find it not very helpful to non-technical users. I don’t think it’s written very well either, although I appreciate it’s detail. UR’s current roadmap promises to revamp it, apparently in response to the criticism (http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?s=bc9fd9f5d361f41d3f5010219ee6ef6b&threadid=3204). Yet you still fault them for it. That’s your right, but I think it’s unfair.
I understand why people say UR’s communication style is “cold.” It comes off that way to me too. I agree with you they’d be better off if they adopted a friendlier tone and were more forthright about who they are. But I think Tom’s communication style is less than perfect, too. Tom isn’t a paragon of openess and transparency. I’ve followed the twists and turns of the Zoot saga for more than a decade and don’t think I have any better understanding of what’s going on with Zoot than I do with UR. In fact, I think I have less.
You compare the process of improving Zoot to refurbishing and upgrading the interstate highway system, but I think UR is equally complex while also being the more technically accomplished and professional piece of software. You can see UR’s commitment to quality in everything from the design of their Web site to their choice of icons. If you feel their treatment of Jan makes you not want to do business with them, that’s your right and their loss. My sense is that people have more affection for Zoot because Tom is very generous with his upgrade policy, because they know he’s a one-man band and because his style of information management is especially appealing to them, whatever the flaws of his software and his development process.
I like Jan’s posts and certainly hope they continue. I don’t feel I was taking “shots” at him, the gratuitous nickel reference aside. I just thought his point of view was too one-sided for my taste.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Aug 24, 2009 at 02:13 PM
I remember a time when generally speaking questions were not answered promptly at UR - I was understating.
Re my comment re Jan, I wasn’t mean to suggest UR spent more money to prove him wrong - what I hoped to convey was that the fuss around Jan, because he dared to call Kinook to task, may have resulted in a different awareness of Kinood. It may have stirred up enough customers to have Kinook realize they had made a mistake.
Never bothering to apologize to Jan or to reinstate him of course.
Maybe Kinook realize that by pulling plug more or less on UR it might be putting its other product at risk, also, or that it would become a one trick pony.
Daly
quant wrote:
>Daly de Gagne wrote:
>>And questions asked are not always answered promptly by the UR
>folk.
>
>You are right, not ALWAYS. But I’m yet to find developers that answer as fast in
>a consistent way for years. Please, be realistic! Has one of your questions not been
>answered for days? Was it maybe when you had that big rant here some time ago when you
>lost some data in UR? ;-)
>
>>If Jan had not, we might not have a version 4 of UR
>today.
>
>Please, again, be realistic. Sure, Kinook spends 100s development hours to
>prove Jan was wrong.