As an occasional user of askSam v5 I regularly think about upgrading to version 6, especially when those Christmas update special offers come round.

Is anyone (still) using askSam v6 on this forum, and has performance and support been improving? I used to use askSam-DOS a lot but fell away rather after moving to its WIN3.1 version. As the upgrade is reasonable ($50 for a Professional->Professional upgrade), it is tempting in a CRIMPish way.

Derek

Hi Derek

Tried it 6 months ago. Its incredibly flaky - data corruption included - plus various annoying application bugs, plus their support gets the prize for being the worst, slowest, even periodically non existent. It is a shame because there are some redeeming features - but overall I would recommend to stay well away from it.

The only good thing I can say about them is they gave me a refund without any hassle.

Cheers, Ian

should have added, check the forums out and you'll see what I mean.

Ian:

Yes, I know what you mean about the forums. I was there about a year or so ago complaining about the lack of support for Citation, and have been a longtime member of their much diminished mailing-list - the main reason I haven't upgraded...

Citation, I should add, is another basically rather elegantly designed product that hasn't been receiving the support it deserves from its developers. In that case, askSam only had some sort of affiliate role I think, and hosted just a forum for the Citation people. This became not only a reason for my not upgrading Citation, but also another reason for not upgrading askSam...

But I thought I had detected an improvement on the askSam front recently - better support and fewer complaints. Maybe my impression was mistaken, though. The problem is that once software gets a reputation for poor support, every little hitch becomes a new cause of anger, frustration and resentment for users. When things get that bad, forums just make everyone (including the developers) feel miserable about the product.

No satisfied users out there then?

Derek

Derek

No satisfied users out there then?

Not me, I thought about upgrading to 6 at beginning of the year, and buying 10 to 20 licenses for a project distributing data. I had some issues (possibly bugs) and got no support from forum, or from any of the AskSam people who had email addresses on the newsletter and publicity material .

The main issue is that although it has excellent search and doc management tools, it won't import Excel tables.

And this was the same reason I didn't upgrade to the latest version of Citation, in many respects my favourite bibliographic program, but support doesn't exist.

Graham

Derek Cornish wrote:

As an occasional user of askSam v5 I regularly think about upgrading to version 6,
especially when those Christmas update special offers come round.

Is anyone
(still) using askSam v6 on this forum, and has performance and support been
improving? I used to use askSam-DOS a lot but fell away rather after moving to its
WIN3.1 version. As the upgrade is reasonable ($50 for a Professional->Professional
upgrade), it is tempting in a CRIMPish way.

Derek

I haven't had much problem with Asksam 6.1. I don't use it every day, but I still keep all my e-mail archives in the database, and I still use it to search for my old e-mail. I've been using it since DOS days and when they came up with Windows version (I think it was version 3) I upgraded, and has been upgrading ever since. There are some issues with the Asksam program such as editors not supporting tables, etc, but it's still a good program.

As far as Citation is concerned, Asksam bought it from Oberon (I think that was the name), and the support suffered, but last time I checked and communicated, they are taking control back and Citation 9 is a much better program. As far as support from Asksam, I haven't had much issue. Then, I don't even bother with the forum. I'm on their other list server and most of the "big shots" at Asksam are still on it.

I know they are working on version 7, but don't know when that might be released.

Bottom line: I can't recommend getting the program at full price, but at a reduced price, I would be tempted as well.

There are two programs that stand alone and deserve much credit for promising so much, delivering so little, and making a mockery out of the whole notion of consistent support:

One is InfoSelect -- enough said, apart from the fact I regret the money spent out of curiosity for my current one-year subscription.

The other is AskSam, which I have trialed in both of their last versions.

If personal experience is insufficient, I advocate strongly following AskSam's official and unofficial forums to see what I mean.

Getting back to the thread I started here recently about programs being passed by advancing technology, I think you would have to add AskSam to that list.

Daly


Ian Goldsmid wrote:

Hi Derek

Tried it 6 months ago. Its incredibly flaky - data corruption included -
plus various annoying application bugs, plus their support gets the prize for being
the worst, slowest, even periodically non existent. It is a shame because there are
some redeeming features - but overall I would recommend to stay well away from
it.

The only good thing I can say about them is they gave me a refund without any
hassle.

Cheers, Ian

Daly

There is one program that I am becoming more and more impressed with - and I've been using it on and off for about one year: www.connectedtext.com.

It is a desktop wiki, but it is gradually adding more and more of the facilities that you expect with an all round PIM. I won't list any features/functions as they are all extremely well documented at the web site and in the downloaded program.

One of the most impressive things is the developer has the most diligent and considerate response to users requests - he is carefully listening to all the posts in the active forum, and is implementing all the good ideas systematically.

He has just released version 2.0.0.8 today with some great new features - and some outstanding new features are promised for version 3 which is coming fairly soon. If you are like me, and really appreciate when a product is continuously developed, not just in occasional spurts, but consistently over time, and the developer not only really listens to users, but is also really savvy in implementing the most useful new features - then check it out.

(P.S. 11:44am GMT today - the site seems to be down probably for quick maintenance - so don't let that put you off)

Regards, Ian

Graham -

Yes, I remember your askSam experience earlier in the year. Their behaviour seems positively self-destructive, unless they have a huge pool of satisfied corporate users we don't know about.

As for Citation, I've been down the same path. I wanted to upgrade to v9 - as I said earlier, it is an elegant program - but the support was so dire or simply absent that I just couldn't. I'd be interested to know what is behind this sort of problem with some software. Do the original developers sell out to box-shifters? Does the developer get bored? Do the programmers move on? (Sounds like the Symantec story...)

Maybe it's just another form of the burnout that tends to afflict lone developers (e.g., KeyNote).

Derek

Kenneth,

It looks as though your experience with askSam is very like mine - DOS, then version 3. The main reason I stopped at v5 was because I wasn't using it enough to justify the upgrade at the time. I should also mention that, like a lot of users, I became very discouraged by askSam's prolonged failure to sort out massive bugs in SurfSaver. Like many I moved over to ContentSaver (now Web Research) instead.

Having Zoot and X1, I can't justify upgrading for e-mail storage at this late stage, though I might have done before X1 came on the scene. I think Jim Fallows also uses it for this purpose. Maybe I'll play around with v5 a bit over Christmas and see where that leads me :-).

Derek

Derek,

Yes, I remember your askSam experience earlier in the year. Their
behaviour seems positively self-destructive, unless they have a huge pool of
satisfied corporate users we don't know about.

I remember very good support on the AskSam Compuserve forum, and its still has some unique features. It is very fast once you get data into it and the flexibility of forms or freeform or something in between.

I certainly decided it was the easiest tool for putting together my "Information base", except for it not working properly and the inability to import Excel tables.

In the end I used a MyBase self executing data base , but it was rather slow, so then I started to convert the Word and Excel files into PDFs, which was, and contnues, to be an interesting experience. Every PDF converter I have used has a flaw in the conversion, for example the Word files have several dozen charts and different converters converted different charts into black rectangles. or they would miss out footers etc.

I haven't found one that works yet. I have exhausted the usual suspects Adobe (but version 6 since that was what I had) Jaws, and PDF factory, and am still downloading and trying the less well known ones.

As for Citation, I've been down the
same path. I wanted to upgrade to v9 - as I said earlier, it is an elegant program - but the
support was so dire or simply absent that I just couldn't.

Yep, but still tempted at every Christmas offer :-(

I'd be interested to know

what is behind this sort of problem with some software. Do the original developers
sell out to box-shifters? Does the developer get bored? Do the programmers move on?
(Sounds like the Symantec story...)

I suspect its a combination of all of these things, plus as a company gets bigger it seems more and more difficult to continue providing the same service.

In a completely different industry, I was part of a small company of very dedicated people who had a feeling of responsibility to their clients ( it was small enough so that all our clients were "everyones" clients) and where we all worked many extra hours for no pay. As it got bigger, it gradually disinitigrated.

The company now had more clients so we had more internal competition for resources. More effort was put into looking after your own clients at the expense of other peoples clients, even though they were all clients of the same company.

Plus as we got more staff, we started to get people who wouldn't put in extra hours without being paid over time, more people who saw their current job as a stepping stone to something better, and the sense of a team all pulling together broke down. Eventually we were bought over , and we became a "proper" business where just about every decision had be formally approved by at least two other people, none of which seemed to have any understanding of the business. Soon after that, the original company effectively vanished as by that time all of the people who had made the reputation of the original company had left .

Actually, it is a far longer and more complicated story than this, but its a basic story line that seems repeated over and over again.

Graham

Graham Smith wrote:

In the end I used a MyBase self executing data base , but it was rather
slow, so then I started to convert the Word and Excel files into PDFs, which was, and
contnues, to be an interesting experience. Every PDF converter I have used has a flaw
in the conversion, for example the Word files have several dozen charts and different
converters converted different charts into black rectangles. or they would miss out
footers etc.

I haven't found one that works yet. I have exhausted the usual suspects
Adobe (but version 6 since that was what I had) Jaws, and PDF factory, and am still
downloading and trying the less well known ones.

Graham, if you can afford it I recommend Acrobat 7 for your problem - you can then "print" from Word and Excel to PDF and it works flawlessly. My >1000 page book contains >1000 tables and dozens of non-Western scripts and languages which previous Acrobat versions and even my publishers couldn't handle. Acrobat 7 seems to have pulled it all together and I haven't found a misplaced diacritic .... yet ;-)

Graham (Rhind)

Graham

Graham, if you can afford it I recommend Acrobat 7 for your problem - you can then
"print" from Word and Excel to PDF and it works flawlessly. My >1000 page book contains
>1000 tables and dozens of non-Western scripts and languages which previous Acrobat
versions and even my publishers couldn't handle. Acrobat 7 seems to have pulled it all
together and I haven't found a misplaced diacritic .... yet ;-)

I have considered upgrading my version Acrobat, and you have further convinced me. Of course version 6, Jaws and PDFFactory allow me to print directly from Word. and I ended up with Jaws and PDFFactory because the comparative reviews suggested they gave more reliable output than Acrobat.

However, I will look at the price of an upgrade to my copy of Acrobat as well.

Thanks,

Graham

There may be a much cheaper solution to generating PDF files which handle foreign characters properly. Try PDFCreator (from Sourceforge.net; open source). And if this doesn't work, I'm almost certain that EdocPrinter
Pro (www.iteksoft.com; use the ERP2PDF printer; costs $29, trial version available) will do the
job - I have used this program for generating PDF files with foreign characters, and it does a superb job.

Hello

LM7 wrote:

There may be a much cheaper solution to generating PDF files which handle foreign
characters properly.

Not sure of this was for me, but my problem isn't foreign characters, but mainly graphics, but I shall add these to my list any way.

Thanks,

Graham

Have you tried pdf995

http://www.pd995.com

it's a three-program suite (The pdf995 suite of products - Pdf995, PdfEdit995, and Signature995) at $19.95.

I've mostly used it for creating pdf from Pagemaker v.6.5x, but have also used it with MS-Word - one template in particular was a form with numerous tables, converted w/o a problem. Also use it quite a bit to print from browser.

Later,
KenA

Ken,

Have you tried pdf995

I have in the past, and I can't remember the outcome, but I am aware of having had some issues with every PDF converter I have tried.

Most of the time all the programs work just fine, but now and again they don't seem to like a graph, and if you are trying to pull together 20 Word files into a PDF reports catalogue, then it seems impossible to avoid some failures.

Thanks,

Graham

Graham -

I certainly decided it [askSam] was the easiest tool for putting together my “Information base”, except for it not working properly and the inability to import Excel tables.

That's one of the purposes I had in mind, too.

suspect its a combination of all of these things, plus as a company gets bigger it seems more and more difficult to continue providing the same service.

As Kenneth mentioned, some of the original players seemed to have regained some control over Citation, but I have seen absolutely no evidence of any improvement in support. The forums on askSam are closed for all practical purposes, and those on Oberon are inaccessible - the same position as when I last looked some months ago.

The bottom line seems to be that once a software company loses interest in its product it is well-nigh impossible to put things right - even if the original developers want to.

Derek

Derek

The bottom line seems to be that once a
software company loses interest in its product it is well-nigh impossible to put
things right - even if the original developers want to.

All very sad, but it seems that way.

Graham

Thanks for all the feedback. I resisted - this time...

Derek

Derek,

Thanks for all the feedback. I resisted - this time...

Well done ;-)

Graham