Automated spam reporting is a great idea. But this app was a major nuisance for me. I'm running a G3 beige minitower with sys 9.2.2. I get 800 or more spams/day, so was thrilled to see SpamX available--until I ran it.
First, the word 'minimalist' describes the Instructions that come with it, although the app isn't complex. But as it processes emails a running status is provided in the window, using terms the lay user has no clue about without explanation.
I opted to use the "email filter" which puts a list of emails on the server in a window, and, based on a database, proceeds to categorize them four ways, two of which are "spam" and "email." With a few hundred emails, this can take 10 minutes. The user must then "adjust" the categories by hilighting an email and clicking a button, or checking a box (for spam). But no Shift-click (group select) is provided, so one has to do them one by one--and don't try this while SpamX is doing it, or it'll stall (a favorite behavior overall), and you have to start all over again. There is a "Done" button, which brings you back to square one, but no stop, or pause and continue. So once the procedure begins, break out a snack and WAIT.
Once this laborious procedure is done, the real fun begins. SpamX downloads the spams and creates text files in a numbered list it uses to send reports. This is where the thing was a real mess. As it ran these files, the app would frequently report an "OutOfBounds exception" and quit (I still don't know what that is, because Hendrickson (aka Mickey Mouse) refused to answer that question, which I asked 4 times). So it had to be restarted--hundreds of times a day for me. Can you say babysit? It also stalls during the processing. Funny thing is, the file it craps out on is processed without incident on restart. In spite of my telling Mickey this twice, he kept asking me to send the file it failed on to test! Our exchanges felt like no one was listening on the other end.
Thus, the app that's supposed to save time cost me much more time to nurse along than just deleting spam from the server with Mail Siphon II (a good app, by the way).
I was told I'm the only person in the Universe with this problem, so it had to be my system and not Mickey's app. I have to take this on faith, of course--which you wouldn't mind if Hendrickson would offer any suggestion of what the problem might be. The only suggestion he came up with was "flaky connection." Having NO other symptoms of that, I ran my diagnostics and restarted with minimal extensions. Nada. Quitsville all day long.
I could imagine calling my ISP and saying, hey, I've got Mickey Mouse's app here keeps quitting on me and he says it's a flaky connection--wanna fix that please?
During the course of my emailing for help, Hendrickson failed to answer the most direct questions, including any suggestion, even an illogical one, of where to look for a conflict. I spent a lot of time describing the behavior in detail, only to be told I was crazy essentially, and what do I expect for help for a program "that costs 19 bucks?" Do I want him to come out personally and paint my house? I was asked. Well, it's 20 bucks, so one can see that even simple arithmetic escapes this programmer. And one funny part is, his own app repeatedly categorized his moronic "support" emails back to me as spam, even after I re-classified them. So, that really says it. And I've got far more complex programs on my system that run essentially glitch-free. Yet, for some reason, ONLY my computer can't run SpamX. Sounds like BS to me, boys and girls.
This is the good part--Hendrickson put up a new version and says it's got every exception handler he can muster. Well, the behavior of the app did noticeably change and slightly improve, but not nearly enough--UNLESS it would have, as promised, dramatically reduce spam. But it did not in the 22 days I've run it--not one iota, after supposedly 5500 spam reports. But the fact that the ways it quit and stalled did change, said to me it wasn't my system. Mickey also never asked me for a sys config, as many quality tech guys have in the past, as if that could make no difference.
Then to add final insult to injury, my detailed report on the newest iteration was met with indignance and a cancellation of my registration--without refunding my money, which I have to wait up to two weeks for. How's that for puerile petulance?
Hey Mickey--I'd spend 3 times 19 bucks for your dogshoot program if it would run right. I notice you've got a whole 3 other feedbacks on VT at this writing--glowing ones. Friends of yours, no doubt? How does this download stat (1271 total downloads, all versions) square with the '"thousands" of satisfied users I was told about.
I'll tell you what--this whole experience felt like a beta test of an by a neophyte programmer with a pissy attitude.