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Sceptical...

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Contributed by: MarkSealey Friday, April 21 2006 @ 12:42 PM PDT

Product Platform: MacOSX

Used Product For: Less than a month

Recommend Product: NO

I really like the idea of DevonAgent and the mission of Devon. I want to like DevonAgent and to be convinced it's worth the money. But my experience has been a little different from some of those here... Although I have a fast connection (Comcast cable) and find all other internet searches etc very quick, I often get the DevonAgent progress bar not completing. Nor am I yet convinced by the results; for example, I put in a couple of searches which I thought might expose DevonAgent's alleged advantages: "Simon Armitage" and "Schumann 4th Symphony". For the first Google took me to SA's home page as first result, DevonAgent to a minor site with many broken graphics. For the Schumann, Google straight to http://www.music.pomona.edu/orchestra/sch_4.htm while DevonAgent to a site that had little or nothing to do with what I was searching for, http://www.brainyhistory.com/topics/s/symphony.html. What might I be doing wrong: please convince me :-) Settings I have not made. These are typical terms - why is DevonAgent not performing as it's supposed to?   

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3 comments |

Sceptical... - Bill D

Mark:

DEVONagent will let you enter very literally specified queries, using a suite of high-end Boolean operators.

Try this search query using the Internet (Fast Scan) search set:
"Schumann 4th Symphony" OR "Schumann Fourth Symphony"

Adding the quotation marks makes DEVONagent look for a particular phrase. Using two variants of the way the symphony is commonly referred to picks up more results. Perhaps I should have added variants to include "Symphony No. 4" and still more variants on that phrase.

Nevertheless, I got very highly relevant results in seconds, downloaded to my computer and summarized. I could have done a more comprehensive search using, for example, Internet (Full Scan) and digging down several levels.

If I had entered the query without quotation marks, I would have gotten the same results plus many other less relevant items mentioning both Schumann and, perhaps, Beethoven's 4th Symphony.

Disclaimer: I'm the Evangelist for DEVONtechnologies.

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Saturday, April 22 2006 @ 01:33 PM PDT


Skeptical...& Disappointed - SWriter

I couldn't agree more! You are right on the money and I feel I have not well-
spent my money -- the idea is better than the execution. The 'bundle' is very
buggy, especially devonthink and the results in DevonAgent are very
underwhelming.

Re: DevonThink: <b>Frequent, unending spinning beach balls, stalls, crashes,
just not performing as it should</b> nor as I recall it having done in an
earlier version.

Consider me: not a happy camper.

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Thursday, June 08 2006 @ 10:19 PM PDT


Skeptical...& Disappointed - coracle

Now this made me laugh! Not a happy camper!!! You are not indeed! You forgot to put the bit about you being a thoroughly unpleasant character that the Mac community could well do without. I have read post after post of your pathetic venom toward folks that have worked very hard to provide Mac users something to play with. Rather than liaise with the developer to improve the products, you choose to waste away your life damaging others. Developers do not owe you anything unless you purchase a product, however, you seem to believe differently, and even then you offer no opportunity to have it politely explained to you that you are not following the instructions, or indeed that you are entirely without the intelligence required to use the product.

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Friday, January 11 2008 @ 03:39 PM PST