User Profile for CrispyCritter

MindSalt Time & Expense 2.7 (Mac OS 9, Mac OS X)

This is a monthly subscription service!  

The $8 price listed in the product summary here is misleading. Potential users of MindSalt Time should visit the developer's web site, where you will discover that this is a web-based subscription service which costs $8 per user per month. I cannot rate or comment on the features of the software, because I do not intend to pay a monthly fee for a time and billing application that other software can provide for a one-time purchase fee. Others may find this web-based application useful, however. [alert admin]

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Thursday, March 29 2007 @ 09:42 PM PDT

iKey 2.2.2 (Mac OS X)

Crashing Mac makes this iKey too powerful and too dangerous  

A former QuicKeys user in the pre-OS X days, I really want to like iKey, but in my testing today it crashed my PowerMac G4 twice —once when I hit the Test button, and once when I ran the script. In both instances, I lost complete control of my computer. I could not ForceQuit iKey; I could not activate any other program; the only thing that moved was the Mac's clock. I had to press the computer's power button down for five seconds to shut down and reboot. Giving a utility that kind of power is much too dangerous. It's hard to view iKey as a productivity enhancer if it totally runs amok and can't play by the regular rules for applications. Unless the developer can explain the reasons for such crashing and what the solutions are, I don't want to take the risk of using such a terror on a Mac. Also, I don't understand how people can applaud the customer support system. I looked in the iKey forum for help, and I observed that a very high percentage of queries there --even though the forum is allegedly moderated by staff-- have ZERO replies, even though the questions posed are very old. What kind of support is that?! [alert admin]

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Sunday, November 05 2006 @ 04:49 PM PST

BitTorrent 4.2.0 (Mac OS X)

Version 4.2.0 works for me. Here are some numbers. Share yours!  

I am completely new to the BitTorrent scene, having downloaded my first file --the Project Gutenberg DVD containing nearly 10,000 E-books overnight, so I have no frame of reference with which to compare BitTorrent OSX's performance. A quick glance at some of the remarks made here indicate that many people make subjective comments about the application being "slow" or hogging too much CPU without giving any measurements that others can compare their own results. Without numbers, how can anyone make a good assessment of any version of any product like this one? So, it would be helpful if people shared their actual statistics and performance numbers. Following a link from the Project Gutenberg web site, I downloaded and installed version 4.20, and so far, BitTorrent has worked fine for me. As a "leecher," I downloaded the 3.86 GB Project Gutenberg file (pgdvd.iso) in less than 10 hours. According to the tracking data provided, my average download speed was over 117 KB/sec with an upload rate of 26 KB/sec. My BitTorrent window indicated that, in the final phases of the download, I was receiving the file at rates up to 233 KB/sec. I have a cable modem connection, and I use a PowerMac G4, OS 10.3.9 (Panther), with 2 GB RAM. According to Apple's Activity Monitor utility, BitTorrent is using 43 MB of Real Memoryand 263 MB of Virtual Memory. It is consuming CPU at rates that appear to vary between about 2% and 5%, which is less than Firefox, which appears to vary from about 3% to 11% at the moment. I don't have the experience or technical savvy to judge whether or not this application is performing "slower" or consumes more CPU activity than other BitTorrent clients being mentioned here, but I offer those numbers as objective measurements as to this version's performances. As they say, your mileage may vary, but no one can tell how well or how badly this application performs if people merely use subjective language to describe their experience, while failing to add any performance-measuring data. [alert admin]

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Friday, January 27 2006 @ 10:54 AM PST

No user comments.