Existing users, 
User Name DrTimHill
Member Since 2006-05-02
Total number of Feedback Posts: 11
Total number of comments: 2
Last 10 Feedback Posts by DrTimHill [ Search for All ]
MPEG Video Wizard 4.0.4.113 (Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 2000)
This product looks good on paper, but I don't see how I could trust it to do anything. Take a simple task, like creating a clip from a video source. Simple, kinda thing everyone does. But it doesnt work. First, the audio and video streams play out of sync (by 10 or more seconds), not encouraging. Second, if you scrub forward to find a start point for a clip, and then scrub backwards to find the same start point, you get TOTALLY different time codes. Eh ? So when you come to export, the clip is basically more or less random, with random sound. What good is that? The product also has a UI from hell. If the team had spent less time on overly ornate button and background graphics and more on thinking about workflow i'd be a lot happier. Overall I'm unhappy to have spent my money on something that seems to focus on window dressing and not functionality or stability. [alert admin]
Tuesday, October 20 2009 @ 04:26 PM PDT
ChronoSync 4.0.2 (Mac OS X)
Probably this product works ok when syncing folders onto local drives. But when networks get involved it falls over flat on its face. 1. It gets horribly confused when mounting a remote share. As I type this I see a red warning "Cannot Locate Target" even though the target is mounted in Finder. If I setup its options to automatically connect to the target they simply dont work. 2. Performance is awful. Copy speeds seem to max out at 100Kbytes/sec (across a GB wired LAN!). The analysis phase is *slow* ... expect to wait 30+ minutes for medium sized sync operations. 3. Folder deletes on target dont work. This bug has been around since 3.x days. Tell CS to delete files/folders on the target and watch as it silently skips this. So you *cannot* reliably ask the product to mirror a folder tree. Basically, it doesnt work. I'd advise *very* careful evaluation of your needs before using this product. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 3 of 3 users found this helpful
Wednesday, April 22 2009 @ 04:06 PM PDT
File Synchronization 1.4.4 (Mac OS X)
Like so many other Mac sync products (ChronoSync etc) this is slooowwww for large (>25,000 files) sync sets. So slow, in fact, its quicker just to copy ALL the files again. I set File Sync to work on a 150,000 file folder tree. After two hours it was still *thinking* about what to copy (it hadnt actually copied anything yet). Finder managed to copy the entire tree in 75 minutes. If Finder can copy the whole tree faster than this tool can sync, what's the point? [alert admin]
Read Comments (2) | More Info | 1 of 1 users found this helpful
Sunday, November 23 2008 @ 02:29 PM PST
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 (Mac OS X)
The good news is PhotoShop seems to do all that it's supposed to. The bad news is that this app ignores pretty much every Mac convention and UI standard. You might as well run the PC version in Boot Camp or a virtual machine. -- Installation is horrible. You have to run "Setup" from a folder buried two layers deep in the DMG, and the release notes, while full of information ABOUT installation, fail to mention this rather important fact. -- Install places a gratuitous copy of the Opera browser on your computer. Depending on your setup, you may find this browser opening web pages instead of Safari. Urgh. -- Uninstall is worse. You have to run Setup again, which then tells you to de-authorize the product first (why can't setup do this?), which is funny since there is no de-authorize option. -- You have two window choices: minimized in the Dock or full screen. Yep, the app takes over your whole desktop, no matter how big your screen and how small the photo you are working on. Urgh. -- Forget Mac UI. You have non-standard menus and Adobes own half-baked GUI model. Simply browsing for a photo to edit involves one app switching out and a different app launching. A truly awful experience. So **** for functionality, but * for creating the most awful Mac app experience I have ever seen. There are better choices. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 1 users found this helpful
Thursday, September 18 2008 @ 01:58 PM PDT
TubeHunter Ultra 2.2 (Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 2000)
The instructions are simple .. .run TubeHunter, navigate to a web page with the video to download, and refresh the web page. Trouble is, it doesnt work. Most of the time TubeHunter sits and sulks and does nothing at all. Occasionally, it wakes up and grabs the video (and when it does, it works well). But mostly the program does nothing at all. I've tried with IE6, IE7 and Firefox ... same results. Also I'm worried by a vendor that issues you two license activation codes "in case the first one doesnt work". Huh ??? It gets 2 stars because on the odd occasion it does download the video it works well. [alert admin]
Friday, June 13 2008 @ 10:22 PM PDT
ChronoSync 3.3.6 (Mac OS X)
On the surface, this is a great product, with numerous features. However, it suffers badly from some poor fundamentals: * As others have noted, it's *sloooow*. Don't expect more than 100K a second (yes, 100K) for most backups. * Networks seem to baffle ChronoSync. It has trouble connecting to shares to do a backup, both CIFS/SMB and AFP. I've loaded a CS backup document from a share and have CS tell me that the share (that I just used to load the document!) is invalid. * The exclusion/inclusion rules are odd. Want to backup all your home folder but exclude a particular folder? It *can* be done, but good luck finding out how from the UI and/or the docs. * It's interactive model is broken. Like so many badly designed apps, when something unexpected happens, it stops and asks you what to do. OK, great, but what if you're half-way thru a 10 hour backup and it does that? You get up in the morning, expecting your backup to be done, only to find that its been waiting all night for you to click "Continue". Absurd. If you are looking for a plain backup app, checkout SuperDuper. If you are looking for a good file sync app, sadly there are no major competitors to CS at present. [alert admin]
Sunday, January 20 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
ChronoSync 3.3.6 (Mac OS X)
On the surface, this is a great product, with numerous features. However, it suffers badly from some poor fundamentals: * As others have noted, it's *sloooow*. Don't expect more than 100K a second (yes, 100K) for most backups. * Networks seem to baffle ChronoSync. It has trouble connecting to shares to do a backup, both CIFS/SMB and AFP. I've loaded a CS backup document from a share and have CS tell me that the share (that I just used to load the document!) is invalid. * The exclusion/inclusion rules are odd. Want to backup all your home folder but exclude a particular folder? It *can* be done, but good luck finding out how from the UI and/or the docs. * It's interactive model is broken. Like so many badly designed apps, when something unexpected happens, it stops and asks you what to do. OK, great, but what if you're half-way thru a 10 hour backup and it does that? You get up in the morning, expecting your backup to be done, only to find that its been waiting all night for you to click "Continue". Absurd. If you are looking for a plain backup app, checkout SuperDuper. If you are looking for a good file sync app, sadly there are no major competitors to CS at present. [alert admin]
Sunday, January 20 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Eudora Mailbox Cleaner 4.7.2 (Mac OS X)
This is one of those little "perfect gem" tools. I had five years of email in Thunderbird to move to Mac Mail, and Mac Mail simply could not get the import right (missed all sorts of mail messages) plus it took forever to attempt the import. Eudora Mailbox Cleaner imported the whole lot in about 5 minutes, with no fuss or bother. I had one problem during the import which turned out to be some badly formatted Thunderbird mbox files (legacy from an earlier mail app). I emailed the developer and he kindly sent me an updated beta that fixed the problem -- all in less than 4 hours!!! Highly recommended! [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 1 users found this helpful
Friday, September 15 2006 @ 10:09 AM PDT
ChronoSync 3.3.2 (Mac OS X)
Any application that copies files needs to be rock-solid: it's playing with all your data after all!
ChronoSync comes up short here. After 4 months of owning/using this product, I'm having to look elsewhere, since some of the behaviors of this program scare me:
1. If CS encounters an error during sync, you are given the option of "excluding" the file in question. What is not mentioned is that this exclusion is permanent: CS will never try to sync that file ever again (presumably it keeps a list of these files somewhere). Worse, there is no way to get a list of these files, nor is there any way to reset or clear the list. This means that CS will start telling you a sync operation completed fine when in fact it has silently skipped a secret/hidden list of files. This is incredibly dangerous imho, since you could lose data this way.
2. There appears to be no simple way to exclude subfolders from a sync operation. For example, you might want to sync your home folder to an external disk but exclude the Desktop folder. Sorry, can't do it. There is an advanced rule option (exclude by parent path name) that should work, but (a) it's very poorly documented and (b) it doesn't work anyway. Every other backup/copy app I've used handles this simple case with ease.
3. The basic sync operation doesn't appear to work correctly. For example, run a sync job, wait (say) 5 minutes, and re-run the same job. All sorts of files that have not been touched (really) will be thrown up as needing copying, even if the Mac has been quiet in the interim. And I'm not talking about odd little files that might be touched by some background process: I've seen CS try to re-sync entire folders of JPG photos for no good reason (and which other tools ensure me are fully in-sync). This scares me a lot: if it can't get this right, is it also excluding some files it shouldn't???
4. The UI looks very pretty (up to Mac standards), but is actually rather poorly thought out. There is a "Trial Sync" option in one location and an "Analyze" option elsewhere which appear to do the same things (show what needs to be done). However, they use a different UI, and (worse) give different results! Many sync options are rather poorly explained and are confusing, even for me (a 25 year veteran operating system developer). The on-line help suffers badly from the "explain the easy bits that don't need explaining but skip the hards bits that do" syndrome (in fairness, so do many other Mac apps). For comparison, take a look at the "Synk" application, which imho is much better thought-out from a UI perspective.
It's sad having to sound so negative: CS is very close to being a great product, but it seems not to have been fully thought-out design-wise, and the odd results and lack of clarity on what is going to happen scares me: after all, as I said at the outset, this application is copying your life!
[alert admin]
Read Comments (6) | More Info | 5 of 7 users found this helpful
Friday, September 08 2006 @ 10:12 AM PDT
VPN Tracker 4.6.2 (Mac OS X)
OK product, terrible developer 
This product seems to work pretty much as advertised most of the time -- but beware if you have trouble, because the developers have a pretty odd idea of customer service: 1. It's expensive for what it offers -- at $90 for the base version it's far more than most full-blown apps. 2. After you purchase, you have to go through a convoluted registration process to get the software running, and need to repeat this (including sending a begging email) if you need to move the software to a new computer. 3. The sign-up process for the VPN Tracker mail list is broken ont he web site, so if you do need help you cannot get it anywhere. Overall, the impression is of a company that is more concerned with getting money out of you than with providing a high value service to the sucker (oops, I meant customer). [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 4 users found this helpful
Monday, May 22 2006 @ 12:35 PM PDT
Last 10 Comments by DrTimHill [ Search for All ]
Not the simplest, but certainly the most full-featured.
I don't believe i mentioned issues regarding the UI, which is generally clean. Regarding performance. My measured performance is over a GB private LAN (wired) to a NAS server upon AFP from the local HDD of a MacBook Pro. Basic Finder copies easily push 10-20MB/sec write speed to this NAS box (a high end unit with 1GB RAM and fast RAID drives). I still see awful CS performance. Regarding the network connect. Well, as I speak I…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Friday, January 25 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
OK, I'd like to look at your rebuttal one item at a time...
>2. There appears to be no simple way to exclude subfolders from a sync operation.
Simply select the file or folder in the Analyze panel and invoke the "Exclude" command. A big "X" icon appears and that item is forever excluded from
the sync. There's even a tip on the website with the not-so-subtle title "Excluding a File or Folder". This is ChronoSync 101…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Friday, September 08 2006 @ 08:32 PM PDT
