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User Profile for Westside guy

User Name Westside guy

Member Since 2004-04-17

Total number of Feedback Posts: 27

Total number of comments: 7

Last 10 Feedback Posts by Westside guy  [ Search for All ]

CNET TechTracker app 1.0 beta 4 (Mac OS X)

DO NOT TRY - Uninstaller broken  

Version 1.0 beta 4 uses an installer to put the app on your Mac, and it theoretically installs an uninstaller app as well - but the installed uninstaller is broken! I tried it twice... This is really a problem since there are no manual uninstall instructions for the Mac. Not to mention that the app did a very poor job of identifying - actually "misidentifying" would be a more accurate term - the current versions of much of the software on my computer. It thinks Adium 1.3.7 is newer than my installed 1.4b12, for instance; plus it misidentifies non-beta software as well. This is a terrible app in its current incarnation - AVOID AT ALL COSTS. [alert admin]

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Thursday, October 29 2009 @ 09:37 PM PDT

pyTivoX 1.3 (Mac OS X)

1.3 just got released?  

On the pyTivoX website, it says version 1.3. was released in August - I've been using it since then... did Versiontracker just now learn about it? Love the software, in any case! [alert admin]

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Thursday, October 29 2009 @ 12:44 PM PDT

RipIt 1.2.5 (Mac OS X)

Does what it's supposed to, and does it well  

RipIt is a very elegant program for ripping DVDs. Its interface is very simple, but that belies the power inside of this app. I recently ripped my entire DVD collection (~ 100 discs), and RipIt handled them all beautifully. The only times I ran into any problems was with a couple DVDs that were significantly scratched - and that's not RipIt's issue (note: Skip Doctor repaired those DVDs nicely). I'm very happy with my purchase - under $20 for this app is a steal. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, May 12 2009 @ 10:34 AM PDT

()

Problematic  

Okay, I'm shallow. I wanted Shockwave on the Mac mainly so I could play the old Snowcraft Snowball Fight game (it's not like Shockwave is particularly useful for anything else). So I downloaded and installed this latest version of Shockwave. Unfortunately, it appears to be rather more buggy than the Windows version. That game didn't work - and we're talking about a 10-year-old Shockwave application. Not exactly cutting edge... [alert admin]

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Friday, November 07 2008 @ 08:03 PM PST

Spanning Sync 2.0b353 (Mac OS X)

May no longer be necessary  

Now that Google Calendar supports CalDAV - a calendar sharing protocol that iCal supports out of the box - these sorts of programs are probably unnecessary for most people. You can just use iCal to directly access your Google calendar, including adding, modifying, and deleting events.

Before spending money on a synchronization program, take a look at Google's how-to regarding setting up iCal for use with Google Calendar. That may be all you need.

[alert admin]

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Sunday, September 07 2008 @ 08:54 PM PDT

BusySync 2.1.6 (Mac OS X)

Probably unnecessary  

Now that Google Calendar supports CalDAV - a calendar sharing protocol that iCal supports out of the box - these sorts of programs are probably unnecessary for most people. You can just use iCal to directly access your Google calendar, including adding, modifying, and deleting events.

Take a look at Google's how-to regarding setting up iCal for use with Google Calendar.

[alert admin]

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Saturday, August 23 2008 @ 08:57 PM PDT

Microsoft Office 2008 12.0.1 (Mac OS X)

End of the Road  

Some people think they need Office 2008 to open the latest Office file types. I've found Pages handles .docx just fine. I bet Numbers will read .xlsx without problems as well (I haven't needed to test this yet). After purchasing Office 2008 and being rather dissatisfied, I decided to try using iWork '08 100% of the time to see how it goes. So far I haven't had any issues that've required me to fire up Word or Excel. Keynote hasn't always perfectly rendered Powerpoint for Windows documents; but when I've subsequently loaded those into Mac Powerpoint it hasn't done any better; so there was no advantage to using it. I've been using Office for a LONG time, starting with the old DOS versions. I had the first version of Word for Windows, purchased Office 95 (which was great for its time, actually) when it came around, and after switching to Mac have bought Office v.X, 2004, and 2008 - fortunately for educational prices. But I don't think I'll buy it in the future - its time is past. Mature free alternatives abound (e.g. AbiWord, NeoOffice/StarOffice); and iWork is faster and BETTER for my purposes, yet costs significantly less. Microsoft Office was a great tool in its heyday, but it's time to close the book. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, May 13 2008 @ 10:40 AM PDT

Netscape X 9.0rc1 (Mac OS X)

Put a fork in Netscape...  

... because they've been done for several years now. As far as I can tell, there is nothing a user should care about with this release. [alert admin]

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Monday, October 01 2007 @ 06:31 PM PDT

Parallels Desktop 2.5 Build 3120.0 (Mac OS X)

Lotta Boot Camp love, but serious video regressions  

They're calling build 3120 a Release Candidate, and putting a lot of work into coexistence with Boot Camp; while apparently ignoring a serious regression in full screen video. In full screen mode, a program that attempts to change the screen resolution will fail to do so regardless of Parallel's video preferences. The last version in which this worked correctly was beta 3036 (and of course the released 1970). So if you run full-screen Windows apps that need to change the video resolution, stay away from 3120. [alert admin]

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Thursday, January 11 2007 @ 10:50 AM PST

()

Hey cool...  

I was thinking about writing one of these myself - now I don't have to. :-D [alert admin]

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Wednesday, December 06 2006 @ 10:20 AM PST

Last 10 Comments by Westside guy  [ Search for All ]

DO NOT TRY - Uninstaller broken  

I meant to give it one star - my mistake. This is a terrible, terrible app.

Original feedback item : Read More

Thursday, October 29 2009 @ 09:39 PM PDT

This app now phones home  

Yes, it's hard for an app to auto-update without phoning home...

Original feedback item : Read More

Saturday, August 15 2009 @ 06:30 PM PDT

/usr/local  

I'm not arguing in the least; but this isn't just an Apple thing. I'm pretty sure putting user-installed applications into /usr/local/bin (or /usr/local/sbin) is supposed to be the default for well-behaved installers on most all *nixes - that's certainly how it's supposed to work under Linux.

Original feedback item : Read More

Sunday, February 22 2009 @ 12:46 PM PST

Does not inspire confidence  

This isn't a TrueCrypt problem per se, though, since OS X doesn't have NTFS write support built into it. However I'd think you could use MacFuse and the NTFS filesystem support to "fix" this problem, in any case.

Original feedback item : Read More

Sunday, February 10 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST

Great Program Thanks!  

I take it you're unaware that Mac OS X has a built-in secure Keychain for exactly this purpose? And, as another comment noted, the OS also has the ability to create encrypted disk images on a small or large scale. I could see the usefulness of, say, TrueCrypt if it were available on OS X - it has some significant advantages over using the built-in tools. But this just looks like it's reinventing the wheel. Am I…

Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)

Saturday, July 22 2006 @ 11:36 AM PDT

All I get is a screen full of data  

No, actually, this is due to an incorrect mime.types entry on the developer's webserver. If your browser does not honor the mime type that the server declares (meaning you got the file just fine), then your browser is doing things the IE way - which has been proven to be a security problem.

Original feedback item : Read More

Monday, May 08 2006 @ 12:49 PM PDT

Signifcantly worse than precursor  

You're right, I should have - my apologies. (Normally I do; not sure why I didn't this time)

Original feedback item : Read More

Monday, January 16 2006 @ 04:26 PM PST