Existing users, 
User Name bgrubb
Member Since 2001-09-28
Total number of Feedback Posts: 29
Total number of comments: 8
Last 10 Feedback Posts by bgrubb [ Search for All ]
Apple QuickTime 7.6.4 (Mac OS X)
This is not an upgrade to Quicktime X despite the Version tracker software saying it is. According to the QuickTime for Mac OS at Apple Support 7.6.4 doesn't provide any added benefits under Snow Leopard. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Thursday, September 17 2009 @ 10:47 AM PDT
Apple QuickTime 7.6.4 (Mac OS X)
The versiontracker pro program says this 7.6.4 an update to Quicktime X. That is NOT correct. Also according to the apple discussions page (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2151335&tstart=0) there is NO benefit in forcing an install of 7.6.4 under Snow Leopard. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Thursday, September 17 2009 @ 10:16 AM PDT
StuffIt Expander 13.0.3 (Mac OS X)
While Stuffit Deluxe has gotten a lot of bad press everyone has missed the fact that StuffIt Expander has remained gold over the years. It will expand version of formats (segmented zip files) other free utilities tend to have problems with. If Stuffit Expander can't handle it odds are it is some obscure format that may not even have much a presence even on the PC or the file is corrupted in some manner. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 2 users found this helpful
Thursday, July 09 2009 @ 06:11 AM PDT
Transmute Portable 1.54 (Mac OS X)
Learn how to due crossplatform correctly
If you make people jump through hoops to get your program to run then you have FAILED a key part of crossplatform development: KISS. Though, in this case we have more a case of Keep It Simple, Stupid rather than Keep it Short and Simple. If you are going to support Mac, Windows, and Linux why in the name of programming not go with a language that can run on all three--namely Java. Especially when you are simply converting bookmarks (as opposed to something like allbookmarks that effectively replaces the bookmarkers of your various browsers). Look at OpenOffice as an example of something that can at respectable speeds across all three platforms. I tend to play with Darwine a lot and I have found anything with NET to be the biggest pain in the rear to run so why put it in something that is intended to be crossplatform in the first place?!? Sure using Mono makes things a little easier but Mono is not the sharpest knife in the toolshead in terms of mac usage: the Mono homepage itself states to run a mono program you need to open the terminal and do mono myprogram.exe. Sigh, if we Mac users wanted to play with terminal commands for supposedly crossplatform programs we would dump the whole Finder interface and just run Darwin. UltraKiss shows another alternative to this--simply have a little program for each of the platforms involved that does the needed handling for the OS involved to load the program. So you have a 120 kb (not that is NOT a typo--120 KILOBYTES) mac file, an equally small windows .exe file and .jar for everything else (UltraKiss is a java program after all). But do see see of of these totally reasonable methods with this? No. Instead we see something on par with a Star Trek fanfic where Klingons celebrate their receiving a ship full of Tribbles as a peace offering. [alert admin]
Thursday, July 02 2009 @ 09:59 AM PDT
StuffIt Deluxe 2009 13.0.3 (Mac OS X)
Producted with declining usefulness
I have used Stuffit going allt he way back to 1.0 but I stopped updating Stuffit Deluxe when I upgraded to 10.3.0 and stopped using it about 2 years ago as fewer and fewer mac developers use the .sit or sitx formats anymore preferring instead tar.gz, zip or dmg as their formats of choice. The MacOS has had dmg compression around for ages through Disk Copy, zip compression has been built into the MacOS since 10.3, and if you feel like messing with .tar and .z there is always the terminal for older MacOS versions and Archive Utility for 10.5 and higher. Why spend money on a program that doesn't do all that much when there are freeware alternatives like The Unarchiver and shareware ones like Springy, iArchiver, and StuffIt Standard around? Especially as Stuffit Deluxe's only major use involves a format fewer and fewer people even use. Segmentation is of limited use and with bigger files and faster connections 20% better compression is not as impressive as it was in years gone by. As sad as it is Stuffit Deluxe's time has passed. Time to put it out of its and our misery. Your wallet with thank you. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 7 of 9 users found this helpful
Sunday, June 28 2009 @ 03:27 PM PDT
Apple QuickTime 7.6 (Mac OS X)
WARNING Quicktime 7.6 has some serious incompatibilities. If you have any cinepak QT videos it will produced horrible pixelation in the playback (VLC will play the video fine) and several games like Sim 2 do not like it at all. [alert admin]
Wednesday, March 18 2009 @ 02:17 PM PDT
Tex-Edit Plus 4.9.8 (Mac OS X)
Tex-Edit has been a long favorite of mine but it is being rapidly being taken over by programs that have been updated. Bean which is Cocoa native, open source, free. and able to handle formats Tex-Edit goes 'Huh?' regarding has started replacing this program. As for Tom Bender writing Tex-Edit in Pascal that should be no barrier to Intel native code as it appears FreePascel 2.2.2+Xtools 2.x and GNU Pascal 3.4.5u2+Xtools 3.x can both produce Intel native code. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Tuesday, March 17 2009 @ 11:44 AM PDT
Adobe Reader 9.0 (Mac OS X)
Do you really need this program on a Mac?
The one thing I have not really understood is since you can "print" a PDF from a Mac since at least 10.3 just what use is Acrobat pro; especially as Adobe seems to treat its customers as a cross between a red headed stepchild and a whipping boy. As far as a reader is concerned take a look at Skim, an open source PDF reader, which seems to do everything Adobe Reader does and does it a LOT better. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 7 of 10 users found this helpful
Monday, July 14 2008 @ 04:21 PM PDT
StuffIt Deluxe 10.0.2 (Mac OS X)
I stopped updating Stuffit Deluxe when I upgraded to 10.3.0 and stopped using it about a 18 months ago as fewer and fewer mac developers use the .sit or sitx formats anymore preferring instead tar.gz, zip or dmg as their formats of choice. Why spend money or a program that doesn't do all that much when there are freeware alternatives like The Unarchiver and shareware ones like iArchiver around? Non/little improvement of this utility has basically dried this up as a cash cow. Time to put it out of its and our misery. Your wallet with thank you. [alert admin]
Read Comments (2) | More Info | 1 of 5 users found this helpful
Monday, May 12 2008 @ 06:31 AM PDT
Nisus Writer Express 3.0.2 (Mac OS X)
Is there really a need for this?
After I discovered OpenOffice and Neooffice I started using Nisus Writer Express less and less to the point I forgot I even had it. At least until I upgraded to an iMac and version tracker showed me every piece of software I still had (unused or not) in need of an update. Coming back I have to ask does this program even have a purpose anymore? OpenOffice and Neooffice offer so much more for far less of a price. IMHO time has passed this program by. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 0 of 1 users found this helpful
Tuesday, May 06 2008 @ 05:05 PM PDT
Last 10 Comments by bgrubb [ Search for All ]
If you make people jump through hoops to get your program to run then you have FAILED a key part of crossplatform development: KISS. Though, in this case we have more a case of Keep It Simple, Stupid rather than Keep it Short and Simple. If you are going to support Mac, Windows, and Linux why in the name of programming not go with a language that can run on all three--namely Java. Especially when…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Friday, July 03 2009 @ 05:52 PM PDT
"Unarchiver only decompresses. It does not compress." It doesn't need to as dmg compression has been around for ages, zip compression has been built into the MacOS since 10.3, and if you feel like messing with .tar and .z there is always the terminal for older MacOS versions and Archive Utility for 105 and higher. Sure there are some formats the MacOS can't compress right out of the box but ask yourself 1) how often do you…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Tuesday, August 12 2008 @ 06:39 AM PDT
Can't Register or Visit THOTH website
Brian Clark announce years ago that he had stopped development and taking payments. IMHO given his treatment of YA-Newswatcher it was not surprising. Personally I feel it is time to forget about this program and look for something else.
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Tuesday, August 12 2008 @ 06:23 AM PDT
It is not "abuse" of the ratings to complain about beta software that is effectively ALPHA in quality.
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Friday, June 13 2008 @ 06:29 AM PDT
Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.
RTFM is little help when at best many file you run into have a three letter extension. How are you supposed to know that .doc is not a format this program supports? Also OpenOffice will open more formats than this will and is free.
Original feedback item : Read More
Tuesday, March 07 2006 @ 04:18 PM PST
Given the speed that Spotlight can find things the claim that is will take a 'long' time to find something if they move it is deonstrately false. It is simply a cast of lazy programming that the updates are so dumb.
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Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 08:03 AM PDT
The long file name problem is not Aspyr's fault - it is a limitation of the fact the program is written in Carbon. Carbon programs even though they run under X still have the 31 character file name limitation. Also it is not Aspyr's fault that the PC side make files with ridculously long names to begin with.
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Wednesday, March 31 2004 @ 07:33 PM PST
Right archive format, wrong extension
It should be very simple to have 10.1 IE download .sitx files correctly: add the format to the File helper settings by duplicating .sit for SE and change the clone to the .sitx extension. Besides as more and more mac programs with .sitx extensions come out anyone still using IE (I went to Safari) is going to have to address this problem anyhow.
Original feedback item : Read More
Sunday, November 30 2003 @ 09:55 AM PST
