Existing users, 
User Name iayork
Member Since 2001-11-14
Total number of Feedback Posts: 30
Total number of comments: 11
Last 10 Feedback Posts by iayork [ Search for All ]
Gruml 0.9.12 (Mac OS X)
I'm pretty fussy about my RSS readers, but Gruml is looking pretty impressive already. Without a lot of bloat, bells, or whistles, it takes Google Reader's information and presents it in a usable format. (I can't stand Google Reader's presentation itself.) Gruml rapidly found my subscriptions and updated them quickly and smoothly. The layout is the familiar 3-panel format (with an option for a 3-column layout). The rest of the layout is also familiar and intuitive, with a reasonable amount of customization tucked away if you want it. It offers a handful of Styles for viewing articles -- not as many as some more established RSS clients, but you'll probably find something you can live with (and though I haven't looked into it, I assume these are CSS stylesheets and can be extended if you want). In the short while I've used it, it's been stable and responsive. Although Gruml on its own doesn't quite measure up to my long-term RSS client (VIenna) the Google Reader integration bumps it up several notches. It's an impressive feat for a pre-1.0 release, and I'll definitely keep an eye on this. [alert admin]
Sunday, October 25 2009 @ 06:46 AM PDT
Apple iWork 09 9.0.2 (Mac OS X)
OK, that's not quite true, but iWorks '09 is the first release for which that's not a ridiculous statement. Very briefly, I find Pages much nicer than Word, Numbers about equal to Excel (I use both, depending on my needs), and Keynote not quite as useful as PowerPoint. (This is true for both Office '08 and '04.) I use Pages to write scientific papers and documents. I need moderately fancy layout capabilities (to incorporate graphics into my documents) and aside from that I need it to stay out of my way. Pages loads much faster and is much more responsive than Word, and it's more stable. Incorporating graphics into my documents is so much easier than Word I can't begin to tell you how much time I've saved. Importing and exporting from and to Word is seamless (occasionally there are notes that something didn't import perfectly, but I can rarely spot the difference even when it's flagged). Exporting to Word on the fly -- directly to email, for example -- is effortless and completely solves the problem of collaboration. In earlier versions of iWorks I had problems with references and bibliographies, but Bookends (from Sonny Software) works fine with '09. (I understand Endnote does as well, but haven't tried it.) I only fire up Word these days when I forget and double-click on a doc instead of the faster right-clicking and opening in Pages. Numbers has finally grown up. I couldn't use the previous version because it couldn't do a number of things (error bars and trend lines were the two worst, as I recall) but they're now working fine. There are still a couple problems -- Excel imports CSV and tab-delimited files much better -- but Numbers' workflow and model seems much more sensible now that I'm used to it. Again, Numbers launches faster and is more responsive and stable than Excel. I use Numbers for about 80% of my charting/spreadsheet needs. Keynote, I rarely use, though it's certainly not bad. PowerPoint seems a little more versatile, and though Keynote probably has better templates and transitions, I don't use templates or transitions much. Powerpoint is nicer for exporting in different formats (e.g. as notes) which is important since it lets me output my lectures as notes very easily. All in all, the package as a whole is as useful as Office. Depending on your specific needs you might have some requirement for an Office feature that's not present in iWorks, but for the vast majority I think iWorks would be at least as function, and I think for almost everyone it's going to be faster, more responsive, and just easier to use. [alert admin]
Read Comments (3) | More Info | 4 of 5 users found this helpful
Thursday, May 28 2009 @ 05:15 PM PDT
Cyberduck 2.8.3 (Mac OS X)
Solid, well-designed, intuitive; slower transfers? 
I've been using Cyberduck for years as my primary FTP/SFTP client. It's very well-designed, quite intuitive to use and versatile. I find Fetch (the other FTP/SFTP client I've used enough to compare) to be a little less intuitive and a less attractive (though that may be because I'm more used to Cyberduck). Both programs cover the basics very well and both offer a mostly-overlapping set of advanced tools; each has a handful of features the other doesn't but none of the differences is very significant. Both have been stable -- I have seen a couple of crashes with Cyberduck over several months, but they're rare. The one advantage Fetch does have is that (for some reason I don't understand) Fetch consistently transfers (or at least uploads) a little faster than Cyberduck. The difference is small (e.g. the last comparison I tried had Fetch finish uploading in 5 minutes to Cyberduck's 7) but has been reproducible for several sites and over a period of a couple months. I'm not sure why there would be a difference, but there it is. If you have lots of large (>50 MB) transfers you might save time with Fetch, but Cyberduck might make it back by being a little easier and more pleasant to use. [alert admin]
Read Comments (2) | More Info
Saturday, January 12 2008 @ 07:00 PM PST
ohmiGene Lite 2.01 (Mac OS X)
This program has a really amateurish look-and-feel, to the point that it's unpleasant to use. There's no attempt to follow the Mac HIG. Menus are not in the menubar but are crammed together in a corner of a window. The icons are truly ghastly, apparently scribbled by a four-year-old, cluttered, ugly, and non-explanatory. Even the text associated with (some of) the icons is often unclear (how is a "person" option different from an "individual"?) Many icons have no explanatory text, and I can't even guess what they are supposed to do; mouse-overs don't bring up tooltips. More random garish icons are scattered across the fields, to the point where they overlay text and render it unreadable. The author is French and obviously speaks little or no English; the translation is apparently either with the aid of a dictionary or machine-translation and the result is about as incoherent as you'd expect. Again, a very amateurish attitude. Doesn't import any GedCom files I've tried -- apparently they are the wrong version. The author apparently has made no attempt at backward-compatibility or is completely inflexible. There are many other offputting touches -- windows don't resize, for example. It is quite possible that this is a powerful, capable, and reliable genealogy program. However, I can't imagine trusting any data to this interface. If the author is serious about trying to sell his "Pro" version (which as far as I can see has the same interface as this free version) I strongly suggest he completely re-does the interface, following Apple's standard HIG and hiring people as necessary to make a competent translation and to produce professional-looking icons. Because it didn't import GedCom files I didn't really try it out, so I will be relatively generous in the ratings. [alert admin]
Read Comments (2) | More Info | 7 of 8 users found this helpful
Wednesday, December 26 2007 @ 10:44 AM PST
iFamily for Tiger 2.292 (Mac OS X)
Stable, intuitive, nice to use
Disclaimers: This is the first genealogy software I've used, so I can't do a lot of comparison to other programs. Also, I am not a very demanding user, with just a handful of ancestors added in so far. That said, I looked at a half-dozen other programs before settling on iFamily. Several were really ugly, either obvious clunky ports or just plain poorly designed. Some (especially the open-source PHP-based ones) were hard to set up and buggy and unstable once I did get them going. There may have been a couple of others that seemed to be similar to iFamily in overall appearance and functionality, but iFamily was the cheapest that served my needs. Entering individuals is quick and easy, and linking new family members is also very simple. It's also very straightforward to add supplementary information like pictures or notes. The software stays out of the way most of them time, but does flag errors (my grandmother claimed her brother died 6 months before he was born, and iFamily gave me a warning when I entered that but then allowed me to leave it that way). Output is reasonably attractive and can be customized to an extent. The one thing I really dislike is that iFamily keeps its data in a top-level folder and there seems to be no way to change that. Users should be able to select where to store their data, and at the very least Documents, not / , should be the default. I have no idea how suitable iFamily would be for a power genealogist with thousands of data points (it may be great, I just haven't any way of testing it), but I think it's an excellent choice for someone like me who just wants to save the information that's been passed down through the family. [alert admin]
Read Comments (2) | More Info
Friday, December 14 2007 @ 04:31 AM PST
Bento 1.0.0.3 (Mac OS X)
I think there's a real opening for a database that offers ease of use and reasonable price, and Bento might well fill that niche. Now, I think that many people who should use databases do not, instead using spreadsheets or worse. Open-source databases like SQLite or MySQL offer tremendous power, but there's a significant learning curve and they're not particularly user-friendly (try to store an image in SQLite and display it again). Commercial databases like FileMaker and its competitors are also very powerful, and may be a little easier to work with, but are still far from suer-friendly, and are more expensive than most individuals are willing to shell out for.
Bento is not a very powerful database at the moment, but it is extremely user-friendly. Most of Bento is devoted to usefull but attractive eye candy. In this case eye candy is a good thing, because the people who would benefit from a database, but who have been scared away from full-featured versions, shouldn't be afraid of Bento.
Again, this is not the database program for a mid-sized business to use; this is the database for your Uncle Roger to catalogue his 1500 bird house designs, with pictures and dates. There are millions of people who have collections of stuff with, say, a few thousand items -- knitting patterns, plasmid DNA, stuffed penguins, that sort of thing. If they don't need to be extensively cross-referenced, then Bento is a good place to store the info.
Right now, for example, I have an SQLite database for my liquid nitrogen stocks of cells -- I use the SQLite directly, and I wrote a custom wxPython GUI for it for my technician to use. But that's a waste of my time, and I don't want to write new GUIs for every other database in my lab. For $50 I can get Bento and be reasonably confident that my tech will actually use it and keep everything up to date. And I won't have to make a new GUI for the next set of data.
As Bento is basically a pretty GUI on top of SQLite, the power is presumably there and hopefully there will be a way to unlock that at some point (perhaps when AppleScripting is completed). Cross-referencing is probably the most important missing feature, and makes Bento inadequate for some of the databases I have going -- but even without that I think it's a strong competitor for this particular market.
[alert admin]Post a comment | More Info | 8 of 9 users found this helpful
Friday, December 07 2007 @ 05:10 PM PST
Liquifile 1.5 (Mac OS X)
It's an interesting and different approach. Essentially this shows files and folders with size and modified (or created) date. It's remarkably smooth and fast, and offers an intuitive and helpful way of looking at your files. Navigation could use a little tweaking; for example, I'd like to be able to navigate back or up through a path from the toolbar instead of just the menu or keyboard (disclaimer -- I've only played with the demo for a little while; there may be ways to modify the toolbar or something, but I didn't see them i the preferences or other places I looked). I've marked the documentation down a little but it looks as if the developers are working on that. They suggest a video which isn't up yet, for example. I don't think I'm going to use it yet, but I'll keep an eye on updates and see what's new. It has potential to be a useful Finder alternative, I think. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 10 of 10 users found this helpful
Sunday, January 14 2007 @ 09:41 AM PST
WU BLAST 2.0 2006-01-01 (Mac OS X)
In my previous comment I said I couldn't even get it to start. Please ignore that comment, because on a new machine with a fresh install I have no problems. Although I think I did everything the same, I suspect my previous machine had either permissions, or its PATH, screwed up. WU-Blast works very well, is immensely configurable, and is fast and accurate. It's not aimed at beginners, either with computers or with genetics in general. Although it's MacOSX native it's a UNIX program, purely command-line. The documentation is extensive but technical -- you're expected to have a general grasp of the concepts before you start. I'm giving it four stars overall, because five stars implies that it couldn't be improved. I think documentation could be made more accessible, and installation and running could in principle be simplified. However, for the audience this is aimed at these are not really flaws. Technically WU BLAST does exactly what it should do, and does so very well. [alert admin]
Wednesday, November 15 2006 @ 05:18 AM PST
Bookends 9.0.7 (Mac OS X)
I've used Endnote for around 10 years. It's become more and more bloated over the years, with each "new" (full-priced) release containing little new save "features" that are completely useless to me and the vast majority of users. Its search function is clumsy, poorly designed, and unreliable, especially for on-line databases (PubMed). It formats bibliiographies almost, but not quite, right, usually forcing me to go back and, say, add periods to the ends of journal names manually. Bookends is faster, much more intuitive, and generally easier to use. I believe it contains some features that Endnote doesn't have at all -- certainly, if Endnote has them, they are so much harder to use that they may as well not exist. Pubmed searches are effortless, fast, and reliable. Using Word, citations and bibliography formatting have been perfect so far. Bookends imported my Endnote library with no problems at all. WHen I had a question, I got a complete and helpful answer by email within a couple of hours. The new free revisions coming from Bookends are generally bigger steps than Endnotes' annual full-price upgrades. Highly recommended. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 3 of 4 users found this helpful
Tuesday, October 03 2006 @ 08:45 AM PDT
()
Great idea that seems to work well in the limited testing I've done. Seems to use somewhat less CPU than having the window open in Camino or Safari. Thanks. [alert admin]
Tuesday, April 25 2006 @ 01:15 PM PDT
Last 10 Comments by iayork [ Search for All ]
There is a long, long discussion on this in previous comments. Summary: Both apps have been around for a long, long time, and no one is confused.
Original feedback item : Read More
Wednesday, July 08 2009 @ 06:18 AM PDT
Security alert... Security alert!
I haven't tried this app or the service in general, but it's not true that they don't mention security. From the wed site: Secure, Reliable Storage SSL Transferred. Stored in Amazon S3 with AES ZumoDrive keeps your content securely backed up using Amazon's S3 datacenters. Your files are first sent to the ZumoDrive servers using a secure SSL connection. From there, your files are encrypted using military grade AES encryption and sent to S3 where they are…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Friday, March 06 2009 @ 05:01 PM PST
Stable, intuitive, nice to use
The one thing I really dislike is that iFamily keeps its data in a top-level folder and there seems to be no way to change that. Users should be able to select where to store their data, and at the very least Documents, not / , should be the default. Correction -- there is a way to change that (File/Change Data Directory). Thanks to the author for pointing this out.
Original feedback item : Read More
Monday, December 17 2007 @ 02:11 PM PST
(1) Could you send me an example of a plasmid from GenBank where all the features were not imported? (2) Preferences does offer an option to select only commonly-used restriction enzymes. Unfortunately it is a bit tedious to do this but it only needs to be done once, then you can select your own preferred set of enzymes each time. Future releases will include more pre-defined sets of enzymes, as well. (3) Gene…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Wednesday, November 14 2007 @ 04:06 AM PST
Could you send me a bug report, describing your OS, what happens, and what causes the problems? I can't fix problems if I'm not given any information about them. Thanks.
Original feedback item : Read More
Monday, July 30 2007 @ 10:39 AM PDT
http://www.iayork.com/XPlasMap/XPlasMap10.3.zip Let me know if that doesn't work.
Original feedback item : Read More
Thursday, May 03 2007 @ 08:05 PM PDT
Sorry about that. I've updated the description to say that OS10.4 is required. I will see if I can get it to work on 10.3 and earlier, but for now that will not be my priority.
Original feedback item : Read More
Saturday, April 28 2007 @ 06:21 AM PDT
If you want to do the right thing, you'll change the name...
It seems we are all in agreement that whichever application was first released has rights to the name "Synergy". No one has agreed that. You've made that claim, but that's not how it works. Two products are allowed to share the same name if they're not attempting to confuse people about their function. Apple computer was allowed to share a name with Apple Music when Apple Computer wasn't in the music business. …
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Tuesday, April 24 2007 @ 06:10 AM PDT
<EM>i'm convinced this program is great...for anyone who understands a word of the above description. me, i haven't a clue. :D</EM> It's molecular biology. My guess is that most people who do this on a semi-regular basis can design oligos just about as well by hand, while people who are doing huge amounts of this e.g. for complex libraries will already have hand-written software that may not be as pretty but is more personalized. …
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Monday, March 26 2007 @ 05:26 PM PDT
good program, but serious improvements needed
The journal Science has multiple citations per footnote number Science no longer does this; they stopped a year or so ago. However, Science does allow interspersing genuine footnotes n the reference footnotes. I don't know if Bookends will tolerate this (I haven't used Bookends, though I'm considering switching from Endnote). (For that matter, I don't know if or how Endnote would do that.)
Original feedback item : Read More
Wednesday, March 08 2006 @ 09:19 AM PST
