Every now and then I stumble upon [someone points me to] a piece of software which makes me suddenly realize that some piece of software I’ve worked really hard on is just a waste of time, reinventing the wheel etc.
Thankfully this is usually only a first impression, and I go on to discover that these products are actually quite different from mine [and occasionally just a bit crappy] and then I go back to avoiding work in the belief that the work I’m avoiding is still worth doing.
The things I say here are just my personal opinion, and should not be mistaken for an objective analysis of other people’s software.
[and yes, it is very rude for me to slag off other people's software when most of mine isn't available yet... But in the software world other people's failings can sometimes be an inspiration... But then I think I would be mortified if one of the authors of this software actually came here and read my criticisms...]
Some software that has given me the heeby-jeebies in this way:
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Digital Page Author – creates stand alone executable books, with animated page turning. Supports images, embedded menus and links. At first glance I thought it would be stiff competition for Reader, but on further scrutiny what this product is good at is more like a powerpoint presentation than a novel. Good for brochures and flyers. The way the demos work it seems the pages might even be stored as bitmaps, since they are not resizable, and the text is not selectable. Printing a page reinforces this impression, since text comes out all crummy and pixellated looking. Compiled file size is impressive [small], but my overall impression is that you’d probably get better results with Flash or Powerpoint (or even Acrobat). The major selling point of this product seems to be that it uses 3D animation to do the page turns – A bit steep at approx $99 for full version!
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Natata eBook Compiler – a compilable HTML viewer. Sells itself as an e-book compiler but in reality what it creates looks nothing like a book, more like a website. Uses Internet Explorer as it’s viewer. Very useful in many ways, but not what I would call a book reader. Functionally, I see no reason to use it [except for password protection] since the CHM format can store a whole web site in exactly the same way, and can be read on any Windows machine [the decompression of CHM files appears to be faster for viewing too]. I think it’s interesting that both this product and Digital Page Author compile to EXE files, which is a real security issue [I was considering removing the EXE feature from my own Reader for this reason, but I think I'll keep it now...] – $30 for the full version.
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EmEditor – a very nice text editor with a recently updated feature list that puts it well ahead of my own [as yet unreleased] editor. I consider it a great quality benchmark. - It costs a mere $30.
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Also quite good in the text editor stakes: TextPad, nice ‘n’ simple – Approx $26
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Boxer Text Editor – a complicated looking text editor, with probably lots of features and stuff, but even the basic functionality is pretty crappy. Syntax hilighting functions within a very limited context (eg block comments in C get "forgotten" if they extend more than a page). The reason I mention it here is because it had a google sponsored link to it, which means it has a marketing budget, and I guess I thought that was interesting. The about box contains patronizing phrases like "…for the discriminating computer user". Hey that’s me! – $59 for the full version.