alcmist@well.UUCP (Frederick Wamsley) (08/23/86)
<harmful or fatal if swallowed> There have been several comments here lately about Red Ryder which are out of date or simply mistaken. This note is for anyone thinking of getting Red Ryder, but worried about all the negative articles. Since April, Scott Watson (the author) has put a freeze on new features and is spending all his programming time fixing reported bugs. He's been doing this in response to feedback from users. Scott Watson does a good job of listening to his customers, but doesn't always acknowledge their messages. For example, I've reported several bugs by leaving notes on GEnie or (earlier) on his BBS. All the bugs I reported were fixed promptly, but I never got a reply. It's easy to see how people get the impression that Scott "ignores" problem reports, even though he fixes things faster than most commercial vendors do. If you can't get a copy of the program from a friend or a user's group, a download from GEnie takes only about 35 minutes. Even including the time you need to download the massive documentation, it's nowhere near the hour and 40 minutes that one person quoted. I won't take up net bandwidth with a discussion of features or user interface. If you're in the market, check the July MacUser for a review of Red Ryder and competitors. There are valid criticisms of Red Ryder. Freesoft is a small company. It doesn't have the resources for testing on a wide range of equipment and is usually sloppy on administrative matters. If you have an unusual hardware configuration, or if you need fulltime phone support, you should get a commercial package (Microphone seems to be the closest in functionality). But I am willing to recommend it for most users, based on my 1.25 years of experience with it. -- Fred Wamsley hplabs!well!alcmist;well!alcmist@lll-crg.arpa;CIS 72247,3130; GEnie FKWAMSLEY;ATT Mail fwamsley; other uucp uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!asymet!fred; USPS - why bother? "6502 - the original RSIC machine"