Dominik, I appreciate your post, and your review of your involvement with ADM.

In retrospect each of us may have done things differently. I think that people such as yourself did more than could be reasonably expected of one who providing volunteer service.

Re only one person coding: I never knew that until after the fact. When I used to complain that changes in a new beta version suggested very little checking before it was made available for download, Eric would lecture me on that's the way software is developed. Meanwhile I always felt it was just plain carelessness. But when I realized there was only one coder, I understood why the problem. There just wasn't time to check a new beta version except perhaps in the most cursory manner -- so us "trusted" testers did more of the grunt work than I have ever seen expected on any other developer's beta.

Yet, last night when I fired up ADM for the first time in weeks I felt nostalgia, a warm response to the program (if not its developer), and a wish that I could use it with confidence.

I hope to God someone from ADM, or with connections to the people in ADM, is reading these posts, and makes sure they get read by Arne and Eric.

Thanks again Dominik.

Daly

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Daly,
Jan,

As a fromer supporter of ADM I have to state this:
- I supported the
integration of Skype. Still a great idea but too early
- I did not put enough pressure
on removing the bugs and implementing some basic features
- I did not express my
concerns enough regarding the fact that only one developer is writing code
- I did not
listen to Stephen and his rather hard but in the end true posts here
- I still like ADM
very much but I don't use it anymore
- I am disappointed about the communication
breakdown between ADM and its users

My key learnings:
- I support and use well
supported software only. Criterias: E-Mails are answered, a support forum or group
is available and moderated, there is at least one stable release per year, the website
is updated regularly, minor releases including bug fixes are distributed for free
during the year, users are warmly invited to provide feedback, if there are delays
these delays are communicated openly, or: the developers don't publish a final or
clear release date until they are 100% sure they can match the date (like Kinnook or
IdeaMason did), beta testing is available but on a limited time only
- I don't
over-support software anymore. Even with tools like Ultra Recall or IdeaMason I am
very careful in expressing my support too much because you never know how long they are
in business. Even Bill Gates from Microsoft said once: 'Microsoft is always two years
away from getting bancrupt.' What that means: You are much faster out of the business
than you think.

I have written an e-mail to Eric including some questions regarding
the further develoment of ADM.
Keep finger's crossed!

Dominik