UltraRecall v4 update worth it?

Posted by Graham Rhind
Aug 24, 2009 at 06:34 AM

I have no wish to enter a discussion about UR (which I stopped using some time ago), Jan or the democracy on forums, but I do feel the need to add a little balance to the comments about Zoot.

A lot of people have very positive opinions about Zoot’s developer, Tom, and that’s great, though the level of sycophancy shown in the Zoot forum gives me the heebie jeebies - it sometimes seems more like a cult than a software forum. However, I don’t think that the fact that Zoot is developed by a single person is an excuse for the failings of communication that we experience as Zoot users - or, at least, that I have.

Personally, I have had problems getting Zoot support from Tom (I know others haven’t). Tom posts new versions and never documents what has changed. Tom sets deadlines for new versions that he misses (and not by days but by months) - if Microsoft did the same, all hell would break loose.

I am also a one man band, and I would never treat my customers in the same way, and would never use the excuse that it’s only me here to ignore customer requests or fail to provide information or miss release deadlines. (Note: Tom has never used this excuse - his followers take up the sword on his behalf). Zoot is a fine piece of software, but nowadays I rarely report bugs, I don’t upgrade to any new minor versions (because there’s never an indication of what has changed), and I have no expectations of what will come - I use Zoot now because it does what I need it to do now, and that’s it.

It probably helps Tom’s case that he so rarely charges for any new versions of the software, which is a good reason for gaining a devoted following!