Unlike Daly, I personally never liked ADM much - I can see the potential, but the interface is clunky and it's full of bugs - even to the extent that data gets lost, and that's just not acceptable. The coders, whoever they are/were, seemed heart-hearted, being charitable, in any efforts to remove the bugs, preferring to make a further mush of the program by always adding new (buggy) features.

I was a member of the user group which, one day, without any notice that I saw, just wasn't there any more (or not that I could find). The treatment of their customers is tantamount to fraud. They took money from us for version 4, promised within a few months, a couple of years ago, and just never delivered.

I should have known, really, when I first tested the program and looked at the help file. Each help topic was an arrogant preamble of how wonderful ADM was and how it would resolve all your problems, and actually very little help. The response to any suggestion for improvement that Eric didn't like was not only dismissive, it was often downright rude.

I have learnt to buy software only from companies which react (correctly) to their customers and don't treat them as irritances. I'm now using Whizfolders and have no regrets, even though it doesn't do all that ADM could. I prefer to work around the weaknesses, the developer is very responsive, and I've never lost a letter of my data.

Graham

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Dominik, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I concur with your concerns re ADM, and
its communication history. Eric is either very communicative, or you hear nothing at
all. The last straw for me was when he announced the development list would be
moderated so as to prevent spam and inappropriate posts, this being an idea he got one
night following a tv show called, ironically, Dialogue, that convinced him
moderating the list was a good idea. Keep in mind that the developers list had had only
about three or four posts in the last month or so. It was dying.

I responded to the list
wiith a critique, that never appeared on the list, but which Eric replied to
privately. I replied, as a friend, but telling him honestly how this move to
moderating appeared given the the list had had none of the problems he was trying to
protect it from. He took offence and kicked me off the list -- for something that had
never appeared on the list. I sent Eric a reply, to which he has not replied. I moerate a
list with 5,000 members, hundreds of posts a month, spirited discussion -- and I see
absoluely no reason for moderating posts. The only posts I moderate are a member's
first post so I can screen out spammers. If the first post is not spam I change the person
to unmoderated status.

Eric's decision re moderation reminds me of the moderator
czars on the so-called Opera "Community" boards -- one reason that many people have
stopped using Opera.

Bottom line, after having spent hours and hours working with
ADM, trying to provide worthwhile feedback (feedback that often was used and
resulted in improvements), I no longer have any confidence in ADM in Eric. As for Arne
-- I don't even know if he's involved anymore. And whether it was Eric's or Arne's fault
ADM never seemed able to respond consistently to emails sent to the ADM support
address.

Like you Dominik I have a concern about the future of the English version of
ADM. I think the Chinese market has displaced the English market. I even wonder
whether a lot of the Skype hype of a few years ago may have been motivated by a desire to
provide Chinese computer users with an alternative to that country's long distance
phone system. Maybe yes, maybe no. It could have been simply a time consuming tangent
that is one reason ADM 4 is still under development.

One thing I think we can infer is
that ADM had some significant weaknesses because in recent months Eric has talked
about recoding and using a more powerful data base engine.

I very much hope that Eric
can do a 180 and get back on track, at least in terms of communicating. Given the lack of
traffic on the development list in the last year it appears as though much of the
English-speaking market has dried up. I want to see ADM succeed. ADM had a significant
lead in features and capability, but that gap is closing quickly.

Dominik, you
mentioned you preferred UR's approach to metadata -- can you please.explain why, and
how you use UR's metadata. I prefer ADM's because of the column display -- maybe I am
misunderstanding something with re to UR, or just have different metadata needs.
Thanks.

Take care,

Daly