Never Underestimate...

Last week I recounted the sad story of DownloadMage and how a lot of users had become very annoyed. One other fact mentioned was that the author had reduced the shareware price from $19 to $10... maybe that was a reaction to a lot of negative feedback. Alternatively it may just have been coincidence.

I have a story to tell this week that has a similar connection but it's a far happier tale.

With the permission of my good friend Arnvid Aakre I'm going to reprint part of a recent message he passed on to us here at S101 in one of our forums.

"Some time ago I had a post where I told about a free alternative to all who did not have MS Office (or Word Perfect) - in short did not want or could not afford one of these huge and expensive software, even if they could be very useful for us as Contributing Editors.

Just after I posted this message I found out that this FREE suite with word, photo and excel program did not have spell checker - so I toned down my recommendation.

Then I went in dialogue with the president of this software company, and after a lot back and forth talking with him we found a solution. Result was version "b" NOW with spell checker - activated after a free registration.

After the spell checker came onboard - it have become a brilliant tool for all who don't have one of the expensive offices above. Premysl (president of 602Pro) told me they had 80'000 registration only the first 2 weeks after release of version "B".

But don't listen to me, find both link and see what others write:

Here a ZDNet review, Nick Smith in RocketDownload.com and from CompletelyFreeSoftware.

As Arnvid demonstrates here, we the users might be at one end of the food chain but we can bring influence to bear on program authors and software companies by way of feedback. Good or bad.

The bad we avoid by always appreciating freeware for what it doesn't cost and remembering the words of appreciation and thanks it deserves. Criticisms need to be expressed as constructively as possible and beta programs recognised for what they are... test versions.

Useful suggestions will always be considered by the vast majority of authors and companies provided we make any comment of ours worthy of their time.

I don't write programs but I do talk about them every week and I'm always grateful for any response I receive. All of them get read, virtually all get replied to but I'm human enough to confess a few get hit immediately with the delete key. Those that create software are no different.

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