Open Thread: Software Mistakes
There’s an amazing variety of software out there designed to make us more productive, with more coming along every day. Some of it is free and open source, but there are still plenty of commercial applications trying to separate you from your hard-earned money as well. Even “free” productivity software comes with a cost, as it takes time to set up and can lock you in to a new data format or a particular workflow that makes it hard to switch when something new comes along.
We try to steer you towards the best and most interesting new software in our reviews. No matter how many reviews you read, though, sometimes the package that looked so perfect on the shelf turns out to be a disaster when you install it. Why not take a minute today to share your worst software mistake with other WWD readers? What program did you buy and install, only to never actually use it because it was too complex or didn’t work the way you wanted? What proved to be underpowered or overpromised? Which applications do you wish you’d never installed? You may never get your money (or time) back, but here’s your chance to blow off a little steam.
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Hmm. Every video(flv) downloader I’ve come across is pure shitness, except for Sothink ones.
Sothink will let you download any flash on the page, and that’s good. The others are pure crap, install crapware and only download from some sites.
A game, actually. Myst III. I was looking forward to it for so long after playing Riven and then when I finally bought it I couldn’t even look at it without getting a migraine and feeling nauseous. Let’s just say the jumpy 3D movement was somewhat disorientating. Thankfully things improved somewhat in Myst IV.
An early Macromedia suite – Fireworks, Flash, and Dreamweaver. I bought out of my own pocket at a conference. One week later they updated the whole suite with new versions. One month later I started a new job which provided any software required. A complete waste of what seemed like allot of money.
Hands down – Paint Shop Pro. Had I been willing to read through all the help files, I’m sure it would have been OK, but out of the box I found it difficult to use.
I ended up uninstalling it. Now I use Paint.NET for advanced tools and regular old Paint for mundane tasks.
Act! It is suppose to be the most integrated contact management software and it is a complete disaster. After spending hours building a custom database with custom fields I find out that when I am forced to do a rebuild it cannot save my custom fields so I need to hand convert every contact.
Now I’m basically waiting until something new hits the market so I can justify writing off this expense and moving on.
I must have installed Powerpoint as part of Office half a dozen times now, not even beginning to count the number of work PCs that have hosted it. I have never used it and grow less likely to do so with every pitifully bad presentation that I see.
Norton Internet Protection Suite — I had an earlier version installed which didn’t uninstall properly (with Norton’s own uninstaller). The new version refused to install.
Forget Act! and switch to a Mac so you can use the awesome Daylite. It’ll blow you away once you get over the initial learning curve, which is really not bad at all.
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