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06-26-2008, 01:37 AM
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#1 | | Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Palo Alto
Posts: 24
 |  Spugly Award for the Worst Palm OS Software Ever
The Stanford PalmPilot User Group is the oldest surviving (sometimes just barely) Palm OS® user group, and the sponsor of the PalmHack developer contests. It meets at 7 pm on the first Tuesday of each month; the July first meeting will feature the Spugly Award for the Worst Palm OS® Software Ever. The first nominee is Paragon/Penreader's SlovoEd dictionary application, for its chunk over-locked crashes and robotic technical support responses. Spug members are encouraged to demonstrate their own nominees for the Spugly Award at the meeting, and to show technical support responses which fail the Turing Test. 1src members may also suggest nominees in this forum.
The August fifth meeting will feature a demo of the Universe Web Browser by its developer, Donald Kirker, who is not a nominee for the Spugly Award.
Printers Inc Café
310 California Ave,
Palo Alto
For more information, go to the Stanford PalmPilot User Group home page, http://pobox.com/~spug/ or http://pobox.com/~spug/SpugLite.html. | 
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06-26-2008, 06:57 PM
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#2 | | Tech Support
Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Florida Everglades
Posts: 1,452
| that is so weird, Ive used SlovoEd deluxe talking spanish/english dictionary for 2 years, and Ive been pleased with it, and its never crashed on me, and it told me I needed to update my software and I redownloaded the new one, asked for the new registration code which i got in under an 3 mins.
thats retarded.
and you can put all those 20mb database and voice files on the SD card, I only have the main prc in my ram.
__________________
I have bought an Asus EEE 1000he. My palm TX is no longer needed. See my Replacer
You can now find me on the EEEuser.com forums :)
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06-26-2008, 11:40 PM
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#3 | | Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Daly City, CA
Posts: 99
| I can't vote for SlovoEd either. I've used it for a number of years, and it was a bargain, and generally pretty reliable. It works well with plucker, but not so hot with ereader (what does? except ereader's own overpriced dictionary).
Worst program? Games crash, but that's a different story. I think the worst program is the one that you paid for and it under delivered tremendously. For me that's bluetooth commander as it always seemed to lose a connection, and didn't get updated.
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"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat." -- Lily Tomlin
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06-27-2008, 12:00 AM
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#4 | | Aspiring Developer
Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: In a cow?
Posts: 469
| No, the "9.95" software apps are the worst. They are open source things getting sold for money, with just new branding. EVIL!
__________________ Quote: |
I installed a program called Jackflash to watch flash movies
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06-27-2008, 01:08 AM
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#5 | | Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 103
|  Never heard of ya. If you want some horrible software, try something that never got out of even its early beta stages. 
__________________
Palm m505 (Sold) > Palm Zire 71 (No sound or camera) > Tapwave Zodiac 1 (bad 2nd SD slot) > Palm Tungsten T5 (RIP) + SE w300i + 2GB SanDisk SD + Cheap $5 keyboard (that works...) > Cingular 8125 + 1GB MicroSD in adapter | |
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06-27-2008, 01:51 AM
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#6 | | Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Palo Alto
Posts: 24
| Spuglies
Thanks for the feedback; arson, what language were you using SlovoEd with? My experience has been with their Russian dictionaries, where they seem to have a virtual monopoly on good lexicographic content, and which require a bundled localization hack. A couple of years ago it took me an entire weekend to get my stepson's brand-new Zire 72 into a state where it didn't crash almost immediately, and my wife's relatively clean Treo 680 MR has a near-constant chunk over-locked crash. (My own Treo admittedly runs some evil stuff, so I won't even try SlovoEd on it.) I can't imagine using Paragon/Penreader's Spanish dictionary, given how good the PocketLingo one is. (Admittedly it had an intermittent crash in the early TX days, but that's long since fixed.)
What's been truly spugly, though, has been their tech support—we may do a second award for that category. It took two months just to get past their auto-response 'bots, and then only by using a inside connection from my day job. I've gotten a month's worth of stalling on the chunk over-locked crash; the latest stall was a claim that they'd failed to reproduce the crash, when they hadn't even bothered to ask for my steps to reproduce.
Thanks for the other software suggestions. I've been annoyed at 9.95 as well, though I don't think overcharging rises to the level of dreadful grandeur required by the Spugly Award. I've never tried Bluetooth Commander, but I'll check it out. Someone else's suggestion was VersaMail's insistence on deleting all your Calendar data in order to check your Exchange email; I have to admit that that's a strong contender. | |
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06-27-2008, 12:57 PM
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#7 | | Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Lexington
Posts: 11
| Quote: | Originally Posted by FlaSheridn The first nominee is Paragon/Penreader's SlovoEd dictionary application, for its chunk over-locked crashes and robotic technical support responses... |
I would have to agree with their choice on SlovoEd, it well and truly sucks! It's crashware. And they still continue to spam me...
--ryan
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Honour the Warrior, not the War...
We the Class of '73, We remember Wounded Knee...
FREE LEONARD!
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06-27-2008, 02:23 PM
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#8 | | Detective
Join Date: May 2005 Location: Are we there yet?
Posts: 1,403
| Welcome to 1src FlaSheridn.
While I have no need for foreign language localizations, I'm wondering if you are using the latest version of this and that it is compatible with NVFS. Furthermore, have you tried locking the dictionaries with RescoLock?
Could these issues be caused by interaction of third-party apps and their compatibility with OS5, let alone NVFS? Sloppy coding stinks. | |
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06-27-2008, 03:31 PM
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#9 | | Software engineer/hacker
Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Posts: 5,035
| PalmOS's response to that will be something along these lines: Quote: | Originally Posted by PalmOS
Oh, you mean lock megabytes of data in a cache whose size is barely that big?
Oh and you wan to run applications at the same time too?
Funny Guy...
<crash with an NVFS-related incomprehensible error>
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__________________ Annoying me is NOT an approved way of encouraging me to produce software My software:PowerSDHC, PowerDrive, nuRom, UDMH, warpSpeed, PowerDiGi, brightnessFix, etc... Get it all here:http://www.PalmPowerups.com | |
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06-27-2008, 11:00 PM
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#10 | | Tech Support
Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Florida Everglades
Posts: 1,452
| Quote: | Originally Posted by johnnaryry I would have to agree with their choice on SlovoEd, it well and truly sucks! It's crashware. And they still continue to spam me...
--ryan |
note*, make a email adress specificaly for productware*, that way spam doesnt get in your real mail
Well dont be too judgemental, because the light and deluxe version of the Spanish/English dictionary has never given me problems, Ive even used their DA like reference system in different apps. Ive only had a crash on SlovoEd once, and that was when I opened more than 5 DA's ontop of it.
__________________
I have bought an Asus EEE 1000he. My palm TX is no longer needed. See my Replacer
You can now find me on the EEEuser.com forums :)
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06-28-2008, 02:50 AM
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#11 | | Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Portugal
Posts: 214
| I vote for SlovoEd too. Always had resident problems with it, but Beiks and Ultralingua operate brilliantly.
I had problems on all my devices in the last 6 years (M515/T3/T5/TE2/TX and Treo 650) which probably means there was a software conflict somewhere, but as I have no trouble with the two mentioned above, then SlovoEd gets the bullet. 
Andy | |
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06-28-2008, 03:10 AM
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#12 | | Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 268
| I would not vote for penreader. Their Piloc localization is excellent, probably the best. And I use their Hebrew dictionary without crashes. It's not my favorite dictionary but it's stable on my old iQue 3600.
Adam
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Pilot Pro > Palm 3x> Palm 3c> Visor Prism > Visor Platinum> Garmin iQue 3600 *2 + Treo 755p
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06-28-2008, 05:48 AM
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#13 | | Registered User
Join Date: May 2004 Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Posts: 370
| My vote goes to Kinoma player. Install it and you'll know why.
__________________
TH55/E + Treo 680
God bless you.
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06-28-2008, 01:35 PM
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#14 | | Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Palo Alto
Posts: 24
| Spugly SlovoEd versions & NVFS
Quote: | Originally Posted by Dick Tracy …if you are using the latest version of this | Yes, sometimes even later than the latest. After I pulled rank and got past the tech support 'bots, they provided me with a version before it was released. It didn't help. Quote: | Originally Posted by Dick Tracy and that it is compatible with NVFS. | More than that, Paragon/Penreader claims it's compatible with the Treo unlocked GSM 680 maintenance release. (The frequent chunk-overlocked crashes seemed to start when I installed the maintenance release on my wife's quite clean Treo. [This MR otherwise seems quite an improvement to me, but I'm biased.] My own Treo would be a different story, of course; I've installed lots of cool stuff on it, most recently Dmitry's UnCache. But SlovoEd is never going on my device.) And I also once spent a weekend getting my stepson's Zire 72 in a state where it didn't immediately crash with SloveEd and Piloc, so it's not just an NVFS issue.
Quote: | Originally Posted by Dick Tracy Furthermore, have you tried locking the dictionaries with RescoLock? | I did lock the SlovoEd and Piloc PRC's with TealScan; it may have helped a bit. The dictionaries are on an SD card, so I don't think locking is relevant. (Dmitry, please correct me if I'm wrong.) But that's a good suggestion; I'll try installing them on the internal store and locking them, after Dmitry has a look at the crash at Tuesday's meeting.
Quote: | Originally Posted by Dick Tracy Could these issues be caused by interaction of third-party apps and their compatibility with OS5, let alone NVFS? | I don't think so; I've tried to keep my wife's Treo as clean as possible, for just that reason. | |
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06-28-2008, 04:19 PM
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#15 | | Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 91
| Quote: | Originally Posted by Clie Patra My vote goes to Kinoma player. Install it and you'll know why. |
I've never had an issue with Kinoma. Great piece of software. I wish that it did background support, but a friend that works with Kinoma said that wasn't thier focus.
As for a Spugly.... I know two apps that are half deserving... I'll have to get back to you with one. | |
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