War is not healthy for fancy chickens and other living things.
Sponsored by
L337.com
iScreensaver Designer, “The World’s Only Cross Platform Screensaver Design Tool” may seem innocuous. So why is the PerversionTracker staff recommending this excoriable festerage of inutile spume be kept away from small children and members of mariachi bands?
1. It promotes the spread of screen savers that either play QuickTime movies, or photo slideshows. This product also makes it possible to construct a saver containing a single photo of Strom Thurmond accompanied by continuous grunting sounds.
2. For a slideshow consisting of 44k of image data, we’re given a 4.3 MB screen saver installer. Although it is fat (very very fat) between OS 9 and OS X, I contend that a separate OS X built product (sans installer) is in order. Further, the eventually-installed OS X product is 532k, which is far more lard imbued than it need be. Just thinking about this particular complaint has caused my clothes to fit much tighter than usual.
3. The interface is clutterific, and has the most non-standard window splitter control I’ve ever experienced — it seems to be a rectangular button with an equals sign as the title. Additionally, weird hyperlink-ish controls flourish within the confines of this pre-pubescent interface melange. As if to assuage the injuries inflicted by this overtly hostile interface, “helpful” explanatory and italicized text is littered betwixt the controls.
4. The gamma fade effect is far choppier and more tentacled than the elegant Apple crossfade. Given the choice of twelve and a half different ill-conceived transition effects, I choose none of them — they all inspire feelings of cold itchiness. Against all logic and common sense, there is no “swarming mealworm” transition.
5. Perplexingly, the menu bar features very few commands, driving the user into a rabid frenzy of button clicking. Once the panic passes, we notice that adding pictures to the slideshow is a modal operation, which makes all windows unmovable until the operation completes. This task accomplished, the Slide Show preview fails to preview any substantive slideshow effect, instead stubbornly fading between two pictures, or, when multiple pictures are selected, failing to show any picture at all.
6. Other lurking horrors that are too tiresome to enumerate.
Xochi Media, for your role in this $795 (6580.61 Chinese Yuan) pudding-marbled nightmare, and failing to address the problem of underdetermination by induction, you take home your very own 9.3.
$795 bucks? What, are they high?
Posted by: Joseph J. Finn on March 2, 2003 05:06 PMThey are high on crack and at least two other illegal substances...
Posted by: Chibi15 on March 2, 2003 05:19 PMI would have though it would be a $24.95 dealy... afterall it's just a REALbasic thang.
Posted by: Jon on March 2, 2003 05:33 PMHow about a review of some program that I have a grudge against, and that everyone else and their brother finds useful?
Posted by: meme on March 2, 2003 05:46 PMNo, no, no! The swarming mealworms are SCARY. I still remember that day, so long ago, in the bait shop... the mealworms seemed so tiny and harmless, but then!
And everyone laughed, my god, they laughed! The bastards. I hope they rot in hell.
My shriveled stump still pains me on wet days.
Posted by: ethical swamp on March 2, 2003 06:14 PMI was seriously thinking that this "$795" bit was a typo at first. Who in God's name would put down $800 to make silly little screensavers?
Maybe I am just fooling myself--maybe the screensaver creation software market is my ticket to riches ...
Posted by: on March 2, 2003 11:15 PMI appreciate the ability to build screensavers, but this is pure money stealing!! 800 $!! Totally crazy!!
Posted by: Michele Bugliaro on March 3, 2003 01:26 AMSeven. Hundred. And. Ninety. Five. Dollars.
For a made with REALbasic screensaver builder? Oooh but they won a "Cubie Award"! In 2000. Well at least they give you permission to make 10,000 nonprofit (WTF?!?!) screensavers for a mere $200. Quite honestly, I think a 9.3 makes it look like persversiontracker is getting soft.
Posted by: Mike on March 3, 2003 04:14 AMI'm glad someone noticed that the non-commercial version is only $195. I hope they'll take an I.O.U.
Posted by: Mark on March 3, 2003 05:53 AMYo yo, swampy! It pains me when you wet your bad ol self with your stump, too. You ever hear of a catheter? =)
Posted by: Moral Dessert on March 3, 2003 06:00 AM9.3? What do you mean, 9.3? Ok, the stock of 11s may be depleted, but could PvT spare a 10?
Posted by: Enkerli on March 3, 2003 10:32 AMBelieve it or not, some companies actually like making screen savers for their computers (large corps and the gov't are two examples), rather then let their peons use whatever they like. (Hell, many also like to make their own background image and force you to use that as well). I think its partly to make sure they also have a screen saver turned on to lock their screen when its idle for a while.
Posted by: Lou Zer on March 3, 2003 05:01 PMYou forgot to mention it was REAL Mac OS software from REALbasic. I love the near daily jabs at that POS.
Posted by: will on March 3, 2003 05:39 PMHuhhhuhhu huh, you said "lard imbued".
Ever considered doing a "featuritus checklist" comparison between products? Something like this:
M$Word vs. i$creensaver De$igner 3.0
Clutterific X X
Helpful - -
Fat X X
Ill-conceived X X
Pre-pubescent X X
"Just say 'No' to Monkies!"
Posted by: Double Worsted on March 3, 2003 09:04 PMCan it create Windå$e-screensavers with this piece of shit?
Oops, I didn't say that.
Posted by: somebody on March 5, 2003 10:49 AMThis is Thomas J Cunningham, right? The REALbasic idiots' guru? With all the tutorials because the stuff with the RB product itself was too difficult for him?
I read that $795 too. One thing PvT never does is lie. Amazing things they relate, but they're all true.
This is a disgusting piece of pseudo-software. The real crime is the price. People are dumb enough to pay. That's a crime.
Posted by: Rixster on April 26, 2003 05:01 AMI'm not sure it's worth arguing facts with this crowd, but some things to consider. I've actually USED it and I find it a good tool.
1. The base price is $400, and this gets you pretty much all the features. The $795 is for the super-duper-version with includes extras that only a screensaver design shop is gonna need.
2. If you think $400 is expensive, you should see what those folks at screentime.com are trying to sell for $500!
3. Reportedly a $30 "Personal" version is coming out in June. Of course for those of you still in high school, this is probably unaffordable :-)
4. 532k overhead makes you cringe? My god, I better think about upgrading my 800k floppy drive!
Seriously, i think the reviewer missed the point. It is the only product i've ever found that lets you make a single screensaver that runs on Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows 95 thru XP, and it includes a built in installer, yadda yadda yadda. If all you want to do is make a slide show on your mac, this is not the product for you. If on the other hand you are not in high school, you make screensavers for a living, and your time is valuable, then spending $400 or $800 on this software is a bargain if it saves you even one day of engineering time.
Posted by: red herring on May 30, 2003 08:22 PMI got the "Non-Commercial" version for $99. For this, they put a horribly tacky alert dialog on the screensaver installers (replete with the big yellow alert triangle with red exclamation point) that sayeth:
"This screensaver was built with a NON-COMMERCIAL version of iScreensaver, licensed to: xxxxxxxxxxxx. No commercial or for-profit use is allowed. Please report suspected violations to abuse@iscreensaver.net."
Yeah, I really want my users to see startling alert dialogs when installing a piece of software donwloaded from my web site. Thanks for nothing, Xochi! Another lousy piece of software in the trashcan.