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Re: [syndication] The constraint to widespread adoption of syndication



Morbus Iff wrote:

Same sort of thing, although I have known several people (including
myself) to be unable to get amphetadesk to run under windows.

Had you ever emailed me about that?
I don't think so.
I don't recall
your name. Can't fix what I don't know about.
That is true, and a fair comment. I was not interested enough to spend a bunch of time troubleshooting the Amphetadesk (this was last fall). I spent maybe a half hour trying to track down why stuff wasn't working & gave up, especially when several coworkers had also had trouble (we all tried around the same time).
The most
prominent user error that I know of now (from an installation
standpoint) is that Winzip is not configured to "respect
the internal folder hierarchy". Sadly, it seems that to
be "usable", I *must* use a .exe builder/installer, I *must*
install myself into the registry, and I *must* insert myself
into the Start menu, which is all things I absolutely abhor,
especially since AmphetaDesk doesn't need any installation,
nor does it insert anything into the registry,

Windows users are quite accustomed to running an installer, and have a program installed and configured. Run the uninstaller, and the code is gone. Easier than trying to unzip something, create shortcuts ourselves, and wondering if its safe to delete the files when there is no uninstaller.

Techies don't need an installer; if the feature set looks interesting enough, we will get things going. But its not always easy, and I feel that approach is not suitable for the mainstream. I think any of the aggregators need an installer if they want a wide audience under windows. Even unzipping to a folder and manually creating shortuts is beyond what most users are willing to do (an error prone as Morhpose wrote above).

I think for any program to be accepted beyond the realm of techies, it needs to install and uninstall according to the platform conventions (this bascically means windows installer for windows. I have no idea about macs and unixen).

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Doug Ransom
House for sale http://ransom.dyndns.ws/house