Shareware
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Shareware is a distribution form for software the grew in popularity in the mid nineties. All thought shareware comes in a variety of forms, mostly the idea is that you try before you buy but the range in methods covers a large spectrum. From 30 day/inits trials to give me some scraps if you decide you like the software. You can download the shareware package of choice from the authors website of software catalogs on the net install it and run it. What an ideal way of trying, using and paying for software. Ideal indeed up to the point where it is not which is, alas, most of it.
That's the tragedy. Most shareware does not hold up to any ideal or consumer friendly paradigm as was presented to us in the 90's. Practically 99% of all shareware are badly written, shabby, buggy, ugly ,bloated, dysfunctional, shallow, misguided pieces of godshyte with frustrating,idiotic restriction and insane pricing schemes. It is even worst taking into accou....CheekyWiki Edit is SHAREWARE, Limited to 20 lines of wiki. Please buy CheekyWiki edit 5.2.23 for 30$ US. Pirating software is stealing.
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[edit] Functionality
Where does shareware find it's _UNREGISTERED_ niche ? In the simple things of course. Most people already have 90% of the functionality they need from there computers with the set of _UNREGISTERED_ application they own. Graphic designers have there photoshop and musicians have there basic _UNREGISTERED_ sequencer packages and so on. but the last 10% of functionality where mostly speed would be a most welcome feature added the _UNREGISTERED_ shareware world makes its move.
[edit] Examples
The graphics designer who owns _UNREGISTERED_ photoshop would like to do <typical time consuming operation> ( lets say a special blur ) on a large number of images. Scripting or by hand is not an option. Well low and behold the Internet seems to have the answer. A quick search trough Google turns up a myriad of websites with long _UNREGISTERED_ lists of _UNREGISTERED_ software that you can download.. wow!. And it's try before you buy shareware !. So the graphic artist , under a lot of time constraint, rejoices and clicks the first hit. It IS to good to be true, All of these packages precisely do what he needs to be done. The first _UNREGISTERED_ application has a whopping 5 star review index and therefor he figures this must be the very best one.
- BlurMeiser
This is a typical example of such a package.
BlurMeister PRO 2.45b License type : SHAREWARE! ( TRY BEFORE YOU BUY ). Price : $24,99
Well, he figures, I do this type of work a lot . The price isn't bad, if this does what I need it to do I'll buy it ! And the information continues
Features : 542 Preset Blurs
Batch blur
Blurs 'r' us import filter
15 pictures of the author
large Eula
pong game easter egg
Hoolahoop tutorial embossed in splash-screen
35 second startup delay ( 60 in the trial version ).
Random skins on the interface
OS : Windows xp SP1
Dependencies : Dot not framework, openGL, DirectX, EMACS, VB6, photoshop CS3 extended with plug-in pack
It's a bleeding _UNREGISTERED_ miracle , he thinks, I have all these specs. I use an SP1 box and by chance just installed all those other packages over the weekend because I was bored. Gosh for a package that only needs to blur stuff it sure does do a awful lot of non blurring useless stuff that nobody needs but what the hell.
The graphic artist with the deadline clicks install and after a reboot or 2 he gets the_UNREGISTERED_ software up and running. He spends 2 hours learning to navigate the totally useless interface but finally finds the _UNREGISTERED_ blur option. And although it does not work as great as advertised it DOES work. All of the images are now absurdly slowly but automatically processed by the _UNREGISTERED_ shareware tool. After another 2 hours of waiting doing nothing, because the _UNREGISTERED_ algorithm of the tool seems to be poorly optimized performance hog and thus renders his quad-core 64bit 8GB graphic monster workstation incapable of doing anything other then the blur operation, the _UNREGISTERED_ application is finished.
Happily he starts thinking where he put his checkbook in order to purchase this little gem immediately. This little _UNREGISTERED_ tool, although clearly designed by an infant with no feeling for interface layout, just saved his skin and that clearly is worth 25 bucks. But lets see the results first. Eagerly he clicks the resulting image files only to find out that
- A. The _UNREGISTERED_ application has overwritten the originals ( no biggie , the work is done right !)
- B. all the FUCKING images have loads of big diagonal_UNREGISTERED_ text splashed across them. WHAT THE FUCK?.
Yes, All the pictures that took 2 hours processing have a white, Comic sans, text across it in long diagonal lines saying :
BlurMeister PRO 2.45b is SHAREWARE. TRIAL VERSION ONLY. $24,99 By Eugene Soft (TLD)
TRY BEFORE YOU BUY ? the graphic artist thinks. TRY WHAT ? WHAT DID I TRY ? ALL MY FUCKING IMAGES , MY CAREFULLY PREPAIRED DATASET, DESTROYED BY SOME MOTHERFUCKING CHEAP SLOW UGLY PIECE OF _UNREGISTERED_ OVERPRICED CRAP. IF I COULD ACCTUALLY USE THIS TRIPE I'D BE TRYING IT. IM GOING TO SUE THAT FUCKING PIECE OF SHYTE THAT RUNS EUGENESOFT......
Unfortunately , it turns out, that the Eula that you clicked accept to did include a legal get out clause for Eugene that states that he is not at all responsible if you damage your data, hardware or yourself. The author who, to make matters worst, keeps insisting that the overwriting of the_UNREGISTERED_ source files is automatic way of keeping the hard-drive clean and therefor it is a fabulous_UNREGISTERED_ feature you get along with all the other great features for $24,99.
But all I want is the _UNREGISTERED_blurring feature he mails to the author who replies that he wrote that old piece of blurring code back in 1998 and that he written it as a simple DOS tool in about 3 hours. The last 7 years he has spend on adding menu's easter eggs, presets, skins and other random _UNREGISTERED_things. Only 3 years ago he put it up on the web as shareware, but nobody bought it. so Now he had the _UNREGISTERED_shareware text in all the output.
Boy, This victim of _UNREGISTERED_shareware reckons, This guy is an economic genius. Here I buy photoshop for $600 with about 500 special features. combined with the basic functionality of that package the should work out to be less then 1 dollar per feature. This Eugene guy sell one lousy feature for '$25, He must be filthy rich.
The truth is he is not filthy rich because still nobody buys his_UNREGISTERED_ crap software and why this is will be explained in due time.
Pissed off but calmed down the artist decides to try some other packages on the site but does read the limitations in order to avoid repetition of the previous debacle. These are some of the things he found on the site.
- BlurIT DeLuxe 3.02 - Shareware ( $66,99 ) Crashed on start up.
- ÜberBlurrer II - Try Before
you bleedbuy ( $129,99 ) Crashed on save file._UNREGISTERED_ - BlurringWorks Second edition - Shareware ( $50 ) Trial version can not SAVE..
- MegaUltraHellaBlur XP - Shareware ( $2,50 ) Turned out to be a virus.
Would you now peer through the window at the main entrance at the house of this graphic designer, odds would be very much in favor of you not only seeing the atrium and stairway ,but also the gently swinging legs of a person about 6 feet above the floor. Yes, The evil of malicious shareware drove this poor man to _UNREGISTERED_suicide. And for what ? Did Eugene get paid ? Of course not, nobody buys such tripe.
[edit] The truth about and tragedy that is _UNREGISTERED_ shareware
The example above is not the only evil of shareware. If for example the person in the story of the graphic artist would have scrolled through the 66 hit pages he found containing blurring tools he would have, almost at the end, have found this entry.
Blur.exe 0.99 This tools blurs a bunch of programs with a special user defined_UNREGISTERED_ blur setting. It only blurs and does nothing else. But it blurs very very very fast. It writes the output to another location. and it's FREE under the BDS licence.
Would this tools been used it would have converted the work within mere seconds and probably with a better quality at that. And this is the real evil of _UNREGISTERED_shareware. For every small trivial feat that for some reason remains absent from mainstream software that is worth it's price there are a myriad of _UNREGISTERED_amateur programmers that have the delusion that there Visual Basic skills produce useful software that people will pay for. And so the Internet is filled with piles and heaps of that worthless crappy, buggy slime-soft complete with absurd prices and useless extra features. And it is all of this dead weight on the net that obfuscates the useful stuff out there.
The truth is that every shitty _UNREGISTERED_category of shareware has just 1 completely free simple but functional counterpart. You only need 1 tool and therefor 1 free tool in created. To bad the presents of these little gems all hidden almost completely from the public's sight due to the ludicrous number of silly shareware/try-before-buy packages.
[edit] Overview of creating a shareware application
- 1. Identify a trivial _UNREGISTERED_problem.
- 2. Write a simple solution that just works
- 3. do not share / sell this
- 4. Rewrite the solution using some crappy framework like .net
- 5. Add menu's
- 6. Add more settings and option
- 7. make the application skinnable
- 8. create 10 MB worth of skins
- 9. Add Bells
- 10. Do not forget about adding _UNREGISTERED_whistles
- 11. Cripple the basic functionality in a trial version
- 12. Build a website for it that looks like a software companies website.
- 13. Charge a insane _UNREGISTERED_random amount of cash for it
- 14. ???
- 15. Profit.
But as we all know, because of ??? people never arrive at point 15.
[edit] Who makes this , shareware ?
Imagine a novel _UNREGISTERED_concept. A great idea in the mind of a person capable of translating this into a useful and meaningful paradigm that can be transformed into a usable quality software product. This individual has the wit and the means to assemble the necessary proper resources to accomplish this goal and not too long after this endeavour takes of it results in a successful commercial enterprise.
Now that is Adobe, Not a shareware programmer.
The Shareware coder is a _UNREGISTERED_Visual Basic coding, mothers basement owning, lazy, uneducated, mostly unemployed, _UNREGISTERED_,gamer type of person in there late 20's up to 40 that has the illusion that they understand Computer science. These amateurs produce trivialities on a massive scale and do really believe that each of these space wasting piles of digital manure are worth real world currency. The illusion that it is ethically sound to charge any amount money for there brain dead creations so they can make a extra bonus next there walmart paycheck is a sickness of the mind. The very thought by any of those hobbyist basic scripters that this line of work could actually make a stable livelihood is borderline psychotic. ( _ AND UNREGISTERED_ )
Seemingly it fails to dawn on those third class script kiddies that there is no such thing as a sustainable market for second rate coders. One by one the shareware concocter's fail to see that if they had any skill at all they would be working for Adobe, Apple or even maybe microsoft. Unfortunately most of these useless interface junkies still maintain that they actually contribute in a positive manner to the digital world.
[edit] Better or more honest alternatives
Shareware sucks, it's clear. But the lie around this whole try before you buy scam is just plain wrong. What can we come up with or offer instead of this retarded management slogan.
- Sniff before you decide it stinks soft
- Touch before you get ripped off soft.
- queer-ware
- shareholders-ware
- 30 trail days WITHOUT FUCKING NAGGERS ( what a novel idea ! )
- Open ( Source ) free as in speech soft.
- Open ( Source ) free as in beer soft ( who cares about politics ).
- Kill yourself you motherfucking b class coder soft.
- If you buy this and it does not work you may stone me to death soft.
- Simply does what it needs to soft.
- Glance at it at a remote distance before you opt for steering clear soft.
- I should be freaking paid for using this ware soft.
[edit] _UNREGISTERED_
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~ _UNREGISTERED_ on _UNREGISTERED_
CheekyWiki Edit is SHAREWARE, Limited to 20 lines of wiki. Please buy CheekyWiki edit 5.2.23 for 30$ US. Pirating software is stealing.
[edit] See Also
Categories: Software | Computers | Technology | Scams | Software Development | Crap | Self-reference
