Hi Allie,
> Well, Forte' Agent is certainly not fancy <g>, and I
> didn't find it particularly intuitive on the first try. It's a
> nice app, I assure you, and I use it at present. I had also read
> an article of similar quality which compared news-readers and
> their main grouse with Forte' Agent was how 'complicated ' it was.
I like Agent, too, though I think it's a shame that after all these
years, no one has managed to challenged it in terms of sheer power.
And I agree it's quite complicated and not fancy, and I admit I was
a little surprised to see Agent on the list.
Then again, it might not be that strange, since Agent has been
recognized as the newsreader of choice for serious Usenet users for
years and I guess many of their staff use it as well. The
"unfriendliness" of Agent might seem less obvious for them.
(Personally, I found Agent quite easy to use, but I've to admit it's
probably I've used it for too many years.)
That being said, I admit my previous comment might be biased. I've
read PC Mag for more than 15 years (They have a Chinese edition in
Taiwan which is one of the earliest Chinese computer magazines
available before I could read English ones at ease), and to a
certain degree I enjoy it, though much less so than I used to years
ago. The comment I made was the general feeling I accumulated
through all these years, and again, it's certainly biased.
Product review is hard. You tend to look at things that are easy to
observe unless you're already familiar with the product. Hence I
like the idea when PC Mag came out with a new section called "Second
Look", dedicated to reviews of products that has been on the market
for a while. But it never seems to catch up and remains obscure and
unimportant.
> A major deterrent for the casual, mainstream user to use TB!, I've
> found is the editor and the overall complexity. These have been
> the main two things that have turned off many people who I have
> tried TB! after I recommended it. In it's present state it's not
> for everyone and I doubt that it will hit any charts of the nature
> posted by Paula.
> Tracer once made a very prudent point. Two versions of
> TB!? A pro version and a simpler version? ......
No major argument with that, though I doubt how much TB could
accomplish by releasing a "simple" version. Let's face it, those
free email clients by the big two and some others are, well, simple.
It's hard to get simpler than that and ask people to pay for it.
For TB to survive, IMHO, the key still lies in its power, not
simplicity. It's for this extra power that people pay. Agent, as you
point out, is a good example. I agree, however, that if somehow
RITLabs could find a way to smooth the learning curve of TB, it
could be more easily recommended to casual users.
By casual users, I mean users who might not know much at present,
but are willing to learn to upgrade their knowledge in exchange for
greater productivity from their computers. TB can lure these people
to try with its powerful feature set. If the learning curve isn't
too steep, people will stay.
There're some other users who don't want to learn anything new, and
I think they would be better served by OE or its peers.
--
Best regards,
Ming-Li mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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