The first part of this article ( Save Time, Effort & Maybe Money - Use Web Reviews Before you Install or Purchase - Part 1 ) dealt with a bad experience I had in purchasing some external hard drive units. In particular it points out the sort traps that are easy to fall into when you don’t do research before you purchase or there isn’t sufficient good information available. While this post is using hardware as an example the same can be said for software. Even with Freeware the time invested and the potential for damage to your system or inadvertently installing malware still means time on research and reading reviews is time well spent.

How to Stack the Odds to Get a Good Experience

Having used the purchase of the external hard drives as an example of where I had a bad experience I will use their replacement to demonstrate how to try to avoid some of the pitfalls.

As I said in the first part of this article my preference was for Network Attached Storage for this particular purpose. The reason for my previous purchase of FireWire/USB was that this option was considerably cheaper than any NAS devices I could buy at the time. Therefore I let the savings weigh too heavily against the lack of available information or reviews on my purchase. This time I was more determined to go for NAS rather than external hard drives but price still had a big part to play. The main requirements were preferably 2TB, NAS, secondary preferences were RAID configuration and user security/login options. Other facilities such as print server and Internet file access/server were not important.

Over time I have built a short list of reputable Internet companies that I start of by using to see what is available whether I am looking for the best deal on a particular item or I am looking for a product in a particular class as in this case. This list remains fairly stable as a core list of trustworthy companies with competitive prices as well as excellent “terms & conditions” for support and returns. This forms a starting point for my “research” but is not an exclusive list as far as any decision is concerned as I will explain later.

Using my core list I quickly narrowed things down to a short list of NAS devices that met the requirements of storage size, price and overall specification. It was clear that NAS devices still seem to command a premium price when compared to “External Hard Drives” which is surprising as in terms of hardware and production costs they must be almost identical. In fact when you see NAS boxes with “TB of storage selling for substantially more than a Windows Home Server PC plus some additional hard disks to make it up to 2TB you have to wonder what’s going on .

Having narrowed my options down I found that the best value money, by some way, was the Western Digital My Book 1.5TB NAS which also offered remote access and sharing. I then set about looking for reviews and information on it at various locations. The main sources | normally use and would recommend are :

• The Internet sales sites for specification, user manuals, policy on guarantees and customer reviews (for positive and negative feedback)
• The manufacturer for detailed check on specifications, support area FAQ’s, firmware or software updates, Forums
• Major Technology sites and PC magazine Internet sites for reviews and reports
• Blogs for Reviews and Comments on products
• Groups and Forums for reviews, comments and particularly negative feedback

In going through this process I keep an eye out for alternative products that may appear in the reviews or comments. I also watch out for similar products by the same manufacturer as this may be a further guide to quality and service.

The most important thing is to take a balanced view of what you read. Reviews by the manufacturer will of course set everything in the best possible light but if they also point to independent reviews and awards then these should be followed up. (Make sure that you believe the authenticity of any independent review, you should have no problem with reputable magazines and tech sources but it is not unknown for some smaller operators to be up to no good)

When I was looking at the 1.5TB reviews and comments there were quite a lot of very negative comments from customers on a couple of the major Internet sellers websites. At first I was rather disappointed as I thought this would mean I needed to find an alternative which would be far more expensive. However looking at some of the reviews in detail and making comparisons with other comments and the product specification revealed a lot more. What became clear was that many comments resulted form unrealistic expectations or understanding of the product followed by a somewhat prejudiced reaction. In this case two things were clear, the bundled software for connection and sharing appeared to not work properly and secondly the Western Digital approach to DRM and sharing over the Internet was being attacked. So a little more delving showed that the bundled software was not necessary except for Internet sharing and that if the device was uses as a straight NAS device and configured through the internal Web Interface then there were no problems.

The final part of the decision making process is where to purchase from. For me this is very dependent on the type of product I am purchasing. If it is electronic or mechanical (or a combination of both as with disk drives) I consider this quite high risk in terms of possible early failure through bad luck or manufacturing problems. I will already have considered this in selecting the manufacturer but I like to know that the online retailer is likely to provide a good returns and support policy and I am prepared to pay a little more for this. If I am buying low cost or low risk goods such as software or consumables then I will look for the best price option. In making these decisions remember that you need to take into account postage costs, delivery times and additional security or rights you may get through the method of purchase. (e.g. In the UK using a credit card provides additional rights and even insurance for certain purchases).

In Summary I suggest that the following process is advisable:

1. Select possible products
2. Gather “Research”
3. Review research for validity and weight accordingly
4. Decide Yes/No to purchase
5. Find prices including postage costs
6. Decide level of cost v “terms and conditions” that is appropriate
7. Check delivery times etc. meet your requirements
8. Use most appropriate payment method

Good luck in all your future purchases

Technorati Tags: Electronics, External Hard Drive, Free Reviews, NAS Device, Network Attached Storage, Pro Reviewer, ProReviewer, Reviews, Windows, Windows Home Server

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Well that’s pretty obvious but I bet we all have made poor decisions to install software or buy a new bit of kit before carrying out a proper review of information available on the web. I would also add to this that being an “Early Adopter” can be fun and all very cutting edge but this is often referred to as the “Bleeding Edge” with good reason. I will detail two of my recent experiences bad and good and the value of doing some good research.

A Bad Experience

About 9 months ago I bought a 2TB external storage device. My preference was to go for a NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit as I already had a couple of these and liked the fact that they were universally available over the home network. A bit of searching around on the Internet showed that there was a 2TB FireWire/USB interfaced unit for about 60% of the price I would be paying for a NAS device. The 2TB unit was new on the market but came from what I understood to be a large, reputable company with plenty of other external storage products which had a good track record. This was quite a sizeable purchase at over £400 ($800) so I did not commit to this lightly, but I decided the saving was to good to pass and ordered it (over the Internet). The device duly arrived, I plugged it in and everything was up and running quickly with no problems. In fact I was so pleased that I decided to buy a second unit a couple of weeks later and daisy chain them together.

(more…)

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This is the main category for software program reviews.

All reviews should appear under the appropriate sub-category, this main category will be used for general comments and news on software and developers.

Technorati Tags: Free Reviews, Freeware, My Free Review, Open Source, Portable Freeware, Portable Applications, Portable software, Portable Programs, Reviews, Utilities, Windows, Windows XP, file handling

Update February 2008

This blog was originally called My Free review and if you look back through the posts for February 2008 you will see the reasons for changing the blog name - Pro Reviewer - It’s Hard to Find a Good Domain Name! . So references to My Free Review in the following text relate to this original name choice.

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Well I have decided that I need to write my own blog, so what made me decide this? (more…)

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 Update February 2008

This blog was originally called My Free review and if you look back through the posts for February 2008 you will see the reasons for changing the blog name - Pro Reviewer - It’s Hard to Find a Good Domain Name! . So references to My Free Review in the following text relate to this original name choice.

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The aim of My Free Review is to provide more independent information on various software programs than may be generally available from most blogs at present.

There are several web sites and blogs that provide descriptions of the programs as they are released or updated but this is usually a brief resume taken from the developers site or “press release”. (Although there are some notable exceptions).

Quite often when a program has been downloaded and installed it doesn’t really quite do what is expected or it may do several useful things that were never even mentioned. So I thought that reporting the details could be a useful guide and time saver for other software “junkies” like myself.

The reviews that will be presented are going to be predominantly freeware and shareware. I will review programs and updates that have been recently released whenever possible. Also there will be reviews on some older favourites that deserve a mention.

I feel that the more commercial programs produced by the big software companies are adequately covered by the mainstream PC web sites and magazines. However, I will try to include some personal comments where they seem relevant as well as reviewing some of the free plugins and add-ons that become available.

I am now a big fan of “portable” programs. That is programs that can be run without touching the registry and therefore can easily be transferred from one machine to another complete with all settings or run from a “memory stick”.

I also have an interest in Firefox add-ons which seem to never be adequately described or reviewed at addons.mozilla.org.

Being something of a gadget freak I also thought I would provide a little insight, where relevant, on some of these. Again this may help others from making bad choices or point to some products that have performed well.

All the reviews will obviously be personal opinions and I will welcome comments and discussion from those of you who wish to add something more, disagree or correct something if it is wrong.

For anyone who is interested a little relevant background on myself can be found at “Why I Decided to Write this Blog”

Technorati Tags: Freeware,Portable Freeware,Utilities,Windows,Windows XP,Open Source,Gadgets,Gizmos,Electronics,Reviews,Free Reviews

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