Why PalmScape and iLinx Suck

David W. Poole, Jr.
2001/10/20 17:24

2002-04-30 10:59
A new downgrade is available!
Sometime back, I connected my Palm organizer to the interet using a clip-on modem, and began digging for network applications to take advantage of the connection. I quickly found Papi-Mail to allow me to import and export email, which was the main reason I wanted to connect to the internet in the first place.

I then began my search for a decent web browser, and at the time I found a free application called PalmScape that allowed retrieval and display of the text from any URL. It provided the ability to "lock" pages into it's cache, so you could carry frequently used pages, such as search engines, with you to minimize your connection time when you needed them. Pretty cool, and as most of my needs at the time were only for the textual information on a web page, PalmScape served my needs well. It also had the advantage of saving the text from a page to the memo pad, appending the memo(s) to the end of the memo list in the unfiled catagory, so web content was easy to store for later referral and sharing, especially if you had SmartDoc which allowed you to convert memo(s) to a compressed DOC file. Given that PalmScape at the time was free, you couldn't beat the price, and the functionallity it provided, as well as it's robustness, placed the freeware PalmScape into the list of my "must have" applications.

Not long after, a friend of mine introduced me to Blazer, which at the time was free. Though it didn't offer the nifty cache management and memo pad options of the freeware PalmScape, Blazer did offer the ability to display images. I decided to sacrifice a little functionallity in order to have the coolness factor of displaying web images on my PDA. Freeware PalmScape was removed in favor of the free Blazer, and life continued.

Shortly after this, it came to my attention that PalmScape was aquired by a company interested in making it a commercial venture, and I was excited about the continuing development and upgrading of what potentially could be the Palm platform's Killer App. I blew away Blazer and installed the trial version of PalmScape, and was immediately blown away by how far the commercial PalmScape had come! The new PalmScape offered a slightly revamped interface, a "cruise" mode, image display, and .prc/.pdb installation from web pages! This further development of this product had brought about a great deal of happiness; it was as if an old friend was getting a much need new lease on life!

Within a day or two of installing the commerical PalmScape, the first of it's many bugs surfaced. I found some interesting content from a web page that I wanted to keep, so as I had done with the freeware PalmScape, I used the option "Export to memo pad" to save the textual contents to be later converted to DOC format by SmartDOC. When I went to the memo pad to check out the exporting feature, I was immediately disappointed by the commercial PalmScape's sorting of my memo pad into alphabetical order. This is a major problem for me, as I have over 400 memos in 12 different catagories, meticulously arranged by order of importance, not alphabetical order. I wrote the folks at iLinx (the company responsible for the development of the commercial version of PalmScape) informing them of the problem, and within 24 hours was informed that this problem would be addressed with the next release of the product. On good faith, I decided that PalmScape was a decent product, and I shelled out my $$$ to register the commercial version of PalmScape. Incidentally, my email exchange with iLinx took place in the earlier part of the Spring of 2001; it's now October 2001, and this problem still hasn't been resolved!

The memo pad issue, and iLinx's failure to deliver on their promise isn't the only problem with the commercial PalmScape; there have been quite a few I've discovered since then. As iLinx has demonstrated they have no desire or concern regarding correcting PalmScape's problems, I decided to forgo mailing the list of bugs to them, and publish the list instead to the WWW as well as usenet in the hopes of educating the populace; in this manner the individual can decide if they can live with the commercial PalmScape's many flaws, or if they would prefer to select an alternate product. For the purpose of listing PalmScape's bugs, I focus only on problems that are present in the commercial PalmScape; this problems, interestingly enough, do not manifest themselves in the freeware PalmScape, so unless image display capability is important to you, you may wish to consider using the freeware PalmScape.

Bug #1 has already been identified; exporting a web page to the memo pad sorts your memos in alphabetical order. This may not be a problem to some users, but for those of us who have a large number of meticulously arranged memos, this is a disaster. The problem is further compounded by PalmScape's menu arrangement; the option to delete a page from PalmScape's cache is located directly below the menu entry for exporting a page to the memo pad. I have in more times than I care to admit accidentally invoked the "save page to memo pad" option when I meant to invoke the "delete page" option. Of course, by this time it's too late, and the careful ordering of my memos is abandoned in favor of the alphabetical ordering; I guess the geniuses at PalmScape know better than I do what order I want my memos in.

Bug #2 comes about when you utilize the cruise feature for a server that is unresponsive. At first glance, PalmScape's cruise feature is pretty cool; it allows you to defer URL lookups until you have a network connection, at which time PalmScape goes out and sucks down the content for all of the URLs you've queued up. An example of it's usage would probably make better sense. From time to time, friends email me web addresses of content that they think would interest me. As a mobile user, I check my email as periodically as I can, and read my email away from a connection. If someone emails me a URL, I hop into PalmScape, and tell PalmScape to retrieve the URL. PalmScape recognizes that it's offline, and asks me what I want to do, giving me three options: go online immediately to retrieve the page, wait until later to retreive the page, or cancel the operation. The middle option, to retrieve the page later, is usually the one I want to use. When I get to a convienent connection point, I tell PalmScape to cruise, at which time it makes the connection, retrieves all of the pages I've told it to get later, and then disconnects from the network, allowing me to read the content of all these pages later when it may be more convienent. That's the theory, anyways; it doesn't work as advertised. If the server happens to be down for any of the pages you've specified to retrieve during a cruise operation, PalmScape displays a dialog indicating a network error, forcing you to "accept" or "cancel". Regardless of your choice, the URL you had stored in PalmScape is forever lost, and unless you kept a copy of it elsewhere (or remember it) you have no chance in hell of ever getting the address, much less it's contents back! And heaven forbid you select the "Cancel" choice; if you've queued up 10 pages and the second page fails, and you "cancel", the remaining 8 addresses are blindly thrown away! This seriously limits the usefullness of what would otherwise be a great & unique option.

Bug #3 deals with rendering pages with colored text. For the record, this should only be a problem with users of PDAs with color display capabilities. Some web designers have gotten very happy with graphics these days, not having the foresight to understand that their content may be browsed on devices with limited or non-existant graphic display capabilities. They design their web sites with the belief that the text will be displayed with background images under the text, and pay no heed or special attention to the color that they select for the background of the text itself. (An example can be found here or here.) As the majority of my browsing is for textual content such as news, I have little interest in loading images into my PDA's precious memory space. Some of these ill designed pages have the text foreground color set to the text background color, with the web master (hah!) blindly thinking that the background image selection will make up for their shortsightedness. Perhaps it would if you were loading images, but that's beside the point. PalmScape blindly (no pun intended) renders the text foreground and background to be the same color, and, you guessed it, this is unreadable. It really wouldn't be that much of a problem if you could export the text to the memo pad, as you could read the content there, but as I've mentioned before Bug #1 prevents me from working in this manner. At the very least, PalmScape should use internal default colors when you have image loading capability disable to save memory space and connection time.

Bug #4 is has to do with "locked" pages. One of PalmScape's positive features is that it allows you to "lock" a page into the cache, meaning you always have a copy of it at your disposal. I use this feature periodically, and I lock various pages such as Google into PalmScape's cache. This is cool, as it allows you to reduce loading frequently needed pages; if I am out and about I can select Google's page, enter my search parameter, and get the results of my search the next time I "cruise" (previous cruise concerns notwithstanding). Unfortunately, PalmScape seems to forget from time to time that I've "locked" a specific page into the cache, and blindly throws my most needed pages away. I know for certain this is not a user error, as I micromanage my cache (like my memos), and have never used PalmScape's "cleanup" function to delete locked pages, nor have I told PalmScape to unlock a page or delete it. Thus, when this problem manifests itself, I have to spend extra connection time to retrieve the content I had told PalmScape to keep in the first place.

Bug #5 has to deal with PalmScape's horrendous rendering time for complex pages, or for simple pages when PalmScape's cache has gotten fairly large. When you go to select a page to load, either from PalmScape's cache browser, or it's bookmark browser, if the currently selected page hasn't completed rendering yet, your selection is a waste of time. You must wait until PalmScape renders a page completely before performing a selection, or PalmScape will blindly ignore your choice, forcing you to make the selection a second time. If the previous page you loaded is complex, ie., has tables and whatnot, this may be a very uncomfortable wait, and I have been forced to wait up to 20 seconds in order to select a different page to display. Usually after some usage, you will get comfortable with this problem, and learn ways to avoid it, but it's still a nuisance just the same.

I've listed the features and bugs of the commercial version of PalmScape as compared to the freeware version. Some of these bugs were sent to iLinx, when iLinx appeared to have some concern about their customer's satisfaction. In truth, the company was paying lip service, as a reviewer was in contact with them regarding a review he was preparing for a German technology magazine (Hand Held Computing?). The company even replied that they had some very cool features in store for future releases of PalmScape, but glancing at their web site indicates that the last update of PalmScape occured in January of 2001; not very responsive to customer concerns if you ask me.

The features, as well as some other applications that I've heard they are working on, sound very cool, but given the bugs that are in the existing product I don't trust them any further than I can throw my car. If you're considering commerical PalmScape for personal or corporate use, I strongly suggest you test this application to it's very fullest before giving iLinx any of your money; if you don't like what you see, don't buy, as iLinx sure as hell isn't going to be responsive to customer inquiry. That statement isn't entirely true; they will respond quickly to your inquiries, but they won't live up to their promises. Be extremely cautious if you do business with them; I regret my choice to be a customer of theirs, and this page was created in the hopes that I can prevent others from making a similar mistake.

And if the old freeware version of PalmScape will suit your needs, you can find a copy of it here.


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Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 04:15:49 -0500
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: PalmScape and Sorting Memos
From: "David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
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To whom it may concern,

I have been a user of the older version of PalmScape for almost a year now. When
I read that this application had entered into active development again, I was
extremely pleased. Specifically, the ability to remotely install .PRC, and .PDB
files is very well recieved.

However, one of the main functions I use the older version of PalmScape for is
saving the content found on web pages to the memo pad. The version of PalmScape
that is now currently under development and in beta unfortunately sorts the memo
pad alphabetically when save to memo is selected. This unfortunately renders the
current version of your product useless for my needs.

I share this with you because I think you are doing an incredible diservice by
sorting the memo pad. If I wanted the memo pad sorted there is always an option
within the memo pad application to sort them; I don't need or want another
application doing this for me.

Given this restriciton, I will be continuing to use the older version of
PalmScape, as the new features and increased size of the beta version do not
warant having to deal with a memo pad that is reorganized. I hope that
subsequent versions of PalmScape do not suffer from this limitation.

Thank you for your time,

David

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Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 16:10:47 +0900
From: "ILINX, Inc." <[email protected]>
Resent-From: "David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]>
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Hi David,

Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention.  We will fix the
this issue of not to alphabetize the memo in the future release of
Palmscape.  We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have
caused.  If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,
Irene Oishi
ILINX, Inc.
visit http://www.ilinx.co.jp/en/




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Dear David,

Thank you very much for purchasing Palmscape, and referring our product
to your friend.  Your kind compliments about Palmscape is very sincerely
appreciated.  Thank you also for your suggestion in regards to having an
option for color.  This will be brought up to the developer.  If you
have any further queries or suggestion, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,
Irene Oishi
ILINX, Inc.

visit http://www.ilinx.co.jp/en/
tel: +81-3-5427-3750
fax: +81-3-5427-3751


On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:45:04 -0500
"David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> "ILINX, Inc." <[email protected]> wrote on 01-5-16 16:10:
> 
> >Thank you very much for 
> >bringing this to our 
> >attention.  We will fix the
> >this issue of not to 
> >alphabetize the memo in the 
> >future release of
> >Palmscape.  We sincerely 
> >apologize for the 
> >inconvenience this may have
> >caused.  If you have any 
> >further queries, please feel 
> >free to contact us.
> 
> On this note, I have registered PalmScape. A friend of mine has also subsequently registered your browser, and I believe more people will do so in the future. I am greatly anticipating the release of a version of PalmScape that doesn't sort the memo pad when I do an export of a web page. Is there any idea as to when this version will be released?
> 
> I also have another request; one I'm sure you guys probably are already aware of. I would like an option much like NetScape Navigator or Internet Explorer to override the color settings for a web site. There are some sites that I load in to PalmScape that aren't designed properly; www.nascar.com is one of them. The author(s) of the site assume you'll be loading graphics, but this is not always prudent on a hand held device. As they assume that you'll be loading graphics, the web site designers don't always take the time to make sure that the color of the text is different than the color of the background, resulting in a page that is impossible to read on my color Palm IIIc. There have been pages that I have loaded that while the text was readable, it has proven to be extremely difficult, because the web page's authors decided to use a very dark color of text and a different, but still dark, background. It would be nice if there was an option in PalmScape that would allow me !
to!
> !
>  choose to use my own color for text and links. On a desktop PC, I can just go into the preferences section of the web browser and tell it to use my preferences for color as opposed to the web-site designer's preferences, but unfortunately I don't have this luxury in PalmScape. Please note that this should be an option, in my opinion. A vast majority of the pages that I read don't display the problem; it's just a few odd-ball sites here and there.
> 
> Other than that, I want to thank you guys for creating what I believe to be a wonderful piece of software. The ability to take web content with me, and to follow links without having to connect, is a great improvement to the normal browsing process that I am used to, and I highly recommend PalmScape to my friends and family with the exception of the two small problems that are discussed here.
> 
> Thanks again for your time!
> 
> David W. Poole, Jr.
> 
> >On Mon, 14 May 2001 
> >12:23:08 -0400
> >"David W. Poole, Jr." 
> ><[email protected]> 
> >wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not a registered user; 
> >I'm curious if you guys have 
> >any intention of realeasing a 
> >version of PalmScape that 
> >doesn't sort the memo pad 
> >when exporting a page to 
> >the memo pad. I can not 
> >have my memo pad 
> >resorted, and as such, I can't 
> >purchase your application 
> >until this flaw is removed.
> >> 
> >> Thanks for your time!
> >> 
> >> David Poole
> >> 
> >> 
> >> ---
> >> Attn. Californians, upon 
> >the next black-out please 
> >plug your computer into the 
> >nearest spotted-owl.  You'll 
> >find him where your power 
> >plant should have been built.
> >> 
> >
> 
> ---
> I was normal once; I didn't like it.

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Subject: Memo pad sorting in PalmScape?
From: "David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 15:11:02 -0500
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Hello!

Some time back I asked about PalmScape's sorting of the memo pad when the "Save
to memo" option is used. I was told that the memo pad sorting would be disabled
on the next release of PalmScape. In an act of good faith, I went ahead and
registered PalmScape to show my support for what is otherwise a fine product.

It's been some time now, and I have yet to see a new release of PalmScape. Do
you guys have any idea of when the next release is coming? I have accidently
used the "Save to memo" option before when I meant to use the "Delete Page"
option, and again this has destroyed the order of the memos that I have so
carefully arranged.

I would appreciate it if you would let me know when you plan to release a
version of PalmScape that doesn't sort the memo pad, or otherwise I'm going to
have to find another browsing solution to use and recommend.

Thanks for your time!

David

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Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Why PalmScape Sucks
From: "David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 12:31:44 -0500
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http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/hornsey/515/WhyPalmScapeAndILinxSuck.html
---
What if the hokey-pokey is what it's really all about?
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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 21:18:39 +0900
From: "ILINX, Inc." <[email protected]>
Resent-From: "David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]>
To: "David W. Poole, Jr." <>
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Subject: Re: [palmware 1424] Memo Pad in PalmScape
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Dear David,

I sincerely apologize for the trouble that has caused you in the "Memo
Pad" from the bug of Palmscape.  And, I am very sorry that I did not
respond to you promptly in regards to the bug about "Memo Pad".  I can
understand your frustrations as you have a huge number of items in your
memo pad.  The bug you reported about Memo Pad has been recently fixed
and we will provide the update to fix the problem soon, and will notify
you when it is available.

We have also reviewed the list of bugs that you have reported on the
website address you provide in your other email.  Bug #1 has been
verified and tested, and the other 4 bugs are test and verification at
the moment. We will inform you shortly on the status of the tests.

We apologize if our explanation has not been to your satisfaction. 
We are striving to improve the escalation and bug-fix method internally
here in order to expedite customer's request.  Your comments and queries
are always welcome.

Best regards,
Irene Oishi
ILINX, Inc.

visit http://www.ilinx.co.jp/en/
tel: +81-3-5427-3750
fax: +81-3-5427-3751

On Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:52:58 -0500
"David W. Poole, Jr." <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Quite a few months back I wrote asking about PalmScape's "Save To Memo Pad" option, and how this option reordered ALL of my memos when it was used.
> 
> It's been some time since you wrote back with the promise that this problem would be corrected, and I have yet to see a new version released.
> 
> A few minutes ago, I was browsing with PalmScape, and I went to use the menu option to delete the page, and accidentally tapped "Save To Memo" option. As you can imagine, my 400+ carefully organized memos are now sorted in alphabetical order, WHICH IS NOT WHAT I WANT!
> 
> I purchased your application many months ago on the promise that this error would be corrected, and it's still fucked up. Your apathy towards your customers has been duly noted, and is about to be returned to you.
> 
> Starting today, I will begin posting into the usenet newsgroup alt.comp.sys.palmtops.pilot on a regular basis a review of how buggy your application is, as well as how little you care about your customers, and I will advise those looking for Palm based web browsers to look at products other than PacmScape. I also intend to do some hacking on PalmScape, since this seems to be the only option I have available. I'm sure this won't do your company any favors as far as new sales are concerned.
> 
> Good day, it's been a displeasure doing business with you.
> 
> David W. Poole, Jr.
> 


On Wed, 10 Oct 2001 21:18:39 +0900, ILINX, Inc. wrote:

>Dear David,
>
>I sincerely apologize for the trouble that has caused you in the "Memo
>Pad" from the bug of Palmscape.  And, I am very sorry that I did not
>respond to you promptly in regards to the bug about "Memo Pad".  I can
>understand your frustrations as you have a huge number of items in your
>memo pad.  The bug you reported about Memo Pad has been recently fixed
>and we will provide the update to fix the problem soon, and will notify >you when it is available. 
Dear Irene, 
Thanks for taking the time to address my email. I apologize for taking so long to respond to it, but I needed to do a little digging in my email archives so that I could gather some historical information. 
I have attached an email that I recieved from you on Wed, 16 May 2001 16:10:47. This was, as indicated by looking at the attached email, a response to an email I sent to ilink on May 14th of that same year, addressing this issue. 
You promised then to address the issue of sorting the memo pad, and on good faith I purchased PalmScape from your company. It's been five months since that exchange of emails, and your company is *still* offering the application from January! Please forgive me if I don't find your "sincere apologies" to be sincere; actions speak louder than words. 
As I've already demonstrated my displeasure with ilinx's concern regarding their customer's satifaction by the hosting of a complaint page, I have decided that it's time to submit the page to the search engines on the web. In this manner, anyone looking for PalmScape can find the page, and hopefully make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to do business with ilinx; had I had the benefit of knowing what type of service your company provides, I would have chosen not to do business with ilinx. And as a matter of fact, I still have a copy of the old free version of PalmScape that didn't suffer from the limitations that PalmScape has developed since being aquired by ilinx, and I will be making that available on the world wide web, as well. Naturally I will be updating the page at http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/hornsey/515/WhyPalmScapeAndILinxSuck.html to include relevant copies of our correspondence. 
>We have also reviewed the list of bugs that you have reported on the >website address you provide in your other email.  Bug #1 has been >verified and tested, and the other 4 bugs are test and verification at >the moment. We will inform you shortly on the status of the tests. 
Gee, thanks. I already *know* the status of the tests; what's important to me, but obviously not important to ilinx, is if something is going to be done about the problems. Truthfully, all of the other problems combined do not equal the importance of the memo pad sorting problem. 
>We apologize if our explanation has not been to your satisfaction. >We are striving to improve the escalation and bug-fix method internally >here in order to expedite customer's request.  Your comments and queries >are always welcome. 
Your explanation has been *most* satisfactory; it's been the response to the explanation that I am displeased with. Again, it's been five months (mid may of 2001) since the issue of sorting the memo pad has been mentioned, and yet there still hasn't been an update to PalmScape since January! 
PalmScape and it's companion products have the potential to be the "killer app(s)" for the Palm platform; if things worked as advertised I would purchase every product you guys offer, because I support things I believe in. However, iLink's apathy towards my concerns has led me to lose belief in PalmScape and it's companion products. As mentioned in another email between you and I, a friend of mine purchased PalmScape based on my recommendation, and I have spent a fair amount of time praising it on usenet in the past. However, with the display of apathy from ilinx, I've come to the conclusion it would be best for me to offer the bugs I've found, as well as the history between ilinx and myself as a customer, and let future potential customers of ilinx decide for themselves if they wish to spend their money on your product(s). 
Thank you for your time, 
David W. Poole, Jr.

Yes!

The folks at iLinx have done it again! They have released a new version, after about a year and a half. For the most part, the only upgrade to this package is that it supports their channel functionallity. However, the browser itself has become very slow, so slow as to be unusable to me. Switching pages used to take a couple of seconds; now it takes at least 10.

At least they addressed the memo pad exporting option. Now, when you export a page to the memo pad, as opposed to it exporting the text on the page and resorting the memo pad, it merely exports the URL and title of the page. Gee, now there's a handy feature!

Unfortunately the product is getting worse; not better. Hey, these are Japanese folks here; they are usually credited with improving things, not downgrading them! I wonder if they are turning american?

I'll be sticking with the older version for the time being.


This page was composed on a Palm IIIc using QuickWord 5.6