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Anonymous
(Unregistered)
02/24/03 08:22 AM
Moratorium on new features  

I've been using AW2000 for a little while now, evaluating it and overall, I think it is very good. It has a lot of features and while there are things that could be added -- and things in fact, that I've requested on this board -- I'm coming down to a new conclusion about what I'd like to see next...

I'd like to see a moratorium on new features while the code is checked for bugs, memory leaks, and things that in general, cause us to have to rebuild the database constantly to continue operation.

I know that's probably not the most popular suggestion anyone's given lately, but since the code does SO DARN MUCH -- there are almost certainly features that were added the most expedient way as opposed to the best way, programmatically and/or resource wise. Maybe it is time to go back over the code and revisit those issues. It will only get more difficult to justify over time.

I'm ready to plunk down my money on the program as soon as I hear the programmer's response to this. The code is amazing in all it does -- email management, feedback management, invoicing, reports, HTML and not to mention the most important parts -- auction management & the ever loving dollar. I'd almost rather see fewer features and a more robust product though. So, I'm ready to see a freeze for a while. Anyone else?

(Probably not) ;-)

D.



Tradeguy
(newbie)
02/24/03 02:15 PM
Re: Moratorium on new features new [re: Anonymous]  

I ran the Aw2K trial, and then registered the software in December. Since then I've setup around 500 inventory items, listed over 1000 auctions plus store items, processed around 300 invoices, and generated almost 1000 automated emails. In all the time I haven't encountered a single crash, lockup, or any kind of data or index corruption. It's actually kind of amazing considering the complexity of the software. I do regularly backup, and I also rebuild my indexes once a week to keep things running as efficiently as possible - but I've never "had" to run a rebuild.

In fact, the only errors I've seen have all been related to Ebay changing things - and then AW2K responded within 24 hours.

I also read these board fairly regularly and I don't see a lot of bug reports. Mostly operational errors.

So I guess what I'm saying is....I don't see why they would need a moratorium on new features. AW2K is perhaps the cleanest Windows software I run.

IMHO...
Rich



Anonymous
(Unregistered)
02/25/03 06:40 AM
Re: Moratorium on new features new [re: Tradeguy]  

Under what conditions do you run the software? Do you have other applications open? What OS? How much memory and what CPU? How much free space on the disk?

I see a lot of comments that things have slowed considerably since the last upgrade. That suggests something's wrong. I've seen comments that resources aren't returned. That's a problem, too.

Do you power down every night? Reboot frequently anyway?





Tradeguy
(newbie)
02/26/03 03:02 AM
Re: Moratorium on new features new [re: Anonymous]  

I am almost always running AW2K, I run Windows 2000 pro on a Gateway P700 (pentium 3, 700 mhz), with about 16 gb open on the drive. 384 mb RAM. I shutdown the PC perhaps 2 times per month. I've probably run AW2K for least a week without shutting it down - you gotta do this to back it up anyway. I've also started doing the rebuild as well right after the backup. All the databases added up are only around 40 mb for me.

Along side AW2K I run norton antivirus, at least 3 IE windows, Outlook 2000, paint shop pro, zonealarm, enternet (tcp/ip over ethernet for DSL). Periodically, Word and Frontpage.

Memory usage can be tracked somewhat using the windows task manager - AW2K seems pretty steady at around 24MB. I occassionally track utilization if performance seems to be getting hit, and the only application I run that can simultaneously eat up memory and CPU without freeing things up is internet explorer. If I kill IE and restart it, everything is normal again - this has been the case with IE for at least 10 years across multiple OS's - I think multimedia pluggins get stuck.

I'd look real hard at any machine running AW2K and having performance problems, These reports at least need to be confirmed with task manager, which can show utilzation by individual components.

If I were to make a quess, I'd also look real hard at the communications end of the program. Most windows software will take a hit (or outright crash) if they are attempting to access the net and have some kind of communcations error. This seems to be true for browsers, ftp clients, and mail clients. AW2K seems to have some nice built-in short timeouts that appears to avoid these pitfalls (unlike most of the other software mentioned).

In general, if you are having a performance or reliability problem with a suspect program, then start a basic troubleshooting protocol. Start monitoring things with task manager (or an equivalent utility). Kill all startup programs except for the most basic and needed. Run AW2K alone. If these things fix the problem, then slowly add back programs until the problem begins again. It might not be Aw2K, but some other program interacting badly with it - and don't discount MS products just casue MS made them (For example, I have a frequent problem running MS Frontpage and MS Outlook together - frontpage will sometimes take 5 minutes to save out a web page if outlook is running -- definate little problem there, easily sovled by temporarily killing outlook).

This is probably more than you wanna know...heh. But you got me started on the pc support thing.

Rich (retired network engineer & system admin - now just a happy ebay seller)




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