August 28th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Thanks to Recommended, I had the opportunity to download and (try to) test the new Touchstone RSS (Alpha) software.
Alas, after installing it, upgrading to the .Net 2.0 version platform (as required and done automatically by the installer), it didn’t load up at all and my computer started acting really slow. Checking my Windows Task Manager, it seemed that the software was running two similar versions at the same time which was max’ing out my computer’s CPU usage. On rebooting my computer, my desktop would not even load up - I had to reboot into XP Safe mode to uninstall the software. Considering that I had more than the required computer specs, I was very dissapointed as I really wanted to test this solid looking program.
It seems like this Alpha version is pretty unstable and not ready for testing yet due to the fact that I didn’t even get pass the stage of actually loading up the software, yet alone trying to the test the functionality and features of it. Without a second computer to test it on, I would not want to risk installing it again until at lease the Beta stage.
7 Responses to “Touchstone RSS (Alpha) Software review”
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kristarella said: @ 1:56 am
August 29th, 2006
Bummer, how’s NewsGator working for ya?
Steve S said: @ 2:11 am
August 29th, 2006
I haven’t had a chance to work with this one yet (ALPHA software gives me the willies), but just reading up on it gives me the impression that it might be a very large stick going after a somewhat smaller problem. It just feels a little complex to be not too much more than a glorified RSS reader.
Speaking of glorified RSS readers, you really should check out NewsHutch, you might like it.
The Foo said: @ 7:23 am
August 29th, 2006
NewsGator is good - An old fashioned RSS reader with some modern features. A negative for me is that feeds don\’t \”automatically update\” until you click on a particular feed or feed folder.
I was excited to test out Touchstone because it has an AJAX type feel to it - which I am a big fan off. I just love the interactive desktop feeling. Also liked the Attention Data feature which processes the software engine according to your likes and profile - which makes the software a little more productive than a traditional one. Yes, I don\’t normally test alpha versions but this one \”looked\” mighty impressive. However it quickly made me remember the reason why I stayed away from alpha software in the first place! I might check out NewsHutch.
-t- said: @ 5:31 pm
August 29th, 2006
Sorry to hear the program caused you so much trouble! I encountered some kind of glitch when I installed it, but I didn’t give it much importance. After upgrading to .Net 2.0 the installer froze. I simply restarted it and everything went fine.
Been using the program for a bit now. There are some minor annoyances, but that’s expectable with an alpha test. For example it has some trouble connecting to the net when it loads before a internet connection has been established. So far only restarting the program worked. And it doesn’t remember where on the screen it last resided and always launches in the same old wrong one.
Other than that I didn’t witness anyhing great or seriously wrong with it. I love the design, functionality is as described and I like that too.
I have a 3 year old notebook which still is kinda high end (HP compaq nx7000, Centrino 1.5 GHz, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Pro SP2).
Did you provide Feedback to the developers? I’d very much like to know what they have to say about your issues.
Chris Saad said: @ 8:03 am
August 31st, 2006
Hi everyone - Chris here - co-founder of Touchstone. Just caught this post thought I might leave some comments.
The Foo - I’m sorry you had such a bad experience installing the Alpha. In our testing in the office it has been working well and the feedback we have received so far is that it might crash a bit but never make the system unstable. I would be very happy to talk to you more via email or IM to work out your exact configuration so I can try to iron out the issues for you and in the app itself.
Steve - Appreciate your feedback as well. I understand how Touchstone might seem overly complex based on the info on the current site - but our hope is to hide all that complexity behind a very simple interface that ‘just works’. Of course it will take us a few more builds to get there but we are committed to making it happen. Also as you might imagine there are lots of applications for an engine that can calculate ‘personal relevancy’ - so the problem we are trying to solve is fairly large ;)
T - Thanks for suggesting advice to the others and I’m glad that it worked out for you eventually.
As you suggest straight-forward reports such as these keep us at our toes to continually improve the software, so I do thank you for sharing your experiences with Touchstone. Of course we’d like to fix what’s been broken—are you still willing to give Touchstone another go once we’ve sorted out the glitches to which you’ve been referring?
The Foo said: @ 8:21 am
August 31st, 2006
Hi Chris, I will DEFINITELY give Touchstone another go (once it is at least in a working Beta stage) but can’t afford to do it now as I don’t have a test computer for it… even though I have backups, I just can’t risk losing the time associated with data loss or/and OS instabilities. As I said in my post, I am impressed with the features and haven’t seen anything like it yet. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Chris Saad said: @ 9:12 pm
September 2nd, 2006
Fantastic! I will keep you posted