XYplorer = Software pick of the week on Windows Weekly

[admin]

http://www.twit.tv/ww37

Thanks JC!

Download the Podcast (XY review starts at 1:06:00 min and runs ca. 4 minutes)

[j_c_hallgren]

I'm REALLY happy that this publicity attempt worked!
Great timing as this marks my 1,500th post here!

I subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes and listen on my PC as I don't have a iPod...but I'm a bit behind on listening to this show...I also get "This Week In Tech" which he does...great shows for keeping up with what's going on for people who aren't too techy.

For background to others who may not know of Leo:
Leo has a very wide following here in the US, as he appears on TV on occasion (he has a show in Canada on cable, I believe), has a 3 hr call-in radio show on Sat/Sun that is syndicated in various markets around the country, and has numerous podcasts that have various amounts of subscribers (up to 280K+-, from his wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte).

During his radio show on Sunday Sept 30th, (which I listen to when I can via the web as it's not available in this area, so I listen to it from KFI 640 in Los Angeles), during the commercial breaks Leo interacts with listeners via a chat session, and has a video stream so we can hear his comments, I posted a quick msg to Leo saying that "XYplorer was a product that I thought he should take a look at, and that I was NOT financially connected to it, but was just a VERY happy user" or similar...I then posted a couple of more sentences in chatroom, and he acknowledged my comment via a "Thanks J5, I will" or similar.

So...I then sent an email with the following:

I'm "J5" on the chatroom...and THANKS for that quick voice reply during commercial break!
I'm just a regular faithful listener and have REALLY enjoyed your shows for many months!

And sorry, but since I wasn't sure which address was best/correct, I sent this to both addresses I found.

This time, I'm sending a bit more background about http://www.xyplorer.com/ and asking if you would consider trial-ing/reviewing/testing this shareware software utility so that others may know of its existence. It's a Windows Explorer replacement that I found about 18 months ago, and have found to be one of THE best supported programs in my 20+ years of using PC's! It's called XYplorer and is written by Donald Lessau from Germany.

It hasn't gathered very much mainstream press attention, and think it deserves some, or at least recognition on a major web site and/or podcasts, such as yours.

I have NO financial interest in this software whatsoever and have actually donated to the author full price even though he was willing to give me a free copy for my work in the support forum. Over time, I have become the second most frequent poster to the support forum, which I never intended originally, but just that I fell in LOVE with the product and the timeliness and atitude of the author. So much so that I've also created a blog to help support the product at http://xyplorer.blogspot.com . Another user has created a wiki for it: http://www.xyplorer.com/xywiki.php

Don has, on occasion, created a new beta version within hours of receiving a suggestion for improvement or enhancement, and rarely do bug fixes take more than a couple of days. As a former mainframe COBOL systems analyst/programmer, I saw that this was SO unusual in the industry, that I think his efforts need more exposure.

I realize that a formal review may take some time, and that you get hundreds/thousands of requests like this, but I think you should consider this product for your review. And yes, your review may likely not be 100% positive, which is a risk to be taken, but any exposure should offset that. I'm sure that once you see and use the product, you'll be impressed. Ok, so it's not a dual-pane setup, but has some unique features that outweigh that aspect, such as the Catalog.

It has been listed on Gizmo (Ian) Richards Tech Support Alert as one of the best utilities. An old version, which is freeware, still exists but doesn't have a lot of the newest features. New beta versions with new features, which are 99%+ rock-solid, are often available daily!

The original need I had that this program satisfied perfectly was to be able to easily locate and work with the subset of files that were modified within a selected time-of-day span, and not just by date, as Win Expl does.

Thanks for your time and hope to hear back from you about this!

This is a similar letter to ones that I had sent to a couple of other media folks.

I then got this from his assistant on the 4th:

Hi this is Mara. Leo has hired me to help answer his email.
thanks for the link. I'll pass it on to Leo.

And on the 9th, I got this from Leo:

I'll definitely download it and try it!

I hadn't checked the podcasts for about a 10 days (too busy!), so didn't know that he'd mentioned it...and I didn't say anything here as I had no idea if it'd make it into one of his shows or not...so now it has! GREAT!!!

Hey, I even got MY blog mentioned on his site!

Update:After writing above, I listened to that part of podcast...I am now, as they say, "on cloud nine"! Best thing that has happened to me in last month! Getting a mention on his podcast, plus a great review of XY...what more could I ask for?

[panorama]

Hey, I even got MY blog mentioned on his site!

Hey, you even got your name mentioned on his podcast

And a review of the product that makes it sound attractive to most any user not just the elusive POWER user.

Hats off Mr H!

[serendipity]

Great job JC.

[admin]

Great job JC.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Let the low-power user come, I'm ready!

[j_c_hallgren]

Hey, you even got your name mentioned on his podcast

Yup! And thusly also on his website...which caused it to also appear in the "Info" notes for podcast on iTunes! So I can now maybe claim to have been on iItunes?

BTW, I just posted a "Special publicity note" entry on the blog about this...figured a back-link was certainly justified in this case.

And even though the title of that podcast was really due to another product review on show, the "Orange Box" tie-in was another nice touch.

The only possible downside may be in getting a few new users who want it to look like some other product and then post hateful stuff here, and cause problems as has happened a couple of times.

I'm happy for myself obviously, but am more happy for Don, as he gets some well deserved attention, and by a recognized media source, so that may help with the Wikipedia non-notable issue.

[admin]

Stupid question: the website is *.tv but I can only hear it, not see it. Uh... where's the movie?

[j_c_hallgren]

Stupid question: the website is *.tv but I can only hear it, not see it. Uh... where's the movie?

Not a stupid question...as best I can describe it, it goes back to how it got started...see http://www.twit.tv/huh where the origins are traced back to a cable TV channel...and as Leo is involved with radio/tv/podcasts, having a ".TV" domain doesn't bother me...and Leo has a number of sites that are .COM also...

[j_c_hallgren]

Just got an email from Leo about XY:

Great pick - I recommended it this week on Windows Weekly (and bought
a copy for myself, too!)

Thanks for the tip!

Leo

Now THAT'S impressive! Getting him as a paid user! A nice side benefit...(I'd be curious to know if your sales totals see any significant changes in the next week or so, but timing with new pricing may offset it)...we might be able to use this podcast reference to gain some publicity with other media...I'm planning to send follow-ups to a couple of other folks referring to this.

BTW, I found some subscriber totals on Leo's blog from Oct 2006, and Windows Weekly at that time had 83K subscribers, so that's a well distributed podcast!

Also, in looking back thru some older blogs there, I see that the early TWIT shows occasionally had video, so that makes the TWIT.TV name more sensible.

[admin]

Just got an email from Leo about XY:

Great pick - I recommended it this week on Windows Weekly (and bought
a copy for myself, too!)

Thanks for the tip!

Leo

Now THAT'S impressive! Getting him as a paid user! A nice side benefit...(I'd be curious to know if your sales totals see any significant changes in the next week or so, but timing with new pricing may offset it)...we might be able to use this podcast reference to gain some publicity with other media...I'm planning to send follow-ups to a couple of other folks referring to this.

I won't stop you!

The new pricing may offset it? Hardly. The new price is lower than before: The fact of being a "Lifetime License" did not get through to most of the customers the past years. I know that from the emails I'm getting. Many ask me for a new/upgrade license and I tell them "Hey, you got lifetime! No more pay!". I have customers that paid in the year 2000 and still use XY today!
So, for everybody not reading the small print, XY got 5 bucks cheaper last week.
BTW, I'm selling both types of license well!

[j_c_hallgren]

The new pricing may offset it? Hardly. The new price is lower than before:

Yes, the basic price but not the full vers...I mentioned it only due to some entries on another forum where some potential users said they wouldn't buy under the new scheme.

The fact of being a "Lifetime License" did not get through to most of the customers the past years. I know that from the emails I'm getting. Many ask me for a new/upgrade license and I tell them "Hey, you got lifetime! No more pay!".

Well, you could always highly encourage them to do some voluntary donations if they wish, right?

Addendum:There is now a link to XYplorer on Paul Thurrott's Super Site for Windows due to the WW 37 podcast entry: http://www.winsupersite.com/paul/podcast.asp

[j_c_hallgren]

On Sat Aug 16, after Leo did his radio show, he was taking questions from the IRC chat room and answering via video stream, so I asked if he was still using XY...he said yes...I asked if he'd updated recently and told him there had been numerous new features recently such as folder view settings...he said it'd been a while and that he'd check it out...I also told him "thanks again for the WW mention" on your behalf, which I'm sure you'd agree with.

[admin]

On Sat Aug 16, after Leo did his radio show, he was taking questions from the IRC chat room and answering via video stream, so I asked if he was still using XY...he said yes...I asked if he'd updated recently and told him there had been numerous new features recently such as folder view settings...he said it'd been a while and that he'd check it out...I also told him "thanks again for the WW mention" on your behalf, which I'm sure you'd agree with.

Sounds cool!

A little fast maybe with the folder view settings, since that's only beta yet.

[j_c_hallgren]

A little fast maybe with the folder view settings, since that's only beta yet.

Not to worry...what I actually said about FVS was "leo: there are some new features in XY that you may like, and more coming...customized views per folder is the one that's in process now."

(Updated late Sun nite with actual quote)