Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

Not even out of the starting gates, and the Behold Beta already has a comprehensive review done by Tamura Jones. You can find the review at: http://www.tamurajones.net/Behold0.99.2BetaGEDCOM.xhtml but note that Internet Explorer will not open .xhtml files, so you’ll need to view it with Firefox or another browser.

Tamura is one of the toughest graders of genealogy software you’ll find, with some reviews literally tearing programs apart and stomping on the pieces. I’m quite pleased with the review done of Behold. It’s an honest evaluation of a program whose beta is “definitely a serious improvement” but is still “far from finished”.

I’ve sent Tamura my comments and look forward to getting a response. I always manage to get excellent insights from our “discussions”. The whole virtualizing of the Everything Report was brought into being by some of Tamura’s ideas several years ago, and it is my intention to meet some of the challenges that Tamura has set upon the genealogy software industry. … One step at a time.

The first 9 people to download trial keys all found that their Trial Key was already expired. Here I sit redfaced wondering how I let that happen.

Well, I had changed the expiry from 90 days after the program was built to the new trial rule of 45 days after the key is sent for. I changed that number everywhere I could find. In the program, and in all the website procedures.

Then I uploaded it to the website. My upload compares differences in file size to see what files changed. In the one critical program, the only change was “90″ to “45″ and both of those are 2 characters and that did not change the file size. My comparison program did not report a difference and the file was not updated. Oooops.

All is fixed now. I’ve sent e-mails to those involved asking them sheepishly to try one more time.

Time to take a big deep inhale … and breathe.

Finally!! Behold is once again downloadable and available to try or buy.

Version 0.99.1 beta was released this morning, and version 0.99.2 beta came out this evening, after I fixed two minor issues with the “New Update Available” display and with text on the info box that still referred to the alpha.

If you are using the alpha, please do upgrade to the beta. It should be able to do everything that the alpha was able to do. If there’s anything you find that was working before that isn’t working now, please report it to me and I’ll fix it ASAP.

For large files, you should find it MUCH faster and use a lot less memory. Files of 100,000 people should load in 10 to 20 seconds, depending on the speed of your machine.

The help file has grown a bit old, and it will be updated during the course of the beta. I’ll actually be using the help file, as I update it bit by bit, to document my progress through the features of Behold as I ensure it all works as it should. Once everything’s checked and the help file is finished, version 1.0 will come out.

We’re off and running again!