I GIVE UP

Four days lost, with the help of a lot of good people here on the Logos forum. Contact with the staff and technician taking over the control of the machine but not understanding the problem, indexed it again, but in vain. I think the Logos conceivers will have some more work if they want to conquer the Mac public.

Let's hope I will finally get an answer for the refund.

Thanks to those who tried to help..

Prof Goldman

Old Testament

Unviersity of Fribourg

Editorial Board of the Bibiia Hebraica

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Comments

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

Prof Goldman,

I think there may have been some issue with your index. You should have gotten search hits for your prior searches. If you can send me your diagnostic logs, I can take a look and see if there were any issues.

You will find a link here:http://community.logos.com/forums/t/25043.aspx for a utility which can compress your Log files suitably for posting to the forums.

Patrick Goldman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206562#Comment_206562

Thank you for the proposal. Here is the log archive. I just dragged it into this field.

file:///Users/metoo/Desktop/LogosLogs%20Me%20Too%2020101229-001907.gz

Not sure this is the right thing to do, so I also use the join function:

7345.LogosLogs Me Too 20101229-001907.gz

Hope this will help.

Y. Goldman

Tom Philpot (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206597#Comment_206597

That's exactly what I needed.

It looks like your library finished indexing at 21:56:31 your time. I can also see that your indexes had never fully finished so that would explain why you got no hits.

I wonder if you restarted L4 and tried to run a Basic search now for Peace in your Entire Library and see if you get hits. Similarly, if you try John Fidel's suggestion for searching original languages, you'll probably get hits now too.

Patrick Goldman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206609#Comment_206609

Thank you for your message. Yes, the problem you raise is not solved, i.e.: why was the indexing never finished?

The one you mention was the last indexing initiated by your technician, which took roughly around 2 hours yesterday night. The first indexing had been given the whole night and was normally finisghed.

The basic search for peace was done without any problem, but this is not my main interest in Logos 4 "Original Language" package. I still do not get any result when entering Hebrew or Greek words searched in the Bible or Morph sections.

Anyway thank you very much for the try.

Sincerely,

Y. Goldman

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206746#Comment_206746

Patrick,

From all I can see you have been extremely patient throughout this process and for that I would like to say thank you. Should you desire not to continue trouble shooting I would certainly understand, and I'm assuming that the help you have received thus far has gone over the "obvious" stuff so feel free to brush past my comment if you desire.

However I am curious as to what happens when your right click on a word in the ESV (or any interlinear translation or morphed Greek, Hebrew Text), selected the Lemma on the RIGHT and the Morph Search on the Left. I did this and initially got no results. Then I realized my range defaulted to my last search range (hate it, if I select from the right click menu, I want a search of the entire resource). For some reason every time I do a new search Judges is set to the range, then I change it to what I actually want and the next time I do a search Judges is usually selected. also, be sure the proper morphology is selected.

Patrick Goldman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206750#Comment_206750

Dear Philip,

Thank you for the informations. I finally decided to erase entirely the software and asked for a refund. But I did not want to leave you without thanks for helping. This software showed to be much too complex for a man like me not willing to enter in subtle processes to search the Bible. The things escaped out my hands any time I searched for something. Though it is a little bit more austere and less rich in access to the English tools in particular, I am rather happy with Accordance finally.

All best wishes to you in the study of the Word of God..

Yohanan

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206907#Comment_206907

Dear Philip,

Thank you for the informations. I finally decided to erase entirely the software and asked for a refund. But I did not want to leave you without thanks for helping. This software showed to be much too complex for a man like me not willing to enter in subtle processes to search the Bible. The things escaped out my hands any time I searched for something. Though it is a little bit more austere and less rich in access to the English tools in particular, I am rather happy with Accordance finally.

All best wishes to you in the study of the Word of God..

Yohanan

What matters is not the funnel that's used, but the substance being funneled and the object being funneled into. May God richly bless your future studies.

Rene Atchley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206907#Comment_206907

Hmm...interesting post.

spitzerpl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206919#Comment_206919

Hmm...interesting post.

But let me add...everyone should give the Logos funnel a decent try :-)

Patrick Goldman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206926#Comment_206926

Philip,

I do agree about the quality of what we learn in the Word of God and thank you for the blessings.

Regarding the "decent try" one "SHOULD" give to Logos:

1. I hope mine was one, with the help of people on the forum and a technician of Logos directly on my machine, with no result. This rich software has not been primarily written for the Mac, which could explain the technical difficulties I met with.

2. Being an old Mac user I confess that I might be a "spoiled child" of Apple's clarity not willing to loose too much time unraveling the complexities of a program. On Mac and its software in general things tend to be smooth and easy, “user friendly” (25 years of experience here). But I am not a sectarian…

Blessings to you all.

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206926#Comment_206926

But let me add...everyone should give the Logos funnel a decent try :-)

Oops was gonna ask about the payment plan, I read it as: "everyone should give the Logos funeral a decent try :-)"

problem is its a one shot deal...[:$]

Dennis Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207112#Comment_207112

On Mac and its software in general things tend to be smooth and easy, “user friendly” (25 years of experience here).

Don't forget Fast, Stable and Usable. I wonder if I could get a refund on everything I've purchased to work with Logos 4 since upgrading to it over a year ago?

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207134#Comment_207134

On Mac and its software in general things tend to be smooth and easy, “user friendly” (25 years of experience here).

Don't forget Fast, Stable and Usable. I wonder if I could get a refund on everything I've purchased to work with Logos 4 since upgrading to it over a year ago?

I just made the switch to the other "built from the ground up" Mac software and am delighted. The gave me a great deal, but I still could only afford original language tools and some resources. Plan to invest more in the coming year. I am however very sad that I have to lay out $$$ for stuff that I already have in Logos [;)]. I like you Dennis am wondering if I can get a "full" refund of all the resources that I have purchased over the last year or so. I began with Logo4 on Windows shortly after it release and was appalled to find out that basic functions didn't work. Yet I stuck with it. So when I switched to a Mac around the same time Logos 4 Mac released a couple months back. I thought, I guess I can live without the features once again. But never did I expect the software to be so soooo slow. Anyway... I think I am going to contact Logos and ask for a refund so that I can go buy all the other resources I need on the other software.

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/206926#Comment_206926

But let me add...everyone should give the Logos funnel a decent try :-)

I appreciate your heart Phillip and want you to know that I gave Logos the last year and change. Yet when I switched to Logos4 Mac a couple months ago, I quickly realized that the performance concerns were great enough that it was affecting my work flow and therefore adversely affecting my sermon prep. So that's why I finally threw up the white flag and declared defeat yesterday and switched.

Daniel Arnott

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207179#Comment_207179

What I would like to know from the developers is this:

1) Do you think it is ethically wrong to release a product that is not complete, is not optimised and quite frankly fool people into buying it when you know full well that it is riddled with bugs?

2) Do you think it is fair that people are paying you hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an unfinished beta product that we are effectively testers for?

3) Will you offer mac users any sort of discounts/compensation for the problems they have had over the past few months (or at least since the "Gold" release)?

I bought your product over a year ago. Initially I bought Logos 3 and was told that there was a mac version. The very next day Logos 4 came out and I was upgraded. Of course that is when all the problems started. I have never spent so much time on a companies website forum looking for ways to tweak software, increase spec etc.. etc... Having spent so much money on this product I am still extremely frustrated and angry that a Christian organisation can quite happily take your money and provide a sub standard, unfinished product. Your sales staff are also extremely happy to take my money and process my payment as soon as I send them an email. Again I find this pushy and unnecessary.

I am getting a little fed up of waiting for the Mac version to be complete because I can see the "potential" of the product. You need to sort this software out once and for all and stop treating us a testers.

Daniel

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207965#Comment_207965

What I would like to know from the developers is this

You're asking the wrong people. The developers don't make these kinds of decisions. They're just employees following orders. Would you like to be blamed for your boss' decisions? I suggest a mail to bob at logos dot com. He's the one that does do these decisions.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207965#Comment_207965

Daniel,

I'm sorry you are frustrated by the Mac release.

In the forums (and on our blog) you'll find long, detailed explanations of why we chose to release Logos 4 (for both Windows and Mac) when we did. You'll also find, on our web site and everywhere we discussed the products, clear and detailed explanations of the deficiencies of each release and our plans for when we'd fix them.

We also offer (and always have) an unconditional money-back guarantee.

To save you the research, though, I'll re-summarize quickly: We had more work we wanted to do on both products, but felt they were already easier to use and more powerful than the existing products we were then shipping, so we A) released them with full disclosure of the limitations, and a promise to continually upgrade them at no cost (which we have done, repeatedly), we ensured that the existing products could run side-by-side, so no one was forced to upgrade to the new products before they felt they were ready, and no one was deprived of previously available features, and C) we continued to maintain our money-back guarantee.

(We have also stated clearly that we're designing for the future, not the past, and that the software requires a very recent machine to perform well. It's frustrating to read reviewers who say "it performs poorly on my Mac, which is only a few years old..." While it's not the choice every company makes, we do choose to implement power hungry features, anticipating that our platform will have a 5-8 year life, and knowing computing power doubles every 18 months. We believe it's a long-term benefit for the users, who appreciate that functionality. It just makes us not the right solution for the person with the 4 year old machine the first year we ship a new platform.)

The Windows version of Logos 4 is in excellent shape, has received (and is still receiving) performance improvements, now has "better than before" implementations of most "missing featuress" (printing, exporting, sentence diagramming, etc.).

The Mac version was behind -- fully disclosed a year ago -- but has just about caught up on feature parity, which users told us was the top priority. We are finishing the release of 4.2a on both platforms (it's in beta now), which delivers most of the parity and even some key optimizations. Now that we have gotten there, we are (as promised, and as planned) beginning an optimization phase to tune performance on the Mac.

1) is it ethically wrong? No, I don't believe so, for the reasons above. We've been up-front about the situation all along the way, and we aren't taking (or keeping) the money of any unsatisfied customers. I think it's inaccurate to says we "fool[ed]people into buying it."

2) Is it fair people pay hundreds and hundreds...? Yes. It's a voluntary transaction, with all the relevant details disclosed in advance, and you can un-do the transaction at your option. What's more fair than that?

3) Will we offer discounts/compensation, etc.? Sure. Email me at bob@logos.com with what you think is appropriate and we'll come to an agreement. I don't want any unhappy customers, and I can't sleep at night knowing you feel cheated. (I'm not being facetious -- my personal well-being really is tied to knowing that our customers are satisfied. Obviously I can't bend time -- if making you happy requires a perfect Mac product by 11 pm, I can't do that. But I can make sure I'm not holding your money if you aren't at least satisfied with what you have, or with our plan to get something better to you as soon as we can.)

In defense of the developers: It's not their fault. It's all my fault.

My developers are in a constant state of frustration as I push them to ship things before they are perfect. We need each other; they push for a perfect, bug-free, performant product, and I push for something to ship so they can be paid and feed their families.

I can assure you it's all my fault. I can also assure you that if we held to the standard requested, Logos 4 still wouldn't have shipped. Nor would it be shipping soon, because even though we're now just catching up to what some users consider "the minimum product we should have shipped," we're doing that with the much larger team and resources that shipping 14 months ago afforded us. If we'd held out for a "perfect product," I can guarantee that by now we would not have hired the 60+ people who've joined us since Logos 4 shipped and we would most likely have laid off part of our company, resulting in poorer service, slower development, low morale, and a possible exodus of key talent.

I hope this doesn't come across too harshly; your criticisms and frustrations are valid, and I take responsibility for not delivering what you wanted. (And I apologize if we failed to communicate the state of things clearly enough.) I hope you'll appreciate, though, my explanation. It's not intended as an excuse, but rather as a way to let you see some of the complicated choices we have to make, and why companies sometimes do things that seem like bad choices to us consumers on the outside.

(I, for example, wonder why they keep shipping tiny changes to a car each model year instead of buckling down and delivering the flying car users want. :-) Or at least (more reasonably), the electric car with gasoline-powered range and performance that charges in ten minutes and costs less. But I'm guessing it's a similar answer: they'd go out of business without those "new chrome, new radio!" model year changes during the 10+ years it will take to deliver the car I really want. And those intermediate releases may waste time and make it 11 years to get what I want, but the extra year is better than the car company going out of business.)

Thanks for your patience,

-- Bob

Daniel Arnott

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207987#Comment_207987

Hi Bob

Firstly...thanks

I do appreciate you taking the time to respond. I am a "believer" in the product and thanks to your explanation can understand better the issues you have to weigh up each day. My frustration is really because I can see the potential and just want to use it!! It promises so much but rarely delivers a smooth ride. I look forward to the upcoming optimization developments.

I will consider your offer and email you in due course. I am not looking for a refund as your product, I believe will be the best in the market.

I'm glad you have heard my concerns. To do something positive about it, I will make sure that you and the team are in my prayers over the coming months.

Thanks

Daniel

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208000#Comment_208000

Likewise Thankful for Bob's comments and insights [H] Also praying for Logos, including user community while always rejoicing in Logos - God's Words.

... It promises so much but rarely delivers a smooth ride. ...

Smooth depends on usage pattern(s) and computer hardware - for smoother responses, currently chose to limit use of some Logos 4 features (e.g. custom guides, amount of visual filters, notes, etc) - picked up tips from this forum and Logos blog => http://blog.logos.com/archives/2010/02/logos_4_collapse_sections_in_guides.html

At Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in few days, anticipating Intel Sandy Bridge processor availability - not know Apple refresh plans - currently Mac Book Air only model refreshed since July 2010 => http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ (reading rumors about several refreshes this year).

Personally dreaming of 27" iMac with 3.4 GHz Quad Core i7 (at least 21 % faster) along with substantially faster disk upgrade possibilities: e.g. RAID 0 stripe set with 3 SSD's -OR- 2 SSD's plus e-SATA connected large external storage plus faster graphics for noticeably snappier Logos 4 performance, knowing some Logos 4 actions will still not be instantaneous - e.g. indexing entire library.

Observation: SSD RAID 0 benchmarks using 2010 iMac => http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27/benchmarks/

Keep Smiling [:)]

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207987#Comment_207987

Hi Bob,

Said elsewhere that I am praying for you and the folks at Logos. I am sure it is a difficult time for all of you. Just for the record two quick points.

...released them with full disclosure of the limitations, and a promise to continually upgrade them at no cost (which we have done, repeatedly)

(1.) When I first purchased Logos 4, I had no clue that it had limitations. I never visited the forums until such time that I realized after my purchase there was what i deemed core functionality missing. I have lived in the forums ever since.

...it's frustrating to read reviewers who say "it performs poorly on my Mac, which is only a few years old..." While it's not the choice every company makes, we do choose to implement power hungry features, anticipating that our platform will have a 5-8 year life, and knowing computing power doubles every 18 months. We believe it's a long-term benefit for the users, who appreciate that functionality. It just makes us not the right solution for the person with the 4 year old machine the first year we ship a new platform

(2.) Here is my frustration (no need to respond, you have explained in detail the choices that were made, just wanted you to know), my iMac is only a few months old and has 16G of RAM and 3.2 GHz Core i3. Makes me fairly certain it's the software and not my tired old Mac.

Blessings,

Ray

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208088#Comment_208088

(1.) When I first purchased Logos 4, I had no clue that it had limitations. I never visited the forums until such time that I realized after my purchase there was what i deemed core functionality missing. I have lived in the forums ever since.

Apologies - before upgrading a year ago, knew Logos 4 Mac was in Alpha development from information on Logos web sites (main web site, blogs and forums) along with email. Personally hesitated some before upgrading to Logos 4 Mac and getting involved with Alpha and Beta testing (known limitations with published strategy and direction). Thankful for Logos forum discussions, Wiki learning, and Logos 4 on Mac & PC (use both - prefer Mac).

(2.) Here is my frustration (no need to respond, you have explained in detail the choices that were made, just wanted you to know), my iMac is only a few months old and has 16G of RAM and 3.2 GHz Core i3. Makes me fairly certain it's the software and not my tired old Mac.

Understand frustration, 3.2 GHz Core i3 iMac is noticeably faster than Logos 4 Mac recommended system requirements => http://www.logos.com/mac/support/systemrequirements

Dreaming: wish Logos 4 system requirements included a comment like: " Logos 4 is a resource intensive application on Mac & PC – benefits from fast processor, graphics, and disk along with adequate memory (i.e. newer hardware since Logos 4 was designed for many years of use)."

Technical observation: Apple Insider's review of 2010 iMac's has some performance benchmarks => http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/05/review_apples_core_i3_i5i7_imacs_mid_2010.html&page=3

Noticed while overall faster, for integer calculations 3.2 GHz Core i3 is 4 % slower than 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo.

Barefeats also compared 2010 iMacs => http://www.barefeats.com/imac10v.html Intel Core i7 substantially faster while marginally costing more.

During Logos 4 Mac alpha testing, experienced power hungry features (e.g. remember my library taking over 5 hours to index - now 50 % less time). Personally like 27" iMac screen resolution (2560 horizontal x 1440 vertical). Before purchasing 27" iMac after several months of Alpha releases, researched performance difference between processors (looking for best value per $), learned Quad Core i7 desktop CPU offered best value per $.

Keep Smiling [:)] + Happy New Year [*]

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208115#Comment_208115

Post deleted by me. [:D]

Stuart Robertson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208123#Comment_208123

For what it's worth, I'm running on an i7, 2.66GHz quad-core 17" Macbook Pro with 8GB RAM - hardly a slouch of a machine.

Apart from Logos, every other app I have runs exceptionally fast, responding almost instantaneously, scrolling very smoothly and feels snappy.

Logos, by comparison, takes 2-3 seconds to show drop-down menus for layout, file, etc. and trying to edit visual filters is an extreme exercise in patience - as I've documented elsewhere. I, too, have invested many, many hours in documenting bugs, posting logs, etc and am disappointed by where things are at today. I, too, see the potential and think that, from a potential perspective, Logos is superb. But from a usability perspective (10-15 second delays when adding highlighting to one word, watching the red "delete X"s flash in sequence as I hover my mouse over items in a visual filter, etc) - from a usability perspective I'm losing hope that Logos for Mac will ever get fixed. As I mentioned this morning, a morph search takes 0.34 seconds to complete, as reported by Logos, but then after 3 minutes I have to force-quit Logos because the search results window still hasn't updated and Logos is completely hung, gdb is merrily hung debugging who knows what in the background, etc).

I apologize in advance for "dumping" on the forum, but I am increasing frustrated when Logos simply crashes and disappears from under me as I try to get work done, or hangs in the middle of a search, breaking my train of thought when I'm trying to study, etc.

I'm frustrated because there is so much promise, and yet due to usability issues (mostly performance of displaying search results, problems with notes - which are legendary, random crashes, etc) seem to persist. New betas break things that were previously working (making me wonder about internal testing, automated regression testing?, etc)... A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul but hope deferred makes the heart sick.... that perhaps best sums up my current feeling - the potential is tantalizing but each time I spend more than 20 or 30 minutes with Logos I usually end up frustrated.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208244#Comment_208244

each time I spend more than 20 or 30 minutes with Logos I usually end up frustrated.

I know that you have posted details of your problems and logs in other threads. I just wanted to say that according to what Bob P said earlier in this thread, optimization should begin very soon.

Dan Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207987#Comment_207987

I'm sorry you are frustrated by the Mac release.

Thank you for detailed explanation, while it can be frustrating at times with the bugs, I want to say once again I am happy despite limitations in the program. botth mac and iOS I am generally happy, and look forward to the improvements that will be happening over the next months. I doubt the iOS will ever be all i want but I know Logos is looking to make it the best APP they can. And I thank you.

-dan

Rus Howard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207987#Comment_207987

Bob and Friends,

Maybe something is wrong with me. I am thrilled with Logos4 for Mac and rarely have any problems or issues.

Perhaps I am not the technical power user that some of your customers are. However, as a pastor who is committed to faithful biblical preaching and teaching, i spend 20-25 hours a week using Logos for sermon preparation, additional study, and personal devotions. Logos4 for Mac has met everyone of my research needs. The quality and depth of my teaching and preaching has been noticeable.

I have invested significant funds ($2K+) in Logos. I debated at length whether to buy the 2010 Christmas offer, but chose not to do so. If the offer is made at Easter, I may well make the plunge.

Finally, I knew what I was getting into when I purchased the Logos4 for Mac upgrade. There were no secrets and no hidden language. I have yet to purchase a perfect product of any type from any company. I will soon be buying another car. I know it will be imperfect and not have everything I want, but, as Paul writes and I slightly edit, "I am learning to be content in all things."

Bob, thank you for a great product and your visible and personal leadership tending to complaints and concerns along the way. My Father started his own small business, it took years to build and to make it financially viable. I know of his sleepless nights. Please rest well tonight. You and Logos have been good and faithful servants.

Blessings and peace,

Rus Howard

Eric Fary

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/207987#Comment_207987

Bob,
I can understand Daniel's frustration. Having attended to Logos Bible software or seminars through Morris Proctor I have seen how many Mac users use this product. I have seen the dual-boot people who have been so patient with all the updates. I know when I purchased my first Macintosh this year, a MacBook Pro Intel dual core I knew that it would be sufficient to run the Logos Mac product. You are right. After reading many forums I knew that the gap between the PC version and the Mac version was not quite there yet. Because I am a dual platform user I have double expectations. I'm excited to see the personal book builder on my PC in the version 4 as well as seeing the Mac version close the gap on how much the new Logos 4 version for the PC will eventually even out. I was so excited to use a Macintosh for the first time and that is why free of charge I was able to use Logos on my Macintosh. Maybe because I am a new Macintosh user I don't see the problems but anyone on earlier versions of hardware in the Macintosh platform may feel frustrated. I do know that I had a netbook that ran Logos 4 fairly slow so I bumped back to Logos 3 on that netbook. I know after multiple break-ins at the Mac lab and your massive team of Mac developers that Logos is doing everything they can to meet customers high demand. I know you guys are good at what you do and am confident that this Mac platform will do all you say it will. God speed!
Happy new year,
Eric

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208586#Comment_208586

You are new to Macs. That is why you don't understand long-term Mac Users' expectations.

Windows sufferers have been happily using mediocre and inferior software for years—and bragging about how much more software was available for the Windows platform. They were right, there was a lot more software, but not a lot of it was very intuitive. There have been few restrictions which means there are few standards.

Windows users were used to thick manuals. Mac Users were used to software that you started up and just used. We tend to be less patient with non-standard approaches. For years, Logos was dismissive of the Mac market. I know, I talked to the sales people years ago. There was a marketing decision to begin to sell to the Mac side because the world is changing. But what works on the Windows side is not an automatic success on the Mac side.

Logos will survive. But they are taking some hard hits. They have many books, that is the selling point. That is why I use Logos. Is it my favorite Mac program? Not by a long shot. But it is working.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208594#Comment_208594

Windows sufferers have been happily using mediocre and inferior software for years—and bragging about how much more software was available for the Windows platform. They were right, there was a lot more software, but not a lot of it was very intuitive.

I've used both Macs and Win boxes and you may feel that this is the case...but your not correct.

Both platforms have their idiosyncracies... both need to be learned and gotten used to...

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208596#Comment_208596

....

.....

I see both your points and I am somewhere midway of both of you.

I've used over the years CP/M, DOS, Windows, Unix, Linux (command line and desktop) and Mac.

To say that there are not many good Windows applications is silly and somewhat offensive to honest dedicated programmers — of course there are.
To say that Windows — which was a 'troubled child' from birth (there is no need to go into it, read any tech history site) — is good is, in my opinion (feel free to flame me I don't care), equally silly. Windows 7 is OK — should be after Microsoft has taken so much from Apple.
Is Mac OS X the best, and most robust, user experience OS around — yes, a no brainer. Anyone who says otherwise is blind and/or stuck in Windows purgatory. Naturally I respect people's decision to use/stay with Windows. Doesn't mean that I won't feel sorry for them.
Is the Apple systems environment complete — no. Apple does not have anywhere near the breadth and depth of system applications that Microsoft and other suppliers have.
Is Mac OS X perfect — no. I reserve that for my Lord.
Is it a good goal to be able to have the Logos 4 Mac platform utilise as much as possible of the Windows app. platform — yes. In economies of scale it is clearly of benefit to us as users of the software to have a provider who can sell to both Windows and Mac users — with the same application at the same time.
Is Logos taking some hits over Logos 4 Mac — well obviously seems to be the case. They have some work to do — unfortunately for them the user group involved are Mac users who set a pretty high bar because of their existing experience and attitude from using OS X and Mac applications. We tend to look at Windows users as those 'poor cousins'. Not saying this is necessarily always 100% right...
Is Logos 4 Mac as good as it could be — not yet. I trust there can be improvements to make it more 'snappy', because it is behind the major competition on the Mac in this area (BTW — personally I don't really like the denigrating tone of some of the marketing material of that company)
Is Logos a good application — well it's helped me and I'm still investing in it.

For me here's the point — Logos is a tool to help me understand God's message to me and humanity. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I trust that our friends in Logos:

are driven by more than just a simple profit motive, so that they have a desire to see their creation improve
have capable enough people, so they can technically achieve that goal and,
hopefully they won't be hampered by the technical decisions they have made to use one core platform for the Logos 4 application.

I say — leave 'em to it, lock these [....] postings, and link anyone who complains in future to these postings and lock the new posting unless the person is bringing up a new and relevant point.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208594#Comment_208594

Windows users were used to thick manuals. Mac Users were used to software that you started up and just used.

That may have been true in 1984 when I first began to use Macs, but it is no longer true for any application with more than minimal capabilities.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208273#Comment_208273

optimization should begin very soon

There was never a more true statement about L4Mac. I don't think you meant it as I do however.

I read a thread by a programmer elsewhere (too lazy to look for it) that said that in his/her programming experience optimization should be done at the same time as feature development. That developing the features and then optimizing later was a sign of poor coding practices. Not a programmer so I'm not sure if this is the norm and an exceptin with Logos or vice versa, but it makes sense to me.

It sounds like the way I write articles. Get the words down and then go back and edit/polish in other drafts. Works in writing but then I never release my articles until I and my editor think they are finished. But it sounds like programmers, at least at Logos, released the rough draft (the web site says Logos 4 for Mac Now Shipping) and does not say in "beta" which is the software version of a rough draft. Sounds a little disingenuous to me and the term beta should then be reapplied on the front page if it is the case that they have not yet released an optimized version. I realize it will not be perfect so that is not what I mean.

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208617#Comment_208617

I read a thread by a programmer elsewhere (too lazy to look for it) that said that in his/her programming experience optimization should be done at the same time as feature development.

Except in this case L4M didn't start as a pure Windows app, or a pure Mac app, and on top of that it incorporated a 'third party' layer to run .NET applications in OS X and then further on top of all that there were pressures to get Mac version out once Windows version was out with all the issues that sort of thing engenders.

Not an ideal situation for the developers.

Anyway all this is past history — Logos has said they hear, then we are in situation where the last three points in my previous posting kick in.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208613#Comment_208613

personally I don't really like the denigrating tone of some of the marketing material of that company

I agree. Enough said, Jack, hush.

Michael Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208635#Comment_208635

Does anyone know the limitations of the money-back guarantee?

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208756#Comment_208756

Does anyone know the limitations of the money-back guarantee?

Recommend calling Logos - phone number and hours (with local time) on home web page => http://www.logos.com/

Keep Smiling [:)]

Wes Saad

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208756#Comment_208756

Does anyone know the limitations of the money-back guarantee?

If you didn't pay for it, you can't get money back for it. For anything more than that, you really will need to just call customer support and see what they say about your situation.

Michael Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208761#Comment_208761

Thanks guys. I'm just curious because of Bob's statement in this forum. He said, "We also offer (and always have) an unconditional money-back guarantee." That sounds pretty much like I can get my money back even if I have had the program for years.

John Fidel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208770#Comment_208770

Per the website: "Our grace period is 30 days. So make the purchase today, "break the seal," and find out for yourself if what we have been saying about Logos 4 is true. If you are not convinced Logos is for you, let us know within 30 days of your purchase"

Looks like 30 days.

Dan Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208770#Comment_208770

Thanks guys. I'm just curious because of Bob's statement in this forum. He said, "We also offer (and always have) an unconditional money-back guarantee." That sounds pretty much like I can get my money back even if I have had the program for years.

Generally it is a 30 day thing, I know i have seen that somewhere...beyond that if there are exceptional circumstances you might get time, but in most cases if it has taken you years to realize you don't like Logos something seems wrong in so many ways. There have been a few mac users who have claimed they have been mislead. I personally do not feel mislead in any respect (other than the dropping of the PPC support but it was bound to happen one day I wish it had been in logos 5 but it was 4), the software is not perfect, but they are working on improving it daily.

-Dan

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208596#Comment_208596

I've used both Macs and Win boxes and you may feel that this is the case...but your not correct.

Both platforms have their idiosyncracies... both need to be learned and gotten used to...

We'll have to agree to disagree. Your opinion of who is incorrect is merely your opinion.

Unfortunately, I use Windows on a daily basis and have for years. I am very aware of the differences between the two platforms, but my experience is far different than yours. I am using Windows 7 at my medical office. I would ditch the thing in a heartbeat. Though my hardware is the latest of everything for the network, it is sluggish and expensive. I would say it is a dog, but I don't want to get in trouble for cruelty to animals. Yet I am stuck. I am a Windoze sufferer, my office program is Windows only. I really can't switch.

For years at home I had a Windows computer along side a Mac Computer. I began on the Microsoft side with DOS (updating the computer over the years). Then the Mac came along. I had the Mac-Charlie if you remember that as well as PC-Mac links so I could run both with one keyboard and one screen. Interestingly, the Microsoft side just got used less and less. I then used a PC emulator program. When Parallels became available I purchased that. Then VMfusion.

There were two programs for years that I needed on the PC side. One of the programs was Logos. It had a certain series of books that were available for computer only on Logos. I used Logos, but hated it. To add insult to injury, because of a piracy prevention scheme, Logos would not allow me to run Logos on both my Parallels and my VMfusion software. It had to be one or the other. At that early time, Fusion was better and I went with it. Later Parallels was better but I had already been forced to choose the one platform for Logos. Unfortunately, I was never able to get Logos 4 to install under Fusion. I like the improvement with Logos 4 that allows it to be much more platform portable.

At least Logos 4 for Mac gets me the superior Mac (Unix) operating system. That in itself is a blessing. So I don't have to complain about needing Microsoft for any programs except at my medical office. I can be happy! I have not used VMfusion for months now. There is currently NO program I use which requires Windoze. I am no longer tempted to lose part of the blessing of Bible study because I have to load Microsoft's operating system. Logos is CPU intensive at times. But for my purposes it works.

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208770#Comment_208770

Thanks guys. I'm just curious because of Bob's statement in this forum. He said, "We also offer (and always have) an unconditional money-back guarantee." That sounds pretty much like I can get my money back even if I have had the program for years.

I read that same post by Bob and have taken him at his word. In fact, I have several emails into customer service since last Thursday and a phone conversation with accounting asking for an "unconditional" money-back guarantee. Weird thing is that I haven't received any response from customer service yet. Seems odd to me. Based on Bob's personal guarantee, I have already uninstalled Logos4 Mac and invested elsewhere. I am simply waiting for my money back now.

Bob, if you are looking in on this thread, will you please have your customer service folks get back to me tomorrow. That would be much appreciated.

Blessings,

Ray

Logan Hall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208775#Comment_208775

Per the website: "Our grace period is 30 days. So make the purchase today, "break the seal," and find out for yourself if what we have been saying about Logos 4 is true. If you are not convinced Logos is for you, let us know within 30 days of your purchase"

Looks like 30 days.

Per Bob Pritchett earlier in this thread: "We also offer (and always have) an unconditional money-back guarantee."

Unconditional according to the American Heritage Dictionary is defined as "Without conditions or limitations; absolute:" Based on this, I am looking forward to getting all the money back that I have invested in Logos resources. It's been a very frustrating year and I would have switched long ago had I know I coud get my money back. I was also hesitant to switch because I dread the thought of learning a new Bible software package, but it is so time for me to bid farewell. Not being rude, have stated elsewhere that I am praying for Bob and Logos and will continue to do so.

Blessings.

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208777#Comment_208777

At least Logos 4 for Mac gets me the superior Mac (Unix) operating system.

[8-|] I finally found one point I can agree with you on;

The fact Unix is superior to MacOS

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208798#Comment_208798

(1.) When I first purchased Logos 4, I had no clue that it had limitations. I never visited the forums until such time that I realized after my purchase there was what i deemed core functionality missing. I have lived in the forums ever since.

Apologies [:$] - after reading some more forum discussions, chose to revisit Logos web site - wondering about user expectations ?

On Logos web page for Logos 4 Mac http://www.logos.com/mac/logos4 get impression Logos 4 Mac should be fast and simple to use (non-intuitive that right mouse button is usable in several drop-down menus).

Passage Guide promises results in seconds for whatever want to study => http://www.logos.com/mac/logos4/customize - studying chapters or books can take bit longer than expectation of few seconds.

Noticed FAQ page http://www.logos.com/support/faq has:

Q: Will Logos 4 run on my computer?

A: Logos 4 was written to take advantage of the latest technology and will run best on a newer computer. If your computer is more than two years old, performance may be sluggish. If your computer is two years old or less, it should run Logos 4 satisfactorily. The exception to this would be Netbooks, many of which don't have sufficient power to handle Logos 4. For more details on what kind of computer you’ll need for Logos 4, see our system requirements.

Q: I thought Logos 4 was supposed to be super fast. Why does it seem to be slower for me?

A: On new computers, Logos 4 performs very nicely. Searching thousands of resources usually takes less than a couple of seconds. On older computers, Logos 4 can be sluggish. We recommend purchasing a computer that meets the system requirements or sticking with Logos 3 until you can.

- - -

(2.) Here is my frustration (no need to respond, you have explained in detail the choices that were made, just wanted you to know), my iMac is only a few months old and has 16G of RAM and 3.2 GHz Core i3. Makes me fairly certain it's the software and not my tired old Mac.

Appreciate Ray's performance frustration: new iMac is less than 2 years old and at least 50 % faster than recommended Mac system, yet appears satisfactorily performance promised on Logos FAQ page.

- - -

On Technical FAQ's page http://www.logos.com/support/techfaq notice PC requires Internet broadband, but not included for Mac. Recommended systems for PC and Mac lack some power hungry attributes (PC bit better with 512 MB DirectX 10 graphics).

Played Logos 4 Mac video on http://www.logos.com/mac - some features shown in video not work like video shows after initial installation - wish page included link to several helpful setup tips for new installations (e.g. prioritizing Library). Video also promises search of thousands of books in less than a second (wish page had a footnote with power hungry machine specifications used to achieve sub-second response).

Looking at www.logos.com notice Wiki not included in top left, yet Forums and Blog have links - also true on support FAQ => http://www.logos.com/support/faq Q. Is there an instruction manual ?

Kudos to Logos for describing many Logos 4 Mac features currently available - wonder about including Video links with screenshots on various product pages ? For example, in Make It Stand Out section, Screenshot and video link would help => http://www.logos.com/mac/logos4/visualize

Personally Thankful for visual highlighting with original language grammar morphology; learned Paul used imperative many times in Phillipians 4.

The fact Unix is superior to MacOS

Tehcnical observation and learning: Apple includes 200+ open source projects http://www.apple.com/opensource/ in Mac OS X, including UNIX core (based on BSD variant).

Blessings to you all.

Blessings.

Likewise Blessings [8-|]

Keep Smiling [:)]

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208798#Comment_208798

At least Logos 4 for Mac gets me the superior Mac (Unix) operating system.

I finally found one point I can agree with you on;

The fact Unix is superior to MacOS

Ah ha! But Mac OS X is actually a 'better dressed' Unix. [H]

We all know that OS X is actually Unix. Anyway, if one is talking about Unix, then which one is being referred to when one says 'Unix'? Given that OS X is part of the Unix 'family' when using the generic term 'Unix' that can encompass Mac OS X.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208617#Comment_208617

I read a thread by a programmer elsewhere (too lazy to look for it) that said that in his/her programming experience optimization should be done at the same time as feature development. That developing the features and then optimizing later was a sign of poor coding practices. Not a programmer so I'm not sure if this is the norm and an exceptin with Logos or vice versa, but it makes sense to me.

It sounds like the way I write articles. Get the words down and then go back and edit/polish in other drafts.

That programmer might have been me, as I've made similar comments before.

The writing analogy is not quite apt, since you can pretty much change any aspect of a written text afterwards (though if you made a poor decision about a major character's role in the plot of a novel early on, you might have to throw a good deal of the book out and start over).

It's more like architecture. If you realize when you've finished the house that you chose the wrong material for the foundation and now you need to fix it, there's no way you can just "tweak" it -- you really have to tear down the house and start over.

Here's a grossly simplified example: Suppose I need to write a program that will determine the largest number from among a list of N numbers. Suppose I took a stab at implementing it thus: For each item in the list, compare it to each of the preceding items; if it is larger than all of them, keep track of it as the largest number found thus far. Sounds fine at first glance. The problem is, it's a very slow algorithm. It revisits every item in the list multiple times, which is unnecessary (even intuitively you might have sensed that). It's what we in programming-land call an N-squared algorithm. The length of its execution time is roughly proportional to the square of the number of items in the list. I might try to tweak it to make it faster by making each comparison lightning fast. But that doesn't change the fact that the fundamental design of the algorithm is flawed, so I really need to throw the whole thing out and write it over again from scratch. A much better implementation would be thus:

Set Current_Highest equal to 0
For each item in the list: if it is greater than Current_Highest, then set Current_Highest equal to this item; then proceed to the next item.

By the time you get to the end of the list, you've found the highest entry. It's simple and fast and elegant. It only has to touch each entry in the list once, so it is of order N (the execution speed is roughly proportional to the number of items in the list).

Now imagine multiplying the complexity of this tiny example to the scale of the entire Logos program, and surely there must be parts of it that were designed with an inefficient algorithm. No amount of tweaking it is going to make it fast enough. That part needs to be rethought and rewritten from the ground up. There might be several parts like this.

Rather than rushing to get the house or program finished quickly, it's better to take the time to think about the proper materials and algorithms before you begin doing things that will be hard to change later.

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208816#Comment_208816

Tehcnical observation and learning: Apple includes 200+ open source projects http://www.apple.com/opensource/ in Mac OS X, including UNIX core (based on BSD variant).

Deeper technical observation: Apple produced 9 operating systems that were inferior to Unix before throwing in the towel and adopting the superior design. A design created by people other than Apple programmers.

We all know that OS X is actually Unix. Anyway, if one is talking about Unix, then which one is being referred to when one says 'Unix'?

Mac OSX is just a commercialized plagiarism of Berkeley Systems work. Much like Internet Explorer is just Mosaic re-skinned.

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208821#Comment_208821

Mac OSX is just a commercialized plagiarism of Berkeley Systems work.

So philosophically we should choose either:

A. All computer OSes, systems and applications in the world are a blatant plagiarism of Grunt and Grok's discovery of binary reality — full cup (1) and empty cup (0).

Neanderthals of the world unite! We like our cave and we're gonna stay here.

B. "We see further because we stand on the shoulders of giants".

B. for me, and OS X is better than BSD: [H] not [6]

Patrick S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/208820#Comment_208820

Now imagine multiplying the complexity of this tiny example to the scale of the entire Logos program, and surely there must be parts of it that were designed with an inefficient algorithm. No amount of tweaking it is going to make it fast enough. That part needs to be rethought and rewritten from the ground up. There might be several parts like this.

Thanks for detailed reply Rosie.

Re: your analysis. I sincerely hope and trust that this situation will not include the usage of Mono in L4M. That obviously is not an easily swappable component.