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GetNeo
Red Pill
Joined: Aug 30, 2009
Posts: 7
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 Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: GetNeo.com (+you can help too) |
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I have just launched GetNeo.com to make it easier for people to download NeoOffice. People like my mom and my sister always find the official website too confusing and end up calling me for support. Then there are the people who don't even give NeoOffice a chance because the website doesn't make them feel like it's a smooth Mac app but perhaps something for the Redbull-drinking nerds or maybe an application in its alpha stage.
I remembered the success of the Get Firefox campaign so I created something that should be simple enough even for an untrained monkey.
GetNeo.com is currently available in English, Spanish, Swedish and Finnish. Now I need your help to translate it into even more languages. Oh, and if you're a native speaker of one of the mentioned languages, please check the translation and report any errors.
You can also help by providing a mirror download and promoting GetNeo.com on your website or wherever you usually promote NeoOffice. |
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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While I admire the simplicity of the visual design of your site, I suggest you coordinate this with Patrick Luby. Especially with regard to linking to download sites and such, and in providing disclaimers. "It just works" is not something to promise lightly  ...
Furthermore, Patrick has stated it is not his aim to get everyone to use NeoOffice. On the other hand, more donating users would be nice  .
Best wishes,
Oscar
_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:57 pm Post subject: Re: GetNeo.com (+you can help too) |
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| GetNeo wrote: | | People like my mom and my sister always find the official website too confusing |
Lovely work, nicely done. That's somewhere I can send my family to download NeoOffice instead of having to do it for them.  |
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GetNeo
Red Pill
Joined: Aug 30, 2009
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| ovvldc wrote: | While I admire the simplicity of the visual design of your site, I suggest you coordinate this with Patrick Luby. Especially with regard to linking to download sites and such, and in providing disclaimers. "It just works" is not something to promise lightly ...
Furthermore, Patrick has stated it is not his aim to get everyone to use NeoOffice. On the other hand, more donating users would be nice .
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Who is Patrick Luby and how can I contact him? Sorry, I'm not yet familiar with the NeoOffice family
The goal is to eventually provide all the language packs "in house" too but as I just finished the site today, I haven't had the time to add all the 58 lang packs yet. |
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| GetNeo wrote: | | Who is Patrick Luby and how can I contact him? Sorry, I'm not yet familiar with the NeoOffice family |
I am Patrick Luby. I and my wife Fran do all of the development and donor support for NeoOffice. You do not need to contact me for permission to do what you are doing as I looked at your site and you not only comply with our distribution and trademark usage requirements, but you also make it very clear that you are an independent site.
In general, we appreciate any sites that help us by moving some of the crushing workload that running the NeoOffice project requires to other websites. Downloads aren't our biggest cost, by having your own download site does free us from the constant worry that our bandwidth usage will run over our allowed cap.
Also, I appreciate that you linked did not link directory to this site for your support link and, instead, linked to the main neooffice.org site. Many people don't realize that tech support is by far the costliest thing we do. It literally uses up half our waking hours and in the past we have worked 7 days a week to be able to keep up with all the support requests while still doing develoment and bug fixing.
I do have a copy of small request:
1. Links - If you remove the "en" portion from any neooffice.org links, the user will get the localized version of our pages. For example, instead of http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/donate.php, use http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/donate.php.
2. Support - Link to our support page at http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/contact.php as that will give users a realistic expectation of what level of support to expect.
| GetNeo wrote: | | The goal is to eventually provide all the language packs "in house" too but as I just finished the site today, I haven't had the time to add all the 58 lang packs yet. |
If you have shell access to your webserver, I would highly recommend that you run the "rsync" command (most mirrors run it nightly) to copy all of the NeoOffice installers, language packs, and latest patches to your server. rsync only copies files that are missing or out of date so it is very efficient to run and puts very little load on our servers.
If you have rsync on your server, send me a Private Message with your e-mail address and I will e-mail you the rsync command to execute.
| ovvldc wrote: | | While I admire the simplicity of the visual design of your site, I suggest you coordinate this with Patrick Luby. Especially with regard to linking to download sites and such, and in providing disclaimers. "It just works" is not something to promise lightly ... |
I agree with Oscar's point completely. Unlike a web browser like Firefox, a significant portion of our users need some support. Many things that users would assume to be simple to do are not and many features in NeoOffice are dissimilar to the same features Microsoft Office.
Both of these cause a constant stream of support requests and each of these requests requires a good chunk of our very limited time to handle. In contrast, Firefox has tens of millions of dollars in funding from such companies as Google, IBM, and HP whereas we are handling the entire NeoOffice support load using a very tiny stream of donations.
This is why our site is filled with warnings. Many users in the past showed up angry or frustrated because NeoOffice does not work like they think it should given that the only staff is just Fran and I and I am the only developer. So, I would definitely strongly recommend against making any claims that you cannot personally deliver or you really risk burdening us with more angry or frustrated people.
Patrick |
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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GetNeo, since yours is a very small site with little text, I think I can translate it into Dutch some time. Please send me a PM with the files.
And after that I might have some time to hunt for loose bits of English and bad language in the main Dutch NeoOffice website (which is already a mess again).
Best wishes,
Oscar
_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
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GetNeo
Red Pill
Joined: Aug 30, 2009
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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@pluby: Thanks for all the info. I'll have to look into rsync and get back to you.
@ovvldc: That would be awesome. I PM'd you. |
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sardisson
Town Crier
Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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I guess my concern here is that the site allows you to download NeoOffice without having to see the donation request. Other than people direct-linking to a file on a mirror, everyone has to click-through the "Donate/Not now, sorry", so they absolutely know that NeoOffice is dependent on donations (note that I'm not terribly fond of the "pick a button" situation, but it's an effective way to get people to notice the need for donations, which is necessary for the survival of the project—and I have no better solution to offer  ).
As the economic situation becomes more acute, and if large numbers of people start to use this new, prettier site to download NeoOffice, I'm worried that the already declining number/amount of donations will drop off precipitously if people don't ever have to at least acknowledge the need for donations before downloading.
Smokey
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"[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki |
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GetNeo
Red Pill
Joined: Aug 30, 2009
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| sardisson wrote: |
As the economic situation becomes more acute, and if large numbers of people start to use this new, prettier site to download NeoOffice, I'm worried that the already declining number/amount of donations will drop off precipitously if people don't ever have to at least acknowledge the need for donations before downloading.
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The purpose of the website is to get more people to download NeoOffice and more people to donate. I will personally make sure that my site won't negatively affect this project and I'm willing to implement changes if needed. |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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| sardisson wrote: | | I guess my concern here is that the site allows you to download NeoOffice without having to see the donation request. |
I think that would easily be solved by moving "NeoOffice is funded entirely by donations [link]" to a spot above "100% Free and legal to use" and making it the same font size as "Free download".
I don't think a click-through is necessarily better than prominent text and a link. Every click of the mouse required just makes the visitor more trigger-happy and less likely to read the page before searching for the magic button. Of course I defer to people with more experience in this than me, but I can tell you that's how click-throughs make me feel and I think I'm a little more patient than Joe Citizen. |
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GetNeo
Red Pill
Joined: Aug 30, 2009
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| djpimley wrote: |
I think that would easily be solved by moving "NeoOffice is funded entirely by donations [link]" to a spot above "100% Free and legal to use" and making it the same font size as "Free download".
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I agree and I just implemented this change. Kind of. |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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| GetNeo wrote: | | I just implemented this change |
Would it look better with this centre justified?
"100% Free and legal to use. No viruses, no spyware. It just works.
NeoOffice is funded entirely by donations." |
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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| djpimley wrote: | | I don't think a click-through is necessarily better than prominent text and a link. Every click of the mouse required just makes the visitor more trigger-happy and less likely to read the page before searching for the magic button. Of course I defer to people with more experience in this than me, but I can tell you that's how click-throughs make me feel and I think I'm a little more patient than Joe Citizen. |
Sorry, but your experience definitely is not our experience. The only reason NeoOffice survived through the years before we added the click through was because:
1. I had savings to live off while Ed and I worked on NeoOffice
2. We had one anonymous donor that paid for the bulk of our development tasks
Only when we added the click through did we ever get to a breakeven basis so it is pretty clear to me that many people need to be reminded that while the download is free, there are real costs that must be paid by someone otherwise it goes away.
Patrick |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| pluby wrote: | | Sorry, but your experience definitely is not our experience. |
I stand corrected. Perhaps our friend "GetNeo" can implement a similar click-through, so the download button on the home page links to a simple secondary page with "Would you like to donate before you download? Yes, No." |
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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I will hold off on translations until the website design settles on a final form. I don't have the attention span to go back and forth at the moment.
Best wishes,
Oscar
_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
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