NicW dvdinfo pro creator is one nice guy!

[brb]

As he was contemplating in regards of how to categories dvdinfo pro (adware/freeware/shareware and so on) I sent him my suggestion. surely enough few hours later I get a reply from him that just for my effort I am getting a free serial number for the program, man if only some other people who we contribute to there project knew how to be a bit more gracious.

[hydrogen]

NicW is a very nice guy. I have talked to him a few times. His program is awesome.

I'm not sure why people attack him when he posts. In his post earlier, he didn't say anything bad, but got attacked. I thought people at cdrlabs wouldn't be like that. I've been here for awhile and enjoy the forum. There are some very nice people here, so it was shocking for me to see people attack him.

[cfitz]

There are a lot of nice, good people at CDRlabs (and CDFreaks) as you mention. If you see them behaving in a manner that strikes you as odd and inconsistent with their normal behavior, there may be a reason for it. I don't know, it is just something to consider.

cfitz

[Ian]

I don't want to get into it again, but there's a lot of history here that most of you don't know.

[dolphinius_rex]

I don't want to get into it again, but there's a lot of history here that most of you don't know.

Yeah, it can be kinda tough when you see it from both sides though

[Kennyshin]

Observe closely. There must be a pattern. Those who most severely criticized NicW and Zebra posting about DVDinfopro are usually some (not all) of the moderators and administrators at CDFreaks and RPC1.

At first, I didn't know about it either but I realized what was happening, at least some of it, after all.

Is advertising DVDinfopro allowed here and at other forums and criticizing about it is not allowed? At Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, HardOCP, Intel employees can also post but they have some different sorts of responsibilities. Of course, they can use their opportunies to make their products look better in the public eyes but that can also be regarded as spamming and abusing the forums. I don't remember the name but one Intel software engineer was banned at HardForum for being an Intel employee though the official reason was somewhat different. He was the most helpful person at THG community at that time.

There seemed to be enough reasons to have little respect. I do use DVDinfopro myself and like it to some degree. It has nothing to do with the software. It's up to NicW to resolve the uncomfortable situations. I haven't yet seen any sort of polite and straightforward answers from him.

Another closed thread is here: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=102420

To find out rdgrimes' contributions on open forum boards: http://club.cdfreaks.com/search.php?searchid=176332

[Boba_Fett]

I would like this NicW more if he didn't insist on forcing upgrades to his program like once a freakin' week. Unacceptable in my book...

[Halc]

Again, while this is not my forum, please try to refrain from attacking people.

If you don't like them, take it up with the people personally. Resolve your feuds. Get to know the people. You might find that you actually have more in common than you initally thought.

I've seen so many boards and forums wasted due to personal feuds in my 15+ of Internet (and BBS before that) use that I don't want it to happen today in the forums I find valuable :)

I like many people's contributions a lot, but sometimes their messages could be just a little bit less inflammatory for everybody's sake.

I think Ian has kept a high standard of not allowing potty mouthness here from anybody, even if they were the God of Optical technology.

I wish the same applied to many other forums (like cdfreaks as one example), as there are a huge number or really excellent contributing posters in those forums.

But alas, that's not how I see them be: I see insinuations, attacks on people, trying to ridicule others in public and show one's claimed superiority over others.

Often the main argument or point of discussion is completely lost in the midst of people trying to show how much better they are or whatnot.

What's the point?

Why attack people?

Attack arguments if you must attack something.

Leave people alone, unless you want to pick a fight.

And if you want to pick a fight, take it somewhere else, ok :)

Best regards,
Halc

PS This is by no means meant as a criticism towards mods at cdfreaks. I'm sure they try to do a good job with the overwhelming amount of posts over there and try to balance information, newbie posts and whatnot. However, for me personally, it is just sometimes way too hostile environment for constructive peer discussion to happen at rational level with open minds. That's just me, and I can understand if others disagree. I guess I'm just squemish :)

[KenW]

Im one of NicW beta testers as its my post that started the last round of flaming I should point out that NicW tries very hard to fix problems in his program that could harm drives or lockup pcs, he does make the software expire monthly not weekly. so that people will get the fixed updates. I dont find this a problem as if you get a serial## they dont expire they only expire if your using it with ads still active.

[Kennyshin]

@Halc

Do you know any personal reason for me or anyone else here to attack NicW? You are being absurd. NicW works hard for others while the others like rdgrimes spend time only to attack him? I believe the exact opposite is closer to the truth.

If it's personal attack to your eyes, then why not remove all spamming about the program and NicW's forums and let them just post normal and constructive posts? You are implying as if some people would still "attack" him even if he did none of the former and all of the latter.

If you think of it as a "fight", then you don't know who started it and who is lying.

[dolphinius_rex]

I think NicW's software has nothing to do with the ill will some people harbour towards him...

[Kennyshin]

I think NicW's software has nothing to do with the ill will some people harbour towards him...

What does?

[rdgrimes]

[2 cents]
I can say this much; NicW has done everything in his power to block the flow of "back-channel" information from drive makers to anyone other than NicW. Many of the software and hardware makers are only too aware of the sort of tactics that NicW uses to gain what he calls "inside" information. They like him even less than us more public figures do. But they deal with him because it is to their advantage to do so.

He continues to try to block the flow of information to the rest of us, even now, in an attempt to promote his "product". For him, it's all about $$, and always has been. He tries to stop the release of insider tools that would "compete" with his own software, and deliberately tries to harm those who would make them available.

What's funny is that most of the time, he has no idea that we already have the information and tools, or that his own information is outdated.


But the result of his activity is that we cannot make the tools and knowledge public, without doing harm to the wonderful people who share their knowledge with us. Doing so would unleash a storm of reports and complaints from NicW to the drive makers. But he's only too happy to get the same information and tools through his own channels and include them in his product to sell to you folks. For us it's a hobby, for him it's business. And in spite of what he tells you, he has not always had permission from drive makers to include their functions in his product.

That pisses me off, big time. Seeing him spamming the forums to sell more product is just more than I can take. I speak for no one but myself here.

[nicw]

[2 cents]
I can say this much; NicW has done everything in his power to block the flow of "back-channel" information from drive makers to anyone other than NicW. Many of the software and hardware makers are only too aware of the sort of tactics that NicW uses to gain what he calls "inside" information. They like him even less than us more public figures do. But they deal with him because it is to their advantage to do so.

He continues to try to block the flow of information to the rest of us, even now, in an attempt to promote his "product". For him, it's all about $$, and always has been. He tries to stop the release of insider tools that would "compete" with his own software, and deliberately tries to harm those who would make them available.

What's funny is that most of the time, he has no idea that we already have the information and tools, or that his own information is outdated.


But the result of his activity is that we cannot make the tools and knowledge public, without doing harm to the wonderful people who share their knowledge with us. Doing so would unleash a storm of reports and complaints from NicW to the drive makers. But he's only too happy to get the same information and tools through his own channels and include them in his product to sell to you folks. For us it's a hobby, for him it's business. And in spite of what he tells you, he has not always had permission from drive makers to include their functions in his product.

That pisses me off, big time. Seeing him spamming the forums to sell more product is just more than I can take. I speak for no one but myself here.

Your posts are becoming more amusing each day. How do you think this sort of stuff up?? I suppose you are proud you figured a way to release copyright breaking material and have your forums allow you to publish it.
to me it free advertising to use your own words.

[Kennyshin]

[2 cents]
I can say this much; NicW has done everything in his power to block the flow of "back-channel" information from drive makers to anyone other than NicW. Many of the software and hardware makers are only too aware of the sort of tactics that NicW uses to gain what he calls "inside" information. They like him even less than us more public figures do. But they deal with him because it is to their advantage to do so.

He continues to try to block the flow of information to the rest of us, even now, in an attempt to promote his "product". For him, it's all about $$, and always has been. He tries to stop the release of insider tools that would "compete" with his own software, and deliberately tries to harm those who would make them available.

What's funny is that most of the time, he has no idea that we already have the information and tools, or that his own information is outdated.


But the result of his activity is that we cannot make the tools and knowledge public, without doing harm to the wonderful people who share their knowledge with us. Doing so would unleash a storm of reports and complaints from NicW to the drive makers. But he's only too happy to get the same information and tools through his own channels and include them in his product to sell to you folks. For us it's a hobby, for him it's business. And in spite of what he tells you, he has not always had permission from drive makers to include their functions in his product.

That pisses me off, big time. Seeing him spamming the forums to sell more product is just more than I can take. I speak for no one but myself here.

Your posts are becoming more amusing each day. How do you think this sort of stuff up?? I suppose you are proud you figured a way to release copyright breaking material and have your forums allow you to publish it.
to me it free advertising to use your own words.

Whose forums and what is copyrighted? You surely know something which you don't tell the public about on your own posts frankly.

What's free advertising? That you don't pay to CDfreaks and CDRLabs for your advertising? Since when have rdgrimes and spath received such a thing?

[Halc]

Kennyshin, rdgrimes and nicw,

this is to all of you: please let it lie or take it elsewhere. Please. This is a nice request, which I think a silent majority probably shares.

I am in no way meaning to attack any of you and I mean no harm to any of you.

However, I hope you also understand that it's not very nice to take personal feuds into public and lower the signal to noise ratio in forums.

I don't care what your personal feuds or disagreements are, but can you please also take the rest of us into account and not make this into a fighting ground, ok?

Again, I'm sure you are all nice people and I do appreciate your contributions in various forums (I've said it before many times), but let's not succumb to namecalling, accusations and public fights, ok?

It really serves no purpose in the bigger picture. Never has, never will.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to say is friendly and merely meant to tone down things. It's not an attack against you and I respect your choice to feel whatever you like about other persons. Hell, you can hate me all you like, but please tell it to me via e-mail/pm and not start a forum topic about it :)

Thanks!

friendly regards,
halc

PS Kennyshin, I never wrote or meant any of those things that you are implying me writing. Please chill down, I don't hate you, I don't want to attack you, I just want things to be cool, ok? I hope that's not too absurd :)

[Kennyshin]

@Halc

You are just repeating the same words over and over without taking what some others have said into serious consideration, regarding all those just as "personal feuds" which is unacceptable to me. What's there to disagree? What's it that NicW disagrees with me or rdgrimes?

That has also nothing to do with hatred.

Read back what rdgrimes said above.

I can say this much; NicW has done everything in his power to block the flow of "back-channel" information from drive makers to anyone other than NicW. Many of the software and hardware makers are only too aware of the sort of tactics that NicW uses to gain what he calls "inside" information. They like him even less than us more public figures do. But they deal with him because it is to their advantage to do so.

What NicW has done is the worst thing I can imagine in public web forums like these according to rdgrimes and some people who have told me in public and privately. Since you are saying you don't want to see any of these happening, what do you think about him destroying the very foundations of these forums? You are not saying we need peace. You chose to read thread again and again out of all the thousands and advocate NicW's spamming though you still don't seem to admit it's spamming.

Also, since you are criciticizing me, rdgrimes, and a few others who criticize NicW and some of his friends while calling CDFreaks a "hostile" environment. What you imply is basically that NicW is good and some CDFreaks moderators are destroying the peace. That is what I don't agree to. Would you like rdgrimes and code65536 more if they sold their expertise and experiences just like NicW saying seemingly nice words to the public and being political to the manufacturers and forum administrators? It was shitty - to borrow the word from someone else - enough for some of the moderators at CDFreaks to resign if you knew it or not.

I ask it again. Is spamming in NicW's way allowed here or not? Is criticizing about such acts allowed or not? Make it clear before you tell me to go away. For one, I never allow such acts on my own sites. I'll ban such persons instantly. He's only tolerated because there are many users of the software.

I know some of the history of the past few years. It was always NicW's attack or rudeness or some inappropriate behavior first and that was what brought him into attention after months and years. NicW never directly answers when he finds himself in a wrong position.

[Halc]

Ok, I give up.

I don't mean any of those things that you read into my posts, kennyshin.

Please, calm down.

I didn't take sides, I didn't attack anyone, I just wanted this thing to be solved in a friendly manner.

But as it seems that I'm unable to convince you of my impartiality or friendliness, I will just stop here.

Thank you for understanding that I will not reply anymore to any posts where I'm accused of being/writing something that I sincerely do not mean (I should be the one who knows what I mean after all, right?).

I mean no harm now nor have I meant any earlier.

friendly regards,
halc

[code65536]

release copyright breaking material

If it is in the best interest of the consumers, then yes. Keep in mind that these forums are by consumers and for consumers. And the good of the public is what's important. What about rpc1.org, which you were once an active member of? By modifying firmwares, we break the copyright law all the time. Why? Because it's for the good of the public, and it's in the interest of the end-user. Why do products like DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink exist? Aren't they used to bypass copyright? Because enough people deem them to be good for the end-users. The end-users should not allow companies to dictate for them what is in their best interests; if they did, we'd be living in a much nastier world. Of course, whose version of "best interest" is subjective, and if you insist that following every bit of copyright to the letter and to the desires of the company (as indicated by that quote above), that is your personal choice, and one that I will not contest.

But then, if that is indeed your personal choice, and if you do have qualms with the release of copyrighted material, then, well, as the saying goes, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. LiteOn refused to give you the bitsetting command, as it was a company secret that they did not want to disclose freely. Yet, it still appeared in DVDInfoPro back in April. Been doing some sniffing of the commands being sent through ASPI? Fun stuff, ain't it? Likewise with PI/PIF testing. And the NEC +R DL bitsetting. And the EEPROM checksum repair in DIP (although it doesn't allow crossflashing, I don't suppose LiteOn is too pleased with their precious checksumming out in a program like that). Don't get me wrong here; I am very pleased to see that such features exist in a publicly available program. But I am very confused, too, because sometimes, you seem to be very critical of the leak of sensitive and copyrighted information (like OC-Freak getting VS05, for example), and sometimes, you seem to have no qualms about doing it yourself (there is one specific firmware incident that I know of, though it is not something that I should talk about publicly in any amount of detail). So pray tell, where exactly do you stand on this? Do you really have the users' interests in mind as you so claim? Or do you have the manufacturers' interests in mind, as indicated by your above comment and by certain actions that you have taken that has drawn the ire of so many forum top brass? Or, could it be a third? Could it be your own interests that you serve? So that when adding bitsetting to DIP will help boost its popularity, you will side with the end-users, and if, take an example, a tool that allows bitsetting gets leaked out, you'll then side with the companies and go on a tirade about broken copyrights as you have just done? I was quite confused for a while, jumping back and forth between the first two options, but I'm starting to wonder about this third one...

And with all the announcements about KProbe, you're right to wonder, "how come that doesn't get construed as spam?" Well, KProbe is freeware. DIP is... well, I guess we're still trying to figure that one out.** KProbe doesn't even have a "donate" button, much less ads that can be removed with a "donation."

What about CloneDVD? That's commercial software. And it even has his own forum, and its creator, Olli, is quite active in it. Why doesn't DIP get the same warm treatment? It's a question that many people ask. Actually, it did! I remember back in April when rdgrimes snapped at you in the LiteOn forum. I searched the forums to try to find out why, and in the process, I noticed the DVDInfoPro thread (haven't checked to see if it still exists). Started by rdgrimes himself. Introducing people to DIP, advocating DIP, welcoming you to CDF, and introducting people to you. Your first post in that thread was one happily thanking rdgrimes for a warm welcome. My, have times changed! I understand that at one time, rdgrimes even offered to create a DVDInfo forum at CDF with you as moderator (much like what CDRInfo has done)! But you rejected that offer at the time. How curious that you have recently changed your mind. But that's all beside the point now. But rdgrimes apparently used to have quite a bit of respect for you, didn't he? And now this? What could make him do a complete 180? Interesting...

**As I pointed out in my other post, I think that commercial shareware is still the most appropriate label. As I said, Opera threw in ads and didn't really cripple anything (maybe they do now; as I said, I haven't used Opera in eons) and it's called shareware. The old DivX Pro (before 5.2) was the same--all the features, but ad-supported. And it was still considered commercial shareware. But anyway, that's for another thread.

Commentary on rd's post: It's not what you did back in the past that annoys rdgrimes that much--he pretty much kept his mouth shut for about half a year--according to according, it was seeing you sniff out the bitsetting command so that you could implement it in DIP that annoyed him because doing that introduced the element of hypocrisy: protecting company interests only when it did not conflict with your own (sorry if I got your wrong here, rd, this is just my interpretation of what you told me)... I think that people reading rdgrimes' post in this thread should be careful to note the difference between "block" and "block ... to anyone but ..."

@Halc

I agree that this "feud" is very unsightly, but I'd imagine that very little could be said privately between NicW and rdgrimes. NicW knows that rdgrimes hates his guts and vice-versa. I doubt that anything would ever be worked out between them, and I really doubt that they have anything worthwhile to say to each other in private. As I would imagine, the reason why rdgrimes brings this out into the public is that he is, I suppose, trying to inform the public about something. If he remains silent, then the public will only see one side of this soap opera. Okay, that didn't come out so well. How about this? Imagine an elected official (either Bush or Clinton, depending on your political preference) getting charged with some scandal. Should the investigators do everything privately and never let the public know that a certain public figure (key here; normal users are generally given more slack and less scrutiny, but as the author of a program that, whether rdgrimes likes it or not, is rather prominent, NicW is a public figure) has been involved in some possibly questionable activity? Should the FDA conceal from the public the results of its various tests (whether they be good or bad)? Etc.

To their credit, as moderators, both Kenny and rdgrimes do a very good job of resolving the vast majority of conflicts behind closed doors. Only in very few instances does it ever become public. It just so happens that this is one of them--and it's a high-profile one.

[nicw]

release copyright breaking material

If it is in the best interest of the consumers, then yes. Keep in mind that these forums are by consumers and for consumers. And the good of the public is what's important. What about rpc1.org, which you were once an active member of? ....snip.

code65536

You misunderstood my meaning, this has nothing to do with ripping, cracking firmware etc, its was specifically about him offering and publishing a certain crack for material I created & own thats all and was directed at him only.

Apologies if you or anyone else took it the wrong was it was not meant they way you seem to have read it. enuff said its closed as far as I am concerned and I bear no grudges.