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1. 
   Review - SmartFTP (x86)

   1.0 Build 974.39 Beta (Apr 30, 2003)

   Looks very, very nice. Could go on to be one of the best ftp clients. Impressive looking feature set. My only complaints so far are usability issues. I downloaded it for SecureFTP (explicit) and that worked fine once I realized it was set to tls and not ssl. A few first impressions, tho.. I have a LOT of sites I connect to, and the favorites looks ok. The grid method is fine, but the boxes are sized too wide, so it always scrolls even tho I run in 1280. I can resize em, i know. It needs to be more apparent that favorites is there, and more useable. See leapFtp and FileZilla for nice site managers, with popups on the main toolbar that let you select your site easily w/o opening another window. 'Favorites' is an IE term, so I didn't think to look there at first. Misc : Windows need to maximize inside the document area, not tile. The 'hilite as you mouse over' controls are nice sometimes, but they have been overused by a lot. Eye candy is ok, but they are distracting and serve no real purpose. It would be better if they weren't on all the lists, and other main areas. Over checkboxes and dropdowns is fine, but not on every pane of every window. Everything seems to need configuring. I guess if I was browsing for warez it would be nice to not have it open a local file window automatically, but for normal work I shouldn't need to change anything. The favorites editor could be condensed slightly, the way it currently is puts parts I use on every single site on seperate tabs. Again, see fileZilla. The 'local browser'/'site' style makes it pretty tedious to work with since, imho. I like to have them both side by side, and I def. don't need an explorer interface. If it were that way, or an option existsed, I would consider this program.

2. 
   Review - mssqlXpress

   1.05 (Apr 29, 2003)

   I wrote the first nasty review of this program (see bottom) and my, how things have changed. I have no idea why I was so pissed, but I actually have ended up using it daily ever since the release following that review. Great program, has removed almost all need for both QA and EM in our shop and everyone is required to use it. Updates are regular and actually add quite a few new features. It is still in active development, one of the newest features being an execution plan simliar to QA's.
   
   It's got table structure editing, a data editor, query builder, code complete (visual studio style), reports, templates, an awesome 'verify' feature which is better than syntax check, and tons of other stuff I can't even remember right now. Just keeps getting better.
   
   Keep QA around in case you need to run the indexing wizard or use a few of it's other features that haven't made it over yet.
   
   It does require that you run the 'server' install to create a database, so you do need to have a sql server you can add it's database too. Keeps trak of the servers you connect to, vss settings, etc. there.

3. 
   Review - Maxthon (v2)

   0.50.824 (Oct 7, 2002)

   Actually, i got errors on the first two links, but 'Mirror #2' worked.
   
   Plaid : Email me at hardarse26@hotmail.com and I will send you a zipped up copy (.zip or .rar), it's only 500k or so.

4. 
   Review - Avant Browser

   6.5.2 (Sep 27, 2002)

   Decent program, I guess. Ripping off opera's name wasn't very nice, especially when it can't compete in any way. I use opera 80% of the time, and If i need similar functionality I will use MyIE.
   
   Nice looking, but if you are looking for something similar to opera this aint it. Though slightly more confuzing, MyIE is more configurable.
   
   #1 beef with this program : It's called 'Opera' but it doesn't mimic opera's gestures. MyIE does.