#117. Inputting something manually or by copying/pasting it is actually the same thing. The latter is just the specific case of manual entering. If you can type in all the numbers of the registration code without errors, that's up to you of course.

Secondly, the version for GAOTD was prepared and tested more than 1 week before the giveaway. As we said, we were not actually expecting the release of the new version on the very day of the promo, our apologies.

Finally, has anyone received any spam from us?

Dear clearapps (post 94) this is a demo, not a 89 dollar software giveaway.

Hi Folks,

#118 - Spiceworks is not very strong in recognizing workgroup puters, maybe better in a domain with active directory and stuff like that. You can see the problem mentioned in their forum. It is a good program for some needs and some users.

#113 - understands the workgroup problem some, however the "Belarc on each PC" solution is both very clumsy for administration - and against the Belarc license (for fully free alternatives try PC Wizard 2008, WinAudit, SIV or SimpleSysInfo), so cannot be recommended in a responsible biz environment.

If at all possible you should work to unravel the passwords and any auxiliary problems. e.g. NIA (also ManageEngine does this) very clearly tells you how to open the Windows Firewall (and you can simply turn it off in testing to see if that is the only problem). The recogniztion problem in a workgroup exists for virtually every network software, administration or backup, so if possible it is better to be disciplined and try to solve the recognition problems.

Ultimately it is probably better to switch the workgroup to a different setup like Active Directory if possible, but you work with what you have.

#100 - I know this is not one of the anonymous Chinese sites (they often produce knock-off software) by the quality of the product and the fact that I called up customer support yesterday afternoon in the USA and we had a nice chat .. however it was after-hours so I just got the secretary.

Note: there are some reasonable Chinese companies too, they are not all anonymous knock-off attempts.

Shalom,
Steven

Thanks ClearApps and GAotD.
Every Positive remark here, especially Today, in this column, is essential...after all the Negative 'blitz' here.

I do not understand all the complains here, as the program installed immediately, activation-code was received in 30 seconds, and scan went well.
Greetings from Finland.

"We are really sorry we had to roll out the minor new release the very day we are offering the software here. If you want to keep a free version, don’t update, at least for now… though we have implemented several quite requested features in the latest new release, including batch nodes editing and managing, change management, etc."

What a complex way to say "We just did a major improvement of our software so we offered our now outdated one because it's inferior to the current version now. We didn't want to let you have the current improved version for free."

Nevertheless, the developer DOES deserve respect for actively participating in the comments here. IMO that shows a developer truly cares about consumer's experiences with their software.

spiceworks is the way to go.

Why do developers want to offer their outdated programs as Giveaways, AS SOON AS THEY RELEASE NEW VERSIONS, instead of offering their CURRENT version?

As soon as I installed and opened todays Giveaway. it popped up a window offering update to the current version.

During program installation, of course they demand you give your email to them so you can endure yet more advertising spam garbage forever after.

When you go to your email to retrieve the code, it says "Your registration name is now stored within your system, and the code you have to manually enter is..."

In the very next paragraph, it says"Please, input this activation code in the corresponding field of the installation package when installing Network Inventory Advisor. Please, don't enter it manually, only copy/paste it to prevent typing errors"..."

Talk about complete contradiction here!!!!! have to manually enter, please don't enter it manually!"

I wish developers would offer standalone portable versions of their apps because:

#1. Laptop Hard drives are often extremely small (120-160 Gig HDD sizes which are what is found on most laptops, aren't nearly big enough.

#2. To do much at all on a laptop with the typical 120-160 Gb HDD, it's necessary to have a portable HDD too. The more that can be put on the portable HDD, the better to prevent the laptop hdd from becoming too full and having major problems due to lack of space. And you can count on Windows Updates wanting ever more and more of your hard drive space!!!

#3. Apps that can run from a portable HDD aren't lost when your desktops or laptop crashes and needs reinstall.

Many Manufacturers only provide recovery disks that require you to COMPLETELY WIPE OUT YOUR HDD AND REINSTALL ALL THE OEM GARBAGE FROM THE BEGINNING. They don't include the repair features that MS includes with Windows or any other features that allow you to repair a windows installation.

This is why I get so frustrated that developers don't think of offering standalone portable versions of apps.

I don't get it-all the complaints over email. When I purchase any program I must register email, even on some that are freeware, I have to register email. In many of the purchases, I also have to register home address as well the use of my bank to make the purchase. When I get spammed I simply delete or my spam catcher does away with it. Half the world knows my email after all these years. The other half find it anyway. WHAT is supposed to be so 'homeland security' mode about email listings? Actually I am downloading this on my laptop for my bf to use at his job as needed. For what it can do, and help him, I will take a spam once in awhile if I have to. Small price for a business money saving program in our economy if that is the case. Delete is one finger punch away......

It says you can use a blank Admin password, but when you try to use it, it won't continue.

Great for a domain rather than a network, as each machine on a network has to either have the same login and password or you have to know each login and password for each machine in order to be scanned - and even then it may not be able to scan without a bit of tweaking on each individual box. If you work in a network environment rather than a domain, such as we have at work, ( and don't get me started on using one of the board of director's friend's brother's son who "knows all about computers" to set up the "IT" department, which now stands for "I Tried" ) you will have a bit of work to do on each machine to get this app to report correctly.

Even without the ability to scan the actual computer itself, which is the whole point of Network Inventory Advisor, it does show all the machines attached to the network, wired and wireless, on the initial network scan - except for my pocket pc, which it picked up at the right ip address but then chose to completely ignore.

I was unable to scan my Windows 7 laptop using the login and password for that box; I got access denied when the program tried to scan, so Comodo needs to be configured on that one, I guess. I have no password set on my XP Home laptop and the program refused to start the scan without one, even though it had no problem scanning a wired pc with no password. I set a password and tried again, no luck, but unlike the Windows 7 laptop, and like the pocket pc, the netbook was ignored, so maybe Online Armour needs to be configured there.

I am sure this proggie is more than worth the asking price if used in a proper domain setup, but it isn't worth much for a workgroup, particularly if each machine has its own unique firewall config and l&p at admin level. It is easier if you have physical access to each machine to just install and use Belarc Advisor on each. ( Same headaches I have at work, btw )

#79, you don't need this to see if your neighbors are stealing your bandwidth, just use your router setup program to see how many computers are attached to your network.

Thank you GAOTD and Clearapps for the interesting software. Unfortunatly, it does not work on my network. Maybe b/c I have it locked down by MAC addy?

Either way, thank you for the offer and your generosity.

#56, #61, #64, #70, #74, #75: Did you miss the part about them not accepting "junk" email addresses? We wouldn't have known this was an issue if they hadn't WRONGLY tagged a good email address as a throw-away one.

#74: They aren't GIVING you the program. They are TRADING the program for your email address that they can sell to a spammer/scammer. You need to wake up. In addition, they aren't GIVING **me** anything because I'm not giving them my email address to sell to a scammer.

If they had posted a proper "use of personal information" policy statement, you MIGHT be able to believe them. What they did was dance around the issue.

When any of you who don't like our complaining about their policy have to explain to your client why they get 15000 emails a day from spammers, then you might have a different perspective. When your client gets "Joe-Jobbed" and gets 10000 bounce-backs per day for a week because someone "harvested" their email address, then you might see it differently. When you run your own small mail server and see 50000 spam attempts per day on it, perhaps you'll see things differently.

I use Sneakemail or Spammotel for a reason. I didn't just wake up one day and think, "You know... somewhere far, far away in a galaxy that hasn't been discovered, someone might one day 10,000 years from now decide to send me 1 junk mail." I use them because of past experience with scammers, spammers using stolen email lists, and a myriad of other email problems.

This company needs to learn how to deal with their clients in a least intrusive and entirely honest fashion.

I was completely unfamiliar with GAOTD or Clearaps before today, I came accross this offer when doing some web searches for other research. As a network and computer consultant, I actually have a need to do small network inventories quite often, and while we use more robust and expensive tools for this purpose, I decided to try this product out, because it would work great for SOHO business owners that want to self manage their networks.

After installing it on Win7 x64 and running it against a small 7 node network I was impressed. It picked up and identified a firewall, printer and all computers on the network. So my suggestion to anyone either curious or wanting more insight into their network: Check this product out. Just based on the scan functions alone and not diving into the asset management and tracking features this product could easily be worth much more than they sell it for.

Thank you.

Hi Folks,

One comment on Belarc.

Nice program .. not free for commercial use.

"We do not permit use of the Belarc Advisor for commercial purposes, however we suggest that you take a look at these products, which we do license for commercial use"

BelManage Small Network Package is priced at $1,725 and consists of the following:
* Base System, consisting of server software and fifty (50) client licenses.

They have effectively ignored the small office niche.

Shalom,
Steven

Don't understand!
Asks for Admin account Name and Password.

Is different for the PC's in my network. Or Name and Pass for my router???

Hi Folks,

#89 - please check on the pricing. You will see that $89 is the 25-node price http://clearapps.com/pricing.html

And that is very fair, under $4 a node on 25. The centralized view of the info is excellent, Belarc-style +. Next I have to view the collated information forms, and compare with ManageEngine especially. And LanSweeper if I could ever get it running. Maybe Softperfect. So far Clearapps and ManageEngine look like possible solid fits.

This looks like a keeper and an eventual purchase is likely (discounts being searched). So far nothing has really hit the nail on the head for the small biz network view of all the puters, who is on IE6 and SP2 and this and that. How much memory, disk, etc.

There are a lot of user signon, administration, firewall and sharing issues that can arise in setup. And big discussions about the words 'agent' and agentless. So far I am not sure if the firewall exceptions matters much in our setup. The NIA method of individual node passwords is reasonably friendly, however I only have about half my puters up so far. Sometimes the admin password is different than the user signon and nobody has a record of that handy. Then you ask the mildly communicative network manager, whereever he is, what they are, or you get them with a Linux disk. Or you try to guess first (who had this computer last ? What signons are under Documents & Settings).

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Installed no problem on Vista Home Premium 32 bit machine registered OK and then I ran it. All I can say is WOW this is fantastic. Even if you do not have a network (I do) it would be worth it for what it tells you about your machine, environment etc.
Thank you to ClearApps.com for this software and thank you GOTD for giving us the chance.
Definite Thumbs Up!!!!

Network Inventory Advisor has been on our list of products for future evaluation. We were looking to deploy a product like this in our offices and our clients network. [sales]. I was great to see it offered on GAOTD which allows us to evaluate the product in a manner that our protocol requires.

We also, were caught in the update trap. GAOTD displays Network Inventory Advisor 3.5. So, when offered the update [to] version 3.5, we thought it was part of the registration process only to find out it reduced us to a 15 day trial.

We are a very busy IT Professionals and GAOTD's software [offers] allows us to evaluate software for both deployment to our infrastructure and/or our clients.

Because of our workload we can not do a proper evaluation of software in the 10 to 30 day trial time period most software companies offer. We find GAOTD a real benifit to ourselves and our clients (bunches of potiential sales).

In addition, we do not have the time to find out if this change to a limiting 15 day trial was intentional move on the developers or GAOTD to increase sales/revenue or just a "deployment mishap". [really do not care - do not have the time to care, and what difference would it make?].

Our solution - uninstall the software immediately and list it as a "Product Tested, DO NOT use in the future. Unsuccessful Installation" in our product testing log.

We will not continue to evaluate software that cause "problems" during installation [which is just the first of many check-points we use during an evaluation]. "Installation Problems" is not a real good thing to happen during the first step.

Of course, much software never gets to that point as we will not evaluate any IT professional product that we can not evaluate for a very minimum of 120 days. [we prefer arranging for at least 180 days] Odd enough, most of the products we [carefully] choose to evaluate create sales through-out our client base.

Moving on.....

Yer another try:
This might be interesting:
ICANN Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Created: 2007-10-04
Expires: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2008-03-17
Registrar Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registrar Status: clientRenewProhibited
Registrar Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrar Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Name Server: NS1.POWWEB.COM (has 128,520 domains)
Name Server: NS2.POWWEB.COM (has 128,520 domains)
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com

Server Data
IP Address: 65.254.250.102 Whois | Reverse-IP | Ping | DNS Lookup | Traceroute
IP Location - Massachusetts - Burlington - The Endurance International Group Inc
Response Code: 200
Domain Status: Registered And Active Website

DomainTools Exclusive
Registrant Search: "Domains by Proxy, Inc." was found in about 7,964,640 other domains
Registrar History: 3 registrars with 3 drops.
NS History: 16 changes on 11 unique name servers over 2 years.
IP History: 9 changes on 6 unique name servers over 5 years.
Whois History: 44 records have been archived since 2001-09-30.
Reverse IP: 11,670 other sites hosted on this server.
Monitor Domain: Set Free Alerts on clearapps.com
Free Tool: Download DomainTools for Windows


Whois Record
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Domain Name: CLEARAPPS.COM
Created on: 04-Oct-07
Expires on: 04-Oct-13
Last Updated on: 17-Mar-08

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.POWWEB.COM
NS2.POWWEB.COM

The way I look at this, if my personal computers can be scanned by this application over the network then I haven't protected them enough. With more than 10 computers in a business environment, it may make sense to reduce some security to keep track for inventory purposes and other reasons but I'm not opening holes to allow this to work at home on a 7 node network. Also, be careful where you put/save your reports as that info can be quite valuable to a hacker.

Still appreciate the variety of software offers here on GOTD and keep up the good work. No thumbs for me on this one.

# 61, Steven Avery

How do you know that this company is not Chinese ?
(Or Russian or East-European ?)

No comment at this time has questioned the security issue

This programme finds out every detail of your programmes
and all your hardware in your PC and knows how to receive
and transmit everything wanted for them when iadvisor.exe
calls home to what-the-heck-the-country-is !

The company bought the domain from GoDaddy, instructed them
to supply "Domain-by-Proxy" which means that no-one can find
out where on Earth they are ! Creepy in my opinion !

I have downloaded and installed, and told my 2 firewalls
ZoneAlarm and Ashampoo ( which work perfectly together )
NOT TO LET THE PROGRAMME CALL "HOME" !!!

Tobiasson, Oslo, Norway, Europe, Earth

A little update to all who reported the problem with installer: Please, make sure that the installer is run from the path which has ONLY English characters. Thanks

@91.
This is not a simple pcaudit-programm.
Please do give the GOTD a fair chance.
This is a great offer fot those who know how the handle this "beauty ".

About the email-registration paranoia? Where is that coming from?
Microsoft does it
like Paragon,Acronis,Roxxio,McAfee,DriverMax,Cyberlink,Nero,well i could make an endless list.
Like a knight in shiny armor,with my sword pointing to the sky,i dare say: who doesn't?? ;)

@71,87 and everyone asking about WiFi networks: YES, wireless networks are fully supported. You can scan them, just use Smart Scan, or any other scanning method. Network Inventory Advisor will pick all the details about your net, and even nodes currently online, and scan them if you have enough rights. However, the main aim of the software is definitely NOT finding illegal users of your home wireless network, but that's a nice scenario of course :)

@#89, pulsar, actually USD 89 is the original price for 25 node license, what made you think differently?

@90 and others who mentioned our update today... We are really sorry we had to roll out the minor new release the very day we are offering the software here. If you want to keep a free version, don't update, at least for now... though we have implemented several quite requested features in the latest new release, including batch nodes editing and managing, change management, etc.

@#29 & 48: No one is going to spam... are you kidding? We are using this way of authentication to send individual license codes and prevent leaking of free versions outside of GAOTD. I don't see why this can make anyone mad if you are receiving a 90 dollar software for free in return.

Thumbs up to Mike (#49)!!!

Thanks to everyone for all your feedback: positive, neutral and negative! I'm really sorry we cannot reply to each of your comments individually, we will get back to many of you steadily either via this comments system or via e-mail in reply to your received comments, any way! Thank you. Your opinion does matter, and helps us make better software.

No one mentioned it, but Belarc Advisor is a similar free (for personal use) product. You have to run it on each individual computer on your network, but it gives very detailed info including hardware and software details, missing hotfixes, and even serial numbers. It is not as pretty looking as this GAOTD though.

If I could get this from gaotd for more then 25 users then I would be able to truly test this.
It picked up only 10 of the users out of 80 computers.
Installed with no problem as usual on xp64bit though.
#84 I also had that update available but I definitely did not update as I knew (from experience) that it would cancel my license AND now you know from experience, for next time.

Program's actual price looks $89. Is this price for 25 nodes? Actually no! If you pay $89 you will not have node limitations! So, with this 25 nodes limitation this program is just demo and GAOTD did not provide free software for today.

Can anyone assist me in getting their server to recogize my computer. Have tried everyting I can to get it to. Internet is connected, Even disconnected all firewalls to make sure. Redownloaded the DVD ripper rerun to see what would happen. The DVD ripper downloaded and setup as promised. However, cannot get Network History server to allow me to continue with setup. Running Vista Home Premiun with all updates.
Thanks

P.S. HAVE tried running as administrator also.

@#71. For it to detect computers on your wireless network, you will need to configure it to scan your wireless IP range and it should pick up any computers connecting in that range.

I'm going to second the recommendation in post #9.

Check out SpiceWorks.
I use it at work, it's free, (adware, but you can pay to remove the ads which are fairly unobtrusive) constantly being updated with more and better features.

On Vista X64, I got an error during the installation about not being able to get a file handle. I clicked OK to that error dialog, and proceeded to watch the installation complete just fine.

I did get the update dialog and wisely ignored it, as I figured it would hose the free GAOTD license.

I wish GAOTD vendors would disable the update feature in these GAOTD versions, so users don't inadvertently lose their GAOTD license. Especially when that's the first thing you see: update this.

But a big kudos and thanks to clearapp and to GAOTD for providing this. The last program of this type I got from GAOTD somehow expired on me, but this seems to be a quality program and I'm running it right now.

Giveaway's Summary:

- 25-node license of Network Inventory Advisor (89 USD)
- NO "personal usage only" limitation!
- Don't click on UPGRADE message
- Activation-code is send by e-mail
- The developers provide technical support via email: help @ clearapps.com

(some users have problems with Vista x64)

I think this is a good example for other developers who will participate in GAOTD.

Thank you both ClearApps & GAOTD team!

MAEVA LLC

installed and worked fine, but after the second time I ran it - it told me there was an update available - so I updated and now the registration code is not accepted thus, it returned to a 15 day trial version, too bad looked intresting

Tried the 15-day trial sometime ago. Due to the 25 device limit, I found Netscan from SoftPerfect had no limits. Be advised, it is more technical, so some may want to read first. On many of these so-called free scanners, something is crippled. Like saving the output report files.. so use a portable screen capture prog like FastStone Capture to put the output to gif files on a USB stick. This way you'll have all your customers PC IP's, Names, MAC addresses, services and devices in your back pocket where-ever you go.

This is very useful.

Can't install because the installer doesn't like my .info email address. Perfectly valid address. Not a huge obstacle, but annoying to say the least.

For the new folks, GOTD giveaway's are not meant to be updated, so you shouldn't accept an update on anything you download from here. Also, if you download anything from GOTD check to see whether it has automatic updating and disable it, or you could end up losing your free registration. There are exceptions, but they are VERY rare.

To those who keep saying you're getting something here for free, sorry to burst you're bubble, but no you're not. GOTD and the developer each exchange money, GOTD initially for licenses, the developer later for advertising fees. No one is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. GOTD will eventually get money when someone clicks on the advertising. The developer gets the advertising, gets word of mouth from you, and increases their pool (if they even had any to start with) of software testers. If you're conscience is such that you feel guilty downloading from here, you have my sympathy, but I don't share that problem with you, because there's nothing to feel guilty about.

That's because it's a business and EVERYONE'S getting paid. It's not that I mind you criticizing others, especially since so many of you are new, but to criticize others when you don't know what's going on....

This is not a soup kitchen and I, for one, am not a beggar. (I don't know about you, but I'm willing to assume the best.) Also, trust me, GOTD will not go under just because someone posts a critical comment. GOTD has been going on for years and has probably seen 100s of thousands of critical comments and is still going strong.

Will this let me see all the computers on my network that are using my router so I can be positive nobody is stealing my internet such as neighbors???

Got my reg code via email but it failed to register, advising me to try again which wasn't of use at all because it didn't send out another reg code (even not with a different email address). Bummer...

I donwloaded and installed GOTD version and clicked OK - when it said a new version is ready to be installed. And when I installed it, it now is mentioning that the trial period will expire in 15 days. How does one resolve the error that you get when you try to reinstall GOTD version? Anybody?

hi,
I wnat to know what the diffrence between domain and workgroup ?
thanks

To GAOTD: Thanks for another great program - it's been awhile since there's been an offering I could use, as a casual home user, but I always appreciate the effort & check in every day.

To ClearApps: I have a 2-4 laptop home network (depending on if we have visitors) and have been using Network Magic. It was okay. But we replaced both of our laptops and are rebuilding the network, so I'm going to give this a try. It's probably overkill for a user like me, but we'll see. Sounds like a great program, and you're welcome to my email address. :)

To Other Users: I strongly agree with a few posters above. Give these people a break, will ya? They're offering you a $90 program free, and if you don't like it or can't use it, just move along & quitcherbitchin. GOATD makes it very clear that these offerings do not include upgrades to newer versions. They also make it clear that they do not include tech support, and ClearApps is going the extra mile by monitoring these comments & responding to them & offering help & solutions to reported problems. Very professional.

To All: If you're paranoid about giving your email address to this company - why don't you have a second, non-disposable email account for situations like this? They're free on Yahoo, Gmail, and a hundred other providers. Then when you're comfortable with the company, change your email addy with them to the one you regularly use.

Long story short: Thanks, guys - I'll give this a try.

I am very disappointed today! i love this site, it is the first place i visit every morning, I usually love all of the comments from users giving expert advice on the daily software, Unfortunately the past few days these comments have become vindictive and rude towards the developers/programmers especially #18 and #48 today, I am absolutely disgusted and embarrassed to be associated with these kinds of people.
They are giving you 90 dollars worth of software for free all they ask for is an email address, (WOW thats so bad) get a life! if you dont like it go somewhere else and moan And stop spoiling this site with your Ungrateful, Paranoid, Vindictive, Rude, Childish behaviour.

NOTE to all Developers/Programmers!
Not everyone who frequents this site is so ungrateful and rude, Most of us are genuinely well mannered and give honest and factual feedback regarding products.

i have seen several postings asking if it detects wireless. does it? and will it detect if someone beside you is using your wireless connection???

Installed on XP Pro Sp2. Have 4 networked computers that are also XPpro - it found them, but could not connect for the information. Went to the help and did all the things it said to do, but still can not get it to connect to network computers it says "Remote computer doesn't respond. Maybe it is switched off or WMI service is not running on it." or "Access is denied" After hours of trying things- I give up. As far as the program goes, it gives great information, so for those that can get it to work, I'm sure it would be very handy.

To #18, Janet: "I haven’t received a response to my strongly worded reply, either."

If I was the developer, I wouldn't respond for FREE to your "strongly worded reply."

I don't get all the hotheads here. These guys all give software away totally FREE that takes them months or years out of their lives, and people jump to conclusions, assume the worst, act like jerks, and demand the moon from them. And they don't make a dime from all this!

I'm sure the absolute jerks will neg this comment, but here's the twist: if you're a software developer and have some great software, take a look at the negs on this comment before you even THINK of giving these ungrateful people your best software for free!