Where Do You Go for Worthwhile Product Reviews? 88
An anonymous reader asks: "What's the deal with reviews and product comparisons? My boss wants independent comparative reviews of proxy and web servers to use to make/justify his decision. We all know that what the vendors write about their own (and competitive) products, so I tried searching for 3rd party reviews. I can find heaps of articles on the web telling us how great IIS is or how good Microsoft's Proxy server is, but nothing showing a back-to-back comparison of Squid vs. Sun Java Proxy vs. Microsoft Proxy, and the same for Apache and IIS. What's happening here? Where can I find an honest back-to-back product comparison?"
Reminds of a KKK rally I once attended (Score:4, Funny)
Your question reminded me of that, for some reason.
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So how did the Grand Cyclops respond? Or is my imagination better than reality again here?
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I know that the OP was kidding, but I can't tell whether or not you are...
- RG>
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If your associates there have made decisions based upon what they have read, and not what they have experienced, there are probably some really nasty timebombs waiting to go off. Hopefully you'll be far far away by then...
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So, how do I set up the tests to evaluate the best race?
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C'mon - you've got to start with the basics! We can't do everything for you here on
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Wish it was that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I can only wish it was that simple. But other than keeping quitting and moving to fresh small startups (which probably don't exactly pay a lot for an admin), it's not really practicable.
And even as a startup, if your work isn't purely developping your own product, you end up doing stuff for various clients. Which have their own ideas set in stone, based on reading some IT-for-retards ragazine or on a golf round with the nice salesman from MS/IBM/whatever. And we all know that you can't trust those techies with their techno-babble speak, whereas a salesman would never tell a lie
An as soon as the company grows past a certain size, and doubly so for companies whose primary product aren't programs or IT services, well, my favourite metaphor is: clue is heavier than air. The higher you go up the hierarchy pyramid, the thinner it gets. If clue were oxygen, you'd see higher level managers blue in the face like they're Smurfs.
To their defense, it's not their job to know the finer points and differences between web servers, but then it also shouldn't be their job to take such low level decisions. So you have a bunch of people taking decisions about stuff that they knew nothing about, and it wasn't their job to know anything about. What really makes it worse is having several layers of shielding against the effects of bad decisions. He made some "strategic decision" to go all-IIS, and can claim credit for any positive results (even coincidental or immaginary), but it's _your_ fault if something goes wrong with it or it takes too long to port your application to it. And whenever such shielding is in place, out goes the incentive to get any real clue or to refrain from taking bad decisions.
But, to get back on topic, you'll find very few large companies where such shielding from responsibility isn't in place. So you're limiting your employment oportunities drastically if you only accept jobs from the few who aren't led by people who don't take their IT info from ads and salesmen.
Probably a more realistic thing to do is realize that, in the end, few things matter _that_ horribly much. Some people have a penchant for blowing minor differences out of proportion, and make mountains out of molehills. There _are_ product issues that matter, and there _are_ awfully bad management decisions, but there's also a lot of stuff which really isn't as critical as the "either something is perfect or it's complete crap" gang makes it sound. If some proxy is 5% faster than another, pfft, it doesn't even start to matter. You'll want plenty of margin for when you get slashdotted anyway, but 99% of the time it'll be _way_ under-used. Having 5% or even 10% less unused capacity isn't the end of the world.
And once you do a realistic assessment of how bad it really is, a lot of things aren't _that_ horrible after all. So management picked a less than optimal proxy. Who cares? Compared to some other decisions I've seen various managers take, this doesn't even start to matter. If you're going to quit a job solely because of something like that, methinks you need to rethink your standards. And maybe look for an OCPD support group in your area.
Depends on the product/application/environment... (Score:4, Insightful)
For your example case, I'd personally test each product in-house, drawing up conditions and test plans ahead of time. If you're planning a significant deployment, vendors will generally supply product for you to evaluate. Sometimes if you ask nicely, too.
Just my two cents... And yes, I get that it may not be feasible. Its labor and time-intensive. But in-house testing and evaluation almost always beats 3rd party reviews, in my book.
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We usually do that for our regular customers (i work for an IBM BP).
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The Burton Group http://www.burtongroup.com/ [burtongroup.com]
Forrester Research http://www.forester.com/ [forester.com]
too expensive! (can I have your discards? :-) ) (Score:2)
"Buy a laptop (/digital camera/access point/ etc) randomly and if it doesn't come up with the goods throw it in the garbage can out the back of your property and buy another one and test that, continue until you find the right one"
- I'm afraid that's just not a solution for people/organisatio
The right way in corporate America (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The right way in corporate America (Score:5, Interesting)
choice (Score:2, Informative)
Google is your friend... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure you would get all the bad side, then weigh which one of the products are the lesser evil
sample query: iis, problems
Re:Google is your friend... (Score:5, Interesting)
Example: I recently decided I needed a toaster oven. Instead of rushing down to kmart and buying just any old oven, I went online and started doing reviews. Everyone I have told this to basically called me crazy. ("You searched for reviews for a TOASTER OVEN!?") I found that Euro Pro makes an amazing $80 (Macy's) oven. I then looked it up at local stores and found that KMart carries that brand. Unfortunately, the 'best' model was on sale that week for only $5 more than the cheapest Euro Pro, and they were sold out of it and the middle one, too. ($35, $40 and $50 normal prices.) I bought the cheap one anyhow, because I didn't feel like waiting. (KMart doesn't bother to restock things they put on sale because they'll have to honor their rainchecks.)
It's an amazing toaster oven. I absolutely love it.
I've used this technique for years. The only downside to it is that you tend to start thinking negatively first, and many products that had you hyped, you will end up not buying them. Kind of a downer. (But at least you didn't waste your money, which is more of a downer.)
I think if many people started using this method, either product quality would get a lot better, or there'd be a hell of a lot of astroturfing.
Re:Google is your friend... (Score:4, Insightful)
Google "sucks" & "teh sux0r". (Score:4, Funny)
If I'm thinking about purchasing an Acme Widget, I google something like acme widget sucks .
Or if it's a technical product, like the Acme Flux Capacitor, I might google acme flux capacitor teh sux0r .
Because a bad review is worth its weight in gold.
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If they haven't taken the time to make note of negative qualities, then anything positive they have to say is suspect. No product is perfect. If I wanted only positive comments I could read the product summary from the manufacturer. I read review to see the negative comments. If they didn't mention negatives I could buy the product and get slapped in the face by a suprise flaw. If they mentioned small ones, then I would be at
That's Awesome! Let's Try It Out. (Score:2)
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So you could also add "--order" to your search request (banning it).
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--
Fighting Carpal Tunnel 1 key at a time
Google. (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as generalist sites - I've found the eclectic community over at Slickdeals.net [slickdeals.net] to be fairly useful in getting a quick grip on what to look for - but forum-goers there are intentionally against bad-mouthing products (thread-crapping), so you have to take a large variety of recommendations there with much due skepticism. Great place for leads though.
Then, of course, there's the Resellerratings [resellerratings.com]-style sites. Once you've scoped product details, it's quite important to get feedback on who you're buying from. Again - due skepticism in all regards will help you in various ways, but large negatives or fake praise for rarely-rated stores can be an important part of an investigation for a large purchase.
If it's not a big purchase though, I'm usually comfortable just hitting Froogle [froogle.com], Amazon [amazon.com], or NewEgg [newegg.com] and being done with it.
Ryan Fenton
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I've stuck in a few feedback items for Google to clean this up. No luck yet. Hopefully Google will get around to fixing it.
Meanwhile zdnet.com and pcmag.com are good places to start for mainstream PC products. For example: http://review.zdnet.com/4 [zdnet.com]
It's tough (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're lucky, a magazine will have a comparative review and will have taken roughly equal amounts of ad revenue from each of the competing vendors. Useful search terms include "shootout" and "versus".
Anecdotal evidence from the tech community can be a heuristic if you're wondering about general bugginess and hassle factor. If you need real benchmarks, the only ones that mean a thing are those you run yourself.
Are you running a mixed shop or a single-vendor one? Don't underestimate the pain of interoperability and equipment management hassles if you've never experienced them.
Work as hard as you can to pin down what you need: good scaling on SMP machines? Easy management? Particular features? Good local talent pool for running/fixing it? Low purchase price? Support contracts? The more questions like that you answer, the clearer the choice will be and the easier the web searching will be. "Apache scale SMP OR cluster" is likely to get more informative results than "Apache IIS comparison".
If you are worried about security, then abandon all hope of useful information from the press, concentrate more on lockdown and scheduling updates then on the choice of product (but never install IIS 5), and keep an eye on the news.
Cultivate sysadmins in other places who have environments about your size and with similar needs.
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"Apache scale SMP OR cluster" is likely to get more informative results than "Apache IIS comparison".
I don't know what alternatives there are for other platforms, but DEVONagent [devon-technologies.com] has advanced search features, like boolean operations and plug-ins for various specialty search engines. It can also do deep-scanning searches (following links) and is good at filtering out junk. I find the NEAR operator is immensely useful for day-to-day searches, finding terms that are closely related - but rejecting terms that simply appear on the same page in different contexts, while not requiring them to be in an exact sequ
Your boss is stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
IIS and Apache are _very_ different, for example, and you can't choose between them based on product reviews.
Re:Your boss is stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not everything is in the press (Score:1)
Is this important to your business? Then why not hire someone who's done this before to talk to you about how the different products work and how they might apply to your specific situation? That's why con
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See, all of the reviews on NewEgg are concocted by 'customers', not a 'journalist' or a 'staff reviewer'. With that in mind, most of the user reviews on there fall into one of two categories:
1. fanboys who give 5 stars to a product because it's made by a certain company that can do no wrong in their eyes (This new Athlon64 is awesome! Way better than anything stinky old Intel can make!), or
2. 'impatient' people who post a review on a product that was DOA and giv
I Get Best Reviews In Forums (Score:4, Informative)
I know monitors are not what you asked about but I still think forums are best bet. You may be lucky not many reviews exist because I find its a good way to get hung out to fry.
Well (Score:2, Insightful)
Reviews are for end users, not it departments! (Score:1)
If you're in a deciding position (i.E. CIO/CTO), and your boss doesn't trust your decision, it isn't going to be easy anyway.
But if your real question is "how should i decide?", then here's the answer:
Evaluate! It's to only way to be sure the product meets your needs completely. Yes, it costs alot of money and time. The alternative is to guess a product.
E.g. if you're already using a Windows Environment with Active Directory (and like it), going for Exchange as a Groupware isn't a stu
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I agree that evaluation is the only way to go, because it's the only way you'll know how the product will operate in your environment. I disagree, however, that it will cost a lot of time and money if you are evaluating software. You can download VMWare Server for Windows or Linux from VMWare for free. Create virtual testing labs using distros you also can download for free. Microsoft are
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I disagree, however, that it will cost a lot of time and money if you are evaluating software.
Of course, using Virtual Machines saves some time and effort, but this only goes as for as you're evaluating software. But even then, you will need to learn a lot about the product, in order to implement a good and working evaluation environment. This can take several days, depending on the complexity of the product, maybe even weeks (e.g. a large Exchange vs. Notes test).
And evaluating hardware usually involves making down payments for the time you have the equipment (this depends a lot though).
Employee t
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Depending on your available manpower, the nature of the project and you company-structure you could do the following:
Make a quick (1 week) selection of you available choices.
Select the n options of these, which look most promisin
Setup of each of them with one "pilotgroup"
Get feedback from them, then select the choice with the best feedback.
Polygraph (Score:1)
test test test! (Score:1, Flamebait)
In your test lab, stupid. I havent yet found a vendor that would deny an evaluation of their product.
I am going for the truth (Score:2)
http://www.samsung.com/ca/products/monitor/lcd_dig ital/ls19mewsfxaa.asp [samsung.com]
vs:
http://www.hardware.info/en-US/productdb/bGNkbJiXm JLK/vi [hardware.info]
What's wrong with you people? (Score:4, Funny)
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Here is a good place for unbiased reviews (Score:5, Funny)
Some things I learned include...
1. The only job a real programmer will take must involve Ruby on Rails
2. Never buy a MS product
3. Filesharing music is "fair use"
4. Programmers should not create closed source programs EVER.
5. Linux sucks, BSD sucks, MacOS sucks, and Windows sucks. (I am posting from an IBM/360)
6. The only safe browser is Lynx
Who's driving it? Who's fixing it? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a former cabdriver, so I'd be happiest in a Dodge Charger police package; my ex-wife hates big cars, so her Saturn is perfect for her.
Similarly, I'm a Windows geek/MCP. I'm better at installing, configuring and running M$ products, so IIS would be best for an environment I had to design and support.
Others who read this would be far better off (and happier) running *nix, so a non-M$ solution would best meet their needs.
Choose the one you want, then find facts to support your preference... they're out there somewhere.
my main place (Score:2)
How do we know reviews are worthwhile? (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot, of course (Score:3, Funny)
Oops, I can see the -1 Redundant coming (Score:2)
Rule of Thumb (Score:2)
In some ways, those that write for free, the so called vanity writers, are producing better stuff because they'll quite happily produce a ten page review with dozens of images for pretty much anything
RTFM (Score:4, Insightful)
Before I buy any piece of electical equipment or software, I download the manuals first and then compare these.
Advertisements can juggle around with specs and features and make all sorts of claims which they don't need to keep, or atleast can be interpreted to fit the actual lack of features.
Manuals have much less room for this and will typically expose problems with a product, since manuals have to help the user get around these problems. They're also invaluable in determining whether a product will be user-friendly and whether the features claimed do what you need them for.
There's nothing that beats evaluating it yourself, since even manuals don't mention every single fact you might want to know. For instance, one deciding factor when I bought my TV was the speed by which I could change channels (which can vary a lot!); manuals and reviews typically don't mention this, so I tried out the remotes in the store.
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When I was deciding on which music keyboard to buy I downloaded the online manuals and compared them.
I also searched forums and newsgroups for comments on them.
No regrets over my purchase (Casio WK3500 - was good bang for buck).
Some that I use (Score:2)
review aggregator (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to pull in reviews from many different sources.
Find out first if PHB has a preference (Score:2, Interesting)
Depends on the product/need (Score:4, Informative)
For general "gadget" related items, I typically check out The Gadgeteer [the-gadgeteer.com] first, then Google.
For digital cameras, it's Steve's Digicams [steves-digicams.com] all the way, then Google.
For cars, it's AutoTrend [autotrend.com] or Consumer Reports Autos [consumerreports.org], then Google.
For general household stuff, it's Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org], then Google.
And in pretty much every case, I check Google.
Camera stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
or
http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/ [fredmiranda.com]
Reviews (Score:1)
Your boss is giving you a "make work" project... (Score:2)
Your boss is giving you a "make work" project; any (non-government, non-union) IT employee ought to be find such reviews (biased, of course to his/her particular leaning) in about 15 minutes. Is it possible you've done something to cause your boss to no longer trust your judgement?
Here's one method... (Score:2, Insightful)
* get a spreadsheet...
* define what you want. This should become a long list of function points.
* evaluate the importance by weighting the important of each function point (eg. 1 to 10)
* get your stakeholders to review and approve your list if they haven't already when providing the import
Google Groups (Score:2)
Nowadays with blogging as a profession, as that a lot of the postings are rants and opinions of people who have never actually bought or used the item (case in point - PS3 or Wii).
I still search USENET for opinions on products. (Score:2)
Product research 101 (Score:3, Informative)
1. If the product is available on Amazon.com, check out its reviews. Also note that sometimes slightly different/older versions of the same product have more reviews. It takes some time to sift through the sycophants and astroturf but it's a great source.
2. Search for negatives. Try google searches on "*product* sucks" or "*product* problems" and other permutations to find peoples' complaints about a product or its company.
3. Look for refurbs.... if you see a lot of refurbished versions of your product in the marketplace, this is a bad sign usually.
4. eBay... search completed auctions to see what the going value and interest is in the product. Also eBay auctions tend to have the most comprehensive array of specs on these products, often more informative than the manufacturer's web site.
5. Avoid all the large web sites with the bogus reviews and meaningless content. If you search on "*product* reviews" you're guaranteed to get a bunch of shill web sites that are worthless.
Simple... (Score:2)
I just ask Steve. (Score:2)