GenSoftReviews Site Launched

This looks like a winner. A new site will provide genealogy software reviews.

The following announcement was written by Louis Kessler (bio is at the end of the announcement):

All the genealogy software, reviewed and rated by you.

Winnipeg, Manitoba -- September 24, 2008 -- Now there's a website that allows  users of genealogy software to rate and review the programs they've used or tried. This will allow others who are looking for programs to better compare and select software that will help them.

The site is located at:  www.gensoftreviews.com

The site is starting with 355 programs ready for review. You can select between Windows, Mac, Unix, handheld and online programs. Types include full-featured, GEDCOM utilities, website builders and other programs useful for genealogy.

The site collects ratings in five categories: Whether you enjoy using it, if you use it often, if it has easy input, useful output, and an overall rating. Then you can write a short review and list the program's biggest pro and biggest con.

It is built using WordPress, allows quick and easy searching for a particular program, and provides an RSS feed for all reviews, as well as a feed for each program.

"I created my "Louis Kessler's Genealogy Software Links" page for my website in 1997 and that page has been a popular genealogy web resource with over 400,000 hits through the years. But I've always wanted to have more than just a list of programs. The new Genealogy Software Reviews site allows interactive user input and should be a more useful resource for everyone."

The Genealogy Software Review site is free to use and does not require registration.

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About Louis Kessler

Louis Kessler has been a genealogist and programmer for over 30 years. He has published newspaper articles on genealogy, given presentations on genealogy, and is Past President of a regional Heritage Center. He is the developer of the genealogy program known as Behold that can be found at www.beholdgenealogy.com.

Comments

[KathyJN]

I get a blank page when trying to go to the site. Perhaps it has crashed? It always seems to be the case when a new site is announced on your blog, that it goes down with all the newly-generated traffic. It's a testament to how many people read your blog, Dick. ;-)

[Louis Kessler]

I apologise for the blank page. I wish Dick's page did bring in the traffic to crash my site. But unfortunately, there were a few things that worked fine on my development machine that didn't work once on the website.

And I was working feverishly for about six hours to get those fixed ASAP since I knew Dick was sending me traffic.

But everything should be corrected now, and I think you'll really like the nice search page I created which is much better than the blank page that it was. So if you couldn't get your review in when you first tried, please try again and if you encounter problems, please let me know.

Hopefully this site will be able to provide a useful service to the genealogical community for a long time.

[theKiwi]

I was intrigued to find SparrowHawk on the list of Macintosh software - it goes back to 1996!!! I was also amazed to find that the page linked to still existed, dated 1996.

I was an early SparrowHawk user, using it about as soon as AOL allowed Macintosh using AOL members to have web sites to put my wife's and my genealogy online. Some of those pages are still there since early on they were indexed by Google, and I modified them to point to my own domain once I got that up and running in 2000. Here's my great great great grandfather's page in SparrowHawk

http://members.aol.com/rogerkiwi/Genealogy/Moffat/RogerAncestor/D0008/I5.html

and here is the same person on my TNG site

http://roger.lisaandroger.com/getperson.php?personID=I16&tree=Roger

My how far we've come in a few years :-))

Roger

[Dae Powell]

I like it. I trust Louis Kessler will add further improvements as the site evolves. Nice effort!

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Frieda lazlo]

And there she is! The trusty Happy Day link spammer.
What would EOGN be without his constant link spam?

[Linda Enz]

Loved this site. Was easy to compare all the different programs out there. Will definitely check out some of the programs listed