Major-league problems occurred after I installed DeskPort yesterday. My computer, running Windows 2000 and normally ultra-stable, froze and would not even respond to Ctrl-Alt-Del. I unplugged the computer and then it would not restart, with an indication that the boot block files were damaged. Now I only am able to boot up from the Win2K installer disk.

The DeskPort button at lower right is 4x the width of any other icon there, so requires 4x the screen real estate.

I hope DeskPort is un-installable. It's a very sad development.

Obviously a shill. This gets worse and worse. Has anyone checked to see if this program is uploading data it shouldn't be?

QL

Agree with the 'awful' sentiment. Screen is too small, ui is cluttered, and the Deskport app as a whole is very unconfigurable.

I can understand Mike's decision to "cash in', but I'll mourn the loss of a nice program.

Me too

MileTracker would be the perfect program for Randy to co-brand with FlyerTalk.

It's cluttered. It isn't sizeable. I hate applications that load at startup (going to disable that for sure) because it slows my startup.

MileTracker was my favorite.

I don't blame Mike for trying to package this differently, and a free product is a free product so I'm not criticizing him at all. Just less useful to me.

The September, 2003 cover story of Inside Flyer was on the best mileage managers. Time to consult that piece for an alternative.
Is it time to look into Yodlee, or time to pay Randy?

Miletracker is a great program, but only on its own. I understand that hte need to maintain a site and upgrades are a big deal and that an association with DeskPort may be a help for Mike. However, as a user of the product I will have to walk away. I guard what goes on my computer very carefully and I have big questions regarding DeskPort. I often find these programs to evolve into monsters in the future - for desktop space, memory, and broadband. They often soon evolved into ugly marketing tools that do not work for me. In addition, these programs often offer links that are no use for me, so why have them on my desktop?

I would gladly pay an anual fee to keep Miletracker going. I will not download DeskPort.

I've installed Deskport and have had no problems with it, except that I don't particularly like, want or need its other features. I've experienced no freezes, crashes or popups. But still, I much preferred the standalone MileTracker and would be happy to pay for it.

This version of MileTracker works just like the old one but looks ugly because of the smaller and nonresizable window.

Let me take the Straussian view, perhaps this was all intentional -- buncle MileTracker into Deskport and make everyone so unhappy that they'll finally be willing to pay for the standalone application.

Well I don't really have a problem with Deskport as I pulled it off startup and have a popup blocker. No crashes or things like that.

However, I prefer it alone, not in a clumsy format as such.

Mike e-mailed me back with this message:
Thank you for your feedback. I've been away from my computer a bunch due to the holiday weekend, but I promise that I'll get back to you shortly.
Thanks,
Mike

Hopefully, we hasn't entered into any legal agreement with Deskport that would preclude MileTracker as standalone and is willing to reconsider...

When in the last update the ugly unsizeable screen on top appeared with promotional garbage, I deinstalled the Tracker, rein stalled the old version and constantly refused to upfdate, but eventually it would not work. So now I have a downloaded DeskPort which I haven't tried installing yet -- and won't, after the criticism it received here, and the MileTracker which only functions in that ugly version with the top screen, which I will uninstall.

However, I find the OBLIGATION to upgrade or have the programme stop functioning quite irritable. Buy-or-trash with test programmes is a fairer principle.

Even Microsoft does not force you to upgrade. It does many upgrades authomatically, but you CAN disable that and still have a functioning -- if outdated -- programme.

Anyway... I guess it'll be points.com for some time then. Do they keep the info ON-LINE, though?

The advantage with Mile Tracker was that it (purported to have) saved the data on the users computer.

My take is that the airline, hotel, etc. websites that MileTracker checks keep changing bits of text here and there, so Mike was forced into making updates just to keep MT working. I don't think he made updates just for the fun of it, he did it because he had to. Along the way he also introduced enhancements to the program, of course, but IMHO the reason for the updates was to keep the darn program working. I'm sure that became pretty boring after awhile.

MT was free for the several years it was available. Some of us donated but not enough to keep it going. Mike has done his best to find another program to hang MT onto...unfortunately, that program stinks, but what else could he do?

I really appreciate all the effort that Mike put into MileTracker (and the late Moonlight Labs fare finder) over the years. He did more than most for the FT community.

Actually we did approach him to make that program a FlyerTalk branded product but somehow lost contact. As for the new application, I'm not sure why Mike is in that mix since i thought that the application developer already had created another application called MilePro which claimed tens of thousands of users. I would have thought it easier to simply 'glue' that application in without adopting Mike's.

There might be something said for the consistency of MileageManager and MaxMiles. They both continue to be the longest running services to manage your miles than anyone. We really don't hear much about Yodlee these days as it seems totally focused on the financial marketplace. I know that Yodlee ended up on Yahoo! as a tech provider of a mileage manager but they told me it was only because of an existing contract for other services, not because it was best of class.

As for a stand alone - we have the former developer of MilesDirect in the office in the next few weeks, I'll ask him what are his thoughts on re-creating a stand alone with the FlyerTalk brand.

Thanks 4 Ur insights, Randy.

Ditto, your efforts are greatly appreciated Randy. Old Mileage
Tracker was just great, clean and simple. Often it was my
bible that would be printed just before a trip, covering all
accounts for a family of four, just incase. Worked great!