Wanted this program for such a long time but the price was too steep, even at 30 bucks it’s still a little expensive but this is probably the best deal I will ever get for this software so I’ll take it.
PS: I think this is the 5 license version, if so pretty sweet!
I already got the previous version through Maczot (5-license family pack).
Any chance of offering an upgrade Zot?
I would upgrade my license, but $29 is too much, and I found no upgrade options on their Web site except from a single computer license to a five computer license.
I remember there was a $15 upgrade option a while ago, but can’t find it anymore.
Thanks.
This ZOT was offered a year ago. I commented on it then, here’s a summary of my comments from then and a link to my full comments.
A note before I completely bash the program:
I should be SereneSaver’s ideal customer. I have nature desktops and screensavers and alarms with sounds of water lapping and all that. I have CPU and memory to spare, time to waste setting up and trouble shooting and I’m the type of person who does spend money on applications I don’t need, but do want.
The images are terrible. The sounds are terrible. The movements are slow, choppy and strange. The program eats memory and CPU, more than everything else I run combined. Which is ridiculous. The settings don’t mesh with the mac desktop and screensaver settings. The programming is terrible. There’s almost no documentation and the documentation there is is hard to find and incorrect.
Aside from all that I was horrified at the overall carelessness. No instructions included in the download, available online, but difficult to find and access (I had to allow both scripts and pop-ups from them and go to “contact us” to find the technical support section). The instructions once reached were incorrect in places. “professionally shot†screensavers that have poor image quality (I tried the program on a 15in laptop. Maybe the images look good on a 12 inch screen, but screens are getting larger and larger (laptop and not) and people buy separate really large screens or use their TVs. That their images couldn’t hold up to a 15in screen was pathetic.)
The program cost me more time undoing what it had done than every other program I’ve tried. It shouldn’t have needed admin access, needed to be uninstalled via terminal, shouldn’t have lacked uninstall instructions in the download, and the online instructions should have been correct and highly specific for those users who might not have known how to use terminal.
This is overcharging for a poor product that has terrible support.
And in case anyone is wondering what I meant by incorrect instructions, the instructions tell users to input the password they used to install SereneSaver (i.e. the administrative password). If the administrative password has changed, this obviously won’t work. And even if it hasn’t, the user will most likely be sitting there scratching their heads wondering what password they used to install it. Why SereneSaver can’t use the words administrative password in their uninstall instructions baffles me. After all, the person had to understand what their administrative password was in order to install the package.
At that point, the pictures, sounds and everything sucked, the package didn’t work properly, my other settings were getting messed up, I’d spent forever looking for uninstall instructions and that that was the final straw of annoyance.
BTW, I’ve tried the current version, and while little things have been fixed–like actually having a link to a technical support page, and having some instructions included with the download–the instructions still are pretty bad.
And it has an an uninstall programmed in. Unfortunately, everything else is just as bad. The quality of the images, sounds and movement, the settings and the rest of the programming, just as bad. Only now it’s slightly less annoying.
That’s ridiculously minimal progress for a year. At least there is some progress–there was none between the last two times I tried it. But one man programmers who are working on way more complicated applications, charging less and holding down real jobs–manage to do so much more.
I’ve said this before–I should be serenesaver’s ideal customer. The fact that their basic premise–images–look terrible on my computer is a don’t from the beginning. But even if they had the basics down, there is a limit to the amount of time I’m willing to put into dealing with programs that constantly have to be reset, that mess up other programs, etc, etc.
The deinstallation has been fixed and is now a single click deinstall. That was causing a few people confusion when they saw a terminal window come up. I had to design Serene Saver Pro with an installer and deinstaller because there are so many parts to it. There is a screen saver, two applications, a contextual menu, a support folder, scene files, a desktop playback applications, and other misc. parts to it. The installer does a great job of putting everything in place and the built in automatic deinstaller now does a great job of removing everything with a single click and without requiring a password.
Over the years Serene Saver has been out there (began mid 2005), it hit the #4 top download of *all* downloaded software from Apple’s website (last December), it has been featured on various TV broadcasts and internet broadcasts around the world, we had an absolutely amazing showing at MacWorld last year, it has an install base of thousands upon thousands of customers, it is even going retail in a couple of months. But I’ve learned that software can’t please everyone all of the time. All I can do as a developer is to design software that I would love to use myself. That is what Serene Saver Pro is to me. It is not perfect by any means and there are areas that I will continue to be working on, but I like very much what Serene Saver Pro has become.
Over Serene Saver Pro’s life cycle, I have received literally hundreds of emails about how Serene Saver Pro has actually helped people heal themselves and has helped others relax at work or at home. The whole idea with Serene Saver was to remind people of the beauty of nature and to bring nature back to their workplace. In two cases, Serene Saver Pro has even been used by terminally ill cancer patients to help cope with their illness. When I get emails like this, I can’t begin to express the kind of gratitude I feel. It is amazing to me that software can do this to some. It gives me great joy to hear things like this and for me is an added benefit to my creation.
But again, not everyone will like Serene Saver Pro and that is totally OK with me. That is why there is a 10 day trial. I encourage everyone to try it for themselves and see if it works for them.
Thanks for the thorough developer response, Kevin. Because of the earlier comments I was going to give Serene Saver a pass, but I read your articulate description and was encouraged to give it a try, anyway. What a lovely screen saver — it does not appear to be just a looped video track, so some of the motion is not completely fluid, but aside from that it is wonderful. The sounds are relaxing and the saver screens are beautiful, too. I have not even tried out the extra things it can do (other than screen saving) but I am definitely going to purchase it at the sale price today. I would encourage anyone who thinks they might be interested to try it out while it is at this reduced price.
Thanks for the reply Kevin. I guess the $15 upgrade is now $20.
One more question. Is this the upgrade for the 5-license family pack?
Or is it $20 per user?
I am very happy that I gave this app a try – actually I have to thank MK for that! ;) I’m always very skeptic on one persons opinions, so I need to see and test things my self before I make any decisions.
There’s nothing tweaky to use this software, I even experimentally uninstalled it once to see if that works – and it did, very easily – and sure I installed Serene Saver back again.
There are 40 scenes to choose from, the quality is good for both videos and soundtracks. Videos are subtle enough to use as desktop backround, it’s really nice that there’s not too much irritating movement.
If you have an animated desktop backround it sure consumes more processor power than a static pic! I think this software performs very well on that. And without saying the more pixels are involved the more processoring is also needed. Video quality is very pleasing on my MacBookPro 15″ 2.4Mhz.
If you feel you can’t find the provided themes enough, you can easily use your own movies. There’s an app for that also included; Serene Scene Importer. There’s nothing much to complain if you made the movie your self. ;) I tested also that my self, and it worked like a breeze.
What I’m especially satisfied are the soundtracks. They are very relaxing and keep my focus on the job I’m working with. They are long enough and without any repeating soundpattern to notice.
All in all – I am a very happy customer. The only thing I would like to see is to be able to control also the contrast on videos, in addition to brightness.
Without a hesitation I can recommend Serene Saver to all who haven’t tried it yet. Don’t let one person’s opinion effect on your decision, not even mine. Go test it yourself, the promo price today is very nice.
Thanks for the Developer and MacZot for this promo! A very, very nice app.
Thanks for your comments guys. I really appreciate your feedback.
To answer Eddie’s questions, yes the upgrade went up $5 and it is for whatever package you have purchased: So if you currently have the 5 user license, the upgrade is for that.
Thanks again and to all that have purchased Serene Saver Pro: Enjoy your new purchase.
If there are any other questions or comments, please contact me via the website http://www.serenesaver.biz.
Kevin
“it is even going retail in a couple of months.”
Does this mean if we purchase it now, we have to pay a new upgrade price in a few months when it goes retail. Will there be any upgrade paths for current customers in the future?
November 28th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Wanted this program for such a long time but the price was too steep, even at 30 bucks it’s still a little expensive but this is probably the best deal I will ever get for this software so I’ll take it.
PS: I think this is the 5 license version, if so pretty sweet!
November 28th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I already got the previous version through Maczot (5-license family pack).
Any chance of offering an upgrade Zot?
I would upgrade my license, but $29 is too much, and I found no upgrade options on their Web site except from a single computer license to a five computer license.
I remember there was a $15 upgrade option a while ago, but can’t find it anymore.
Thanks.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:25 am
This ZOT was offered a year ago. I commented on it then, here’s a summary of my comments from then and a link to my full comments.
A note before I completely bash the program:
I should be SereneSaver’s ideal customer. I have nature desktops and screensavers and alarms with sounds of water lapping and all that. I have CPU and memory to spare, time to waste setting up and trouble shooting and I’m the type of person who does spend money on applications I don’t need, but do want.
The images are terrible. The sounds are terrible. The movements are slow, choppy and strange. The program eats memory and CPU, more than everything else I run combined. Which is ridiculous. The settings don’t mesh with the mac desktop and screensaver settings. The programming is terrible. There’s almost no documentation and the documentation there is is hard to find and incorrect.
Aside from all that I was horrified at the overall carelessness. No instructions included in the download, available online, but difficult to find and access (I had to allow both scripts and pop-ups from them and go to “contact us” to find the technical support section). The instructions once reached were incorrect in places. “professionally shot†screensavers that have poor image quality (I tried the program on a 15in laptop. Maybe the images look good on a 12 inch screen, but screens are getting larger and larger (laptop and not) and people buy separate really large screens or use their TVs. That their images couldn’t hold up to a 15in screen was pathetic.)
The program cost me more time undoing what it had done than every other program I’ve tried. It shouldn’t have needed admin access, needed to be uninstalled via terminal, shouldn’t have lacked uninstall instructions in the download, and the online instructions should have been correct and highly specific for those users who might not have known how to use terminal.
This is overcharging for a poor product that has terrible support.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:39 am
The link to my comments (and everyone else’s) from last ZOT around:
http://maczot.com/discuss/?p=601
And in case anyone is wondering what I meant by incorrect instructions, the instructions tell users to input the password they used to install SereneSaver (i.e. the administrative password). If the administrative password has changed, this obviously won’t work. And even if it hasn’t, the user will most likely be sitting there scratching their heads wondering what password they used to install it. Why SereneSaver can’t use the words administrative password in their uninstall instructions baffles me. After all, the person had to understand what their administrative password was in order to install the package.
At that point, the pictures, sounds and everything sucked, the package didn’t work properly, my other settings were getting messed up, I’d spent forever looking for uninstall instructions and that that was the final straw of annoyance.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:16 am
BTW, I’ve tried the current version, and while little things have been fixed–like actually having a link to a technical support page, and having some instructions included with the download–the instructions still are pretty bad.
And it has an an uninstall programmed in. Unfortunately, everything else is just as bad. The quality of the images, sounds and movement, the settings and the rest of the programming, just as bad. Only now it’s slightly less annoying.
That’s ridiculously minimal progress for a year. At least there is some progress–there was none between the last two times I tried it. But one man programmers who are working on way more complicated applications, charging less and holding down real jobs–manage to do so much more.
I’ve said this before–I should be serenesaver’s ideal customer. The fact that their basic premise–images–look terrible on my computer is a don’t from the beginning. But even if they had the basics down, there is a limit to the amount of time I’m willing to put into dealing with programs that constantly have to be reset, that mess up other programs, etc, etc.
November 29th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Hi all. Serene Saver Pro’s developer here.
I wanted to let everyone know that this offer IS for the 5 CPU version of Serene Saver Pro. I didn’t make that clear initially, sorry.
There is an upgrade offer that can be found here too for previous owners: http://store.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6FBBM_LIVE&page=ss2hd_to_sspro_upgrade. I will make that more obvious on the website. Thanks for the feedback.
The deinstallation has been fixed and is now a single click deinstall. That was causing a few people confusion when they saw a terminal window come up. I had to design Serene Saver Pro with an installer and deinstaller because there are so many parts to it. There is a screen saver, two applications, a contextual menu, a support folder, scene files, a desktop playback applications, and other misc. parts to it. The installer does a great job of putting everything in place and the built in automatic deinstaller now does a great job of removing everything with a single click and without requiring a password.
Over the years Serene Saver has been out there (began mid 2005), it hit the #4 top download of *all* downloaded software from Apple’s website (last December), it has been featured on various TV broadcasts and internet broadcasts around the world, we had an absolutely amazing showing at MacWorld last year, it has an install base of thousands upon thousands of customers, it is even going retail in a couple of months. But I’ve learned that software can’t please everyone all of the time. All I can do as a developer is to design software that I would love to use myself. That is what Serene Saver Pro is to me. It is not perfect by any means and there are areas that I will continue to be working on, but I like very much what Serene Saver Pro has become.
Over Serene Saver Pro’s life cycle, I have received literally hundreds of emails about how Serene Saver Pro has actually helped people heal themselves and has helped others relax at work or at home. The whole idea with Serene Saver was to remind people of the beauty of nature and to bring nature back to their workplace. In two cases, Serene Saver Pro has even been used by terminally ill cancer patients to help cope with their illness. When I get emails like this, I can’t begin to express the kind of gratitude I feel. It is amazing to me that software can do this to some. It gives me great joy to hear things like this and for me is an added benefit to my creation.
But again, not everyone will like Serene Saver Pro and that is totally OK with me. That is why there is a 10 day trial. I encourage everyone to try it for themselves and see if it works for them.
Thanks for your feedback.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for the thorough developer response, Kevin. Because of the earlier comments I was going to give Serene Saver a pass, but I read your articulate description and was encouraged to give it a try, anyway. What a lovely screen saver — it does not appear to be just a looped video track, so some of the motion is not completely fluid, but aside from that it is wonderful. The sounds are relaxing and the saver screens are beautiful, too. I have not even tried out the extra things it can do (other than screen saving) but I am definitely going to purchase it at the sale price today. I would encourage anyone who thinks they might be interested to try it out while it is at this reduced price.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Thanks for the reply Kevin. I guess the $15 upgrade is now $20.
One more question. Is this the upgrade for the 5-license family pack?
Or is it $20 per user?
November 30th, 2008 at 4:39 am
This is absolutely a stunning piece of software!
I am very happy that I gave this app a try – actually I have to thank MK for that! ;) I’m always very skeptic on one persons opinions, so I need to see and test things my self before I make any decisions.
There’s nothing tweaky to use this software, I even experimentally uninstalled it once to see if that works – and it did, very easily – and sure I installed Serene Saver back again.
There are 40 scenes to choose from, the quality is good for both videos and soundtracks. Videos are subtle enough to use as desktop backround, it’s really nice that there’s not too much irritating movement.
If you have an animated desktop backround it sure consumes more processor power than a static pic! I think this software performs very well on that. And without saying the more pixels are involved the more processoring is also needed. Video quality is very pleasing on my MacBookPro 15″ 2.4Mhz.
If you feel you can’t find the provided themes enough, you can easily use your own movies. There’s an app for that also included; Serene Scene Importer. There’s nothing much to complain if you made the movie your self. ;) I tested also that my self, and it worked like a breeze.
What I’m especially satisfied are the soundtracks. They are very relaxing and keep my focus on the job I’m working with. They are long enough and without any repeating soundpattern to notice.
All in all – I am a very happy customer. The only thing I would like to see is to be able to control also the contrast on videos, in addition to brightness.
Without a hesitation I can recommend Serene Saver to all who haven’t tried it yet. Don’t let one person’s opinion effect on your decision, not even mine. Go test it yourself, the promo price today is very nice.
Thanks for the Developer and MacZot for this promo! A very, very nice app.
My rating: * * * * * (5/5)
November 30th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Thanks for your comments guys. I really appreciate your feedback.
To answer Eddie’s questions, yes the upgrade went up $5 and it is for whatever package you have purchased: So if you currently have the 5 user license, the upgrade is for that.
Thanks again and to all that have purchased Serene Saver Pro: Enjoy your new purchase.
If there are any other questions or comments, please contact me via the website http://www.serenesaver.biz.
November 30th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Well, it’s jerky on my old MacBook. And left video artifacts all over the screen after leaving screen saver mode.
But that’s okay. This wasn’t a “gotta have” for me.
November 30th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Kevin
“it is even going retail in a couple of months.”
Does this mean if we purchase it now, we have to pay a new upgrade price in a few months when it goes retail. Will there be any upgrade paths for current customers in the future?
November 30th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
There will always be an upgrade path and I usually do not charge for upgrades…