Should be beta

[thewebsitegurus 0]

Im going to be a big dick right now and say that uBot should only cost $50 and have a big "beta" label slapped on it.

 

This program has AMAZING potential, but I feel like Im spending most of my time finding creative ways to work around its limitations. If uBot was cheaper I would just deal with it, but considering that I paid $200 Im starting to get extremely frustrated.

[Kreatus (Ubot Ninja) 422]

I feel the same thing. I am always bumped into some errors while creating bots and its hard to track its error.

[Lord Brar 107]

HI -- I appreciate your opinion but it is kinda harsh and unfair to blast us without giving any constructive criticism for how we can improve ourselves. Also, I can assure you that we are very proactive behind the scenes when it comes to bugs and fixing them. Our history of updates should show that.

 

We are reaching over 400 customers and I talk to a LOT of customers every single day - who are very satisfied with UBot Studio and are happy that they are not paying hundreds of dollars in SENuke subscriptions every month and having to hire to programmers for every single thing they want created.

 

At the same time I totally understand why you may be frustrated. But you have to realize that UBot is not your "run of the mill" software and has a VERY complex engine behind it.

 

It has taken Seth over 2 Years to develop and with a project of this complexity -- and the fact that there are infinite configurations of computers it is being used for -- it is humanly not possible to ensure that it will work perfectly on every system. But we try to fix thing quickly.

 

So I'd appreciate if you could point out the exact bugs so that we can work with you to fix them.

[Seth Turin 223]

as the lead developer of ubot, I just want to jump in here to bridge some understanding. there are a number of macro programs that will automate windows programs for you. writing a macro program is easy, because windows programs tend to be built the same way, and tend to work the same way, and tend to respond to the same sorts of commands. I set out a couple years ago to create a bot that could universally work on any site on the web, with the same ease of use of any windows macro program. The problem with this is that any 12 years can write a website in notepad and throw it up on the web and call it finished (see myyearbook.com). this means that there are few real standards that all sites follow.

 

additionally, websites have now had a number of years to learn how to fight spammers, and one of the best ways that they've learned how to do it is to write html and javascript that confuses bots. this doesn't mean that you can't bot them of course, it just means that you're going to run into quirks, errors, and "bugs". it's just part of the game. learning how to deal with those kinds of quirks is what I call the hard work of botting. in my opinion, it's also what makes botting a fun and engaging sport - a game of cat and mouse between the websites' ever growing security and the determination of the internet marketer.

 

I realize that we do, from time to time, have legitimate bugs. there have been some bumpy updates. there have been updates that work for 95% of users but will mess up on certain configurations, and other issues that will affect everyone at some point. this is true of any software that you will ever purchase, but I will repeat brar in stating that we are very proud of our history of updates and bug fixes, and also for our project list of additions that we still intend to make (available at http://ubotstudio.com/bugnet/).

 

Lastly, I want to point out that charging $50 for this product really doesn't make a whole lot of sense in light of the countless customers who come to me telling me about how they made back their money in a day. this isn't promo bs I'm spewing here either. The reason people keep buying ubot is because it makes them money back, or at the very least, saves them a lot of time. I understand the frustration that it might not work with every site without some hard work, and that, yes, there may be an occasional bug that needs fixing, but when you buy a product for $250 (or $200 with the coupon) that people are using to make back thousands, it's difficult to make the case that we should charge 1/5 of the price that we're asking for it.

[greencat 18]

it's just part of the game. learning how to deal with those kinds of quirks is what I call the hard work of botting. in my opinion, it's also what makes botting a fun and engaging sport - a game of cat and mouse between the websites' ever growing security and the determination of the internet marketer.

 

This bit totally rings true for me. Seth et al have turned botting from an often frustrating exercise into mostly fun.

 

Ubot does have its quirks and could definitely do with fuller written documentation - with examples. The video tutorials are excellent though. It also helps if you have a good understanding of HTML and javascript. And perhaps it's deceptively simple - there is definitely a learning curve and you'll get the best out of it if you think like a programmer already.

 

I think it's unfair to call it Beta though (even if some of the error messages are fairly incomprehensible) but perhaps it's not quite as polished as version 3 of software usually is. But the Ubot team are very responsive and helpful so I have high hopes for the next version.

 

It is certainly possible to make your money back pretty quickly (I've already had two commissions this week which will largely cover its cost).

[thewebsitegurus 0]

I feel the same thing. I am always bumped into some errors while creating bots and its hard to track its error.

This is probably the WORST problem with uBot: the error messages are of very little help in most cases to the user.

 

HI -- I appreciate your opinion but it is kinda harsh and unfair to blast us without giving any constructive criticism

I have been actively posting in the support and bug forums. Now if this was my first post, I would have to agree with you. All of the issues that I have had with ubot can be found in other threads.

 

...who are very satisfied with UBot Studio and are happy that they are not paying hundreds of dollars in SENuke subscriptions every month

I completely agree that being able to create your own bot that you own for life is better than paying for SENuke. However, theres no denying that SENuke just plain works. I would argue that being able to mimic SENuke perfectly with ubot is near impossible (within reasonable amount of coding time for the average user) at this point. uBot lacks some very basic functions to achieve this, even something as simple as just "remove from list". Now Im sure others will argue this point, and thats fine, but the key is "reasonable amount of time".

 

I think it's unfair to call it Beta though (even if some of the error messages are fairly incomprehensible)

Im sorry, but I believe this is the very reason why something would be called "beta". If the user consistently gets completely incomprehensible error messages...beta.

 

it's just part of the game. learning how to deal with those kinds of quirks is what I call the hard work of botting. in my opinion

I would have to disagree. I believe that the "hard work in botting" should be finding out how to get around a websites spam protection, not figuring out how to get around ubots function failure and finding out how to mimic the desired action in 10 additional steps. I mean why have a function called "send keys chosen" if its going to shoot out something like "uuuuuuuussssssssssseeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr"?

 

Has anyone here used winautomation? I just started using it and its blowing my mind. All I can say is that everything just simply works. Maybe it will start getting buggy as well the more I use it, but so far its been incredibly stable and consistent. Sure its more money, but I'd be willing to give Seth another $200 just to have uBot stop crashing and shooting off random errors.

 

Ubot does have its quirks and could definitely do with fuller written documentation - with examples.

This is a HUGE issue. At the bare minimum of what I would expect from software that I purchase is to have a handbook that is up to date with the latest version. In the comando guide there is lots of missing information.

 

My main point is that uBot is incredibly easy to use, but one will spend most of their time trying to troubleshoot some amazing bot that they have created only to find out many hours later that the problem isn't with their bot but some bug in ubot.

 

Again, let me state that I mean no disrespect, but I just want to express my frustration. I am glad that some one like Seth is actively trying to make an automation program that stands out from the rest. Now having said that, as a customer these are just my thoughts.

[some_guy 11]

I'll stick my 2pennies in...

 

Should uBot be $50 and beta?

Quite simply no. The software is pretty stable and capable. It is a business so there must be a profit margin to keep the guys working at it. Otherwise they would just sack it off before it can reach it's full potential.

 

Is Ubot good enough for a proper release and $200 tag?

Yes, I think so. Otherwise it would never be released

 

Should there be more documentation?

Yes.

 

Are there bugs?

Yes, as with all software there are, will be bugs.

 

Are the error messages cryptic and rubbish?

Yes, but the program must be obfuscated otherwise could just decompile it and have it for free, just the way .net software has to be distributed.

[Pete 121]

Myself I don't believe this should be beta any more then bills windows operating system

But marketing this to non programmers without a step by step guide to each function will lead to complaints like this until there is more details about all the function in the forum, And as always with software it’s a tech guy that writes the manuals and makes the videos (Sorry Seth) Now that’s great for programmers but not so good for the rest, Its like Seth giving me the keys to his Bugatti and saying have fun see you next week that the go pedal and that’s the stop pedal oh and that big round thing help in corners

[hannahmcintyre 2]

Myself I don't believe this should be beta any more then bills windows operating system

But marketing this to non programmers without a step by step guide to each function will lead to complaints like this until there is more details about all the function in the forum, And as always with software it’s a tech guy that writes the manuals and makes the videos (Sorry Seth) Now that’s great for programmers but not so good for the rest, Its like Seth giving me the keys to his Bugatti and saying have fun see you next week that the go pedal and that’s the stop pedal oh and that big round thing help in corners

I'm not a programmer. Hell, I can barely get by in CSS, literally all I know is HTML. I know absolutely nothing about any programming language.

 

The videos were perfectly fine, I understood exactly what was going on and as someone who cannot program anything, I don't think they could have made it much easier to use.

 

Most things that are usefull will have a learning curve. I didn't come in expecting to have my hand held. I spent 2 days playing with Ubot, making random silly bots and figuring out the functions. From there I've made the bots I want and need to make with very little trouble. I had no problem paying the $150, I think it's more than paid for itself, and saying this program should be in beta is ridiculous, quite frankly.

[thewebsitegurus 0]

The videos were perfectly fine, I understood exactly what was going on and as someone who cannot program anything, I don't think they could have made it much easier to use.

 

Each video is around 30 mins long... There are about 12 videos now? Whether the videos are helpful or not is not the issue, the issue is documentation. If some one needed to understand the param function, the documentation will not help. So they would need to sit through one or more 30 min videos just to understand that one simple function.

 

I'm not a programmer. Hell, I can barely get by in CSS, literally all I know is HTML. I know absolutely nothing about any programming language.

If this is true, then I doubt you are working on anything as complex as a 40 website social bookmarking bot as I currently am. I can tell you that there is nothing more frustrating then trying to troubleshoot why your bot crashes on the 39th website without any error messages whatsoever.

 

uBot is AMAZING for very simple tasks, but when it comes to complex tasks like list management and ajax site navigation, you will start to think you have been banished to hell! lol

[DaFella 0]

That's what happens when you promote something 'no programming skills needed'=people who are wannabes.

 

Now, this is the greatest peace of software I've come around in a looooooong time. My background is VB in particular writing firmware for real machine robots . And I love software who lets me put simple things in some kind of order. Ubot is the 'Keep It Simple Stupid' example which is the foundation of any type of designing.

 

When you work with software development that's what happens, everyday you have to deal with some kind of problem/issue. And for us who love doing it, that's what makes our work sweet and gives us lots of pleasure and sleepless nights.

 

Lord Brar and the whole UbotDev - CONGRATULATIONS on developing a tool that does more then what is says.

 

Thank you all

[nayr 0]

That's what happens when you promote something 'no programming skills needed'=people who are wannabes.

 

Now, this is the greatest peace of software I've come around in a looooooong time. My background is VB in particular writing firmware for real machine robots . And I love software who lets me put simple things in some kind of order. Ubot is the 'Keep It Simple Stupid' example which is the foundation of any type of designing.

 

None of that really makes any sense. Besides your missing the point entirely. The software is definitely buggy. I, like the op, have spent countless hours simply trying to find a way around an issue (not because I can't figure out why a certain site won't let me register etc.) , but simply because Ubot isn't functioning the way it should.

 

I can't count the number of times Ubot has simply stopped working (won't run a simple nav command etc.) and I have to restart my entire computer for it to run again. Why does a send keys command send 17 of the same key? Why does a click command not actually click ? Why does a wait finish command not actually wait finish?

 

It's when you start to get to some of the more complex bots (fail safes, tens of subs, etc.) that Ubot really starts to show it's flaws. These are the things that need to be fixed before Ubot can really open up some doors for automation.

 

Stop attacking the OP and read a bit more thoroughly. He isn't bashing the software he's giving constructive criticism as a cusomter of the product.

[nayr 0]

uBot is AMAZING for very simple tasks, but when it comes to complex tasks like list management and ajax site navigation, you will start to think you have been banished to hell! lol

 

THIS!

[Lair 0]

Hot topic !

 

I spent the last days building simple bots. As a java programmer it was quick. I just wondered why my bots would spew errors seemingly randomly for pages which source code is exactly the same : Am I "doin' it wrong" or is ubot still a little buggy ?

 

Guess I have a better idea now :-)

 

Now, I'm not going to bash ubot because the software is awesome and saves a lot of time. Anyone who ever coded web bots "by hand" knows that their maintenance is very time consuming.

 

However, I'd really like the ubot team to resist "featuritis" and focus on stabilizing the software now. It's one thing to workaround ubot's limitations, but it's a whole another to have the bot stop in the middle of a script which worked just fine 30 secs ago. It completely defeats the whole purpose of automation !

I don't give a crap if the next cool command isn't in as long as my bots are 100% predictable.

 

Keep up the good work guys.

[turbolapp 5]

I agree with everyone in this thread. Is that even possible? Whatever, I think you are all right. This is utterly amazing software. I LOVE my ubot and play with it everyday (wait that didn't sound right) I think at last count I have made something like 40 bots, some of them pretty damn complex. However, I'm almost as equally frustrated everyday too. Why? well, many times, I get through 98% of my bot only to find that something can't be done, frames, flash, send keys going wwwwwwwwwwtttttttttttffffffffffff. Plus, I NEVER know if it's ubot, me or just something that can't be done period. And that's frustrating. So what good is having a bot that I was able to do 98 % the job done on the site on to not be able to complete it? Not much.

 

Again, I'm not saying this is Seth/Ubot's problem. It could very well be my lack of skills ( that have grown in leaps and bounds since I first started.) But I think frustrations would be less if there were alot more answers out there, whether it be in the forums or documentation.

[thewebsitegurus 0]

but it's a whole another to have the bot stop in the middle of a script which worked just fine 30 secs ago. It completely defeats the whole purpose of automation !

This is a huge problem. It is very common to have a bot that has been working perfectly so far just stop working for no reason. I have spent hours trying to trouble shoot a bot just to find that restarting ubot fixes everything. This was a HUGE time waster until I got in the habit of simply restarting ubot every time I ran into an issue. I think this statement should be at the top of the ubot manual : "If at any time you can't figure out why your bot isn't working as you planned, restart ubot and functionality may return".

 

Plus, I NEVER know if it's ubot, me or just something that can't be done period.

Anyone who can't relate with this statement hasn't made enough bots yet! lol

 

many times, I get through 98% of my bot only to find that something can't be done, frames, flash, send keys going wwwwwwwwwwtttttttttttffffffffffff

You hit the nail on the head... its always the last details that ubot chokes on. I've been working on a social bookmarking bot for the better part of a week. I still cant figure out why some times it shoots off errors and other times it runs flawlessly. I cant wrap this bot up for the life of me!

 

I don't give a crap if the next cool command isn't in as long as my bots are 100% predictable.

Absolutely. Lack of stability is uBots greatest weakness. I have a huge list of features I would love to see added to ubot, but at this point I would settle for better error messages, more stable (and attractive) UI, and actually functioning cache and cookie control.

[hannahmcintyre 2]

Each video is around 30 mins long... There are about 12 videos now? Whether the videos are helpful or not is not the issue, the issue is documentation. If some one needed to understand the param function, the documentation will not help. So they would need to sit through one or more 30 min videos just to understand that one simple function.

I'm more than happy to spend 30 minutes watching a video that will show me how to use a function to make a bot that will make me thousands of dollars. I have no problem with it at all.

 

 

If this is true, then I doubt you are working on anything as complex as a 40 website social bookmarking bot as I currently am. I can tell you that there is nothing more frustrating then trying to troubleshoot why your bot crashes on the 39th website without any error messages whatsoever.

 

uBot is AMAZING for very simple tasks, but when it comes to complex tasks like list management and ajax site navigation, you will start to think you have been banished to hell! lol

I've done one with 52 sites so far. It's all about subs, running them one at a time to do the troubleshooting before getting them to all run together in a loop. I know how frustrating the error messages are, but bots will ALWAYS have errors, and I'm more than happy to have paid for this software rather than having to learn to program.

[thewebsitegurus 0]

I know how frustrating the error messages are, but bots will ALWAYS have errors,

Im sorry, but you have clearly missed the entire point of this thread. It's nice that you are trying to defend ubot, but statements like this are of no help.

[webautomationlab 21]

As far as statements which are no help, I think this qualifies,

Im going to be a big dick right now and say that uBot should only cost $50 and have a big "beta" label slapped on it.

[iglow 8]

200$ is perfect for now, when guys are fixing it etc. already this tool is a money saver. u waste loads of money paying for all those small bots that u can make now in no time.

 

when all suggested by community here fixes and tweaks are added and tool gets 100% stabile i wont be suprised if its going to have price of 540$ [yes the xrumer price] for new customers and then ull be very happy u had it before, even though now u have to update once a week. but its good - updates come often so it means guys are making the tool better and better, not just drinking beer all day long

 

the videos are enough to understand coding of preety complex bots, if somebody is too lazy to watch them its his own problem. bettre spend few h watching videos [and making first bots same time!] than learning php for months and have nothing in hands after that.

 

thats my 2 cents.

[Ubot_guy 13]

Hey people this is a very good discussion.

 

I think it would be best if we stop discussing the price of the product and the Beta label.

 

The price of any product has more to do with the "Team" keeping it alive and working on the product. I know (as most people here do) that a price of a product (Better yet the income generated) is the basis for its' continued development. Lets face it everybody needs to eat. If you do the math (400 units sold X $200 avg price) that is about $80,000. After having been in the software development field for over 25 years, I can see that is NOT a huge amount. I don't think we need Seth or any other team member taking time to justify that number. Nor do I think it was the intent of the OP, to suggest that the product/project shouldn't continue.

 

Secondly, Beta means many things to Google it means "Don't bug me about this product" to MS it means "Ready for sale" or "Let's put this in a box, so all of our stupid users will love to buy our next version". Who cares if this should or shouldn't be called beta. Put that issue aside and continue to chew on the real meaty issues.

 

The maturation process for Ubot is going to reach a point where it starts to "settle in". Do I agree with the breadth of the language, no. Would I like to see the interface more be more flexible, yes. Would I trade development on both of these fronts for a product that has trapped the errors and properly wrapped the messages so I understand what failed. YES.

 

However, I don't see this as a popular voice. When LB asked for improvement requests (in another thread), I didn't see that anyone had asked for better error messages. So, will better error reporting help sell more product, I doubt it. Will it make the product and community stronger, I think so.

 

IMHO

 

Ubot Guy

[eazyz 0]

200$ is perfect for now, when guys are fixing it etc. already this tool is a money saver. u waste loads of money paying for all those small bots that u can make now in no time.

 

when all suggested by community here fixes and tweaks are added and tool gets 100% stabile i wont be suprised if its going to have price of 540$ [yes the xrumer price] for new customers and then ull be very happy u had it before, even though now u have to update once a week. but its good - updates come often so it means guys are making the tool better and better, not just drinking beer all day long

 

the videos are enough to understand coding of preety complex bots, if somebody is too lazy to watch them its his own problem. bettre spend few h watching videos [and making first bots same time!] than learning php for months and have nothing in hands after that.

 

thats my 2 cents.

 

Completely agree, $200 is a good price. Once you realize the expenses and complications of getting your own bots done through scriptlance or elance, it's 100 times easier, less expensive, and not as complicated doing it yourself with ubot. The few bots I have already built with ubot would have already cost me $1,000+ hiring a programmer, not to mention the headaches of going back to them to get all the bugs fixed, honestly my finished bots with ubot end up having less or no bugs at all compared to the ones I would have gotten from a programmer I hired which would have cost me more than $200 for just one bot.

 

$200 is really way to cheap, ubot alone is worth thousands depending on how many ideas and bots you build with it. Just have to take the time to watch the videos and learn how it functions, once you learn how to do that ubot is a beast, very deadly and the potential to generate thousands and thousands of dollars in the right hands.

[webautomationlab 21]

I think the issue is that there are people for whom UBot will do 90% of what they want to do, and then there are people who want to do a lot of very advanced things, and UBot may only be able to meet their needs half way.

 

For example, I have some very cool bots that work excellently. And yet some of my more ambitious projects are simply beyond the scope of UBot at this time. I tried, and UBot wasn't effective.

 

$200 is a very good price. I remember when UBot 3 came out. The commands and functions have pretty much doubled in about 6 months. And I thought it was a good price when it first arrived. That was before proxies, system constants, editable nodes, pause/stop, UI menu items, autosave, popup window, not, hotkeys, and probably more things I am forgetting about.

[Natureboy 3]

to the o.p....i have a complex bot that goes to many pages as well and one of the things that helped me was to create a bot for each site that i was trying to manipulate...then once i got each bot working properly...i copied the nodes to 1 main bot and at the end of each sub or site... i added "run this script" to link them all...to be fair sometimes i do get random glitches but what i do is restart from the script where the error occured (i know it defeats the purpose of automation but semi automation beats manual anyday)...what im considering is getting winautomation and programming that to reset/restart ubot when one of those wierd errors pop up...then i will have full automation and dont have to worry about any of ubot short comings...also it sounds like u know programming and maybe that is the problem...u already have an opinion of how u want the software to work from previous languages/software...i dont know jack shit so im open to whatever ubot gives me...if i find a way to improve it...then fine...if not...i just deal with the work around...also what i find to be of utmost importance is the use of delays...sometimes the bot goes so fast...the page hasnt caught up with the commands...sorry for the long winded post but i just wanted to chime in...as far as price and a beta tag...Im a lil biased...I spoke with Seth personally and he is constantly working on various projects and bugs in regards to ubot so i think he deserves his money and since he thought up this wonderful software he can call it whatever he wants...Alpha, Beta, Omega, Brian, Larry , George!!!