Evaluation Policies and Procedures:
1. I must have a free 30 day eval copy at a minimum for the purpose of evaluating and writing a review. Most vendors have been more than generous and provided full single user, not for resale, copies of the software. While it is not necessary, I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for this.
2. The product will be used in a production or simulated production environment in order to evaluate its suitability for real world use.
3. The product will be used to perform daily tasks for a minimum of 3 days. (If it does an outstanding job, this can obviously be shortened. But, I will at least give it this much opportunity.)
4. A copy of the review will be posted to a protected area of the site, the vendor notified, and the vendor will have up to seven business days to respond before it is posted. This is more for common courtesy than anything else. Most vendors have provided full version software and the least I can do is give them an opportunity to respond to anything negative that might appear. If it is a good review, this also gives the opportunity to put together marketing material that might utilize the review. This is also here, because I realize that I might misunderstand a feature, something might be a known bug that will be fixed in the next patch/release, and I might overlook features or not fully take advantage of them. Please direct all responses to the review back to me if there are any concerns. The vendor is also granted the right to use all or part of a review in any marketing material they see fit without any additional compensation to me. I only ask that my name, my company's name, and the web site the review is posted on is mentioned somewhere on the marketing material. I believe this mention is fair and it helps to note that the review is from an independent source not affiliated with the vendor.
5. The product must have no or minimal learning curve. My time just like everyone else's is at a premium. I am always learning new products and new technologies. Yes, I will review new products. But, the review of large, complex products and development tools will take significantly longer than normal. I am essentially looking for tools that enhance and streamline the work that I am doing. I leave the evaluation of things like Visual Basic,   NT, Java development environment, etc. to other people.  I also will not review products that require contact with a sales/marketing representative for the purpose of explaining their use and why I would use them in my environment before I am allowed to review the product.  If I can not determine that on my own, that would obviously violate the no or minimal learning curve rule.  A vendor will be informed if a product they have sent me for eval has been rejected due to time, technology, or other constraints and the software will be returned to the vendor subject to their wishes.
6. Because I work exclusively in a Windows environment, the software must run under this platform.  No Linux or flavors of Unix.
7. For any tools or components that are add-ins for development tools like Visual Basic or Powerbuilder, I may enlist the help of additional people simply because I am trying to minimize my front end development. Since this is the case it is much more difficult to evaluation a tool/component of this type in a production environment.
8. For software/hardware that I purchase or download evals on my own, I reserve the right to simply post reviews without contacting manufacturers.
9. These policies are subject to change at any time, but the same spirit will be maintained through any revisions.