Hi, anyone have any real world experience with this software?

[ROBERT W. NEWLAND, JR.]

Originally Posted by belliott

Yeah,I hear the PDF's are real slow on HG.
I would avoid that contest if I was you.

PDFs are PDFs (I hate them!)

You can have pdf or html with HG. No choices with HIP. This year the HG inspector will not have to make the choice either. Just send the link like you normally do and the client, when viewing the report, will have the option button to save as a pdf if desired. The customer will have control on how they would like to view the report.

[bgregory]

I have developed my own system over the years so I have no real input here except to say that even Quickbooks started at only $29.00 and even though this is not a QB it might surprise some. I had run into it on Ebay once and was amazed at how many happy customers he/they had.

That aside, if the pdf issue was the only real negative I would have to take a hard look at that program as there are more pdf converters out there than there are HI programs. In addition, many of the converters are in the public domain and are freeware or really inexpensive utilities. Several will convert a pdf to just about any format you could ever want and many you would not care too like WordPerfect.

I would like to close with the following disclaimer, though I may sound like I'm plugging this program I have no connection, financial or otherwise, to the software company being discussed in this thread.

Bruce Gregory
Florida Home Inspector 1167
Florida Mold Assessor 450
InterNACHI Certified HI# 10120503
http://HomeandBuildingInspectors.com

Age is a state of mind, however not yet a state of mine. bg

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Robert, if you have a problem downloading an awesome looking 1 to 1.5 meg PDF you need a MUCH faster internet connection. Stop trying to get internet with a string and cans. Check out that HTML report on a 24" screen and tell me what it looks like to you.

Any competition would have to include photos. One of the huge time savers with HIP and huge time sinks with other programs is how they handle photos. HG does a good job with photos too.

[Bob Elliott]

One picture from my camera is 4 MB so an entire report at half that is nothing.
As the client in my review said the PDF has great bookmarks and no other program besides HIP does such a good job with making reports almost beautiful to look at with the custom features.
My clients sure do notice even if Robert had to change due to the look of his.

[Jeffrey R. Knight]

Originally Posted by rnewland

I guess that's what Russell does. He's never on here. He doesn't know what he's missing. Or, maybe he does

Exactly !!

[Tim Spargo]

I think this post (and others) are part of the explanation of why we have lost some folks that contribute here:

Of all the responses to this post.. (including mine) did any of them answer the original poster's question? I think a couple touched on it anyways.

Mine is *NO*, I have not had any real world experience with this product.

But... I wear the best shoes and you should wear shoes like mine

[Bob Elliott]

Glad you get it .
There are so many to serious about it all ,eh Tim.

Are you a Democrat or a Republican? So what kind of shoes do you wear anyway ?

[Gary D. Rowden]

As the co-founder, programmer of HomInspect Software Reporting Program I am very pleased and proud of the software product we have produced. Our beliefs are producing a competitive and quality home inspection reporting software at an affordable price. Others may try and trash talk, either out of fear or don’t know what they are talking about.

Take a look on eBay and you will see that we are out selling all other competitor by far and our customer satisfactory is a 100% rating. I have nothing but respect for Home Inspector Pro, Homegauge and other home inspection reporting programs that are a quality product.

www.hominspect.net

[George P. Wells, CMI]

Greg,

This thread only recently came to my attention. It may not be timely for your question but I am compelled to post a response.

I have "real world experience" with Gary Rowden. He outright stole my intellectual property. He slightly reworked and repackaged our stuff and began selling it as his own on eBay. We had him shut down once on eBay after we made a Verified Rights Ownership (VeRO) complaint. Gary went away for a while but came back with a different name.

Not only did Gary steal our software and use it as a basis for "his" software, he also stole my advertising copy and spammed the entire InterNACHI membership with the mailing list that he had gotten and used without InterNACHI’s permission.

I began receiving calls and e-mail from inspectors who thought the e-mails had come from me. I learned of Gary's activities literally within only an hour or so of when he sent his spam. I had a phone call from a friend, and fellow inspector and long-time InterNACHI member, who told me that I had forgotten to put my contact information on an e-mail advertising my software. At first, I thought he was joking with me because I had not sent an e-mail. I had just left an inspection and had not been in my office all afternoon. At my request, the inspector proceeded to read the e-mail to me.
Sure enough, it was basically my description but it had been reworked slightly. I asked the inspector to forward the e-mail to me. He did.

I had been headed home but stopped at my office because it was closer. It was after hours and no one was there. I opened the e-mail that had been forwarded to me. I saw that the original e-mail had come from Gary Rowden. The name sounded familiar but I was not sure why. I called my office manager at home and asked him if he recognized the name. He too recognized the name but could not remember who Gary was. Based on that, I assumed that Gary was a customer so I searched our records. Sure enough, I found that he had purchased our software a while earlier.

My office manager also monitors eBay for me. He had seen inspection software that had a description very similar to mine and told me that he was planning to alert me to it. It was obvious that it was Gary Rowden who had the eBay listing. I attempted to buy the software but Gary had already blocked from buying from him. For me, that’s when the alarm really went off.
I immediately picked up the phone and called Gary. As soon as I introduced myself, he responded with "I expected to hear from you but, not so soon". I responded by something along the lines of "Really Gary, why did you expect to hear from me?" I don’t remember exactly what he said but he danced around the question without answering it directly.

Gary did not have a demo that could be downloaded. A code was required to be able to download the software. When I confronted Gary during that conversation, he tried to bluff me by saying that he had not copied anything from me and he would give me a code to download the software so I could see for myself. I took him up on the offer and he gave me a code. I was typing in the code as he was giving it to me. I told him that I would do as I do in all such cases, and have my lawyer review it. As soon as I said that, Gary became indignant and said he was offended and was cancelling the code. It was too late. I had already downloaded the software.

While Gary was still talking, I opened the software. The first thing I saw staring back at me was my pre-inspection agreement - Verbatim. In his arrogance, he didn't bother to change anything other than to remove my copyright notice. Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy about what I was seeing. He outrageously copied portions of my stuff verbatim! It really matter much whether Gary had given me a code or not. I would have simply had my lawyer buy the software from him anyway.

What Gary didn't know is that I have a long paper trail dating back to the 1990s documenting the development of my software. People who were aware of, and even participated in, the development of my software include a number of highly respected people outside my company. In fact, the pre-inspection agreement was written with the assistance of a lawyer I had hired specifically to help me draft it. I still have the correspondence, in the form of letters, between me and the lawyer in which we discussed the development.

At different times over the years, I have also employed several Microsoft MVPs to assist with the development of specific routines in my software. Again, there is a clear 12-year+ trail that can be followed.

Selling on eBay was one of Gary’s many mistakes. I have been selling on eBay for 12 years. Gary is not the first to think he could use eBay as a sales channel for pirated software. EBay set up the VeRO program for this very reason. I joined VeRo as soon as it came into being, long before Gary began selling on eBay. We handle copyright violations on a case-by-case basis. Most are very routine. Once the violators are caught, they usually just quietly go away.

The biggest of Gary’s MANY mistakes was to ask Nick Gromicko to give away copies software as Daily Door Prizes on this board (I still have a copy of the software Gary was giving away as a door prize on this message board).

At one point, I posted a message on this board but did not mention Gary's name. That was a mistake. Several people thought I was referring to Dominic M. I apologized directly to Dominic about the confusion and posted messages on the board making it clear that I was not talking about Dominic.

Dominic knows that I like and respect him. I have great respect for Dominic, Russ B, Jeff K and most of the guys who are out there working hard to create and publish good inspection software. We are all competitors but we also all treat each other with respect.

On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt for Gary Rowden. Gary is not directly a real threat to me or to any other inspection software publisher. To the contrary, I have heard comments from many inspectors who were duped into buying from Gary. They are the ones who are spreading the word about Gary.

Gary is a disgrace to this industry. I was appalled to see that he is back on this board. I really do not know whether Gary is still stealing from me or he has chosen to steal from others instead.

I know Gary’s true character. I still have the software that he called “IV” inspection software. He knows that he stole it from me. He knows that I can prove that he stole it from me.

What is most offensive to me is that Gary is making a mockery and a travesty of InterNACHI by using this forum to get exposure. I don’t need to convince anyone at InterNACHI of my commitment to this organization. They know, not from my words, but from my actions.

Stealing from me is one thing but to flaunt it by posting his logo here takes it to a whole different level. I will expose Gary. InterNACHI members deserve to know what kind of person Gary really is.

Originally Posted by Greg Fox

http://www.hominspect.net/index.html

Looking for some inspection software and came upon the guys
above. Thanks for your comments if you know about this software package.

P.S. I am strictly looking for comments from inspectors who have real world experience with it.

Greg

[Nick Gromicko]

Gary, with regard to the Comic Sans font used in your website, I refer you to http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/

As for George's post, do you have a response?

[Gary D. Rowden]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Gary, with regard to the Comic Sans font used in your website, I refer you to http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/

As for George's post, do you have a response?

George you need to get over it. You know and I know I never stole from you. I first got into the home inspection industry a few years ago at which point yes I did purchase your software. Upon using your software I realized it was a piece of CRAP, sorry but it is. I used it for 12 reports and felt I had to come up with something better; this is just not going to work. Since I had almost 8 years experience with Microsoft Excel & Word at that time, I created a Word document with VBA from scratch that I used for almost a year and was slowly making improvements and adjustments as I went. I had some local friends that were also inspectors that thought the format and layout design I was using was producing great looking reports and they thought that maybe I should start marketing it. From my experience I knew using a Microsoft Word document would limit feature capability in comparison to Microsoft Excel. So I created the same format into an Excel workbook as my Microsoft Word document version and at which is in no comparison to Georges except they are both in a Microsoft Excel format. The entire coding, layout, formatting is something I vision through my experience and was not stolen from George. He feels totally threaten by me because I have a much better product at a much cheaper cost. As I mentioned before go to both of our websites look at both of our sample reports and features – they are different. I am also willing to release a couple free copies of my software to any unbiased party to review purposes and post comparison. Actually how many active inspectors here on this site are using George’s software to this day, probably little to known? Also you can go on eBay and look at all my reviews of my software – 100% customer rating with great reviews left behind, not the same story George was mentioning previously about my software. Is it a crime to produce a good product at a decent price?

Now the reason I come to this site is to try and help others if possibly with my 35+ years in the construction industry and the knowledge I learned along the way and of course I always enjoy learning new things. While on this message board I have never once tried pushing my software onto other inspectors or even slander other competitor, except now. I feel good in my own skin and I don’t feel I need to lash out at other saying mine is better. The only reason I’m making this statement here is I feel there are two sides to every story and when someone back lashes you for the wrong reason, I will stand up against that. Right is right.

[George P. Wells, CMI]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Gary, with regard to the Comic Sans font used in your website, I refer you to http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/

As for George's post, do you have a response?

Nick,

Get the names of the people who won the Daily Door Prizes. You and I can do a teleconference with them. We can have them open the software and you will see that Gary stole directly from me.

You can verify everything we look at with people whom you have known since before 2008 and who can attest to having seen and used my software before 2008.

I am going to send you some files by e-mail. One will be from the package Gary Rowden bought from me. The other will be from the package Gary Rowden was selling and claiming to be his.

You can contact Len Unger, the Long Island InterNACHI chapter president, Bill Merrell, owner of a school that uses my software, and Gordy Zorn, Las Vegas InterNACHI chapter president. They have all been using my software since before Rowden got into this business. They will attest to the fact that the files I send you have been in my software since before Rowden started in this business.

Bill Merrell, incidentally, was also the keynote speaker at the InterNACHI national convention in either 2005 or 2006.

I have little doubt that Gary Rowden is stealing from someone else now. After we shut him down, he went a way for a while. He is not the sharpest tool in the shed but I would expect that he was at least smart enough to start stealing elsewhere after he realized we are serious about protecting our intellectual property.

[James E. Braun, CMI]

If Rowden did indeed steal from George, then George needs to file a complaint with the Ethics Committee. We should not have a member stealing from another member, causing harm to another member.

[Linas Dapkus]

Originally Posted by jbraun

If Rowden did indeed steal from George, then George needs to file a complaint with the Ethics Committee. We should not have a member stealing from another member, causing harm to another member.

Jimmy,
My Christmas wish is that Santa brings you a new brain that works.

[James E. Braun, CMI]

That post was not directed at George but others. I am sorry it went above your head, Linas. I promise to type slower next time.