Barefoot Productions

Barefoot Productions
Don Metzler
839 Welsh Court
Louisville, CO 80027
US
+1 303 665 7843
barefoot@POBOX.COM
http://www.barefootinc.com

It started innocently enough - clearing out FTP download directories - and we came across a file containing a program called ZoomLens. Eager to delete the file if the program within was totally worthless (and it is) we unzipped it and tried it. And hurled chunks for the longest time.

This is the kind of product we were talking about when we finally went public in 1997. ZoomLens is bloatware, and nagware, and its author thinks it is worth ten of your hard-earned dollars. (Correct that: its author thinks he can cheat you out of ten of your hard-earned dollars.) ZoomLens offers nothing that our Zoom, which was available for free for over a year, offers, and ZoomLens at 240,640 bytes for such a trivial programming exercise is hellware at its most obnoxious.

Trivial? Yes. Aside from any peripheral functionality, all a 'zoom' does is 'stretch blit' from one area of the screen into its own client area. That's it. Basically a single API call. All the rest is startup code, the message pump, the window procedure, the icon, managing the target rectangle and the zoom factor, watching out for the palette, and the settings dialog and settings retrieval and storage code. If radsoft.net's Zoom were larger than 10KB something would be very wrong indeed.

So you have to wonder: what is Metzler doing in there for 240,640 bytes? It sure looks like he got lost on the turnpike somewhere between Hoboken and Sioux Falls:

ZoomLens does not even work properly, only offers magnification to 16x (our Zoom offers to 32x); ZoomLens does not offer quick navigation (our Zoom lets you use the arrow keys with or without Ctrl and Shift to get places accurately and quickly); it doesn't even have an automatic refresh, meaning you can't ever leave its window and see what's ACTUALLY going on somewhere else; and EVERY TIME you start this coded misery you will be nagged by a registration dialog.

One would hope the author never got paid a red cent - but experience is otherwise. There must be countless unwitting end users out there who have lost their money. ZoomLens is in all aspects a totally disgusting product. It is crapware like this that got us on the net - it's just such a shame that products like this are still out there.

We moved on, surfing to Metzler's site, and realized we'd just touched the tip of a very ominous and extremely ugly iceberg, for Barefoot Productions has a great number of less-than-trivial 'shareware' products out there, and all are just as redundant and pathetic as ZoomLens.

And Barefoot Productions has shown its true colors by committing the ultimate doofus move of all time - donating code to ZDNet so ZD can push it for them. The catch of course is that it has to be for free, it has to be completely new (cannot be an update or revision of any kind), and you have to totally relinquish your copyright on your work and bequeath the code to ZD. Anyone seriously considering giving their blood sweat and tears to the morons at ZD has a hole in their cerebrum, no matter what the calculated profit involved for sleeping with the devil. That and a total lack of professional pride. Metzler has a shameless quota of the one and a sad lack of the other.

But Metzler got over half a million downloads of CookieMaster at ZD, and no doubt made thousands out of the attention the product drew. ZD pushed it, said it's good it's great download it, reminded it was completely free - so why do you suddenly have your credit card at the ready anyway, shoveling out your hard earned cash to the creep Metzler? Nice game, huh?

Here are some key examples of how you can lose your money to Barefoot Productions:

• Want to see your available fonts? Tired of using your Control Panel? For only $10 Barefoot Productions will send you a utility which will at best do the same thing - while sucking up over 300KB on your disk.
• Want something like Sleepy, but sick and bloated and with an outrageous price tag? Then AutoShutdown is for you! And although Sleepy is a GOOD program at 50KB, this MUST be better at 460KB, right?
• Oh, the latest release of the fantastic ZoomLens (still a bargain at $10) is only 118KB! Whoops, that's the ZIP file! LOL! How big was our Zoom again? 9,728 bytes??!??
• How about a phone book app that runs off the system tray? Sound exciting? Well you can do that easily with our tools - you can put ANYTHING on the tray with Cpa, an executable that's only 6,144 bytes. So how does Barefoot go about it? In a superior fashion of course - only 258,560 bytes on disk (our 411 doesn't even come close at 16,384). And best of all - GET THIS - it doesn't allow non-American letters in names.
  
• Hey - how about a binary clock! That's right - a BINARY clock! Barefoot Productions claims 'it's useful for learning the binary system'. Yeah sure! Hey does it cost anything? Sure does - TEN DOLLARS! Hey is it hard to program a binary clock if you really want one? ARE YOU KIDDING? IT DOESN'T TAKE EVEN TEN LINES OF CODE! Hey this must be a small executable then, right? Sure, waddaya expect? ONLY 314KB for the ZIP file! Only 213,504 bytes on disk! And please note - this is about as binary as what you have inside your shoes. In fact, Radsoft's new application Rixtime was written in direct response to this pathetic piece of manure passing as software. Rixtime is freely available at Beverly Hills Software and gives you true binary time plus so much configuration it's almost silly - plus the executable is only 13.5KB on your disk.
  

And believe it or not Metzler is a member of ASP, or so he claims. Which more or less reaffirms our opinion of that organization once and for all.

Programming klutz and professional rip off artist Don Metzler uses C++ and has to be the worst implementer we've ever seen - he's made another cardinal mistake namely - revealing his source code. Where did this guy study? Garbage U.? Whatever - Metzler's programming is horrendous. It wouldn't get him out of Comp. Sci. 101. He'd be spotted immediately and counseled and encouraged to pick another calling ASAP.

But hold on, this story gets worse - Metzler sells clothes with his software logo too. That's right - be the first (and only) idiot on your block with the OFFICIAL Barefoot T-shirt for only $10.99, get a sexy tank top of 100% COTTON for the same price, or go broke and all out and splurge on the fantastic OFFICIAL Barefoot Polo Shirt with the world (in)famous Barefoot Productions logo on the LEFT BREAST for no more than $15.99.

You might ask - can't we put people like Don Metzler in jail? We should be able to, that's for sure. Anyone with a line on how this might be done, please contact us.

PS. Oh, if you read this joker's client list, read it carefully - he makes it sound like Microsoft itself is a client. No such thing. Read it carefully. This is a pathetic shyster of the worst sort. As for his 'most famous' product - TWINKLE BULBS (sic), it costs $15. Get that - you get blinking Xmas lights on your desktop, and you pay FIFTEEN DOLLARS for the shite. Merry Frikkin Christmas.

Are we jealous of this criminal? Or envious? He makes our blood boil. He is making a lot of money we or anyone would like - and he is both incredibly debilitated mentally and at the same time a totally unscrupulous Internet businessman, no better than the despised SPAMMERs - and he is prepared to rip you off without blinking a lash.

This is a reality check - if you visit Metzler's site and deem his products to be valid software, so be it - we can only tell you as true professionals in this business how utterly wrong you are. We encourage you to visit Metzler's site and see for yourselves.

But above all we encourage you to be careful - Metzler might be the worst ever but the creep is not alone. Perhaps as many as 97 downloads out of 100 are going to be rip-offs, so be careful. 'Let the buyer beware.' Caveat Emptor!