Aerize Optimizer Questions

[wbailey]

I purchased this program in late June from Crackberry. I tried using it for a few weeks but developed such serious problems with my Blackberry that I deleted it. I contacted your company a number of times via email for technical support, but never once received an email in return. Since you have a forum and seem to be answering questions regarding other programs you've written, I thought I'd try posting a support request here. I'm attaching a copy of one of my emails below, but I have several questions regarding this program:

1. Do you intend to develop this program further? I purchased v. 1.0.2 and the program has not been updated since then.

2. What exactly does this program do? When I bought it originally, I was new to Blackberries. Since then I discovered that RIM has a built-in memory cleaning utility. Interestingly, the interface for your program is exactly the same as RIM's with the exception of one menu item. From what I understand, RIM's program is more for security rather than to actually free up RAM. How exactly is your program different from RIM's?

3. Will this program work with with newer OS versions? When I had issues with it previously, I was using 4.3 but have since switched to 4.5.

I'm leery trying to reinstall this program given the serious issues I had with it and the lack of support. As my email below indicates, removing the program cured the continual resets/crashes and sluggishness I had been experiencing for weeks. It seemed to me that your program was using memory resources but not really adding any value. Since deleting your program I've had no recurrence of the issues I describe below.

Here is one of the emails that describes the issues I was having:

To: service@aerize.com
Date: Jul 14 2008 - 10:41pm

I'm a registered user of the above program. Over the past few weeks,
I've notice sluggishness of my system, especially after running Aerize.
In some cases, I'd have to do a battery pull because it would freeze my
system entirely. I have an 8330 Curve from Alltel, about two months
old. Eventually I began having other issues, however -- the trackball
would be unresponsive or slow. About 10 days ago I began having issues
with my screen turning off after 5 seconds, despite my settings of 30
seconds to turning of the backlight. Getting back into the unit
resulted in it turning off in 5 seconds again. The only fixes for the
trackball issue or the screen were battery pulls.

While the above may seem unrelated or strange, I decided to do an
uninstall of Aerize Optimizer to see if it resolved these issues. To my
surprise, it did. I've been using my Curve for several days now without
any issues at all. The screen stays on as it should, and the trackball
is working fine, and there is no sluggishness with the unit itself --
response time is back to normal. The OS I'm using is 4.3.0.124 if that
helps any.

Are you aware of any issues with your program?

[aerize]

1. We'll be working on a new version which may constitute a substantial rewrite, but will also hopefully work better. This may be a little way off still however.

2. The nitty-gritty is that Optimizer has the OS to clean up periodically. The interface you see is the one providede by the OS; Optimizer just does it automatically in the background on its own.

3. Probably. It's worked for us, but RIM tends to update the OS in noncompatible ways.

4. We have seen this happen on one device (a Curve as well, actually). The next release will work in a different way to solve this. For the moment I'd say if you're not experiencing low memory manager warnings, you may not be in need of Optimizer.

Thanks for the message.

[wbailey]

Thanks for your reply. So how far off is a "little way"? Weeks? Months? Will this rewrite be a free upgrade for those who purchased this?

I'm curious about your statement in #2, however. From what I understand, the built-in memory cleaner does not free up memory at all. All it does is to clear out sensitive information from particular protected databases (e.g., address book cache or temporary key store). If your program uses the same interface and runs the built-in cleaner automatically, how does it actually do what you say it will, which is to "optimize memory" and recover memory due to leaks? That's actually why I bought the program to begin with. Though I wasn't running out of memory, what I wanted was something to ensure I didn't run low and have content deleted by the OS. Furthermore, the built-in cleaner actually runs automatically anyway, so if your program just automates the process I'm not sure what purpose that serves? You have to turn on content protection for the memory cleaner to run like that, but it does work. Again though, it doesn't free up memory though -- it is a security feature only to ensure that someone cannot read sensitive information out of your cache in the event your Blackberry is lost or stolen.

I'm a little relieved to hear that my Blackberry isn't the only one that experienced that issue, but am still fuzzy as to exactly what your program will do. I guess I'm upset that I spent $20 for a program that doesn't work on my Curve and doesn't appear to do more than what RIM's program does, and the lack of response to my support requests also was distressing. I should have tested it longer, I guess, but it took a week or so for things to go really haywire. I was just glad I was able to get it deleted without having to wipe my device as my it had really gotten unstable.

[flashbang]

Aerize has alot of work to do yet. I also am a registered user, and have not been happy at all. For $5 maybe I shouldn't be worried.
Whenever I get a SMS message, it says the sender is "unknown" even though they are in my address book, AND recognized by when I get an email!
I too am probably going to delete the program, and consider it a lesson learned.

[aerize]

It will be a while, as we're focusing on making Alerts stable first. As always, your serial number will work with any version that has the same major release number (so 1.x.x).

It is different and separate from content protection. Optimizer tells the OS to clean up programs' unused objects and memory.

Flashbang: we'd be interested in trying to solve your problem with Alerts. Can you e-mail us information about which types of contacts fail to look up properly to service@aerize.com?

[samiam0917]

My trial period is up for this software and when I went to uninstall it, I learned that there is no "delete" option for this program under the Applications or Modules menus. How do you delete it?

[aerize]

Originally Posted by samiam0917

My trial period is up for this software and when I went to uninstall it, I learned that there is no "delete" option for this program under the Applications or Modules menus. How do you delete it?

You can also use the BlackBerry desktop manager to uninstall. If the option to delete is missing or greyed out, please try doing a battery pull reset. This seems to be an OS bug.

[samiam0917]

Nothing I've tried has worked. No option to delete via the Applications or Modules menu, application is grayed out on Desktop Manager, and 2 battery pulls have not deleted this app. Also, the "trial expired" message shows up on every reset asking for a serial number but giving me no way to remove the program.

All obvious avenues exhausted, I tried to reload the app hoping I would be prompted to delete the existing app. I was able to reload the app and -- surprise! -- doing so reset the trial period. It also COMPLETELY wiped my device! It was as if I'd just brought home from the store. I've spent the better part of my evening reloading backups and reinstalling all of my other apps.

This outcome is unacceptable! I have never had anything like this happen with any other app I've installed and, given the limited usefulness I experienced w/this app during the trial period, it was DEFINITELY not worth it. The good news, if there is any, is that I was finally able to delete Aerize Optimizer from my device...because it was deleted during the wipe. The bad news is obvious. Perhaps this app works well for others or doesn't cause problems if you purchase it. Given my problems with it, however, I could never recommend it to anyone.

[aerize]

We're very sorry for the problems. This is certainly not by design. If this happens to anyone else, one thing you can try before doing a wipe is to re-install the program over the current version and then try deleting it. For whatever reason this often does the trick.

[samiam0917]

Aerize Service,

I appreciate your interest in addressing this problem. If you had read my previous posting carefully, however, you would see that I did not do the wipe voluntarily. Instead, I actually did what you suggested in your last post, i.e., re-installed the app to try and delete it and THAT is what caused the wipe of my device.

[PRICE31]

So what does this optimizer do exactly? Nothing is convincing me of purchasing this apps

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[vndlewis]

I know people say memory cleaner does not restore memory. That is not true. I do a lot of cut and pasting. All that is saved to my clipboard. I need to run my memory cleaner often. It truely will increase my memory.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[aerize]

Optimizer takes over and handles more efficiently some aspects of the system related to memory management. It will be most effective and useful for anyone who is running low on device memory or, like vndlewis, is using applications that instantiate a lot of objects (and thus create a lot of garabage).

[sparksrm1]

I have deleted this program. Never seemed to work right. Caller was always unknown. I have deleted and reinstall, stiil same problem.

[giorgosh]

I downloaded the trial version for my Bold, in order to check how efficient it is so that I proceed to the purchase.. However, i've noticed that when my memory is on normal levels (25-35 mbytes free) and run the program, it sais that it reclaims 2-3 mbytes and by checking memory option it is true.

However, after some time when memory drops to 12-16 mbytes, and I run optimizer, despite it sais that it recalims 2-3 mbytes, memory remains on same levels I immediattely run another 'reclaim', where it sais that it saved around 1 mb but memory still remains on main levels.

What is the point then? I need more memory when it reaches low levels and not when it is OK!