The polls will be open in a few hours. Until then I'd like to get any last minute feedback I can on the current awards. If you'd like to see a new award or think an option in a current award is missing please let me know ASAP!

Thanks,
--jeremy

The polls are now open - have fun!

--jeremy

Maybe I'm blind but I can't see media player of the year. I seem to recall you saying it would be included (or was I mistaken)?

I'm a developer making good use of Eclipse and love it to bits, is there no where I can vote for it.

Slack 9.1

What about package updater of the year ?
like MandrakeUpdate (well and the suite urpmi...),
Red-Carpet (prefer this one, though still does not work for Mandrake 9.2 !),
you may add tar.gz or tar.bz2 for those who prefer "by hand" management of dependancies...
and there's Yast, ebuild for Gentoo, apt-get for .deb, ...
This one might be funny as it will be quite Distribution oriented/biased

Multimedia App of the Year has been added.

--jeremy

It'd like to see the following categories:

CD Burning
Instant Messanging
File Manager
Integrated Developer's Editor (IDE)

To me, CD burning and IM is too minor and, while there maybe should be an IDE, there's a lot of 'editor' categories, but I'd definitely second a file manager category.

Hmm... CD Burning and IM are quite important for desktop users of Linux most certainly =P

Nah, I didn't mean they weren't important. It's just that cd-burners are more hardware/utilities or multimedia auxilaries - I think they'd usually be lumped in with other utilities. And IMs are kind of auxilary apps - I mean, I understand Netscape, on Windows at least, just has AIM plugged into the browser. Then again, some of the networking/security categories are quite fine-grained - security, crytography, hardening, etc. But file manager is a major class.

-- Actually, I don't much use any of them but I could see an irc client/IM/webphone/yadaya category - that sort of 'net communication that isn't a browser or email' category.

The following categories will most likely be added next year:

IM client
IDE
File Manager

--jeremy

For next year, I would think maybe breaking out the security category a bit. Maybe also naming the categories in names that sorted better. For example:

Security:Applications
Security:Hardening Apps

Desktop:Office Apps
Desktop:Multimedia

Just the over organizer in me...

i'm a free lance statistician...

well, no, i'm not, but...

your results are going to be subject to a shedload of bias! if people have only ever used one app for something and they vote then they'll vote for that! With loads of stuff being bundled with distros (open office in mandrake being a good example) you'll get lower exposure to other packages. therefore for each category i suggest an addition poll (if possible) that asks how many of the packages you have actually used extensively. rather than remove the bias it will show where the bias is and allow people using the results as guidance as to the "best" packages to make a more informed choice.

having said all that if this is just an informal "vote for your fav" type thing then who cares about bias!

i'll get my coat...

This has come up on various other threads containing the actual polls, as well. I don't think people are understanding this. Or at least, not as I do, whether that's right or wrong. My perception is that this is not a scientific study about the best app from a technical standpoint, nor even something that is meant to have global relevance. This is the LQ Member's Choice award. What do LQ posters *like*? Pure and simple; no more, no less.

I really wish there was a category for best Linux/Windows file & print sharing software. Then maybe I could find an alternative to Samba, which I hate and think is the worst software I've ever had the misfortune of using.