Welcome to the Yoda page of Promaxum. Here is where you many find many wise answers to the questions that you ponder. This page answers the most common questions that we have been asked over the years about our service, the universe, and how to grow really great facial hair. I am always willing to personally answer your questions as well – just let me know!
PAD is an acronym for Portable Application Description. It is a system that helps authors provide product descriptions and related information to online sources in a standardized manner, and using a standard database format. This allows webmasters and program librarians to automate their submission processing and listings creation. PAD saves time for both authors and webmasters.
You can download the current release of PADManager (a free utility used to create PAD files). Also, an extensive FAQ about PAD itself can be found at http://www.padspec.org/padfaq.php
Before editing a PAD file you should check that you have the most recent version of PADManager. Use the "Check for updates" function from the main menu and download an update if needed.
IMPORTANT! Do not create a PAD file by copying a PAD of another product. PAD files contain unique identifiers. PADManager creates a set of identifiers when you click the "Create" button. To create a copy of another PAD with a new set of identifiers, use the "Clone" button.
Thanks to the constantly growing number of contributors, our database grows daily. On the moment this document was last updated, there were 508 sites in our list. 331 of them accept shareware and freeware programs of any kind. Others accept products of certain genre only ( Audio, Graphics, Games, PDA etc. ) Our submitters will submit your product to all common archives first and then to specialized sites your product fits.
The sites chosen include the most popular and successful sites available. These include such popular sites as Files32, FileBasket, Simtel, SnapFiles, SharewareJunction, and Tucows, just to name a few. Unlike other services that blindly submit to each and every site, we carefully select our target sites by evaluating important aspects like link popularity, promotional opportunities, and product visibility. Doing this helps us insure that the sites your products are listed on will have the highest chances for success. Please note that the some sites now charge a fee for a listing, and we can include those sites in our service; however, their submission fees are not included in our basic service fees and must be ordered as additional surcharged options via our Marketing Services and Additional Submission Services.
The application must be a Windows (including Games), Linux, Macintosh, Wireless and Handheld applications that have a trial download. The license type does not matter, so you can be a shareware, freeware, trial, GPL, OpenSource, demo etc.. For a seal of quality we will only look at Windows applications.
After we complete our submission process, we will collect the URL's to your products from all the sites we submit to. We will then provide you with a report (via email) containing that list so you can see exactly where your products are located.
Products are normally accepted without any question, but acceptance cannot be guaranteed for all products on all sites. We will do our best to get your products listed on all sites we submit to, but the owners of the sites make the final decisions on whether or not they will accept a given product. But overall, the majority of sites do accept just about everything, and this is merely an FYI.
After we receive your PAD file, we verify all the information and schedule a start date for you. Typically this process takes no more then 7-10 business days from the day we receive your verified PAD file. We do our best to submit your application as fast as we can.
First submission round takes up to 5 days and you will receive your first report immediately after the first round. Second report and resubmission ( where needed ) will begin 1-2 weeks after the first round. Our third report and resubmission ( where needed ), 30 days after the first round. This process guarantees that all of your information is verified and placed correctly throughout our download partner network.
We always strive to get your products out there as quickly as we possibly can. It takes more than 10 hours to submit your product to all software archives and to track the results of your submission. Our professional submitters will do this work for you manually submitting your products to every site in our database and tracking the results.
Please, order submissions beforehand ( 1-2 weeks ). We have to place your product into our schedule. Resolving issues with your PAD file may take some time also. We understand if you cannot do this due to a bug fix or new release and we will do our best to accommodate you.
A link to a generated and verified PAD file. If you want us to create one for you, just let us know.
We take it all: shareware, freeware, trialware, GPL, OpenSource, demo etc. Again, you must have a trial/evaluation version available for download.
We can host the PAD file for you on our servers, or you can store it on yours. The benefit in allowing us to store it for you is that we can make changes to the PAD file on your behalf much faster, which helps to ensure that our target submission sites have access to the most up-to-date information.
Great! We have quite a few images for you to choose from. Click here to view them.
These packages are very similar; the Software Rover package does not include our Submit Fire service and the Seal of Quality Review.
Yes! We will give you the login information so that you can purchase promotions if you wish to. All passwords are stored in our database. We do CD-ROM backups on regular basis as well. You can request the list of your accounts whenever you need it.
You will receive 4 reports during a submission cycle. To make a report our submitters manually check a version of your product listed on each site from the list. In each report you will see the list of sites where your product was submitted and the list of sites that listed your product.
Yes, we will do this for you as long as the site accepts PAD submissions.
Yes if you choose to manage the titles on your own we will give you all information but you may need to contact the software sites directly and have them change management information. We hate to see you go, but if you decide not to use our services any longer, we'd appreciate any feedback you can provide so that we can improve our services.
We will do one update during the first month for your software if you are using our standard package. We highly recommend the Seal of Quality package to have your product reviewed so that you can avoid this problem before submission.
From our experience it is a good idea to submit a new version every 2 months. We do not recommend to submit new versions more often than once a month. Yes, it will increase your downloads because your product will occupy first positions on those archives where products are sorted by date of last update but this can be considered as spam and you will be banned by most important and high-traffic archives.
We will give you an overall opinion of your software, including pointers and advice on things you might want to do before we submit you to the various sites. If your product passes our testing, your product will be rewarded with the Seal of Quality
There are many different items taken into consideration when looking at applications; some items include interface, organization, and installation just to name a few.
Yes! We will check your product again once you have made the changes we recommended, but we will not re-evaluate your software. For a re-evaluation you will need to purchase the Seal of Quality package again.
There are some great places to give yourself a head start over everyone else. Take a look at our resources page for more information.
Due to the volumes of software we receive, typically 3-4 business days. If you are in a hurry, we do have an express service that will guarantee we review your application within 1 business day.
Our submitters will ask you to specify your common login and password you are using to create accounts on software archives. They will use this info to create new accounts for you and they will try these login and password if an account is already exists. If you common login info won't fit, submitters will try to request your login info on the server. If it's not possible, submitters will ask you to search the login info in your records. A new account will be created only if the old account info was lost.
Please, do not release new versions during the submission cycle. During the submission cycle you will receive confirmation and other messages from software archives. You should forward these messages to our submitters. After submission cycle you will receive a huge amount of spam to addresses specified in your PAD files. We recommend to specify the same address in all e-mail PAD fields and make automatic forwarding from this address to our submitters.
If you would like me to submit an update for your application, all you need to do is purchase another Software Rover package. We will already have your PAD file on record, so submission time should be faster. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. We will respond to your questions just as quickly as possible.
If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. We will respond to your questions just as quickly as possible.
