Important note: This is a critical review and not a sales letter or an ad!
 

Format

Cgi Perl- script/PHP- script (delivered as an ASCII-file) plus instruction files (delivered as html-files)

Review

What this script does

Master Survey makes it possible for you to set up your own professional surveys on your web site.

Surveys can give you a good impression of what your visitors and customers think about something. 

You could for instance ask them what they think about your web site or a particular part of it. Or you could use the script to find out which products your visitors would like to buy. Or you could use surveys to let people air their opinions about a certain subject. This will very likely attract some extra visitors to your web site and cause your visitors to like your site more.

A very important use of surveys is to find out what the subscribers to your ezine think about it. If you find out what the readers of your ezine think about it, you're able to change the content of your ezine according to their wishes. Thus you'll get more satisfied readers. And that's not too bad, don't you agree?

These are just a few examples on how you can use surveys. The limit is only your imagination.

Features

Here is, at a glance an overview over some of the features of this script:

• Detailed, step-by-step instruction manual.
• When installing the script you don't need to change the code. Everything is done through your FTP client and your browser.
• Excellent administration panel.
• All part of the surveys can be changed through the administration panel
• You can customize the look of the survey according to exactly your wishes.
• etc.

Ease of set-up

Will Bontrager who's created this script has made it really easy to install it. In order to install it, you just transfer the customized script (you've generated from the forms on Will's download page) to your server via your FTP-client, set the permissions and then open the administration panel in your browser.

If you've installed just a few cgi-scripts, you know that it possibly can't be easier. Most other scripts require you to open the code in your text-editor in order to define several variables. As you can understand, Will has made this much easier for you. No need to change the code. All adjustments are done through your browser.

Ease of using

One of the things I like the most about the scripts Will has written, is that they usually have a very useful administration panel. And this script is no exception. The administration is really good. Practically everything you need to set up and adjust your surveys, is given you in the admin panel.

For example, if you want to set up a new survey, you just fill in a few fields and click a few buttons - and you've got your survey, ready to use. You just need to copy the html-code that Master Survey has generated for you, and paste it into your web editor. Thus you can customize the surveys so that they look exactly like all your other pages, if you want that.

It hardly can't be easier, don't you agree?

And if you want to customize the look of the page, showing you the cumulative results of each survey, you can do that too. You decide whether you want to display "the numbers representing the number of times each answer choice was chosen", "the percentage that each answer choice was chosen compared to the others" or if you want to display both. And you can also customize the color and the maximum length of "the graphical bar representing the number of times each answer choice was chosen" (the quotations are from the instruction manual. The accentuations (bold) are mine).

In other words, I really like the way this scripts works. Everything has been made easy for you to use. Just open your browser, and you're moving.

How well the script works

Master Survey works really, really fine. At least I haven't encountered any problems or found any bugs. 

Another thing I think is very important, is how secure a script is. As cgi-scripts have become really popular, few people realize that they can also be open doors for hackers. A cgi-script may seem to work fine, but actually almost be an invitation for hackers to enter your server and change your web page.

Unfortunately this problem has been aggravated by some very popular scripts. For instance, unfortunately some very popular and free scripts have a real security problem. For example, this has been a problem several cgi-experts have pinpointed in the popular script written by Matt Wright. And the same problem applies to many other scripts.

Will Bontrager, on the other hand, has shown himself to be very well aware of these potential security problems. Thus he has written a complete ebook on the problem and how to prevent it. Will knows what he's talking about here. And it's evident that he tries to prevent any security problems in his scripts. This just makes his scripts even more valuable.

Overall assessment

In my opinion Master Survey is a really good script. And there are several good reason for that. 

First of all, it works well. I've found no bugs in the program, and it does what you want it to do. Besides, it's fast, which is important too. 

Secondly, it's extremely easy to install and set up. 

Thirdly, it's easy to customize everything, due to the excellent administration panel.

All in all, I think this script is a really good investment if you're looking for a way to set up your own surveys on your web site. And compared to some of the other survey scripts on the market today, Master Survey an even better investment.

Price (at the time of this writing)

US $45.00

About William Bontrager

Who is William Bontrager? Click here for the answer!
 
 

Buying information

Website 

http://www.willmaster.com

Email

http://willmaster.com/contact.shtml

Snail mail

William and Mari Bontrager
RR 1, Box 271-B
Solsberry, IN 47459
USA

Phone

812.935.8269