Ok, so I got newsgator last week (http://weblogs.asp.net/ssmith/posts/41415.aspx) and today was the first day since then that I actually rebooted my machine and got the nag prompt to activate it when I started Outlook. So, having become enthralled with the product, I decided what the heck and spent the $29 to buy it. Got my activation key in an email a few minutes later, life was good, I clicked on NewsGator in Outlook and went to find the Activate link.

However, unless I’m blind, there is no Activate link. Sometimes they’ll put it in the About section. Nope. Other vendors think it goes under Help. Nope. I even went into the Help to see if there was Help on Activating. Nope. Ok, fine, I knew it nagged me when Outlook started, so I restarted Outlook.

Voila – nag prompt for the Activation Code. I click ‘Activate’ and it asks for the code. Well, no problem, it’s in an email – let me just… oh – the nag prompt is a modal window and I can’t touch any emails while it’s up. Nice. So I have to cancel again. Find the email again. Copy the key to Notepad. And finally restart Outlook again before I can register the product.

Note to the Newsgator people – if you want people to activate the product, make it a little easier to do so via a menu, rather than relying on your interruption-based nag prompts. Otherwise, though, great product so far.