Always developing
Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.
Thanks to John Gruber for pointing this out.
I’ve just updated this blog to WordPress 2.1.1, and also updated all my Mint bits and bobs to the latest versions.
When I hit the “Check for Updates” button in the Mint preferences to make sure I got everything, this is what I got…
Well, would you expect anything less from a Jonesy! 🙂
Anyway, if you do notice anything fishy about the new setup, please let me know!
Happy New Year!
Yeah I know, not the most original of titles, but it is timely (almost)!
I’m really looking forward to the coming year, primarily as it’s the make or break period for CaseDetective for FogBugz and anything else my company might produce.
I’ve been away for the Christmas period visiting my family “Down South” but kept an eye on my email and forums. As expected there wasn’t much in the way of support requests for CaseDetective as most people interested in CaseDetective were enjoying Christmas too, but there was a very nice volume license sale just a couple of days before Christmas, which was very nice and timely of itself.
Before releasing CaseDetective I set some sales goals that I hoped to achieve before the end of the year, in the paltry 6 weeks I had to do so. I had a “realistic goal” and an “optimistic goal”. The realistic goal was accomplished within a week of release and by the end of the year I’d more than doubled my optimistic goal. So things are looking good for this year, as long as I continue to improve CaseDetective to attract more users.
As I’ve actually made a few sales I thought it a bit silly to keep my blogs tag line as “So, I want to be an ISV…”, as technically I now am an ISV, with real customers and all that. Hence I’ve changed my tag line to “So, now I’m an ISV…”. I know, sheer genius!
I had been thinking about launching another product (or ten, my mind’s racing with ideas at the moment), but having the time to think about things over the last couple of weeks and the initial sales success I’ve since decided to work only on CaseDetective for the next couple of months.
I was going to accomplish development of these new products by splitting up my day to allow for a couple of hours “spiking” in the afternoon, but the following post will explain how I’m now going to structure my day.
Once again, Happy New Year to you all, here’s hoping we all accomplish our dreams this year!
The following blogs have found there way onto my permanent feed list in the last few months, and as normal I thought I’d share them with you here.
Normally I’d write a little about each one to introduce it, but frankly I haven’t got the time just now, so I’ll leave it to you to explore them and discover for yourself why I took a shine to these. All have gone into my “Business Of Software” category, but a couple could have maybe gone into “Apple” or even “Design”, but all are related to small software related businesses.
Random Thoughts from Tifty Croft
CaseDetective for FogBugz version 1.0 has been released unto the World!
There’s a new logo for IMiJ Software too.
I’m very happy, and very very tired, need I say any more? Well, yes, I’ve got lots to say, but it’ll have to wait until I’ve had some sleep and sent out the proper emails tomorrow today.
Just noticed that I’ve been included in the Planet MicroISV aggregated blog.
Smart.
Works quite well in NetNewsWire as the feeds that I already subscribe to and and have read posts from are set as read automatically, mostly. One or two aren’t being recognized, so I probably just need to use the correct feed or something. I’ll look into that when I get a chance.
The following feeds have just made it from my “new feeds” category to their own place in my regular feed list, all going into my “Business Of Software” category:
Antonio Fontes: Antonio is trying his hand at selling blogging software, will be interesting to see how he gets on, there’s a lot of competition these days but he feels he has a niche to fill.
Ataraxis Software (Company Blog): This is a new blog from Michael Sica and his cohort Jeff Marder, they’re working together to get some software out to market as quickly as they can.
Jeff Marder: Mentioned above already, this is his personal blog.
Business On The Mac: Corey Redlien’s blog about his and other’s business software on the Mac.
CaseySoftware.com, CodeSnipers.com & Project Management Blog: Lots of thoughts on software development and marketing.
Loud Thinking: David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner in 37signals and the creator of the Rails framework for Ruby.
Mike Morris: Mike Morris has recently released RecDesk Director, and is sharing his experiences as a new MicroISV.
Outer Level: Jon Trainer of Make Mac Games has decided to spread his wings and write general software for the Mac as well as Games, he’s going to blog about it here.
Signal vs. Noise: Used to read this one but dropped it during a clean-up, but recently have seen enough good stuff coming from it that I’ve put it back on my list.
The current incarnation of this website is one year old today, happy birthday ianmjones.net!
Although ianmjones.net has been around for a few years with a blog like appearance, it wasn’t until September 30th 2004 that I started to properly “blog”.
Since last September I’ve always intended this site to stay on track, to talk about how things were going with my quest to become an independent software vendor (ISV). I’m not sure I’ve managed that very well, I seem to have strayed quite a bit, really haven’t written a lot about what I’ve learnt along the way and haven’t written as often I hoped I would.
What have I achieved in my first year?
Some of this stuff I’m very proud of, some not so. But having a real direction in my life and being able to continuously step closer towards my goal of becoming an ISV while having lots of support from my family and friends, and new friends too, has made this a fabulous year.
Really looking forward to the next year, it should be good.
Just like buses, no posts for ages and then three come along at once!
So, apparently it’s Blog Day today, you’re supposed to link to at least five blogs. So I’ll highlight a few blogs that have recently entered my regular feed list from my “New Subscriptions” quarantine list, all related to making a business out of writing software, in one way or another.
.NET Undocumented is a mixture of .NET (well, dah!) and entrepreneurship. Bit too much about .NET for me really, but there’s a fair bit about business to keep me interested.
ToDoOrElse.com is the blog of MasterList Professional developer Safari Software. Nice interviews in the Micro-ISV Tip series of posts, plus productivity and general business and blog related stuff.
I guess Tim Weiler is as busy as I’ve been recently, so hasn’t updated in a couple of weeks, but his Syncura blog tells his microISV story.
Realmac Software – Blog. This one goes into my “Apple” category. RapidWeaver is what I use to create my company website, I like Realmac Software’s products and the fact that they’re a small UK company that listen to their customers.
Talking of RapidWeaver, if you want to see a great website built with it and some superb photography to boot, scoot on over to Pixels Everywhere.
If you’re writing software you’ll appreciate OK/Cancel and Bug Bash.
I’ve just updated my site, there’s about ten pictures in rotation in the header, some are variations on each other (a few close-ups). Let me know what you think, are there any that you like?
All but three were taken in a rather far distant country, bet you can’t guess which ones, and which country.
Thanks to my friend Gordon for pointing out the site that told me how to crop my photos correctly and set up the rotator script.
Well, just upgraded to WordPress 1.5, and decided not carry my 1.2 “theme” across for the initial upgrade, just to make sure it went smoothly. And smotthly it went, well, that’s assuming you can see this post!
Couldn’t have been simpler, backed up my database, loaded the backup into a spare database, and then followed the really simple instructions. Took less than ten minutes, and at least 7 of those were spent reading through the instructions and making sure I had a good backup. Dead easy.
Now it’ll just take me a couple of weeks to decide what to do for a new theme etc. 🙂