ianmjones

Always developing

Tag: website

  • Recent additions to feed list

    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.

    Haja Weblog

    LookLater Blog

    My Cantina

    Phil’s Development Journal

    Random Thoughts from Tifty Croft

    Shirt Pocket Watch

    The Obligatory Blog

    [ThinkMac blog];

    Ripples: post-corporate adventures

    Yeadon Group Projects

    YourHead Blog

    ianmjones

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  • CaseDetective 1.0 Released!

    CaseDetective.jpg

    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.

    ianmjones

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  • Planet MicroISV / Recent Additions To Blogroll

    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.

    ianmjones

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  • 1 Year Old Today!

    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?

    • I’ve read and listened to tonnes of marketing and business material in many different forms of media and from many sources (which I’ve failed to talk about here when I really should have, slap my wrist).
    • I’ve researched and picked suitable tools to develop, source control, package and sell my software.
    • I have designed and developed a software application in a programming language and with other tools that I hadn’t used before.
    • I’ve learnt a lot about the FogBugz database schema and data usage and installed it way too many times on far too many platforms!
    • I’ve registered something like 35 separate domains and set up the websites.
    • I’ve set up an online store to sell my software (visited a few times by people, but never used the way it should be).
    • I’ve set up a few channels for public communication, such as the Newsletter and Yahoo! group (there’s a proper forum waiting in the wings).
    • I’ve released three public betas of my software, with the second and third showing a lot of improvement over the first!
    • I’ve even released some open source code as a by-product of my software development.
    • I’ve met (in a virtual way) a lot of really nice people from all over the world.
    • I’ve had very little sleep compared to the year before, and seen a lot less of my family too (this isn’t a good one).
    • And tonnes of other bits and bobs that escape me just now.

    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.

    ianmjones

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  • Just like buses…

    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.

    ianmjones

  • Site updated with a few photos for header

    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.

    ianmjones

  • Just upgraded to WordPress 1.5

    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. 🙂

    ianmjones

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  • Comments now need authorisation.

    So, the spammers have found this site, and decided it would be a great idea to add comments offering various dubious products to any reader with links.

    I don’t like that, so as a first try I’m enabling admin approval of comments, so that readers don’t see those frankly offensive SPAM comments. I’ll do my best to authorise valid comments as soon as I can, but obviously, sometimes it may be quite a few hours, or even a day or two before comments get authorised. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, as always it’s the few that spoil it for the majority.

    Update: I’ve made some slight changes that mean most comments will be authorised automatically, while SPAM comments hopefully get trapped for authorisation. Unfortunately, some valid comments will still get trapped for authorisation though. We’ll see how it goes.

    Update #2 (01/12/2004): That didn’t work, still getting way too many SPAM comments, so authorisation is back, until I have time to update the software to pick up the improved SPAM handling in WordPress 1.3.

    ianmjones

  • Just thrown the switch.

    I’ve just thrown the switch to start using WordPress for this site, and so far so good. OK, it’s not the most beautiful site in the world just now, but at least it is functional, and for me a lot smoother than using Blogger.

    If you have any problems with the new RSS feed or anything else on the site, please let me know, cheers.

    ianmjones

  • Switching blogging platform.

    I have had a few problems using Blogger.com, it’s proving to be a little too slow for me, and quite often I’m getting errors back when submitting data, whether it’s changing config items or posting. I’ll probably get an error when I submit this!

    I’m also a little paranoid about my data being held in someone else’s system, I guess at heart I’m a bit of a control freak (maybe that’s the highest contributing factor to me wanting to be a micro-ISV).

    So, I’ll be switching blogging platforms in the next day or so to something where I control where the data is stored, and that if it all goes wrong it’s more likely to be my fault.

    I love the template I’ve used via Blogger.com, I’m a great fan of Dan Cederholm who created it. But, I guess I’ll just have to start tinkering with my own template, I must admit that I will enjoy that, even if I am rubbish at web design.

    So, my next post will be via WordPress (probably), I’ll start with their default template and work from there. This does however mean that the feeds will probably get mangled, but they should settle down after the initial upset. I’ll be pulling across my first few posts via this powerfull medium, and hopefully the comments attached too.

    Fingers crossed!

    ianmjones