These days if you run a software company, you have to have a Blog. This is mine.
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Merry ChristmasPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, March 27, 2006 at 12:26 PM Nintendo have always mattered to me. Nostalgia has a lot to do with it, but I also think they do things a little differently to everyone else. It's not an easy thing to explain, but this little youtube video says it all (via 4colorrebellion). That's why I care, and that's why I hope Nintendo are still doing their special thing when I have kids of my own. Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman at 9:30 AM A roundup of last week's Micro ISV news and announcements, with some helpful articles. News and Announcements
All at once?Posted by Gavin Bowman on Sunday, March 26, 2006 at 12:18 PM A couple of weeks ago, I published a guide to social bookmark submission links. That was one way of doing it, but you still end up either choosing the services you want to make it easy to submit to, or you have a long list. Socializer is a service that submits a link to all the social bookmarking networks at once, from a single link on your page. I don't know about this, something about it just feels wrong. I understand why it exists, it's making life easier for webmasters and readers, but it seems like it could have a negative effect on the individual social bookmarking communities. Spoke too soonPosted by Gavin Bowman at 12:12 PM On Tuesday, I made the mistake of saying I wasn't especially busy... it's amazing what comes out of the woodwork when you actually try to take a break. Next time you want to be reminded how many balls you're juggling, just try stopping. Reduced ServicePosted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 12:25 PM You might have noticed the lack of posts here last week, this is just an advance warning that it will probably be a bit light for the next couple of weeks too. I'll make sure there's still a Micro ISV Digest every Monday, but that might be all. The traditional excuse for not updating a blog is being too busy, but I'm actually not especially busy, I'm just pre-occupied and distracted. I'm approaching the end of a very long 15 months, and my house looks to be in the closing stages of the repairs. The downside is that it's making my schedule completely unpredictable, so I'm using the opportunity to take what is probably as close to a holiday as a Micro ISV ever gets to take. I'm just doing all the usual pre and post sales support and admin I need to do for Oriador, and spending a little bit of time each day online to keep up. The next 2-3 weeks should see the house finished off, a lot of loose ends tied up, and hopefully, see us back home where we belong. I can't wait... I'm looking forward to getting some stability, getting my life back on track, and then getting on with the next version of my software. Another reason for cutting back on the blogging is that I just don't have a whole lot to say at the moment, I think it would just deteriorate into me complaining about this personal situation, and I think I did enough of that last year! As always, feel free to email me any link or topic suggestions for the Micro ISV Digests (gavin at oriador.com). It's always appreciated, but for these next few weeks it will be especially helpful. Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, March 20, 2006 at 9:00 AM This weeks Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts. News and Announcements
Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, March 13, 2006 at 9:30 AM The weeks Micro ISV news, announcements, and relevant blog posts. News and Announcements
One for the GamersPosted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, March 10, 2006 at 10:22 AM I've shared quite a few casual game links here on this blog, it's always great finding something fun that anyone can enjoy, and that runs directly in a browser. Today's game is a little bit different though, it doesn't run in a browser, and it's probably not for everyone.  Gridwars is a clone of the Xbox's Geometry Wars, and it's a hardcore retro arcade shooter. I'm still amazed everytime I find something so polished and playable available for free, if I'd found this game in a coin-op cabinet, I wouldn't want to leave until my pockets were empty. Not that that would take very long, mind, either my reflexes are deteriorating with age, or I've just never been any good at these things. I suspect the later, but choose to believe the former. Anyone know of a good thumb workout for the aging gamer? You might find you need some kind of game controller to fully enjoy the game, but there are mouse and keyboard options. I used a dual analog console gamepad with a USB converter, it worked a treat. The development tools are as interesting as the game. I've noticed the BlitzBasic range various times over the years, and I've always wanted to play with them. The latest product, BlitzMax, as used to develop Gridwars, costs just $80, and includes multi-platform support for PC, Mac and Linux. Add in an active community and a wide range of samples and tutorials (the full source code for Gridwars is included in the download package), and I really wish I had some serious time to invest. Escaping the officePosted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 10:26 AM Me getting out and doing something active is rare enough to justify marking the occasion with a blog post. We trekked up a nearby mountain on Sunday, and I had to share the view.
I really don't take advantage of this area, some people actually move to Cumbria because of the hills and lakes. It's on my doorstep and hardly ever get out there....
I meant to post this on Sunday night, but my router tricked me into thinking my blog was offline. As it's a weekday, here's a work-related angle. It's common for people to neglect things on their doorstep, and it's common for people to make do with their own situation. Take the cobbler's children principle (they have no shoes), or John Seiffer's "Never Remodel all your bathrooms at once" (surprisingly, it's about not making do. I think the title implies another important subject, but that's by the by). I've always wondered how all this relates to "dogfooding" software. Sure, you use it yourself, but how do you ensure you don't make do with something that will really annoy customers? Blowing itPosted by Gavin Bowman at 9:25 AM Yesterday's Micro ISV Digest included a link to Seth Godin's excellent speech to Google, in which he talked about permission marketing. He also told the assembled Google staff that people love them, but that they could still blow it. I couldn't help but think about this as I clicked through page after page of dreary traditional marketing question in some abysmal survey that Skype just sent me. I loved Skype, I've been using their software for ages now, and I used to fill in the occassional survey they sent me because I wanted to help out. I used to know they wouldn't waste my time, and that their questionnaires would be short and easy. They blew it with me. Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, March 06, 2006 at 8:30 AM My pick of the Micro ISV news and blog posts this week. News and Announcements
Social Bookmarking link guidePosted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, March 03, 2006 at 11:43 AM I saw The Blog 50 (via gapingvoid) the other day, they're having a bit of fun identifying and ranking the top 50 bloggers on a weekly basis. Amazingly, they say they get email from bloggers they "forgot"... think about it, who could feel they have a legitimate claim to be in the top 50 bloggers, and still take the time to chase a new, easy going blog ranking site? Anyway, at the bottom of all their posts they include buttons to all the major tagging/social bookmarking sites. I saved the fragment of the page in case I needed it at some point, but then I figured the list would be a useful blog post. So, for reference, here are the links and icons if you want to add any submission buttons to your blog or articles. Yahoo! MyWeb  - <a href="http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?t=PAGETITLE&u=PAGEURL" ><img alt="add to YahooMyWeb" src="IMAGEURL" /></a>Fark  - <a href="http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/edit.pl?new_url=PAGEURL&new_comment=PAGE TITLE&new_link_other=DOMAIN&linktype=CATEGORY" ><img alt="add to Fark" src="IMAGEURL" /></a> - <aFurl  - <a href="http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?t=PAGETITLE&u=PAGEURL" ><img alt="add to Furl" src="IMAGEURL"></a>Blinklist  - <a href="http://www.blinklist.com/index.php?action=Blink/addblink.php&Description=&Url=PAGEURL&Title=PAGETITLE" ><img alt="add to blinklist" src="IMAGEURL"></a>Digg  - <a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=PAGEURL"><img alt="digg it" src="IMAGEURL"></a>Del.icio.us  - <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=PAGEURL&title=PAGETITLE"><img alt="add to del.icio.us" src="IMAGEURL"></a>Replace PAGETITLE with the best title or description for the page, PAGEURL with the url, and IMAGEURL with the location of the image file you want to use for the link. You could also replace the entire <img> element with text if you want a more descriptive link. To make life a little easier, I've put all the images used above in this zip file.The Fark code has a link_other and a link_type option; I've just followed the lead from the blog 50 and suggested you use your DOMAIN and CATEGORY. Here are my working examples:-
<a href="http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?t=Social Bookmarking links guide on The Obligatory Blog&u=http://webhelperbrowser.com/blog/2006/03/social-bookmarking-link-guide.html" ><img alt="add to YahooMyWeb" src="http://webhelperbrowser.com/i/yahooMyWeb.gif" /></a>Blogger's HTML editor tried very hard to make this post impossible, so if you notice any mistakes that I didn't catch, please let me know and I'll correct them. SquidwatchPosted by Gavin Bowman on Thursday, March 02, 2006 at 11:22 AM It's been a while since I wrote anything about Squidoo. Even though I realized it wasn't for me (codesnipers: Enter the Lensmaster), I've kept maintaining a few lenses, and I'm still impressed by the ease of use. The reason for this quick update is to let you know that they've added some basic stats, so you can now see visitor numbers, trackbacks and clickthroughs etc. You can also see the lens rating and basic traffic info on the dashboard. These might not be huge leaps forward, but they definitely make the dashboard more useful, and the extra depth is nice to have. The downside is that the dashboard doesn't show the last update date anymore. Also, as I learned from Ian M Jones, they now rank lenses based on a combination of their rating and their 7 day traffic, rather than on all-time traffic as originally used. There's a new affiliate module too, some kind of mega mall, and as with the Amazon module, it's surprisingly easy to add the products to your pages. Of the lenses I've kept up, (and as I suspected in that codesnipers post), the one about the Nintendo Wifi connection has seen the most traffic. It was one of the easiest to do, and has barely changed since the night I built it. If I was going to do more lenses, I'd aim for similar topics: something with a clear narrow story and some quality focused resources to link to. I've also been maintaining the Micro ISV Digest lens. I've added a link to each of the weekly digest posts; it might be useful as an archive, but don't rely on it for notification new ones, as it's often later in the week when I get around to updating it. In other squid related news, there's a giant one on display at the National History Museum in London. And, finally, if that's not mind-blowing enough, try to imagine how this could possibly get 592 diggs and make it to the front page. It's a piece of javascript that automatically opens a link if you hover over it. I'm open to suggestions, but I can't think of a single good (ie. non-evil) reason to do that, and I hope it doesn't take off. Sounding offPosted by Gavin Bowman on Wednesday, March 01, 2006 at 3:47 PM I never look forward to needing graphics for a project. Websites, images, logos, icons etc... If I do it myself, a good rule of thumb is that it will take 5 times as long as I think, and look about a tenth as good as I want. It's not that I don't enjoy doing it, I really do, it's just that it so often turns out to be a disappointing waste of my time. I'd strongly advocate outsourcing it if possible; hopefully I'll be able to do that next time something major or important comes up. In the course of my little experiment with Flash last week, I realized that there is something much worse: needing sound. It was also time-consuming and disappointing, but I didn't have much fun with it either. One shining positive from the experience was that I found some nice open source sound processing software: Audacity. It didn't make my life any easier last week, but that's only because I'm clueless when it comes to sound. It was obvious that it would help me if I stuck at it, and that I might actually, eventually be able to enjoy myself. |
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