Micro ISV Digest

Posted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, April 24, 2006 at 9:00 AM

A sluggish, dialup powered summary of the last week's Micro ISV news, announcements and blog posts.

News and Announcements

CK launched a new beta product, Spekkit helps build functional specs. BoS feedback link.
Bot Berlin launched an online calc system. BoS feedback link.
Sergio released a beta of BriskProject. BoS feedback link.
jthurman launched a beta of his GTD software. JoS feedback link.
Fluxiom launched.
Adrian McEwan launched his first product, DataCocoon for automated offsite backups.
Simon Pang launced his first product, a full text search engine for MSDE and SQL Server. BoS feedback link.
KC announced that dotProject 2.0.2 was released.
Ian Landsman released version 1.2 of Helpspot.
Version 1.5 of DBDesc was released.
GoDaddy hosting now supports Ruby on Rails. If that's suddenly convinced you to give Rails a try, here's a round up of Rails resources.
Springwise: new business ideas for entrepreneurial minds. If all you want to do is run your own business, this site might give you a better idea than writing software.

Relevant Blog posts and Articles

KC (on Codesnipers) and the Game Producer were both advocating taking a break from the computer. More Burnout Prevention and Recovery advice.
Also from Game Producer: How to get people to do what you want.
Guy Kawasaki shares some tips on evangelizing a blog.
Matt Inglot on why big name sites have "amateur" designs.
Two from Dharmesh Shah, first arguing that sometimes Less is Less. Also, the Fallacy of the NDA.
On Vitamin, Will your web app make money?
Choosing a Name.
Creating Passionate Users: Angry people can be bad for your brain.
From PicoBusiness: So you want to join a startup.
37 signals on the red rubber ball.
Phil (Seartech) on making things easy for customers.

Anything else?

The Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint presentation.

Micro ISV Digest

Posted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, April 17, 2006 at 7:30 AM

Micro ISV news and announcements, with some of the week's relevant blog posts and articles.

News and Announcements

Michael Robertson launched his Ajax Excel Viewer, ajaxXLS
Jesse Kim launched his Planhack beta. It's project management, web 2.0 style.
Jean Moniatte launched Ugal.net, to help small businesses design and maintain websites.
Atul's Sky Software launched EZNamespaceExtensions.Net.
Teamprise launched their client tools for Microsoft Team Server.
Neville released a new version of Surfulator.
End of the line for Cade Fassett's Micro ISV, for now at least.
Buzzshout launched.
Google Calendar Launched.

Relevant Blog posts and Articles

Guy Kawasaki has only been blogging for 100 days, he shared his observations. Also, the Art of Customer Service, part 1 and 2.
Matt Inglott on the barriers to starting your own business.
Max Pastukhov shared his experience of different pricing in why selling software for $29.95 is 300% more profitable than for $19.95.
Dharmesh Shah on The myth of the perfect business plan.
Mike Coyle learned everything he needed to know about startups from Dungeons and Dragons.
Justin learned a few lessons running his.
How to be a successful evil overlord... you know, just in case your Micro ISV really takes off.
37 signals shared some exerpts from their support archive. Re-inforces the idea that you can't please everyone.
John Seiffer on Preaching to the Choir, don't forget about the customers you already have.
I missed a couple of Micro ISV Shows, it's round two with Bob Walsh, and an interview with Kyle Alons of Kinook Software. Bob is in action again in a perlcast podcast.
Guerrilla Consulting on Elevator Speeches.
Joel Spolsky on the Development Abstraction Layer.
Steve Pavlina on 10 stupid mistakes made by the newly self employed.

Anything Else?

Overcoming Procrastination.

Tags: micro isv links microisv digest

A Page Rank tool, and the Digg effect

Posted by Gavin Bowman on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 8:25 AM

Found a couple of great links this morning, first up is Webmaster Eyes, which shows you the PageRank for every outbound link on any page. Very cool.

Secondly, after posting a couple of times about adding social bookmarking links to a blog, I have to link to this account of Surviving the Digg Effect.

There were a few more links on the effect of social bookmarking hits in last week's Micro ISV Digest:-

Blake Schwendiman compared the Digg and Reddit effects, Dennis Forbes talked about the traffic implications, and Dennis Gurock explained why J's vim cheat sheet was such a great idea.

Tags: social bookmarking page rank

That web clipboard thingy

Posted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at 12:08 PM

I feel like I've been about two weeks away from moving since the start of year. Wasn't there a running gag in an old Tom Hanks movie where the house was always going to be ready in 2-3 weeks? The Money Pit, maybe? As things stand today, everything should be done in the next two weeks...

Anyway, I've had to take a step back from most things recently, including Codesnipers, but this weekend I did manage to find the time to finish off my short series on Live Clipboard. Here are the links to all the posts, in case you missed them:-

Live Clipboard - a basic summary of the concept
Using Live Clipboard, Part 1
Using Live Clipboard, Part 2

Over the course of the three posts I went right through the technical introduction, to the point of adding a Live Clipboard control to a webpage. Here's the basic sample page I ended up with.

Tags: links ajax how to live clipboard

Micro ISV Digest

Posted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, April 10, 2006 at 8:55 AM

Last week's Micro ISV news, announcements, and relevant blog posts.

News and Announcements

Alex Strand launched Phozi, a camera photo sharing service. He was looking for more testers via BoS. The FilmLoop style phoziStrips are very cool.
16bugs want to make your bugs pretty.
Michael Sanford launched his banner management product, Banner Server.
Max Ischenko launched knigoman, an online book swapping service.
Phil from Seartech released a new version of Chimsoft their Chimney Sweep software.
James released a new version of WebDialog.
Ben released a new version of his PHP Authorize.NET component.
Share-it will switch from being a payment processor to a reseller in May. The VAT implications came up on the BoS forum.
Google launched Related Links, which lets you add more of their content to your site.
Intel based Macs can run Windows XP now. Boot Camp review.

Relevant Blog posts and Articles

On Sitepoint: Fire the boss: the successful home freelancers guide.
There are a few links to stat sharing posts this week, but first, some advice on what stats to collect: John Seiffer talks about measuring and Seth Godin.
37signals shared some self-publishing stats in a 30 day update on their Getting Real book.
Thomas devoted a couple of posts to analysing Jasc & Winzip stats. Also, interesting gaming sales stats on GameProducer: Sales Stats: Tribal Trouble.
Ian Landsman was also sharing stats, a six month sales update on Helpspot. Then he spoke out in favor of getting professional for your Micro ISV site: ISVs, stop being cheapskates.
Dharmesh also had some advice for software startups websites. He then pointed out some of the downsides of Venture Capital in Fatal Distraction: The True Cost of Venture Capital.
If you do get sick of boot strapping and decide to go after some funding, you'll need Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Executive Summary.
Matt Inglot shared his top 5 reasons for being an entrepreneur.
Back to the business of software. Joel Spolsky's introduction to Eric Sink's new book.
KC wants to add a 12th client you should fire right now.
Kathy Sierra talks about creating passionate users in this MP3.
37signals explain Epicenter Software Design (in other words, focusing on what matters first).
Jim Logan asks Are you dumb enough to make more money?