Digest Break

Hitting 2 years of continuous weekly Micro ISV Digest posts back in November felt like a bit of a milestone to me. Rather than try to make it 3, I've decided to take a break for the holidays this year.

It'll be back on the 7th January.

As always, if any of you have any suggestions or comments on the future format or content of the digest, I'd love to hear from you.

Tag: micro isv digest

Random Thoughts

Lost Garden has been my favorite blog for a long time now. Danc shares some amazing ideas and resources for game development, and I don't link to them half as often as I should. The latest post, Naked Business, should be of interest to everyone.

Thinking about Lost Garden, as I spend more time thinking about and reading about game development rather than general small business/software development issues, it makes me realize that the theme of this blog probably needs to shift that way a little. Maybe the distance between what I'm actually doing day to day, and the usual theme of the blog, is responsible for my relative lack of posts this year. Something for me to think about.

This made me laugh: I was having some problems with a "ghosted" picture on my TV. When I found a solution, it involved getting into a hidden menu and turning a series of dials from 10 up to 11. That's even more fun than having an option to cross the streams. It fixed the problem too, so I owe a big debt to the guys over at AVForums.

Nintendo sent me silly plastic sheaths for my Wii remotes. Surprisingly, they feel quite good, the extra weight and the different size and texture of the remotes seems like it might even be a positive change. More play is needed to be sure though ;).

I found this fantastic tool for generating sound effects earlier in the week. It's easily one of the most useful tools I've found all year.

Another favorite website for me recently has been Lynda.com. If I add up all the time I've wasted looking for, starting, and abandoning, free tutorials on the web, it's easily worth $25 a month. The quality and range of the videos on Lynda is excellent.

Micro ISV Digest

A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts.

News and Announcements

• Phil released BudgetSimple, a desktop version of his budgeting site. Via Blog.
• Keith Alperin launched Mercury Mover, a Mac window managment tool. Via Blog.
• Jason King released FreeDraw, a web drawing/collaboration tool. Via BoS.
• Girish was looking for feedback on LyteCube, a RAD tool. Via BoS.
• Cody Hess launched a couple of alpha apps, do42, and litewrite, via BoS.
• Ian introduced an iPhone interface for HelpSpot.
• A new beta of Krypton was released.
• A new version of Smart Inspect was released.
• A new version of CaseDetective was released.
• Joel Marcey was discussing his micro ISV ideas on his blog and BoS.
• Fraudo is an interesting blog about online fraud, scams, and scammers.
• Ian points to some easy installers for popular Open Source apps.
• Chris Anderson's "Free" video. If you make it to the Q&A, and you think you can explain to me what in the world the fashion girl was talking about, I'm all ears.

Relevant Blog Posts and Articles

• Post Dreaming Reality, from gapingvoid.
• Learning patience, from Grey Alien Games.
• Love thy users, from 47hats.
• 10 tips to recruit a co-founder, from Wil Schroter.
  Also, Inspiration vs Perspiration.
• Deployment Strategy? from Keith Casey.
• Getting luck on your side, from FoundRead.
• Getting good off shore developers, from Matt Rogers.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

• 52 creative ideas for finding new clients, from bootstrapper
  Also, Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship.
• 5 business ideas just waiting for an entrepreneur, from EfCN.
• The billion dollar t-shirt, from Seth Godin.
• Stephane's Christmas book gift list.

Tags: microisv digest entrepreneurship startups bootstrapping

Micro ISV Digest

A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts.

News and Announcements

• Yanic Inghelbrecht launched V1 of TraceModeler. Via BoS.
• ShuffleTexts released Cloudseed, a tag cloud generator. Via Blog.
• Andrey and I released Christmas Slots, a festive game for the BlackBerry.
• A new version of CaseDetective was released.
• A new version of Text2Go was released.
• Rulsan Savchyshyn was looking for site feedback.
• Michael Bacarella was looking for site feedback.
• Oliver was looking for site feedback.
• An update on the uISV class of 2007, from Chris.
• An interview with Mark Gladding (Text2Go), from Clarke Ching.
• The new BitsDuJour got a big thumbs up on BoS.
• Google released some new Mac tools.
• Rails v2 was released.
• Last week I forgot to mention the Free SnagIt offer.

Relevant Blog Posts and Articles

• Deconstructing a failing startup, from PHL SKL
• Paying Lip Service to Failure is not enough, from Instigator.
• So you've got an idea, now what? from Found|Read.
  Also, Success Tips.
• Deciding what goes into your product, from 47hats.
• Premature Scalaculation, from OnStartups.
• Always have a customer lined up, from Wil Schroter.
• Choosing First Year goals, from Joel Marcey.
• How do you know the right time to quit your day job, from EfCN.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

• How to Bootstrap your indie art needs, from Lost Garden.
• The best of CSS design 2007, from Web Designer Wall.
• Press release mistakes to avoid, from GameProducer.
• Where there's muck, there's brass, from Joel Spolsky.
• The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks.

Tags: microisv digest entrepreneurship startups shareware

New Holiday Game Released

Our new BlackBerry Christmas holiday game, Christmas Slots, is now starting to appear for sale on the mobile portals.



If you have a BlackBerry and want to check it out, it's available now from the following links:-

Christmas Slots (ClickGamer)
Christmas Slots (Handango)

Tags: games christmas blackberry

December Update

A few months have passed since my last real post here, so it's time for another quick update.

The main project I'm working on with Andrey is still the PC/Mac game, and that's still coming along nicely. The artwork coming back from Craig, our artist, is getting more exciting all the time.

Along the way, we've had a few little side projects come and go, some were quickly consigned to scrap, others were just put aside for now, and there are a couple we still expect to make it. I keep thinking of that great note Starr Horne posted a few months ago, his geek's guide to productivity. Some days I think I should put that on my desk and stick to it, but other days I think I actually get more done when I'm flitting around from one project to another (not on a minute by minute, or even hour by hour basis, but week to week seems to work).

Anyway, one of the projects that did make it, is Christmas Slots, for the BlackBerry. It's a cute little festive version of our regular BlackBerry Video Slots game. There are only two different slot games in the Christmas version, whereas the original had 3, but they've both had a nice seasonal makeover. We'll be launching it at a budget price over the next couple of days, the development is completely wrapped, Andrey is just going through all the final steps for launch and release on the portals.

Here's a sneak peak at the 5 reel "Season's Greetings" slot game.



It was a fun project to work on, and I hope someone gets a kick out of it, I've always wanted to do a seasonal product.

Now, back to work...

Tags: blackberry christmas games

Dreamhost Offer

I've written about Dreamhost in previous posts here, but I just noticed something in their newsletter that I thought was worth sharing.

As of the 11th December, their promo code system will be scaled back dramatically, so there's only a week left if you want to grab a very cheap hosting package. Until the 11th, you can use the code "gavinsentme" for a $90 discount on the one year hosting package. It works out at around $30 for a the year's hosting. Note: I do get $7 towards my next hosting bill out of the deal, and you might be able to find an even better discount if you search online. After the 11th December the maximum discount on the scheme will only be $50.

What you get for the money is a decent hosting account, they have a good control panel, one click installs for things like WordPress, and other CMS software, reasonably priced domain registrations and flexible control over hosting. There's also crazy bandwidth and disk space allowances, full scripting, MySQL, Subversion, Ruby on Rails, shell access etc.

I'm sure they have shortcomings, I haven't really hammered them as a host (I use the account primarily for tinkering and managing domains), but I've had my account for 2 years and I haven't had any major problems. As an affordable standby or development host, I can certainly recommend them.

Micro ISV Digest

A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts.

News and Announcements

• Paul launched seeed, web app developer forums, via BoS.
• Chris released Omni Customer Support, via Blog.
• Yanic was looking for last minute feedback on Trace Modeler, a UML diagram editor. Via BoS.
• Happy 3rd Blogiversary KC.
• Watch Ezell and his Micro ISV experiment, via Patrick.

Relevant Blog Posts and Articles

• Learning Hard Business Lessons, from Bootstrapper.
• On giving up and starting something else, from Tim Haughton.
• The marketing nitty-gritty, from Wil Schroter.
• Why design matters, too, from Found|Read.
• Why some software is not simpler, just suckier, from OnStartups.
• Knowing what to charge, from EfCN.
  Also, Learning from your mistakes.
• How important is intellectual property for startups, from Instigator.
• Why do we work on things that don't matter, from Evhead.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

• GTTFD (language NSFW?), from Visible Monsters.
• If you don't feel like working, from Web Worker Daily.
  Also, Web Worker 101: Insurance.
• How to name a name, from Guy Kawasaki.
• SEO for bloggers, via Patrick.

Tags: microisv digest entrepreneurship startups shareware