Entries for December 2010

I had a large company that wanted to buy a copy of PainlessSVN. They have a very convoluted buying process. I was down to the last step, which was to send an invoice. Here's where things broke down...

I had initiated a purchase order process through FastSpring. Unfortunately, this customers pays using SWIFT transfers, which FastSpring doesn't handle at this time. This meant that the purchase order and invoices that I had sent would not work for this customer. They needed an invoice that was initiated from SystemWidgets, instead of FastSpring.

Enter Zoho Apps. I had created an account with them early this year, but had totally forgotten about it. I signed up for their free account. I went and looked, and lo and behold, they now have an invoicing app. I setup the info in about 2 minutes. Then took me about another 2 minutes to setup the invoice. That was mostly because I had to hunt down the billing address for the customer, and also enter information on PainlessSVN itself.

So total time from login to sent invoice: 4 minutes. I'm impressed!

Zoho Apps has a bunch other web applications that I didn't notice before. Time to explore!

Yup, you read that right. I'm creating a "Console" edition of PainlessSVN that will be free. I'm in the process of removing some functionality. I got the hardest stuff out of the way. The last thing I need to work on before release is the install script. This InnoSetup script will include Subversion as well.

I just wanted to let everybody know what I'm working on right now. I'm in the process of finishing the next version of PainlessSVN. Here's a screenshot of the options that you will get with the next download:

That's right, I'm including Subversion itself with PainlessSVN. I found a new distribution that contains everything svnserve needs without apache. The new distro's home page is over here: http://alagazam.net/

I'm frankly very tired of the websites that make you sign up to get at the Subversion binaries. And also what's up with the giant 80+ meg Subversion download? Just smile, if you know who I'm talking about.

I also have an InnoSetup script that will install Trac and Python. I will probably create several setup packages after I get done pushing this out. I'm thinking of:

• PainlessSVN only
• PainlessSVN and Subversion
• PainlessSVN, Subversion, Trac, and Python

The hardest part is always setting these things up. One I get these set up, I'll need to add them to my FinalBuilder scripts.