Happy New Year!
I wanted to start a new tradition of writing a letter every year. I want to mostly touch on where I was and where I'm going.
I spent last year (2007) getting ramped up on coding PainlessSVN. I also released two free utilities, SVN Backup Widget and Text File Splitter, that I created myself, and a third one, WinTivoDecode, from a friend. I've also been working with AdWords and several bloggers to spread the word about PainlessSVN. I had combined downloads of over 25K for all products. And this is not counting the two open sourced projects that I started and maintain.
I learned a lot from other micro ISV bloggers. There are so many of you out there! I'm heartened by your successes and hope to join your ranks in 2008.
Roadmap for 2008
Roadmaps are something that are fairly hard to predict when you are a one man company, especially with software. One thing that I know for certain, is that I will be changing the current tag line from "Where the command-line meets the GUI" to "Taming IT Operations." I worked in IT Operation during the first 6 years of my career, and I always enjoyed creating utilities to automate things. I want to focus my energies this year in helping IT people tame IT Operations with software.
PainlessSVN
The very first thing I want to do is release PainlessSVN Professional version 1.0. As some of you have noticed, I have pulled the beta download. I haven't received any problem reports in more than 3 weeks. I didn't see the point of having an open beta anymore.
I had a couple things holding back the release of PainlessSVN; payment system (ecommerce) and licensing. I got my payment system working just last week. I'm using a DotNetNuke (DNN) module called ActivePurchase, from Active Modules. This lets me integrate payments with the DNN framework and other useful modules for CRM and help desk. I will support PayPal when I first launch. So payment is now officially taken care of.
The second thing is licensing. I'm using Infralution for this. The actual holdup is that I want to automatically issue keys as soon as the payment is confirmed. ActivePurchase has something called Custom Actions that lets me add a custom business logic to the purchasing funnel by creating an assembly in .NET. The author is supposed to release the API docs for this tomorrow (Monday Jan 14th).
I will be releasing an extra couple editions of PainlessSVN shortly after the release of the Professional editions. These will be:
- Standard - This will have just the basics for server and repository maintenance. It will also be cheaper than the Pro edition.
- Portable - This will allow you to run PainlessSVN from your favorite USB flash drive.
Free Utilities
I also want to release at least two new free utilities. One of them will be a text file joiner to compliment my text file splitter. The second utility is a program that I created when I needed to monitor data integrations at a contract. Its current name is NSQLAudit. It is already coded. I just need to polish for release. I might create a professional version depending on demand. I'm also open to other ideas that you will like to see implemented.
I really appreciate the feedback that I have received. My hope is that you feel that you are getting good service and that my utilities help your work be less tedious. I also hope that these are helping you deal with some unpleasant tasks faster, so that you can get to the fun stuff quicker.
Here's to the new year!