An Experiment

I know that nobody does it and I’m probably entirely wrong and have with full knowledge of my deeds broken every rule in the ‘Web Page Designers Handbook’, but ... it’s an experiment. I’ve added several ‘speech bubbles’ to my Home Page to inform the user quickly and at a glance of key information relating to the site. Let me know if you like it, or if you hate it !

Mail me here:

hatethebubbles@artenscience.co.uk

or

lovethebubbles@artenscience.co.uk


Ultimately it’s about the User Experience. Does it help them find what they are looking for quickly ? The argument could be that it shouldn’t be necessary if the site was better designed, and that’s a compelling argument - however I’m going to stick with it for a while and gauge feedback. Not just from computer literate users but from the everyday guy who doesn’t know and doesn’t particularly want to know about ‘web standards’ - how is it for them ?

Peace - Steve

"True happiness... arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self." - Joseph Addison

Recommended

Two books that I have read this month that could well be of interest to people reading this:

From Program to Product
Rocky Smolin
Quick Rating: 3.5 / 5
Summary: Nothing new here and some quite dull interviews but useful text regarding software development all conveniently located in one small book.




Dreaming In Code
Scott Rosenberg
Quick Rating: 4.5 / 5
Summary: Excellent book about the (still incomplete) Chandler project started by Mitch Kapor, http://chandlerproject.org/ Chapter 10 discusses software ‘engineering’ (or is it art?). Great stuff !



"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." - Henry Ward Beecher

SMSRelay Suite: Keepin' Goin' :-)

My product is done (well ... not so much done as I have decided to stop working on it for a while, is software ever done ?), but when I started this project I had no website from which to sell it. I have rectified this now and the website is up and running. There’s still a way to go though because during the last 30 Days I have also made one of my previous programs into a product (ArtenScan) and I need to put screenshots and ‘use cases’ on the web for both SMSRelay and ArtenScan and then the final hurdle is e-commerce.

Of course SEO and Marketing are (very) important and I will start on that when I get back from holiday.

So is this feed going to stay utilised as we all carry on finishing and marketing our products ? I think it should - I for one am very interested to see how we all do and what trials and tribulations we all encounter along the way :-)

Anyway - its the end of the ‘30 Day Sprint’ and I’d just like to say how much I enjoyed the whole experience. Here’s to the next one ;-)

"O that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!" - William Shakespeare

Merge !

I’ve decided to merge my Bespoke Software and Consultancy business, GENeSYS Solutions, with my Commercial Software venture, Arten Science. As a small business it can only lead to confusion having two ‘identities’, besides some of my GENeSYS customers are also customers of Arten Science and vice versa. The two businesses are complimentary so it makes sense for me to merge the two under the Arten Science banner.

Starting today I’m going to make the transition of GENeSYS into Arten Science. I’ll be adding extra pages to www.artenscience.co.uk to represent the additional services that were previously offered by GENeSYS, and I have already updated the About page to reflect some of the changes.

I’m excited about the changes and feel I now have a clear vision of the business going forward in a simple and streamlined fashion.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the power supply on my 30’’ Apple Monitor has just died, I would be in a exceptionally good mood today :-)

"A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star." - Edward Chapin

30 Day Benefits: Group Hug :-)

I don’t know about anyone else but I am finding lots of benefits from taking part in the ‘30 Day Challenge’. First of all, there is the increased motivation that comes from working on what feels like a collaborative project, yeh, we are all doing different things but it feels like a team event and the motivation is there to continue and contribute.

Second, and connected to the first - is the fact that a someone who works from a home office (which I believe many of us do) does not always get the chance to take part in ‘water cooler moments’ - when you work on your own most of the time it can be good to communicate with others in a way such as this.

Third, I have a new found respect for the work ethic, skills and intelligence of you guys. There is some truly *great* stuff being created.

And Fourth, the hints, tips and observations from you all. For example this from Philip. I wouldn’t have known about this product except for his post.

I think it would be good if we all had some memento of this event, a graphic or something made up of the names of everyone involved, details of the challenge etc. I would do it myself but as I have said before - I have the graphic skills of Stevie Wonder :-( Any volunteers ? Or am I mad ? Anyone else think this is a good idea ?

"The thing that I'm always left with is this overwhelming desire for people to be rooted and the only way that they feel rooted is through another person." - John Allen

SMSRelay Suite: Web Page Up :-)

LOTS of work done on my website today. You can see the results so far here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk

In particular I am pleased to have gotten the SMSRelay page up and running, albeit without a price or a way of buying it yet ... so plenty to do tomorrow including e-commerce.

"To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can." - Og Mandino

SMSRelay Suite: Website Work

I wanted to add Google Analytics to my website. Simple. Not so with iWeb, which I had used to create the website. Fortunately Echo One provide an Automator plug in to help with this task. The plugin can be downloaded here.

It is simple to install and works great, the only problem is that you have to remember to run the Workflow against the website folder prior to uploading it to your live website. So using Automator it is very simple to add the upload (by automating Transmit) to the Workflow. This means that to add Google Analytics tracking code and upload all the files to my website can now be done just by right clicking the local copy of the website folder.

Automator is great, I wish I had more time to play with the features, I think they could save me a ton of time. Below is a screenshot of my ‘Add Google Analytics and Upload’ workflow:



Incidentally, if you wish to open the workflow again later for edit purposes it is saved in the rather unwieldy location:

/Users/myname/Library/Workflow/Applications/Finder

"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." - John Updike

SMSRelay Suite: Nearly There

The coding is now complete for my SMSRelay Suite project. The last couple of days have been spent on documentation and the website, with lots more work on the website required :-)

There are lots of features I would have liked to add before release but I think it is important to get *something* out there. Extra features can be added later. Some of the features I intend to add in the next release are:

Save the Messages to a Hierarchal Structure
Scheduled, Repeating SMS Text Messages.
Convert to ‘Txt Talk’ ie: ‘before’ to ‘b4’, later to ‘l8r’ etc.
Save / View / Analyse and Export History
Accept SMS Replies
Etc.

The website is here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk

A Trial Version of the software can be downloaded here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/autoupdate/latestversions/smsrelay.zip

The documentation can be downloaded here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/autoupdate/documentation/smsrelaymanual.zip

The client software is zipped individually for each platform and can be downloaded from the links below:

ArtenSMS Client for Windows

ArtenSMS Client for Macintosh OSX

ArtenSMS Client for Linux

SMSBatch Client for Windows

SMSBatch Client for Macintosh OSX

SMSBatch Client for Linux

If any of the ‘30 Dayers’ would like a free of charge license for SMSRelay Suite, let me have your name, company name and address and I’ll send you a license file over.

"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." - Golda Meir

SMSRelay Suite: Quick Update

Well, I solved my Linux ‘button display’ problem, it only happened under certain (rare) circumstances so I was able to implement a work around - so all is good with the world :-) Tomorrow I am concentrating on documentation ... wow, the fun never stops :-)

"There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero." - Walt Whitman

2 x Book Reviews

I’ve been reading books at a rate of knots recently and the two most recent are:

High Stakes No Prisoners - A Winners Tale of the Internet Wars



and

Showstopper! - The Race to Create NT



Showstopper is a book about how Bill Gates recruited Dave Cutler from Digital and asked him to head development of the next Windows Operating System, Windows NT. This book is very well written, exciting and moves at a good pace. Although the subject matter (NT) is old, the lessons learned are still applicable today. Dave Cutler was an old school coder, a macho tough guy who made things happen and pushed NT through to release over 5 years and $150 million dollars. Deadlines, politics, bugs and in-fighting - it’s all here. This is for anybody interested in Microsoft, Software or just likes to read about a huge struggle and a triumphant ending. Recommended.

High Stakes No Prisoners is a different kind of book. It chronicles the story of Vermeer, the company that created Frontage and went on to sell to Microsoft within two years for $140 Million dollars. Written by Charles Ferguson (founder of Vermeer), he pulls no punches in his descriptions of the people and the events that surrounded his successful startup. Sometimes it seems to me that Mr Ferguson and his ego got in the way of a good story a bit, but overall it’s reasonably well written and entertaining enough to be read over a weekend. Interesting and detailed but maybe not that relevant anymore.

"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase." - Epictetus