Blogging All Out | Hana, the Web-app App!

iPhone SDK

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:20:20 -0600

We have downloaded the SDK and our first iPhone purchase is being planned for later in the month. We have plans to develop for the iPhone.

The first question is Hana for the iPhone? This will all depend on my experience with the iPhone. If I see that Mobile Safari is not ideal, then yes, Hana for iPhone will be doable. Pricing is unknown. Connected to your local Mac Hana? Perhaps.

Our other project, which will be ramping up in late spring and becoming our primary project is Slate. Slate is an "Academic Operations System." We'll be looking at hooks into Slate for iPhone as well.

We are going to be looking at other alternatives as well. Our main interest will be in larger apps which require networked servers for additional content and peer-to-peer communications (voice and text.)

That is all we have at the moment. I thought I would just let y'all know.

Let's try this again.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:04:51 -0600

A while ago, 2006 I think, I decided to create a new blog on Blogger, but alas I ran out of the ability to overcome my excuses for not posting to it. Eventually, I stopped posting and declared a Hiatus.

Hiatus over!

Who I am is my new blog at what will be one part of a wider more personal family site.

This blog will focus exclusively on Technical and Business matters.

Humping Lemur Heist, Batman!

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:31:54 -0600

The first time I ever saw a lemur was while doing the World's Fair Trail hike in Boy Scouts in preparation for my troop's trip to Philmont. It was humping, or getting humped, I forget which I saw first, (the male or the female (or was it simultaneous?) It was January and the World's Fair Trail winds through Forest Park in St. Louis. In Forest Park is the St. Louis Zoo. We made it a point to hit every house in the park to get warm on that cold drizzly day in the winter of 1983 - 84. (We did Philmont in the summer of 1984.) This included the Primate House and yup, we got to see lemurs getting it on. Of course, being an adolescent boy, this was forever etched in my memory. I am not sure if this is the first time I had ever seen actual copulation, but it was close, so it was indelibly etched. That being said, when I came back with my freshman Biology 1 class in the spring, (I studied the baboons in that very same Primate House,) I was amazed to see a new baby! AWESOME! I am not sure about the gestation period, it may have been coincidence. I don't care. Lemurs have forever been special for me. So when Mike Lee brought his attitude, his opinionated writing, his genius and his love of lemurs to the indie dev community, I was hooked.

This brouhaha over MacHeist is unfortunate. After having read Mike Lee's post on the matter and rescanned it and then again, I think the brouhaha is extra unfortunate. But alas, since I first read it, he addenda'd it and then addenda'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd it again to be a little more reasonable. At least in my opinion. Which is good.

So now, a whole thread of my post is moot. Sigh. Well, here is some info on my participation in MacHeist. Besides buying the bundle, I also gave away an unlimited number of copies of Hana for a decent payment from MacHeist. (Hana was not a part of the bundle.) What did I lose? Potential sales? Some in the short term, but not a lot. As a converting to indie developer, I have a day job. I spend most of my awake time preparing for, going to, being at, lunch at, driving home from and briefly recovering from that day job which does something that Hana does not. Pay the bills. So MacHeist is paying some of my bills. For that I love Phill Ryu & Company!

But before I agreed to put Hana in MacHeist, I admired Phill for putting together a fantastic app called MacHeist. MacHeist seems to enthrall thousands of people to do the challenges for free software and that we developers are willing to chuck some bones his way, in return for some back our way is simply business. Just as free iPhone giveaways do not cheapen the iPhone, neither does this cheapen our wares. Right now there are several times as many Hana users as there was before MacHeist. When Hana 2.0 is released this spring, I hope to score some sales I would not have otherwise scored without MacHeist.

What do we indie developers need? We need exposure. We need mentoring. We need support. Promotions? Nice, but if our apps are missing something, the effect is dramatically weakened or even negated. What would be nifty would be for the top 10-20 members of our Mac indie community to get together in this "mad" scheme to "empower" us. I would like to see these folks randomly grouped in groups of three or so to coach, critique and eventually review and promote an app. It could all be done publicly and at the end of the process when the app is finally done and released it could be sold at full price or part of a bundle, but with x% going to the lemurs, y% going to the promo to cover costs and provide a small stipend to the celebrity coaches and the remainder goes to the indie developer.

While us newb indie developers are being coached, our experienced brethren are having their apps reviewed, critiqued and receiving some recommendations as well and maybe they too are included in bundles or just featured periodically on a central site.

I kinda think of this as another My Dream App type of entertainment type thing. A reality type show where developers get the help they need, the users get apps they need and our community is stronger for it. Think of it as the Living the Indie Dream show! :-)

So who is up for Living the Indie Dream? Is this "Mad" enough? Mike? Phill? Use the contact form to reach me or if you must: indiedream @ this site's domain.

Mad thanks to Mike for writing a provocative post and for Phill for MacHeist. You two rock!

Ho Ho Ho

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:41:43 -0600

A jolly old elf has let it slip that All Out Software's Mac Santa deal is nigh and that the coupon code might be good for a little extra time before the allotted day. So say the day were the 13th, to pick a number COMPLETELY at random, then the 12th is also a good day to use the MACSANTA07 coupon code at the All Out Software online store.

TODAY'S THE DAY!

Get Hana for 20% off today at the All Out Software online store. Use the Coupon Code of MACSANTA07 to get your 20% discount.

10% off for the rest of the month of December 2007.

For more information and for loads of great deals (yes, we have a few new pieces of software ourselves!) visit MacSantaDeals.com

Have a happy winter solstice celebratory holiday this year and Happy New Year 2008!

MacSanta

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:15:10 -0600

The second annual Mac Santa promotion is under way. Check out Mac Santa or their RSS feed in your favorite feed reader for special 10% & 20% discounts on your favorite Mac apps!

Ho Ho Ho!

Apple Rules!

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:02:12 -0600

I walked into the Apple Store at West County Center on Saturday night. I needed to get iLife '08 Family Pack. I walked right in. Straight to the Apple software shelves. Saw iLife and saw Family Pack next to it. Grabbed the family pack box and checked out. The nice lady, Lisa, asked if I really wanted the Family Pack. Very sweet to make sure I don't over pay. Awesome. But I wanted the Family Pack, so it was all good. I checked out, left and drove to my dinner party. While at my mother-in-law's waiting for her to come out tot he car, I grabbed my iLife '08 Family Pack, tore the plastic off and THEN...*THEN* I noticed that it said iWork. I had completely missed the iWork logo on the box I picked up and only saw the little, itty-bitty Family Pack logo at the bottom of the package. GAH!

I won't type what I said just then. It wasn't pretty. I knew I had a restocking fee in front of me, but my wife, sitting next to me and reeling in the waves of my self-anger calmly suggested calling the Apple Store immediately. I wasn't up for it at the moment, so she called, talked to a rep, Cleveland, then talked to a manager, Barrett and he agreed to let me bring it in Sunday. So I walked in earlier today, ran RIGHT into Cleveland, he took me to a manager who's name I did not catch and I was out of the store in less than a couple of minutes. I know this was outside of the policy. So I was WAY relieved since I ALREADY owned iWork and am WAY grateful for this bending of the policy.

I am an extra special very happy Apple customer and Mac indie developer today.

Thanks Steve, Barrett, Cleveland, Lisa and the unnamed manager!

[cocoaCodingNight reborn];

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:07:29 -0600

We just finished our first cocoaCodingNight in a while. It was a fruitful one. I knocked out three new features for Hana 1.1 and a minor related UI tweak. In some ways, this is re-adding the features from very early betas. Still, progress. Work shifts now to some more complicated stuff, but I am looking forward to it. I hope to get to the big guns next week, CJs. With that feature, Hana 1.1 will be nearly complete and ready for beta.

For now, though, bedtime.

Good Problems

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:07:11 -0600

As an IT programmer, it is not unusual to have the bad kind of career problem. Choosing a career path that provides happiness and the ability to maintain what has been a good standard of living. I have worked, as a contractor for a lot of good companies (and a few as an employee.) I have worked with loads of great people. People I miss working with. In some cases, I even miss the work.

But for the most part, I don't miss the working environment. All too often I was given a task and not expected to do anything more than bring my expertise to bear on coding the designed solution. At my last two clients, I kinda bull rushed my way into some creative work and in one case, which I far too often overlook, was asked to be creative in the design of a web-app. I overlook it because I got moved to another project and I guess blocked it because I was sad about that.

My new client is a university. A prestigious midwestern private university. With IT built around MS technologies. Sigh. :-) Actually, I wouldn't be here if I weren't an MS programmer, and so this is actually a good thing. My group is committed, well, I say my group when what I really mean is that my boss and HIS boss are committed to bringing a more modern web-app environment to our students. I created a Facebook account to see what the fuss was about and my boss' boss friended me! I was there when *HE* told my boss to get a Facebook account!

There seems to be a real commitment to making a difference here for the user. This is very bizarre to me. Sure we have deadlines and we have quality to deliver, but there is a real commitment to making a difference. And not just ANY difference. No. We are not going the "throw more features at them" approach. Our goal is to make the interface elegant, open, intuitive. And my boss asked me to think about a problem and to present what I thought was the best way to solve it.

GOD

!!!!!!!

So, what's the problem? Well, I have been blogging about making choices in the last couple of months about the future of AOS and my IT programming career. Before, the hardest part was reconciling that I wanted to go a route that would not pay the bills right away with the need to pay the bills right away.

Now I have to choose how to balance AOS with my new gig, which I am seriously torn on wanting to convert to employment. I like the university. After 7 years, my daughters go to college for free! Not a driving factor for me, but a MAJOR consideration none-the-less! What to do? What to do?

For now, the plan is the same as before. Until a job offer comes, the plan is to roll with AOS full time in 2010 unless we strike gold somehow. If a job offer comes, then the question is can I have my cake AND eat it too?

Good problem.

Hana and Leopard

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:21:44 -0500

Rather than repeat myself, go here to the Kanaka Hana blog for more details.

In short, 1.0.3 and before crashes hard. 1.0.4 will fixes the problem., in all likelihood and be released, we hope, this weekend.

Update: 1.0.4 was released late on Leopard day with support for Leopard.

:-)

Day Job Bliss

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:39:53 -0500

All Out Software is my passion. Sadly, it does not pay the bills yet. So when my contract ran out unexpectedly in August, I had to find a new one. That search ended Monday and I start working at one of the premier private universities in the US on Wednesday in IT.

My boss, it turns out, used to be the boss of another Mac indie developer from St. Louis. He was a little leery about hiring another potential short timer. He thinks he will be able to keep me engaged in making the computing environment at Washington University in St. Louis a better place than it has been and is with regard to user experience. I am hoping he is right.

What does this mean for AOS? Well, I am hoping not a lot. I have not been terribly focused over the last couple of months due to having to conduct the job search. Maybe things will speed up? I am not sure. I do know that I will be working my butt off on Friday to make sure that I have a Leopard version of Hana available for download. Look for it late on Friday or early Saturday.

Work on 1.1 is coming along. I would say we are at about 50% complete. By the end of this week I am hoping to have one feature to go. The one which will make Hana even more unique when compared to all other browsers. We call this feature: C----- J---. I am not going to tell you about it until I see it work though. Our research shows it to be doable. But until I have actually implemented it, though, no telling!

CJ will get people talking about Hana. Maybe even spur other browser developers to re-examine some notions about how some things are done.

iPhone SDK

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:00:33 -0500

Well, well, well. How about that. Apple announced an SDK for the iPhone.

When it was announced, the iPhone that is, not the SDK, Geoff, with whom I was working on Hana at the time, agreed that Hana would be a nice iPhone app. After WWDC, I toyed with the idea of trying to do a web-app based version of Hana. Which would be ALMOST as good as a native version. In the end, I decided to focus on Hana for Mac. Which is what we are doing now.

We now have an SDK. Will we do Hana for iPhone? This is a good question and one we will investigate. At the very least, I think we have justification for getting iPhones....hmmm!

Leopard: 26 October

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:49:48 -0500

All Out Software will be upgrading. Bank on it.

The Priese family? Probably not. We have two 800MH iBook G4s. No dice. We have one 500MH iBook G3. No dice. We have one PowerMac G4 Dual 1GH. Will work, but is it worth it? The machine is 5 years old. (As is the iBook G3.) Probably not.

Hardware upgrades? Well, I need a day job. Our debt snowball to knock out all of our peripheral debt, which is growing as I fail to earn income at the moment. And we need to also save up a 6 month emergency fund. Though, with that being said, I suspect we have a used MacBook purchase to make next year. Maybe two.

I suspect the PowerMac will not be replaced. Instead a collection of large USB2 drives attached to my Airport Extreme will serve its needs. Especially if my wife's Windows district will allow her to get a MacBook or MB Pro next year.

For now though. Leopard on my MacBook Pro only. Sigh.

PEBKAC

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:39:01 -0500

Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

This is a refrain often heard from help desks and the developers sometimes assigned help desk tickets. As an experienced developer, I can say that more often than not the chair is the developer's, not the user's.

This is an article about my latest PEBKAC. A PEBKAC that cost me weeks of development time. Development time that would have best been used implementing features for the next version of my software. I will explore some ways I could have avoided this waste of time and share with you how I came to discover the solution.

First, the problem that I thought I was solving. Hana is a specialized tabbed web browser. Like site specialized browsers, it is meant for a specific purpose. Unlike site specific browsers, it is meant for a type of site. So it is safe to call Hana a category specialized browser. The category is web-apps. One uses Hana to access web-apps. The beauty of this is the recognition that we users tend to think of our browsers as play areas. Putting a web-app in a browser is like requiring you to use your cable connected TV as your computer monitor. It is just BEGGING for trouble. ("I'm just gonna check to see the highlights on Sporstcenter...") Hana allows for you to have your separate web browser for working. Use Hana to keep up on email, your schedule, your projects and to edit documents. Use your browser to surf the web, check your scores, your stocks and your favorite web sites. So far, no problem. Last summer, Apple released Safari 3. I downloaded it and installed it. I was working with another developer on Hana at the time and reported to him that mail messages in GMail failed to work. He did not have the problem and left it to me to troubleshoot. And I did. Safari 3 is the problem!

Second, since Safari 3 is a beta, I chose to ignore it in the stampede (at a snail's pace) to release and then to address it in a later build.

Third, Hana was released, other bugs were fixed. Mike and I settled on a feature list for Hana 1.1. The first feature I chose to implement was usage of our own Webkit build. This would alleviate problems with future Apple betas and bug fixes to Safari. I started working on this. Working with a friend, Jay Tuley, we got Webkit to build, but it was 300MB! (It was the Universal 64bit build. Ouch!) We ran out of time but I had a clue as to how to proceed to get a 32bit Universal. In the meantime, I chose to check out Shiira to see if it worke with Safari 3. Yes, yes it did and it did not have a Webkit build. Hmmm. So I ditched the build, as it would make Hana 5 times bigger than it is on disk.

As I have used some Shiira code in the past to implement HTTP error handling, I was familiar with Shiira and decided to see what they were doing that I wasn't. Well, loads. Theirs is a full featured advanced browser. Mine is a trimmed down version of a browser. Having just come off of an 11 month contract with no OO programming, TRUE OO that is, not VB6 OO, that doesn't count, Browsing Shiira's and Hana's code bases became a re-familiarization with OOP. In fact, I am actually pretty confident in my OO skills again. I am looking forward to knocking out most of 1.1's features this week. In addition to my job searching too! (I am looking for a day job.)

Fourth, I started updating my Shiira source in Hana to use the latest code from Shiira. To do this I had to build three frameworks, add them to Hana and then add a copy phase to the build. Now I know what I need to do with Webkit. Should I ever choose to include it again. I also began looking for that one bit of code that makes Shiira work with Safari 3 and Gmail. I never found it.

Fifth, I typed up an email, describing the problem and sent it to the Big Nerd Ranch Cocoa Students mailing list.

Sixth, I got a reply from Mark Dalrymple, programming god, author and all around good guy saying I should consider changing my User Agent string.

Seventh, the fog begins to clear. I begin to open my eyes. I pull my head out of my ass....THWACK!

Eighth, I add a new User Agent to Hana via the Preferences panel for Safari 3 with the Safari 3 User Agent String. Close Preferences. Click on the Gmail tab in Hana. Select Safari 3 from the User Agent sub-menu of the Web-Apps menu in Hana and watch in amazement as Gmail loads and I can now open email messages.

Shit.

Since I am in the midst of a new version of Hana, I chose to do a quick and dirty update. We have the User Agent's hard coded into a method in Hana. If you don't have preferences already on your system for Hana, then Hana gives you all that we hard coded. After that, the user can add or delete to their heart's content. The fix was to update this list, adding a second version for Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. This version is temporary. When 1.1 comes out we will have a better way to manage this so we can push updates to the UAs without requiring the users to delete their prefs which this does.

So the problem in a nutshell? I never stopped to actually troubleshoot the cause of the problem beyond Safari 3 back in June. I just assumed that we missed something, Safari changed something and Gmail didn't change anything. Well, Gmail DID change something. And they expected my app to identify itself appropriately and we did not.

So the solution is to definitively troubleshoot a problem. Research all angles before diving into coding. Especially in areas new to you. You will spend a lot of time with trial and error before you stumble across the solution. We would have found the solution in 1.1 anyway. I had planned to do something about UAs. I was going to include more, have better updating and no hard coding. Still going to do these, btw. We would have just stumbled across the solution and I would have assumed that something in Safari had changed. Ugly.

But what would have been an even better solution would be to have asked the Cocoa developer's mailing list in June (I had not done Big Nerd Ranch yet,) or the Cocoa students list in August or September.

The moral of this story: You are not alone. You CAN do it. You CAN find the problem. And you SHOULD try. But after a reasonable amount of time ASK your peers and the experts. In your flailing around you WILL learn some things. But some of them will not be good things to learn.

I am not embarrassed by this. Unhappy yes. I could be working on the killer feature for 1.1 but alas it is still days away. I could be working on Leopard compatibility, but that is probably a week away. I could be working on the marketing plan for 1.1, but that is still a ways away.

You and I are not alone. Use your mailing lists. Your chat buddies, channels and rooms. Your forums.

The Choice

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:46:19 -0500

I had a good conversation with Trina. Option 3 got a better reception than I thought. The penalty for failure on it though makes it prohibitive. Option 4, (you didn't know there was an option 4 did you! :-)) was Trina's idea. It is for me to go to work for Apple over the next few years. Of course, there is the whole question of qualification. I will browse the openings tomorrow to have a good laugh. I am a great programmer. But being an expert on frameworks and tools is NOT my strong suit. And truth be told, my future involves less programming, not more. So at the very least I will be looking at leadership positions. Still laughable. But we'll see. No small move in any way. Oh and the whole having to shelve AOS for my time there would be no small issue to deal with.

Option 2 got some good talk. My wife knows someone who does independent contracting in the Eureka area and she just assumed I could not get any business. (Thanks for the support dear! :-)) So this did not go over so well. But she didn't shoot it down outright. We will continue to talk and maybe even do some legwork in prep if Option 1 doesn't pan out. So this is the fall back option if Option 1 doesn't kick in soon.

Option 1 is the choice. As I expected it would be. So I am now officially looking for a company to join as a rabid company man for the next 2-3 years while I grow AOS in my off time. The sub-choices, such as whether to seek moneyed partners or to do pure bootstrapping have yet to be made. I have others to consult with regard to this choice.

Yesterday I applied for two positions. I was submitted to another earlier in the week through a consulting firm and today I expect to apply for 2-3 more. If I have already talked to you and you are hesitating, now would be the time to pull the trigger!

Options

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:25:39 -0500

AOS is my future. This much is clear. The question is when it becomes my present and how do I get there. When I was first laid off in August, I thought it would be good to focus a lot of my time on AOS work. My wife thought differently. In truth, I think the way I sold it to here was flawed. She got the impression that I was not going to do a job search or not put a lot into it. Not true, I was just going to devote large blocks of time to working on Hana, Rimmer, Torus and now Fluffy. Slate would get some lovin' too.

Fast forward a to middle October. I met with a friend from my gig at A-B and we discussed the venture capital route. We talked about his ventures and mine. It was good. I heartily recommend that he make the jump from part time entrepreneurship to full time. At the same time, one could argue that this is what *I* have been doing since August and have scant to show for it. Why is that?

No clear direction. I have been flip-flopping on the course I want to take. The destination has never been in question, but the course has never been settled either. Periodically, over the last couple of year I have settled on a course, only te realize severe flaws in it.

So this morning, I took some time to ponder this and figured that I have three main courses for myself and AOS (and some variations.) Of course, there are other alternatives too.

Option 1 is to do what I have kinda-sorta been doing and that is seeking a new day job while I dedicate all free time to AOS. This will make Trina happy and to be totally honest, will satisfy me too. My goal with this is to have AOS up and running as MY employer by 2010. I hope to have it up and running as an employer of others sometime next year. More on how that will work later.

Option 2 is to give up the job search. Which has some immediate gratification value! But I also immediately begin seeking independent contracting work through AOS at a rate of about $69-75/hour. At this rate I can work half time contracting and half time doing AOS development. Better, if I can drum up 40 hours of client work a week consistently, then maybe Mike can join me too. This will actually be a little more painful in the beginning as I will have to live a month or two more before invoices start to come due. Ouch.

Option 3 is to throw caution to the wind and seek loans to float AOS over the next 6-12 months. This is the least likely and frankly most scary option. On one level I really really like it. I like the diving in head first quality of it. At the same time, failure carries a much higher price. If I were 10 years younger and in less debt this might very well be the course I take.

Option 1 is the default and I am running with this for now. I plan to discuss this with Trina to see what her thoughts are and if she has any ideas on how to proceed with Option 2. I also want to see her reaction to Option 3! :-)

Option 2 is my favorite though. If I can find 2-3 clients needing part time work, this could be a very good arrangement. Option 1 is kinda predicated on rapid development of revenue flows or an investment partner or 2 or 3. I am totally up for anything right now. Oh and the part about AOS having employees, not including me is a cost reduction move. My eventual goal is to lead a company that creates far more than we could individually. I will have my hands on the keyboard for sure, but I will not be primarily a developer. I will be President of the company. And that role need not be filled until it is fully utilized by the company and I think that could be a while.

I will chat with Trina tonight and post again tomorrow with the results. She is a very intelligent woman. She is also intimately aware of our financial situation. The question is whether she and I can get clear before we chat. If there is no clearing, it will be ugly. Period! :-)

Regardless, if I get a job, Option 1 kicks in immediately. I am still pending for two positions, though I suspect one has slipped away and one is slipping away. That makes me 0 for 3 so far. This is not pretty. I applied for two more today and waiting to hear back on a third from a consulting firm.

CocoaHeads St. Louis (29 Sep 2007)

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:36:09 -0500

CocoaHeads St. Louis is meeting Saturday 29 September from 2-4pm at the St. Louis Bread Company in Eureka.

We will be mostly open table for topics. With our resident Cocoa/ObjC expert out, I will do my best to lead us! :-)

Some topics to consider:

Leopard News, Ruby on Rails, MySQL vs PostgreSQL, SVN vs Git, Mac Indie topics (stores, marketing, etc.,) New Apps (Acorn from former fellow St. Louisan Gus Mueller, and Pixelmator,) An inside look at Hana, Building WebKit (a.k.a. herding cats! :-))

If you have any questions or need directions, please use the contact form to reach me. I will reply within hours in all likelihood.

Revenue

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:08:48 -0500

All Out Software got its first check from Kagi yesterday for Hana sales. It was far lower than my early projections had it to be. To be clear, my projections were modest too. So this was something of a disappointment. Sales have been weak. I attribute this to a few things.

First, Hana solves a problem that is hard to describe.

Second, No reviews of Hana have been published on major sites. (Not yet anyway, though I am pretty sure one is coming.)

Third, I am new to marketing and suspect I am making some mistakes.

Fourth, A clear, compelling feature, a definitive feature has yet to emerge. (Coming in 1.1)

Fifth, No actual advertising has occurred.

The solution is to get 1.1 out the door and to reevaluate my marketing approach. I will reach out again to those I did the last time who chose to not blog about Hana. I will do some advertising and will continue to work on how to describe Hana to clarify its purpose.

All of that being said. Getting the first check was really cool. I was chatting with my fellow unemployed neighbor before my volleyball match last night and shared it with her. Pretty exciting! This means the next bill paid by All Out Software will come from the All Out Software account, as opposed to my personal account. Now to get the next bill after that one... :-)

1.1 is coming. I worked with another developer last night to get my very own WebKit build. This third attempt failed, but we are a lot closer. Another friend got one going over the weekend, on my birthday no less, and I am going to try to pick his brain about it too. I think we are close to getting this major Hana 1.1 feature nailed. Then I have some smallish features to add, in addition to Mike's work and then we will tackle the big daddy of 1.1.

Still no word on the job front. I should hear something today or tomorrow about getting swanky or getting to work in the city again. Both positions have their plusses and minuses. One would be preferable to the other based on location and work environment and to a much lesser extent on what I would be doing, but either would be quite easily satisfactory.

Swanky

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:41:50 -0500

I just got home from a job interview. It has been a while since I had an interview with a company I wanted to work or a job I wanted to have. Don't get me wrong. I have interviewed with a lot of companies and a lot of the jobs sounded okay, maybe even ideal for where I was at the moment, but not long term. This one could be the one.

I really want this job. I really want to work for this company. The work sounds fun and challenging. It is a small team. While all Microsoft back-end, they support all three browsers on the front. The marketing folks even have Macs! So there is an outside chance I will be able to help out in that area too!

What could be a downside, the dress code, actually sounds okay. I often reconsider my minimal approach to dressing for work and consider dressing it up. More swanky if you will. I am looking forward to doing some shopping for shirts, slacks and a coat or two for this place. Oh and don't forget the ties! :-)

What about AOS? Slate? Hana? Never you mind or worry! I will continue to work with Mike to grow Hana to its full potential. Slate will come when it comes. A good gig like this could be the difference between rushing to get my next career going, or approaching it from a position of strength and passion in the coming years.

On a more technical note, I am working to integrate Webkit into Hana as an external Framework, as opposed to a built-in Cocoa framework. This will eventually alleviate all of the Safari 3 beta issues! More on this after I get it sorted.

Renovatio

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:23:10 -0500

René, Rebirth, Restart, Start-over, a new beginning, whatever. I just archived all of my old posts off and am starting over. Why? Cause that whole on the cusp series of posts really nailed home that I needed to set a course. And here it is:

1) I am not in a financial position to seriously consider going Indie for at least a year. We need to complete our debt snow-ball and that will take a year or more. It sucks, but so be it.

2) I am going to continue to push Hana harder and harder. Working with Mike, we will get 1.1 out in October sometime. As we grow into Cocoa, we will begin developing another app or two to get a feel for totally new development and to get the OCUnit skills dialed in before starting work on Slate.

3) I am going to crunch some numbers and spend some time seriously reconsidering the move away from pursuing venture capital. Since I came back down to Earth and have a plan for growing revenue and not starting out with such a pie in the sky plan, the amount being sought will be considerably more realistic. Still need a fraction of a million for 18-24 months of ops, which is what is required to get to a point of self-sufficiency with a strong focus on Slate.

4) I am also going to consider a partnership with an educational software publisher. I had this idea today and need to bounce it off some folks to see if my take on how this could work is doable. If so, then I will pursue this too.

In summary, I am going to focus on getting back into the IT rat race again. I have a lot to bring to a client or an employer. And best case scenario puts me on the job for at least 6 months, probably closer to 18.

I have a request for the few, suffering readers of this blog, please spread the word of Hana. Drop your favorite bloggers a line about trying Hana. Pester the big sites. If you get a bite, let them know to contact me and I will send them and you (if you need) a license to Hana.

If YOU haven't tried Hana, well, download it and give it a try already! :-)