Describing the itch
Now that I have released jsiPodFetch I have some marketing to do. It is definitively a task I am not comfortable with. I even find it hard to explain what the program does in an understandable way.
In reality the application doesn’t do very much and that is what I like the most about it. I think (hope) that people will be able to use it without much explanation.
…anyway; the itch I had was that I had trouble copying podcasts to my phone and keep track of what I had listened to. I also wanted to have a playlist every time I copied the media to the phone so that I would get a decent listening order. My Sony Ericsson sorts tracks by filename if there is no playlist. jsiPodFetch will also do wonders with my (very) old MP3 player because it writes the files to the player in the order they should be played.
Official release of jsiPodFetch
At last I have released a beta of jsiPodFetch:
Make it easier to listen to podcasts with your phone or media player.
jsiPodFetch will download the audio files from your podcast RSS feeds and create a playlist for optimal listening order.
Downloaded media is stored on your PC until you mark them as done.
jsiPodFetch is in beta and can be downloaded here.
More information and documentation will be provided shortly.
jsiPodFetch is freeware now, but please take a look at my advertisers to support the future development.
Shareware licensing
My upcoming shareware application is almost ready. There is some more testing to be done in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I am also going to try to run it in Ubuntu using Mono, but that will come after the initial release. I’m arguing with myself about whether I should implement the GUI in WPF in a future release or if I should stay with WinForms so that I can run with Mono.
Apart from testing I still have to implement some sort of licensing system. I would prefer having the keys generated by the PayPal manager I have in PHP so that the sales process can be fully automated. It will take some extra care since an issued key has to work in the future. I can’t upgrade that part of the code without invalidating all issued keys.
My first attempt created a key based on the customers email address. The big flaw with it was that it was only possible to do one check so if someone figured out the algorithm for creating the key I would have free keys online forever. I need to create a license key that I can do several different checks on in different versions of my program.
At the moment I’m thinking of using hashes of GUID’s. That way I can incorporate different GUID’s in different compiles of the program. It will also be possible to include lists of invalid GUID’s both in the application and as part of the automatic upgrade manifest.
The next problem will be to inline the validity checks in my c# code so that the potential cracker has more than one place to shortcut. I don’t believe it will be cracker proof. It just has to be hard enough to stand the first attempt at cracking it.
Hopefully I will make the release early September.
Hobby project part 3
Since I’m going to release the software as shareware I have to come up with a good incentive for the users to pay for it.
At the moment I’m trying to decide if I should start showing ads when the trial period is over or if I should just make it obvious that they are using unpaid software. Ads could create som revenue, but it might equally well make people sick of the application.
If I stop the application from working then the trial period is over it will probably be cracked in an afternoon even if the user base is small so I think I’ll let people use it even if they don’t pay. Perhaps conscience will win eventually.
Hobby project part 2
I’ve got a couple of ideas for other programs so I registered a domain
(jsisoft.com) where I can host them instead of one domain per application which probably would be better from a marketing perspective. I will prefix all the program names with ‘jsi’ to (hopefully) avoid other peoples trademarks.
It’s probably a couple of weeks of development time left before I make it public, but I have got the plumbing with paypal from jsisoft.com done and there is a forum here.
It is possible to make a donation for logview4net from the site.
I was thinking about submitting the software to as many shareware/download portals as I can find without spending any money.
Hobby project
I’ve started developing a small application that I’m going to try to sell as shareware. I don’t think it’ll make me rich, but it would be fun to have the web hosting bills paid and the ability to by an occasional toy.
There is a lot more to do when the program is to be for sale than releasing it on SourceForge. That is perhaps an unfair attitude towrds open source, but I think people have a greater tolerance for weirdness if they didn’t pay for the application.
