http://www.juliesoft.com solve niche problems, make users happy Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:56:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Hey there! I have been BUSY since the release of Every Single Shot. Here's a quick recap just to keep you up to date. I can't stay long - I've got more stuff (marketing, coding, brainstorming, and emailing w/customers) to do!! First off, I've been adding a ton ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/07/changelog-5-just-working-away/ Holla! I just flipped the switch on Every Single Shot 1.0! If it's on Twitter it must be a fact: This has been the culmination of a lot of work! Oh sure, it's still a little rough around the edges for now, but isn't that part of the ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/06/changelog-4-every-single-shot-1-0-is-out/ Note: this tip can be applied to a lot of Linux distros, but the Ubuntu on EC2 set up is the one I'm using it on. YMMV So I'm running some pretty stable Ubuntu instances on Amazon's EC2. They've never shut down unexpectedly, and I rarely need to restart them. ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/05/an-easy-way-to-keep-your-ubuntu-ec2-instances-up-to-date/ I've just been doing a bit of refactoring on the Every Single Shot sign up page. I started with something that resembled the idea of mad-libs form design: (click thumbnail for full size image) I've since decided to try amore traditional form layout: (click thumbnail for full size image) Do you ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/05/which-form-style-do-you-prefer/ A common requirement in webapps nowadays is to switch users between a secure and insecure connection (called protocol switching). For example, maybe your user needs to enter a password, credit card number, or some other sensitive information. Of course, you (and the user) would like that information to ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/04/automatic-httphttps-switching-with-grails/ I've got a bunch of shell scripts that I use to help me with development of Every Single Shot. Some of these scripts, like starting up a new server instance or redeploying an application, can take a while (10 to 15 minutes). I'll typically launch a script and ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/03/shell-scripts-that-talk-back-and-make-you-millions/ Total earnings as of March 18th, 2010: $0 In my last ChangeLog I said things were moving slowly - much slower than I would have hoped for. That's finally changed! Development has really picked up over the last couple of weeks and I've been churning out new features and ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/03/changelog-3-beta-release-and-the-start-of-something-great/ I didn't mean to learn anything about customer support - I was just researching the competition. More precisely, I was researching some indirect competitors for Every Single Shot and I found myself at SmugMug. Although I was looking to learn about the specific features of SmugMug, what I ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/02/how-to-give-good-customer-support-be-like-smugmug/ Total earnings as of February 11th, 2010: $0 This week was a lot slower than I had hoped it would be. I don't think I made enough progress to be able to launch a beta (remember to sign up) on February 15th (4 days from now!) - but I'm still ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/02/changelog-2-storing-photos-and-little-else/ Total earnings as of February 1, 2010: $0 I've been busy the last few weeks working on many of the things it takes to turn Every Single Shot from an idea into an actual product. The last few weeks of work have been really, really fun. Not only have ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2010/02/changelog-1-hacking-branding-and-ec2/ The past I've been blogging here since December, 2006. In that time, I've covered lots of random topics, including building my first product. I haven't (yet) blogged about shutting it down, but that topic is on the short list to cover soon. The last three years have been ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2009/12/time-for-a-change/ Someone just posted a question over on the Business of Software forum asking for recommendations on books and blogs related to sales. Since I've been doing a lot of reading on marketing (I know, marketing isn't sales, but they go hand in hand), I figured I'd post my reading ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2009/11/marketing-books-for-small-businesses/ Starting a business is a lot of work, especially when you're doing it all yourself. I need all the hours I can get in a day, so I came up with a handy little practice that's really increased my productivity. Yes, I'd even say it's doubled it (hmmm...does ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2009/11/double-your-productivity-with-1-tip/ UPDATE Looking for more marketing books? Here's a list of good ones that I've read recently (or am planning to read). I just read The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and was happy that I set aside a couple of hours to do so. I'm currently working on a new ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2009/10/the-22-immutable-laws-of-branding-summary/ UPDATE There's an excellent article on the Grails website that walks through installing and using STS with Grails support. I recommend you use that guide instead of the one below. STS 2.2.0 was released today with support for Groovy and Grails development. If you're new to STS, the route ... http://www.juliesoft.com/2009/10/installing-springsource-tool-suite-sts-with-groovy-and-grails-support/