Now, I just held a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with the slot for a Memory Stick Duo, and a 2 Megapixel camera. Now *that* is something to get excited about. What a phone! It’s a bit bigger than the nano, but not really, and saves me from having to worry about charging two separate devices at night. This is the key: Separate devices are bad, convergence is good. "
I've been hearing about convergence in the phone biz for a long time now. In reality though things seem to be going the opposite way. Sure phones are getting more features, but the evidence is that people are buying MORE iPods not less. Their ignoring that their phone plays music. It will be interesting to see where this all leads.
Oh, and by the looks of things Apple isn't too interested in convergence (of course). That rokr phone is about the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Apple is probably the one company with the pull to make convergence happen if they want it too. I wonder if they'll ever give in and go the phone route.
Come on 5 blades on a razor? Mike has the scoop. I have the toughest beard of anyone I know, I mean I would literally have to shave twice a day if I wanted to even be in the ballpark of a smooth face but even I can't stand more than 2 blades really. I tried the 4 blade Schick and it practically ripped my face off. They must be super dull because 5 sharp blades would be suicidal.
The beta has been a great time because I'm actually getting to use my software in the fashion it's intended to be used. I've been "using" it of course, but all in very contrived ways. There's simply no way to really use it until people you don't know are sending in requests through the portal, emailing to the integrated email boxes, and posting to the forums. I'm happy to say that I actually like it! I've found that it's already been invaluable in managing my requests.
There's no way I could have handled a fraction of this via email. Several interactions have already included 15-20 back and forth interactions. It's great how they're all placed together by HelpSpot even though they're a mix of email and request form updates. I've received and sent attachments, turned forum posts into new requests, built custom request filters and just generally used way more functions than I thought I would have for 3 days into it.
I've been working through the bug list today. It really hasn't been too bad. There's one nasty one that effects people on installation, which was probably the area I most feared having a problem with because it's the most frustrating place to find a bug from the customers perspective. Overall, the beta has been working out really well though. Tons of great feedback is coming in.
I'm going to try and get out a new release once a week, usually on Monday's. I'm on track for that right now.
Perhaps these aren't the correct terms, but I do feel an entirely new sensation while coding now than just a week ago. The big difference is that before I could essentially dive into whatever I was going to work on and hack away. Perhaps I break something along the way, but I'm in the zone and that's OK I'll go back and fix it. Now however, it's entirely different. I find myself tiptoeing through the code to avoid creating new bugs while fixing the existing ones. It's good to recognize that I shouldn't create new bugs :-), but it's just an odd sensation.
Mark Jen has an interesting rant about Steve Gillmore. I have to agree. I guess I've never really seen the big deal with him. Every one of his ZD pieces I've read seems like stuff I've know forever.
"RSS support in Office is nice. Not only does the system track RSS via subscriptions in IE 7 (and has an RSS gadget built into the new Vista Sidebar) but Office supports RSS as well. Outlook finally adds integrated RSS support (which is my preferred way to read RSS). In general, it looks like RSS aggregators are indeed a commodity."
Everyone will be able to check their HelpSpot request queue's without leaving Outlook!
This is interesting. Part of the beta sign up asks you what OS and database you intend to run HelpSpot on. Here are the results so far:
OS:
*nix: 34
OSX: 6
Win: 20
Database:
MySQL: 46
MS SQL Server: 12
PostgreSQL: 2
What's most shocking to you?
For me on the OS side it's the high number of Windows users. This is actually very encouraging to me. While PHP is probably the most widely used open source language on Windows it was still a concern I had that Windows users wouldn't be interested in running it in their businesses.
For the databases, it's the low number for PostgreSQL and the relatively high number of SQL Server. Come on PostgreSQL people let's spread the word we need more beta testers than that!
Thought I'd post a very quick update for everyone.
So far we've had about 60 companies download the beta, not bad for something that's only be out for about 18 hours. It's a really interesting mix from one person shops to giant corporations and universities. They've given tons of great feedback so far. I've got about 15 solid bugs to fix, but none of them are earth shattering show stoppers (so far knock on wood).
I'm shooting to get another beta out for Monday with all the bugs fixed. I'm going to try and do one release each week unless a major bug is found which requires immediate attention.
Tons and tons to write-up about this process, hopefully I'll get a chance later this week.
I don't have much time to post, still trying to wrap things up but we're looking good for opening the beta tomorrow. I'm shooting for 1pm. I still have some things to put in place, plus that will give everyone a chance to handle their Monday morning emails, meetings, etc.
I'm sure they'll be some rough spots but things are running pretty good on all the dev machines, VM machines and several test hosting accounts I've got so we'll see. I wish I had more documentation ready, but I'm going to work on that this week so by week end that should be much better off as well.