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Contest Two: Back in the day

by Julie

12 YearsFor today’s contest you’ll need to exercise your memory, dust off the old photo albums, and think back to the good old days. As you know, we’ve just turned 12, and we want to know what to expect of the next year. So that’s where you come in. All you need to do is answer the following question:

What were you like when you were twelve?

Simple, right? Everyone was 12 once, and it lasted a whole year, so you’ve got to have lots of great stories about it. Were you the president of the computer club, or maybe a jock-in-training, or perhaps you were like, totally, the cheerleading captain. Did you have one of those awesome, giant cell phones like Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell? Maybe you liked to take apart toasters and turn them into shortwave radios, build model cars, or put together little dance routines with your friends (yes, I admit it, that was me).

Spend a little time reminiscing and let us know in the comments below – we’ve only been 12 for a couple days now and we want to know what we have to look forward to! And I promise, no matter how big of a dork – or how “rad” – you were, we won’t laugh…at least, not to your face.

This is the second contest in our week-long 12-year anniversary celebration. We will pick four winners during each contest: the winners can choose between an iTunes or Amazon gift card as their prize. First place winners receive a $50 gift card, and runners-up will get $25. Enter as many times as you like, by submitting your entries as replies to this post. Employees and friends of Ilium Software aren’t eligible to win, but are welcome (and encouraged) to participate anyway. Today’s contest closes at 12:00 noon Eastern Time tomorrow. Winners will be announced during the day tomorrow.

And don’t forget, we’ve got more going on this week besides contests! Shop for anything in our online store and get a big $12 discount off your purchase! You can read more here and start shopping now.

Winners: MadLibs fun!

by Julie

12 YearsThe votes are in! There were a lot of strange, weird, and funny headlines from our MadLibs game yesterday, so it took us some time today to narrow down the list to four winners. But we’ve picked our favorites and now it’s time to let you know which headlines we liked best.

The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is Melvyn, for the crazy headline: “Today Microsoft announced its merger with Amazon and unveiled its plans to sell toenails to Bolivia.” Eww…gross. Can you even imagine a merger like that – or living in Bolivia and seeing toenails for sale at your local store?

Our three runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Paperjet, Shaun, and MikeCTZA. Well done, everyone! I’ll be contacting you via email to find out which store you’d like your gift card from. If you don’t get that email later today, reply to this post to let me know.

To everyone who played, thanks so much – the entries were great, and it was a tough decision. But don’t go far, because we’ll start a new contest tomorrow and you can try your luck at a prize again!

And just a reminder: we’ve got a big anniversary sale running on our site this week too. All of the software in our online store, and eWallet on the iPhone App Store, are discounted BIG right now. Check it out here!

Contest One: Say what?!

by Julie

12 YearsWe’re going to start off our week of anniversary contests with a blast from the past – er, a blast from one year ago, that is.

One of the best contests we ran for last year’s party was a fun-filled game of mobile-style MadLibs; we got a lot of hilarious responses. So, I decided we really should go for another round!

If you don’t know what MadLibs are, well, that’s just sad – they were a childhood staple where I grew up. I’ve got some fond memories of rainy afternoons sitting around laughing at the crazy MadLibs my friends and I used to make up. And that was just last week! Anyway, you can get a crash course on MadLibs here, then head on back to this post more details on our contest.

[Read more…] about Contest One: Say what?!

Our 12th Anniversary!

by Ellen

12 YearsToday is our 12 year anniversary! Yes, we’ve been making and selling mobile and desktop software for 12 years. How amazing is that?

I wish I could take credit for it all, but I’m a little too honest for that. We’ve been smart – I’ll never downplay that – but we’ve been very lucky too. I never know what the future of mobile software will be like, but we’ll be trying hard to keep up with it, without compromising our commitments to high quality software, in-house development, ethical business practices, and world-class tech and customer support.

Of course we couldn’t have done it without our many supporters: writers, reviewers, customers, beta testers, friends, colleagues, supporters, partners, and everyone who send us suggestions, information and kind words. Many, many, many thanks to everyone.

And particularly to the people I never remember to thank (at least not on the blog) – the committed, talented, and patient people who make up Ilium Software. To develop, test, release, maintain, support, distribute, market and sell the stuff we do is an amazing accomplishment, especially given how many of us are really making it up as we go along. If you’re reading this, please join me in celebrating this incredible accomplishment.

Julie’s got a week of sales and giveaways planned, so be sure to stick around. The sale has already started in our online store, and the first blog contest will be posted soon, with lots of chances to win great prizes!

AND – we’re on Twitter. Better late than never, I hope. Check us out at http://twitter.com/iliumsoftware

eWallet for Mac, ListPro for iPhone

by Marc

My first draft of this was about four pages long. After giving it a lot of thought, I took another whack at it. I’ll try to get straight to the point in this version. I’m not going to sugar coat things or pad my comments with biz-speak. I’m just going to give you the info you need in plain English.

ListPro for iPhone and eWallet for Mac are not done yet. I’ve made some guesses about when they’ll be done but, frankly, they’re guesses. The reality is that we won’t release them until they meet the standards of quality we’ve set for ourselves. We WILL release them (we always finish what we start) but it will be when they are ready and not before.

In fact, this is how we’ve always developed software. The only difference is that we pre-announced these two products. Before this we never announced anything until it was out the door. These announcements were a mistake and I place the blame firmly on my own shoulders. I jumped the gun because I was so excited about these. (I’m STILL excited about them.)

I read every email about this. I read every frustrated comment on the blog. And I respond. I’m acutely aware that my decision to pre-announce these products has frustrated some people. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think about this in bed at night. We aren’t just sitting around laughing this stuff off.

But no matter how hard it is for me to not release this stuff yet, I will not compromise on quality. I also won’t hack the products down to get them out sooner. If I can’t give you the features you need then I’m not going to waste your time. Until we have the very best product with the right features, I won’t release.

Does this mean some folks will give up and move to a different product while they are waiting? Sure, and we don’t blame them. If that’s what they need to do then that’s what they need to do. We’re not asking anyone to do us any personal favors. We might like a lot of you folks and you might like us, but you need to make the decisions that are right for you.

eWallet for Mac and ListPro for iPhone are coming. When we release them they are going to rock. I’m sorry that I gave the OK to announce that they are coming and thus set unrealistic expectations about when they’d come out. I’m not going to make any further predictions except to say that we will release them.

If you choose to use something else in the meantime, that’s fine. But when we do release these products, I encourage you to give them a try. See if they are better than what you are using, and if they are, switch back. I’m confident that you’ll find them to be the very best in their class.

May-be it’s time for a new contest winner

by Julie

Well, May is here and it’s off to a nice start so far. Relatively warm weather: not too rainy, not too windy. And I think – I really think – I can safely pack my snow boots away without any negative consequences. But maybe I should hold off on that so as not to jinx things.

And best of all, May means it’s time to pick another blog contest winner! Last month Marc posted some good news about Mac eWallet, and that produced a lot of comments from happy readers – including our winner: Mark. Congrats, Mark! I’ve just sent you an email explaining how to get your prize. If you don’t receive it, reply to this post and let me know.

And to everyone else out there: thanks so much for reading and leaving your thoughts. Keep coming back, because I’ll pick another winner in June (and definitely have my snow boots away by then) and who knows – it could be you!

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