Every time we release a new version of the software we not only get to announce what new features we added, but everyone quickly finds out which features we didn’t add. This makes a new release the best thing in the world for some people and a real frustration for others. For those of you who are frustrated, we hear you. It’s always annoying when a product you really like does an upgrade, and you discover that they didn’t include that one thing you’ve been asking for since 1997!
Giving Stuff Away
There’s a lot being written right now about Microsoft’s giving Vista PCs to bloggers, and the ethics of the bloggers taking them. If you’ve managed to miss it, there are a few links at the bottom of this post that you can read, but frankly, I’m already tired of the whole subject, and imagine that many other people are too.
But since I’m no longer averse to stealing good ideas (way too many of mine have been lifted), and since we’re trying to drum up more activity on this blog (both posts and comments), we’re going to start a monthly giveaway to people who comment on the posts.
Here’s how it will work:
- Around the first of each month, we’ll give away one of our titles (recipient’s choice, and you can choose one of our suites, so you’d essentially get 3 or 4 programs) to someone who has commented on any of the posts in the previous month. People who have all the software they want can instead get some of our swag, which right now is still just stylus pens, though I’m thinking hard about getting something else.
- We’ll pick the winner each month using a random number that we map to the comment IDs.
- To be eligible, comments just need to be legitimate, and somehow related to the original post.
To help this along, I’ll encourage everyone here to post a lot more, so there’s more content to respond to.
And, as promised, here are the links to a few of the articles about the Microsoft giveaway:
I Started Something
Jason Dunn
Ed Bott
Joel on Software
There’s a lot more that’s been written about this, but starting with the above will probably lead you there.
Opera, eWallet and Me
I recently installed IE7, and for a lot of reasons, didn’t like it much. I’ve never managed to get along well with Firefox, but after spending some time with Opera, found that it worked pretty well for me. There’s a lot it doesn’t do – I do keep IE7 and Firefox both available as well, but I decided to use Opera as my primary browser. Given that Opera imported my IE bookmarks and that I only ever let IE save the passwords I didn’t care much about (things that I don’t really consider very secret, like my logins to sites where I have to register just to read an article), I figured the hardest part about converting would be retraining my fingers.
It turned out I had let IE save a lot more passwords than I’d thought. I haven’t been keeping formal count, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found over 30 so far, and I know I haven’t hit them all. Fortunately, I’d also recorded all the passwords in eWallet (in the Category I call “junk regs”), so it was just a matter of re-entering them all into Opera. But I was surprised – I would have thought I would have saved maybe 10 in IE. eWallet really saved me a lot of trouble on this one.
Why I like Opera – it seems to me a lot faster than IE7 and Firefox. I like tabbed browsing, and the built-in newsreader and RSS reader, but most of all, I like being able to search in my bookmarks, being able to pick “author mode” when I don’t like a page’s fonts and colors, and how configurable it is.
Why I don’t like it – it doesn’t support Web 2.0 very well, resized graphics look pretty awful, and I still end up surprised (at best) or puzzled (at worst) about where a window went or how to get back to one. But overall, it’s my current favorite. If you’re not happy with your current browser option, it’s definitely worth a look. Be sure you’ve got all your passwords, though!
(And, on an almost completely unrelated side-note, this preview is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. The reason it’s slightly related is that probably only people who are familiar with the kind of opera that involves singing, classical music, and live performers will find it funny.)
And, yes, we will be fixing our site so it looks better in the newer browsers. And I’m hoping that we’ll be able to extend eWallet’s AutoPass feature to work in other browsers as well as the IE ones.
Happy Holidays from Ilium Software!
Santa, I want eWallet 5.0 and Screen Capture and world peace and a pony….
(Thanks to our product manager Marc for arranging to have Santa come in during his annual pre-Christmas publicity rounds!)
‘Tis the Season for New Freeware
Maybe it’s the holiday spirit, or leftover giddiness from the release of eWallet 5.0 last week, but I’ve decided today would be a great day to release another new product – and this time, it’s free!
Ilium Software Screen Capture is a fast and easy-to-use application that lets you take screenshots quickly on your Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. In only a few steps, the program is ready to take all the screenshots you need at the push of a button.
Ilium Software Screen Capture is the newest of many handy utilities and fun games available for free on our website. Visit our freeware page today to download any of these great programs.
eWallet Open Beta: The Results Are In!
When I announced our open beta I promised that I’d let everyone know how it went. I mean this is a ‘behind the scenes at Ilium Software’ blog after all! I’ll start by saying that overall, this was a great experience. We got some really excellent insights into how people reacted to changes, caught a number of bugs, and found out how folks liked the new features. Without question I plan to run additional Open Betas in the future.