I’m sure the fact that our network server seems to have completely bit the dust has nothing to do with the fact that today is Friday the 13th.
And my PC crashing every time I try to upload that picture of a calendar showing a 13 doesn’t mean anything either.
A big challenge developers face are requirements given to them by OEMs (the people that make your hardware) and demands from folks like Microsoft and Palmsource. There are times when these requirements conflict with what we want to do or with what customers tell us they are looking for. Microsoft just put up a great blog post about one of these requirements (the missing Exit feature in Windows Mobile discussed at the Windows Mobile Blog).
Having read that, I figured I would share a developer perspective on this often frustrating topic…
I had to share something that came up in a support call yesterday. It’s either really horrible or incredibly funny depending on your point of view.
We received a panicked call from someone trying desperately to access an eWallet file that they didn’t know the password for. This isn’t all that unusual. We all know that it’s easy to forget the “really good” password you came up with (one of the things that makes eWallet so handy!) The problem of course is that eWallet, being a secure information manager, really IS secure. If you forget your password there is NO backdoor, NO way to reset the password, and NO reasonable way to hack the wallet*.
In this case though, the problem was that Company A bought out Company B and laid off all the IT staff from Company B. Unfortunately for “A”, the IT staff at “B” stored all the vital IT info in eWallet and no one bothered to ask them for the password when they laid everybody off.
Needless to say, panic ensued. As a person who knows how bad it would be if we lost access to all our passwords, I can feel their pain…but on the other hand, as a guy who has seen his friends dumped out on the street during a merger, I can’t help but snicker.
* There are numerous articles about hacking 256-bit encryption. Estimates to do so typically involve a few hundred thousand computers linked together and working continuously for tens of thousands of years. Yeah…pick a good password and you’re all set.
Every day people contact us to change their software from one device type to another, Palm to Pocket PC, Pocket PC to Smartphone, Smartphone to Palm, etc. I’m curious to know what drives this switch. What single thing, or combination of things, makes people drop a perfectly usable, high-dollar device and buy a different one?
I started out PDA-dom with a Palm Kyocera 6035, but when I spent more time banging it on the desk in frustration than actually using it, I started looking at other devices. I looked very hard at the Pocket PC phones, but the ones with the functionality I wanted were outside my price range (I will only pay so much for something I can lose or trash so easily!). The interface for the Windows-Powered Smartphones gives me hives, so they weren’t even in the running, and that brought me right back to Palm. Surprisingly, to me at least, the Treo suits my needs pretty well.
So what makes people switch to a completely different operating system? Is it the promise of “better, cooler, faster”? Is it “I hate this device, so that one has to be better”? How much of your device choice is based on actual functionality of the device (“gotta have a phone and a thumb keyboard”), and how much is purely personal preference (“the Pocket PC is so easy to use, but the Palm is so alien!”)?
That’s right! We’re about to start a full beta on eWallet 5.0. We’re very excited about the new features and look forward to getting reaction from our customers! One truth of software development is that sometimes things look amazing from our perspective, but once it hits the masses we discover that the “great idea” is far less impressive from a user point of view. Hence the need for a good beta run!
The beta group will include a very select bunch of people but we do have open slots so if you’re interested drop a line to beta@iliumsoft.com . Not only do we need our usual group of Palm, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile Smartphone folks, but we’re also looking for people who don’t use a PDA at all anymore.
Ahoy there! Unless ye’ve been stranded on a desert island, ye know that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day . The crew here at Ilium Software want to wish all of ye good sailing. And to celebrate, we’ve created this special InScribe 2007 keyboard layout just for pirates! (Ye can spy InScribe 2007 here if ye haven’t already!)
Also, be sure to check out the booty offered by our mates over at Astraware. They’ve got some special offers on Pirate Software ye might like! May the wind be at yer back and yer powder stay dry.
