Random Thoughts

I’ve recently installed the release version (which now has been officially released) of Hardy Heron which is the name given to the latest version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. The installation went almost without a hitch except that it initially did not recognise my wireless networking card. I found the solution in one of the fora related to Ubuntu.

I know for a fact that it is possible to run MS Windows-based applications in Linux through the use of an application called Wine. It then occurred to me to find out if VeriTime can run properly in Linux through Wine. Well, there’s only one way to find out. Read more »

One of the best things that can happen to your marketing efforts is to find someone who starts telling their friends and associates on how good your product is. Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool because a lot of people tend to buy on the basis of someone’s recommendation. I know it works because I have bought things based on a friend’s comment or experience e.g. our current family car is a case in point.

How can you find out? Well, for starters, they are the ones who send you an email or two pointing out a defect or missing feature in your product. They also tell you that they are happy with your product and they have recommended it to their friends or officemates. Thank you lucky stars for this type client. You must try extra hard to keep them as clients for the long term. How can you do this? Read more »

This is an old post that I had in my previous blog that got deleted :(. Many people have requested for a copy so I am posting it again.

The last couple of days I have been thinking a lot about this topic simply because it is this week’s debating topic for my second daughter, it was also an article in a family magazine that I receive monthly called Perspective, and finally I made a comment in a blog posting on this very same topic.

This topic, I am sure has been discussed, blogged, commented on a lot of times and what I will say is nothing new and at the same time I know that I can still contribute something to it. My 9 Ways are:

1. Use an internet content filtering software.
2. Place the computer in a common area.
3. Set a login password.
4. Ask why.
5. Suggest alternative sources of information.
6. Offer other forms of entertainment.
7. Talk about what’s good or bad about the world wide web.
8. Get to know the parents of your children’s friends (very important).
9. Your own example.

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Quite a number of software sold nowadays have a trial period which ranges from a couple of weeks to thirty days or more. This trial period is enables you to evaluate the software and see if it is applicable to your needs. During this time it is possible that you may notice some defect or a missing feature that eventually prevents you from buying the software.

No software developer wants to lose a possible sale, most especially because the application has some defect or is lacking in features. In order to prevent this situation software authors engage in a practice called “dogfooding“. It is the practice of using one’s own products.

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A few days ago I posted an entry in the Business of Software forum. I was looking for an application that will allow me to manage the people who purchased VeriTime Time Tracker much better. I knew the term for it but for that particular moment I cannot seem to remember it.

There are a lot of software developers who visit this forum and as a result there were already replies to my posting after only an hour. One of the replies stated that I was looking for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. That’s it! That’s the term that eluded when I was writing my post. Another was from someone who actually developed and sells such a product called goCRM. He stated that if I wanted, he can give me a licence for his product for free. Nice. Note to self: make a mental note of what he has done.
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If you’ve been a previous visitor of my website, www.pcfworks.com you will notice that it now looks different. I had a look at my old website and felt that it needed a fresh look. What I did was to do a bit of homework and looked at sites that are owned by uISVs (micro-ISVs or micro-Independent Software Vendors) since I classify myself as one. I tried to find out the elements in their websites that appealed to me and I also looked at other sites that I found appealing and informative. The following were my observations:

• There is a lot of white space in the main or home page. The home page served as a simple doorway to the rest of the site. The presented information was enough to capture attention but not too much as to cause some sort of information overload.
• There are clear links to the product information, download, and order pages. I did not have to look around for the link.
• The price of the item is in the home page. Not including the sites I visit for information or news, one of the first things that I look for when looking at a product is how does it cost? My mind seems to perform some mental gymnastics relating the price and the feature set of the software.

I then proceeded to redesign my website using these observations as guides. I’m pretty pleased with the results but I am sure there are still a lot areas it can improve on. What do you think?