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Software is never done, it's just shipped
In today's world of consumer software, the phrase "software is never done, it's just shipped" is the norm. Prior to the wide use of the Internet and downloadable updates, this wasn't always the case. When it cost real money to send out updates on media, software was tested more, but also people didn't expect updates as often. When I released ReceiptWallet 2.0 last week, I knew there was going to be an update. I released 2.0.1 this past Sunday and followed it up almost immediately with 2.0.2 b1 as I found more issues.
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The tax man taketh
It is time for me to pay my taxes again. As someone that is self-employed, I have to pay quarterly estimated taxes, so this happens 4 times a year. One of the things that gets me (it's a mental thing) is paying taxes in such huge chunks. Salaried employees have taxes withheld and in theory, the total withholdings equals the total tax, so the money comes out in small increments and people don't end up with a huge tax bill. Being self-employed, my income varies each year. If I have a good year, I end up with a big fat bill. If I have a year worse than the previous year, I get a refund.
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Error Message of the Day
I have to admit that some of my error messages to users aren't that friendly, but I've tried to put in a message at least that says "Please contact support and report the above error.". Sometimes I can help users, sometimes I can't. I was using QuickBooks today and I received the following error message:
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24/7 Tech Support
I received an urgent email from a user today that had a slight problem with a registration code. I responded within a couple of hours (today is Saturday) saying that I tested the code and it works fine (I actually did test the code and saw that it worked) and said please try again and if you have problems, please send a screenshot so I can verify the code. The response I got back was "I am very disappointed with your response." Wow, it is those kind of users that make me want to quit writing and selling software. I generally get back to users within a few hours, 7 days a week; yes, I work a lot and some people appreciate that. Some support tickets take a bit of going back and forth and I'll work to solve problems as much as it takes. However, getting responses like this make me want to just pack it in.