I'd only buy the software if...

This is a common line I read all the time in reference to software products I see on the web; most recently with Parallels. I'm not sure if consumers really understand that software developers aren't catering to one person (in most cases). I fell into this trap with my NotifyMail program where I implemented every feature request that came in. This was counter productive for a number of reasons. Mostly, the people that wanted the features had already bought it and it wasn't going to get them to buy more and the more obscure features I added, the harder it was to maintain and document. In the case of Parallels, people seem to say that if XYZ USB device doesn't work, they're not going to buy it. While USB support is important, the product does so much else that it is easy to justify the $40 (pre-order price). These people that are buying Parallels have easily spent $1500 on a system and are complaining about a $40 product that doesn't do everything. While I like to see lots of my pet features in products, it won't prevent me from buying the software. I purchase a few products a month and send in features requests on occasion. There will always be features that I want that aren't in a product, but it doesn't mean that everyone else wants the same feature.

People need to judge a product in if it does a job even if it doesn't meet 100% of the requirements. Unless someone writes a product himself, it is unlikely that any product will do 100% of the things that he wants it to do. That's reality.

Is it time to retire WirelessModem?

Four years ago, I wrote a program called WirelessModem which let me use my Treo 180 as a modem for my PowerBook. This was, in my opinion, needed as the Treo replaced my Motorola StarTac and while I didn't use it often, I could use my StarTac as a modem (it wasn't pretty with a USB to serial adapter and a bunch of cable). Over the years, I've tried to keep WirelessModem working with the newer Treos, but have had mixed success (USB is more voodoo than it is programming and each device seems to have a mind of its own). Some people still seem to get it to work, but many can't and I don't have the time or motivation to touch it. I stopped using a Treo a few years back for a number of factors (they've improved tremendously, but I still don't want to have the option of getting my email all the time...it's too tempting and increases stress).

Now that Palm has released the Treo 700p, it looks like they finally added the ability to use the phone as a modem via both USB and Bluetooth (Bluetooth support was in there for some of the 650s). So, WirelessModem is no longer needed for the Treo series. In my opinion, it is about time. I've always thought it should be built into the OS as every cell phone I've had could be used as a modem out of the box, except for the Treos even though they cost more than most phones. When I was at Qualcomm and worked on the pDQ phone (first Palm OS based smartphone), having the phone work as a modem was a requirement. When Kyocera went forward with the 6035 and 7135, they kept this ability. Furthermore, with the 7135, the phone registered on USB as a Communications Device Class (CDC) modem, which meant that no drivers at all were required on the Mac (and other OSes). Not to mention, WirelessModem won't work on MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

People still buy WirelessModem despite me not being able to support it. Do I completely remove it from my website or keep it? I'm definitely not making a fortune off it and it has served me well over the last few years. I think it has outlived its usefulness.

Short attention span

I think I've determined why I like Legos. The ones I like are designed for 5-12 year olds; since it appears that I have the attention span of a 5 year old, it is perfect for me! Seriously, my attention span for things that aren't work related is very short (I probably have some form of ADD) and my mind wanders a lot onto many different topics and things to do. This is a blessing and a curse; I've packed a ton of knowledge in my head, but I'm always thinking which can make it hard to sleep and relax.

Web standards

It seems that I keep visiting technologies or parts of projects I've worked on in the past. Recently, I had to deal with web sites and HTML. At one point in my past, I wrote a web server and learned a bit about HTML and how all that worked. While I was still in college, I learned HTML and hand coded my website (no more of that...too many other things to do and it is far too complicated for me). My recent project caused me to look at websites and run them through the W3C Validator. The results are kind of scary; most of the sites I looked at failed validation. What does this mean? It means that web browsers (and other tool that look at websites), have to work extra hard to handle non-standards based sites. This is prone to errors and causes the software to not work well. Then the user blames the web browser or other software instead of putting the blame squarely where it belongs, on the website author. Every Tom, Dick, or Harry can put up a website. It sure doesn't mean that he has a clue of what he is doing. Even I have to periodically check my site to make sure it is valid; unfortunately for me, I'm still used to things 10 years ago which are no longer valid which means I make a lot of mistakes. Someday I'll try to learn the right way to do things. By using blogging software and a web authoring tool, I don't have to deal with it much. However, there are a few things I shove in that seem to cause problems, such as aligning text/graphics, setting borders on pictures, and using the target tag in links which are no longer valid.

I don't have an answer on how to solve this, but it gives me a new found respect for the non-leading web browser. For the leading web browser, web designers make it work with that and some say tough luck to the others even if their sites aren't valid.