Written by Phil Miller, on October 04, 2009 at 16:17
Alright everybody. The ball is now officially rolling. I have purchased books on WebOS programming, JavaScript programming, and Java programming (need to read up on Java for BlackBerry). So with these purchases I have officially committed to WebOS and BlackBerry programming. Keep checking back for fun new things to pop up.
Written by Phil Miller, on September 25, 2009 at 15:06
Hey Everyone, It has been a very long time since I posted to my blog here at BoraWare.com. I just wanted to let you know that there is a fun new project in the works here at BoraWare. I won't go in to much detail about what it is quite yet but I will say that it'll involve chat (no IRC this time) and it'll be written for both GarnetOS (formally PalmOS) and WebOS. Stay tuned for more. This is going to be a really fun project.
Written by Phil Miller, on September 22, 2008 at 14:45
There comes a point in every company's life where the course of things need to change direction. I think that point has come with BoraWare. As an independant developer I, like many other one-man-shows, have to juggle my everyday life with development. At times it seems as though my personal obligations cause me to neglect some of my development obligations and honestly that's just not fair to my customers. When I started BoraWare in 2005 I was single had a simple day job and had lots of free time. Now I have moved to an executive position at that same day job, have got married, and have a kid on the way. Also in getting married I acquired two cats and a dog. So needless to say my days have filled up pretty quick (and will fill up even more when the baby comes). So by this point you're probably thinking that I'm going to send BoraWare to it's grave, that's not the case *at all*. In fact things are going to be *much better*. So with that said, here's the roadmap I'm going to follow with BoraWare:
Discontinue all things ptpChat and ChatWorks then make them FreeWare
I have determined that no matter how many copies of ptpChat I sell I will never pay myself back for the hundreds and hundreds of hours I put in to development. For the longest time I decided I wasn't going to start a new project until my current project (ptpChat) was finished. Years went by and all I really had to show for it was one program. One weekend I decided to whip up PhoneSwitch (the original) and it was an overnight success. So here I was with a program I had dumped years in to with mediocre success and a new program which recieved maybe one week worth of development before being released and it had triple the downloads of ptpChat in it's first *week*. So with that I think it's definitely time to direct my focus to new, smaller, projects. As of today I am making ptpChat 1, ptpChat 2, and ChatWorks (which has already been discontinued) all free. Over the rest of the week I will be releasing a new version of each with the registration parts stripped out. If you'd like a free copy before the new version is released feel free to drop me an email with your hotsync ID and I'll give you a free registration code.
Focus on smaller programs and focus on *finishing* them
The development path of CallStop is following that of PhoneSwitch. It's a small, lightweight, program that takes minimal development time for maximum functionality. The idea of taking on many smaller projects instead of one or two monster projects is not a new idea, in fact it's not a new idea to many developers. Another developer that I know has been practicing this idea for quite some time and letting his larger projects take more of the back seat. I have a number of great little programs lined up and I intend on finishing most of them this year.
Start developing Windows Mobile applications
This has to be the biggest change in direction for BoraWare. Writing software for an entirely different platform can be quite a task but with the right tools I think I'll be fine. I have already wrote a few "test" programs that run well on a Windows Mobile 5 emulator. I'm not sure yet what kind of programs I'll write for Windows Mobile (except for one) but I'm sure it'll be fun. Feel free to let me know if you think of something you'd like to see.
Start development on my... other... project
I'm not going to give a lot of details on this other project quite yet. All I'll say is that I've owned a seperate domain name for it (and it's a good one) for over a year now. Also it will definitely be available for PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows XP/Vista (maybe even iPhone via web browser). So keep an eye out for that.
Exciting times are ahead here at BoraWare, thanks for being a part of it!
I have two pieces of great news. The first is that there's a brand new
release available. This release introduces an additional attention
manager alert feature. What this feature does is post a silent
background alert causing the little bell (or asterisk on older devices)
to blink. The alert says who was blocked and at what time. This feature
can be enabled independently for each category. You can set your
personal contacts to be blocked at night when you're sleeping then view
the alerts the following morning to see who was blocked and call back
any as necessary. You can choose to disable this feature for your
"blocked" category so that telemarketers and whatnot disappear forever.
The second piece of good news is that I have decided on a name.
Actually my wife picked her favorites then we agreed on one. I know
that I was going to put up a poll but we only came up with three
choices so we just picked one. Anyhow, congratulations to MouseGlider (from TreoCentral),
we decided to use the oh-so-simple "CallStop." Anyhow the new version is available in the downloads section.
Looking for beta testers for new call blocking app
Written by Phil Miller, on September 01, 2008 at 08:23
I just whipped up a very simple call blocking program for the PalmOS Treo/Centro line. This is a *very* light weight, feature-limited, call blocking program. In fact it's hardly a program at all, it's actually just a preference panel. The idea here is to add a new preference panel to your device to choose when certain catagories are allowed to ring and when they're not. For example you can set all "Business" contacts to only ring Mon-Fri from 9am to 5pm. Or you could make a "Blocked" catagory to add numbers that will never ring. So far the only option for blocking a call is to simply acknowlege it and do nothing. On your device it appears as though no call ever happened, to the caller it just rings until it hits voicemail. Version 1.0 will have some logging and attention manager integration but for the 0.9 Beta version I'd like to just make sure everything is working properly. Now before you ask the question "There are a ton of call blocking programs out there, why did you write another?" I will answer that. First: being a developer sometimes when there's certain functionality I want rather than finding a program to do it I'll just write one. Second: *Most* call blocking software is pretty heavy, giving you a plethera of individual blocking, scheduling, and often times ringtone management. I wanted simple and light weight. Also, I plan on pricing this program lower than all other call blocking software available so it will give the needed functionality without costing an arm and a leg.
Anyhow, I just finished this yet to be named program last night so of course it is missing a name and some screen shots. Drop me a line on either MyTreo.net or TreoCentro or direct email and I'll see about getting you a beta version to try.
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