I spend a lot of time in a room where there are two tvs going and my son noisely playing with his toys. Normally I wouldn't be too bothered. However, recently I've been getting a lot of headaches, which are commonly at the same time of the day.
I also spend a lot of time with my laptop, not being able to get much done and getting really frustrated.
I don't seem to be able to work at my desktop pc at all these days again, due to noise and not being able to concentrate.
Its kind of a vicious circle, get less done, get frustrated and then get a headache.
I tried using some normal headphones, but this didn't drown out the noise.
So I discovered you could get noise cancelling headphones, mine have a battery in them and an on/off switch. It causes a hissing sound. Apparently there supposed to be a microphone near the ear which interacts and produces the hissing noise.
When I'm listening to music, it just seems louder, but the hiss, seems to block out some background noise. Not all noise, so I can hear if my son trips over or something, but enough to allow me to concentrate.
Over the weekend, I was sat doing some coding, in a couple of short sessions, where normally I'd have to spend ages trying to concentrate then struggle to do a few lines of code.
Anyways, my life has been transformed :)
Monday 30 March 2009
Saturday 7 March 2009
Credit Crunch: How big is a Billion?
During the recent financial turmoil the numbers being thrown around by the UK and US governments are making large numbers seem like pocket money. Every week it seems like some bank or insurance company is being bailed out to the tune of a few billion pounds or dollars. The thing is, I'm slightly confused about how big a billion really is. My confusion is that historically I think the US and UK definition of a billion were different:
US Billion = 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million
UK Billion = 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million, million
I've been assuming that when some UK bank get 30 billion pounds, they're getting 30 thousand million pounds but lately BBC News have started showing actual figures in their headlines and occasionally I see figures like:
£1,200,000,000,000
Surely this can't be the money given to a bank? It's more than the UK GDP isn't it?
With all these large numbers, it's hard to put into context how much money is actually involved. Another recent trend I've noticed on news programs is to show two stories back to back with the first involving a credit crunch fantasy bailout figure and the second a real world financial figure. For example, yesterday there was a story about Quantitiave Easing (a technical term much more aptly described on Question Time by Shirley Williams as Financial Laxative) involving a figure of £150 billion. The next story told how £140,000 had been allocated to fix potholes in all the roads in the county of Shropshire. To contrast these figures:
£150 billion = enough to fix all the potholes in Shropshire for the next 1,000,000 years
or
£150 billion = enough to fix all the potholes in the UK for over 10,000 years
Where is all this money is coming from? And who does it get paid back to?
US Billion = 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million
UK Billion = 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million, million
I've been assuming that when some UK bank get 30 billion pounds, they're getting 30 thousand million pounds but lately BBC News have started showing actual figures in their headlines and occasionally I see figures like:
£1,200,000,000,000
Surely this can't be the money given to a bank? It's more than the UK GDP isn't it?
With all these large numbers, it's hard to put into context how much money is actually involved. Another recent trend I've noticed on news programs is to show two stories back to back with the first involving a credit crunch fantasy bailout figure and the second a real world financial figure. For example, yesterday there was a story about Quantitiave Easing (a technical term much more aptly described on Question Time by Shirley Williams as Financial Laxative) involving a figure of £150 billion. The next story told how £140,000 had been allocated to fix potholes in all the roads in the county of Shropshire. To contrast these figures:
£150 billion = enough to fix all the potholes in Shropshire for the next 1,000,000 years
or
£150 billion = enough to fix all the potholes in the UK for over 10,000 years
Where is all this money is coming from? And who does it get paid back to?
Friday 6 March 2009
Wired GameCube Controllers are better that Wavebirds
Since I last spoke to you I was considering buying an expensive used WaveBird wireless controller for my wii and I was about to borrow a wired controller.
I tried the wired controller and found the cable very short. I discovered that I could use a couple of extension cables, which would give me the length I required. However, I was worried about pulling my wii off my shelf.
So I bought a wavebird. Which was much better, but very expensive.
I then discovered that mine didn't vibrate, which wasn't a fault. The reason it wasn't designed to vibrate, was due to power it zapped from batteries. Which I found both odd, as the third party one did and frustrating. It just wasn't the same.
I then had a bit more of a go of the wired controller I had borrowed and decided that I'd sell my wavebird and with the money, buy 2 wired controllers and 4 extensions, 2 each.
My wavebird is on ebay and my new kit has arrived today.
Going to give them a try tonight :)
by JM
I tried the wired controller and found the cable very short. I discovered that I could use a couple of extension cables, which would give me the length I required. However, I was worried about pulling my wii off my shelf.
So I bought a wavebird. Which was much better, but very expensive.
I then discovered that mine didn't vibrate, which wasn't a fault. The reason it wasn't designed to vibrate, was due to power it zapped from batteries. Which I found both odd, as the third party one did and frustrating. It just wasn't the same.
I then had a bit more of a go of the wired controller I had borrowed and decided that I'd sell my wavebird and with the money, buy 2 wired controllers and 4 extensions, 2 each.
My wavebird is on ebay and my new kit has arrived today.
Going to give them a try tonight :)
by JM
Monday 2 March 2009
Summary of my usage data
I'm not going to name my program here, but you guys will know that its my kids programs.
I've analysed my uninstall usage data and have produced some stats shown below. I haven't included stats from bug reports, which I haven't got round to yet.
The summary is based on all 880 reports from the last release in July.
I'm hoping you guys will comment on my findings.
Reason CountOfReason
(Please select) 774
Other 33
Just didn't like the program 33
Trial expired 14
Found it too complicated 14
Had a problem 10
Missing an expected feature 2
So theres not much of a pattern there, except that users couldn't be bothered to select a reason.
--------------------------------------
Whether they were willing to enter into a competition to win a license.
No 796
Yes 84
This didn't require people to provide an email address, provide comments etc.
--------------------------------------
OS CountOfOS
XP 772
VIS 100
98 6
23K 2
I think I'll drop windows 98.
--------------------------------------
I haven't yet analysed my Max Reached Point information, I do have stats but I haven't look to see where these point are in my program. I hope to do this before the end of the thread.
--------------------------------------
DaysInst CountOfDaysInst
0 540
1 43
3 31
2 25
4 22
7 18
-- Snip --
So most people use the program for less than a day then uninstall.
--------------------------------------
MinsUsed CountOfMinsUsed
0 226
2 115
3 68
4 44
5 49
6 30
7 30
8 24
9 26
10 12
11 20
12 14
13 21
14 9
15 9
16 12
17 6
18 10
19 3
20 14
-- snip --
99 25
So that varies.
--------------------------------------
ProgRetryCount CountOfProgRetryCount
1 365
2 173
3 104
4 56
5 33
0 33
6 28
8 16
7 13
9 12
10 8
11 6
12 5
14 4
So users do close the program and retry it.
--------------------------------------
Crash CountOfCrash
No 843
Unc 33
Yes 4
So not a massive percentage of crashes.
--------------------------------------
PrintBtnUsed CountOfPrintBtnUsed
N 737
Y 143
This is how many people used the print button.
I guess I would hope this to be higher.
--------------------------------------
PrintsLeft CountOfPrintsLeft
0 95
1 6
2 7
3 10
4 25
From people who did print.
by JM
I've analysed my uninstall usage data and have produced some stats shown below. I haven't included stats from bug reports, which I haven't got round to yet.
The summary is based on all 880 reports from the last release in July.
I'm hoping you guys will comment on my findings.
Reason CountOfReason
(Please select) 774
Other 33
Just didn't like the program 33
Trial expired 14
Found it too complicated 14
Had a problem 10
Missing an expected feature 2
So theres not much of a pattern there, except that users couldn't be bothered to select a reason.
--------------------------------------
Whether they were willing to enter into a competition to win a license.
No 796
Yes 84
This didn't require people to provide an email address, provide comments etc.
--------------------------------------
OS CountOfOS
XP 772
VIS 100
98 6
23K 2
I think I'll drop windows 98.
--------------------------------------
I haven't yet analysed my Max Reached Point information, I do have stats but I haven't look to see where these point are in my program. I hope to do this before the end of the thread.
--------------------------------------
DaysInst CountOfDaysInst
0 540
1 43
3 31
2 25
4 22
7 18
-- Snip --
So most people use the program for less than a day then uninstall.
--------------------------------------
MinsUsed CountOfMinsUsed
0 226
2 115
3 68
4 44
5 49
6 30
7 30
8 24
9 26
10 12
11 20
12 14
13 21
14 9
15 9
16 12
17 6
18 10
19 3
20 14
-- snip --
99 25
So that varies.
--------------------------------------
ProgRetryCount CountOfProgRetryCount
1 365
2 173
3 104
4 56
5 33
0 33
6 28
8 16
7 13
9 12
10 8
11 6
12 5
14 4
So users do close the program and retry it.
--------------------------------------
Crash CountOfCrash
No 843
Unc 33
Yes 4
So not a massive percentage of crashes.
--------------------------------------
PrintBtnUsed CountOfPrintBtnUsed
N 737
Y 143
This is how many people used the print button.
I guess I would hope this to be higher.
--------------------------------------
PrintsLeft CountOfPrintsLeft
0 95
1 6
2 7
3 10
4 25
From people who did print.
by JM
Sunday 1 March 2009
Strange SERPs results
As I wrote a few days ago, SoftwareLode has been disappearing from Google search results. I did have 3500 pages in the main index in mid-January but over the following weeks most of my pages were dumped from the index and my visitor levels crashed. Whereas I was making a good $5 a day on Adsense I ended up being lucky to make $1.
The strange thing was though that for keywords on the homepage I still did well. For "Free DVD Software" I was still on page 1 and for "Free Software Downloads" I was around #40. In the last week though, I started disappearing for "Free Software Downloads" too. For the last 3 days I didn't appear anywhere for this keyword in the first 1000 results.
Today though the trend is reversing and all of a sudden I have 100 more pages in the main index than yesterday. The other good news is that I'm doing better than ever for "Free Software Downloads" - I'm at #27 on google.co.uk and #19 on google.ca. This compares with SoftTester at positions #49 and #68 respectively on .co.uk and .ca. Why SoftwareLode is higher than SoftTester I'm not sure.
The strange thing was though that for keywords on the homepage I still did well. For "Free DVD Software" I was still on page 1 and for "Free Software Downloads" I was around #40. In the last week though, I started disappearing for "Free Software Downloads" too. For the last 3 days I didn't appear anywhere for this keyword in the first 1000 results.
Today though the trend is reversing and all of a sudden I have 100 more pages in the main index than yesterday. The other good news is that I'm doing better than ever for "Free Software Downloads" - I'm at #27 on google.co.uk and #19 on google.ca. This compares with SoftTester at positions #49 and #68 respectively on .co.uk and .ca. Why SoftwareLode is higher than SoftTester I'm not sure.
What project to work on next?
Over the last year or so, I've been trying to manage my time better to give all of my projects time. However, I've tried to put the big earners first, but still give all my projects some of my time.
I haven't done any work on my kids program since July and I have millions of bug reports and uninstall questionnaires to wade through, then summarise then fixes to make.
It not so much that its been shoved to the bottom of the pile, more that I've felt that other project never get any time where it did use to get a lots.
Now I've not got any great hope that my kids program will suddenly start to make a lot of money. However I still do sell licenses for it every so often.
Should I work on it now?
by JM
I haven't done any work on my kids program since July and I have millions of bug reports and uninstall questionnaires to wade through, then summarise then fixes to make.
It not so much that its been shoved to the bottom of the pile, more that I've felt that other project never get any time where it did use to get a lots.
Now I've not got any great hope that my kids program will suddenly start to make a lot of money. However I still do sell licenses for it every so often.
Should I work on it now?
by JM
Form Editor/ Designer
Lately, I've been working towards a forms designer that can be used with a new version of my main software.
The idea is to let people freely edit their own invoice templates to suit their own business. A fair percentage of people seem to want modifications, e.g. in the colour of text, or they want to add new images and fixed text. This new forms designer should let customers do all these kinds of things very easily. I'm also going to let people adjust the widths of columns as well as add new columns. We do use a version of the template editor in-house to do custom modifications for people for a fee. This brings in a little bit of income but we think that if people could edit their own templates we'd probably get a lot more customers. The thinking is that if 1 in 10 customers asks us if templates can be modified, a lot more must simply reject the package and choose a competitor's without getting in touch at all.
The forms designer itself isn't specific to my main package and could be used to design forms for any purpose. It could even be used as the data output (print/ email) engine for other data sources. Any ideas on a possible use for it outside my main product line?
The idea is to let people freely edit their own invoice templates to suit their own business. A fair percentage of people seem to want modifications, e.g. in the colour of text, or they want to add new images and fixed text. This new forms designer should let customers do all these kinds of things very easily. I'm also going to let people adjust the widths of columns as well as add new columns. We do use a version of the template editor in-house to do custom modifications for people for a fee. This brings in a little bit of income but we think that if people could edit their own templates we'd probably get a lot more customers. The thinking is that if 1 in 10 customers asks us if templates can be modified, a lot more must simply reject the package and choose a competitor's without getting in touch at all.
The forms designer itself isn't specific to my main package and could be used to design forms for any purpose. It could even be used as the data output (print/ email) engine for other data sources. Any ideas on a possible use for it outside my main product line?
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