Today marks the first birthday of Reinvented Software, I released KIT 1.0 on August 3rd 2004. This is entirely consistent with Wil Shipley’s belief that every programmer’s first project is some kind of media database. It was a good launch with more sales than I’d expected in the first month – but it didn’t last long.

The business only really got going when Feeder was released some six months later. There were some extremely bleak days in the meantime and I nearly packed it all in. I applied for a number of jobs and almost got some of them too, but something would always go wrong at the last minute. This would leave me partly relieved and simultaneously filled with dread, because I knew I’d have to go through the whole cycle again. I only ever wanted to do this.

By the time Feeder was released in February, I somehow knew it was going to do well and that was my last hope. I came up with the idea in late October but didn’t get it started for another two months due to those job interviews and other distractions. My thinking was that with RSS due to go mainstream on the Mac thanks to Safari 2.0 in Tiger, people without blogs or content management systems would want RSS feeds on their sites.

In the meantime podcasting was gaining momentum, but I had no idea if podcasters would want to use Feeder. I built in some convenience features for them anyway. My research indicates that around 50% of Feeder users are podcasters and this seems to be rising quickly since iTunes 4.9 was released. I don’t think anyone imagined podcasting would get this big in such a short space of time but that is testament to how compelling it is.

One year on, things are going well and I’ve only just begun. I have big plans for my applications and a ton of other ideas. My biggest problem is time and juggling all the various aspects of the business – I do it all. Being an independent software developer is thrilling and exhausting all at the same time, but it would mean nothing without the people who buy my software, plug it on their web sites and in their podcasts and use it to do some amazing things. Thank you!

Apologies if you’ve tried to reach this site and been met with some awful spammy placeholder page. I paid Tektonic, my hosting company, to renew my domain at the beginning of this month, but it seems the renewal wasn’t submitted and thus the site went offline.

Awful timing, for 101 different reasons.

Anyway, it’s back now. Thanks to everybody who let me know, particularly Jerry Musser, who was the first to break the news. Also, Tektonic’s support is very professional and responsive – thankfully. Hopefully this won’t happen again.

My first reaction to seeing that Microsoft has chosen “Vista” as the release name for Longhorn was to look for something more interesting to read. While it’s an improvement on XP (for eXPerience – kinda funny, actually, since it really is quite an experience) it’s all rather bland and appears to be wholly inaccurate. All that marketing clout, all those millions of dollars and Microsoft hasn’t come up with a decent name or codename for any of their releases that I know of. It’s all cattle and sell-by dates (funny that).

So, I think Erik hit the nail on the head in his QotD. My thoughts exactly. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter whether or not I like the name because I don’t have to care. 😀

Did my tax return today.

… need I say more???

I have decided to reorganise my blog a little with new categories for Feeder and KIT, since many of the posts didn’t really fit that well in Software Development, because they were me blowing my own trumpet (pardon?). I’ve also added a Syndication category to deal with all things to do with RSS, RDF, Atom, etc.

Riveting post this, innit?

The problem, dear reader, is that I have been doing my accounts all day in readiness for my tax return, which means I’ve been up to my eyeballs in paper, stapling things together and filing stuff away. Being ultra-organised doesn’t really suit me, but once I get the bug I can’t stop. Now even our four cats are lined up in chronological and alphabetical order and held together with an elastic band.

I think I need help.