Two Releases So Far

A quick post about what I’ve released so far this week. I got started on this 30 in 30 project on the 17th. As I said in my original post, I’m already behind because I’m three days into the project and I’ve only got two releases out. Happily my 30 in 30 goal is an average, otherwise I’d be hosed already! Without further blabbity blah, here’s what I’ve released so far:

Release 1: Web app for Client M.

This app was kind of like the MG of projects. Tiny as hell but still kind of fun. The client is a M$ shop, so it’s a .Net app in C#, and it’s main job is to handle uploads of large data files. In this case “large” means 30 MB to 1GB. Not the biggest files ever, but still enough to keep the browser idling uncomfortably long. I went digging around to see if anything could help. I had visions of end users trying to upload files, watching the spinning icon roll in Firefox and not knowing what the hell was going on. I wanted something friendly and understandable. A little searching found some Flash based solutions and some discussion of a Silverlight approach. I was indecisive as hell for a while. Every option came with a catch and tradeoffs! Then, just as I was about to roll my own Silverlight solution, I found SWFUpload. As the name implies, it’s a Flash-based solution. These days everyone has Flash except the tinfoil hat crowd, so I was game and I gave it a try. Like any other widget, there are learning curves and quirks. Even so, it turned out great and I’m very happy. Now my client’s users can see pretty upload bars and can upload a bunch of files at once. An unexpected dose of awesome.

Release 2: New version of Client M’s existing Windows app

“Existing Windows app”? If that sounds boring, you’re right, it is. This is an internal business app I created from client specs about 4 years ago and I’ve been maintaining ever since. New releases roll out about once a year. The app is a .Net/C# dealio than ties into a CRM system. This release added a new database reporting tool. Exciting right? Hey, I never promised to excite anyone with my releases. Hopefully the client will be excited. That’s all I can hope for.

Maybe my software releases would be more exciting if I was focusing on more exciting markets? I wonder what kind of software a nudie bar would need… Thoughts?