Yes, that’s me – long time no see, but I am finally back. Two vacations and some life-changing experience as well as four months are through – and this blog is back online.

Since my last post was about iPhone, I will start with iPhone again now. So far it has proven to be a wonderful device, although it still has that toy feeling. Throughout all these four months I couldn’t help but think that I can’t wait to put this toy aside as soon as something more suitable comes along.

By being exposed to AppStore and the multitude of iPhone Apps, I kind of got an idea of the market, the possibilities and the progress one can make. What happens on iPhone market is very much similar to PC shareware scene back in the eighties. Lots of free programs with limited functionality with bunch of nagging screens asking for money in exchange for a full version. Lots of small software teams of few people (sometimes it’s just one person).

If current state of PC software market is any indication, in just a few years we’ll see the next generation productivity tools, massively multiplayer online games of all kinds, collaboration and communication suites.

And speaking of communications – recently I had a chance to try out Google Wave. My first impression – imagine Microsoft Work stuck in review revisions mode when a lot of people are making changes and you’re looking at them in real time. And instead of that annoying (at least to me) “copy column” you get to have instant messenger right inside the very document you’re editing. And you can play it as a movie to see who said what and when. And you can use it to blog (I am looking into that!). And share pictures. And create automated “bots” that will annoy people who try to talk to you when you’re away.

At some point during the I/O presentation (which I had to watch just to get an idea how to use the Wave) I got this funny feeling that Google is a self-improving artificial intelligence network that keeps googlers as ambassadors to humanity. Come to think of it – when you have a project (and you can call a project either building a web site or a vacation) and you communicate among a number of people, it’s hard to keep everything in order – meeting minutes, e-mails, instant messages, phone calls, to-do lists and so on. Google Wave takes care of all that. In fact, it does it so good that you don’t even need to come back to your old e-mail anymore. Each wave – is a task, an e-mail thread, a repository of documents and a to-do list. Once you start thinking in waves – I haven’t seen anyone using this expression, but it’s pretty obvious – you just can’t go back to old-style technology.

This Sunday (i.e. yesterday) I went to a International Esthetics, Cosmetics & Spa Conference. The word International in the title means that there was a lot of Asian vendors (in fact – I had a strong feeling they have dominated the scene). However, since I was more interested in a technology perspective of the conference – I was dealing primarily with homeland vendors.

What attracted my attention was a spa management software. Before looking at it closely I was under impression that a simple MS Outlook set up would pretty much solve 90% of the problems. I wasn’t that far away, however, certain things have been showcased a lot better.

The three vendors that I had a chance to talk to were SpaBooker.com, Millenium (from Harms Software) and Spaware Salonware. Every software suit had their own advantages over the competition, however, since I am not even remotely the user of the software I wouldn’t go too deep into reviewing it. What I will do instead is concentrate on how each company was selling their software product.

SpaBooker had three average-looking ladies (nothing to see here, move along) and one loud-speaking boss-guy. The gentleman turned out to be very friendly and pretty much showcased all the advantages of the product in a bliss. For some reason when I asked directly if this is a hosted solution (it was obvious that it is to anyone who can read off the browser’s address bar) presenters went too shy and I sensed an attempt to hide some sort of guilt. Not sure why that’s a problem, but I guess since pretty much all other spa management software comes as a standalone package – there might be some doubts. On the other hand – they might have sold it as an advantage point (if your PC crashes – your data is safe, and so on), but they didn’t. The actual web service is developed using .NET technology and looks very bright and friendly. Definitely a plus from my point of view, since it doesn’t look as boring and as DOS-like as other packages. A little better marketing can just give this service a needed boost, since these guys are pretty new to the market.

The Millenium package, developed by Harms Software, had a stand right across from SpaBooker, so it was very natural that I approached them with the question “How’s your software is better than software of the guys right across from you?”. Unfortunately, the lady who was answering my questions was talking in somewhat low voice, so I simply could not hear some of the answers. She was much better looking (which is always a plus), but she wasn’t definitely confident in the software package she was selling, defaulting every now and then to a defensive stance. It may work in a single’s bar scene, but not when you have people asking you about the product you are selling. Since the company is in business for over 20 years (or so I heard), they might have come up with someone more proficient or more proactive. The marketing materials looked a lot better than those from SpaBooker, but when I heard that the version of the software they’re showcasing is dated 2007 – that was a definite Oops moment. Don’t know if they will improve their presentation for Monday and Tuesday, but that’s what they had on Sunday.

The last stand I was able to browse was the Spaware Salonware. Aside from hard-to-pronounce name and totally horrible-looking web site, the company showcased a pretty decent product. In fact, despite the program’s interface looking like 90′s are a-calling, the ease of use was amazing. The package is tailored to be used with touch-screen monitors (or heavy use of mouse, if you don’t want to invest in touch screen LCD), with additional modules, like Marketing (that’s just an automated discount tracker and e-mail management piece) and payment processor (which – from the presenter’s words – is custom tailored to your merchant provider). There were two people at the stand – the gentleman who was trying to pitch me that their company is using MS SQL server while all others are using Access (don’t know how true is that), therefore you can book millions of appointments (like that’s a possibility), and a very friendly nice-looking lady. The presentation was conducted in a very friendly fashion, although the overall stance was “we’re so much better than the others because we use Windows interface and SQL server” which was a bit surprising. In any case, the whole concept of a software with touch-screen friendly interface beats any other thing by leaps and bounds. From my perspective, the only two things this company needs to do is get a better-looking web site and default to touch-screen interface altogether.

To sum it all up, it was a nice experience looking at software products for totally unfamiliar market and seeing how problems are solved there. Even though I haven’t seen much of fresh ideas floating around (probably because management software isn’t considered a top-technology market), but there were a few things that got me thinking.

Now, if you ask me – after seeing all these products what do I personally think on how such a suite should look like, I would say it has to have the following:

• touch screen friendly interface (a must!)
• bright-colored calendar for ease of reading (spas use darker corners to hide their PC equipment, so it might come in handy to have easy to look at colors)
• interchangeable web and standalone pieces (so that one can manage his/her spa from the PC in the office with installed piece of software and from home laptop without installing anything on the it)
• data backup capabilities with encryption
• client-tracking capabilities (which client purchased what and when, do they need a refill, a reminder of ongoing appointment, etc)
• inventory-tracking capabilities (what product is in stock, what supplies are needed to be ordered), preferably with hookups to vendors
• money-tracking capabilities (i.e. who got what service, how much was paid, what’s the commissions, etc.) or total payroll management
• reporting on anything you can imagine

Anyone is in the mood to invest in a spa software startup?

It has just occured to me that I don’t know any single small web development suite (from UltraEdit all the way to Dreamweaver) that would have a simple version or revision control. Of course, there are SVN, CVS, Visual SourceSafe and that monstrous Team Foundation Server, but they are not the solution.

But what a small business owner to do? Or a freelancer? Or a team of less then ten-twelve people? All these creatures seem a bit… overpowered. It’s like purchasing a freight truck instead of a van. For a team of ten hardcore programmers – it’s a great tool. For web designer, couple of coders, technical writer and their project manager – it’s the common pain in their individual necks.

So what I want to see is the tool that can:

• integrate into popular HTML editors, like Dreamweaver, UltraEdit or others
• act as a standalone application
• take “snapshots” of selected folders
• produce list of new/altered/deleted files between any two snapshots or current files
• export full or partial set of files based on selected snapshot and provided criteria
• produce delta between various file revisions (at least plain text files and documents)
• produce various simple reports based on criteria selected
• work on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms
• be integrated into client-server environment

This, the way I see it, is a huge potential niche for someone who can throw such software into it. Traditionally, small businesses or freelancers relied either on multiple copies of files or backups. Another culprit is that most of version control systems designed by programmers and for programmers, so average person would have a hard time figuring things out (which is why it isn’t worth it).

In order to protect your WordPress installation the following steps are mandatory.

Step 1: Read this post from Matt Cutts on protecting your WordPress installation. If you don’t know what the .htaccess file is or does – read this or this.

Step 2: If you have access t0 cPanel or any other hosting management script installed – login to your hosting management console and turn off indexes for your web directory. If you don’t know what I am talking about – make sure you repeat step 2 from the article mentioned above for all folders where no index.php file exists.

Step 3: Instead of denying IPs you can simply password-protect the /wp-admin/ directory. On my installations it has weird effect of redirecting straight to index page instead of asking for login/password. Even better – no password to remember and you still can use one of the blog editors to upload content.

For the second round of blog editor software reviews I decided to go with Qumana Blog editor. Available at Qumana.com, this free software is available for both Windows and Mac OS platforms. Current version as of writing this post is 3.0.1. The software is written in Java. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it forced me to install Java run-time on my laptop in order to even proceed with install.

SEE IMPORTANT UPDATE at the end of the post!

Externally, Qumana Editor is not really different from Zoundry. The interface looks more contemporary and buttons even have bubbly glow. However, editor allows same basic WYSIWYG functionality. Two tabs below the editing window let you flip between editor and source view.Tags for WordPress are inserted in the actual text of the post. I am no WordPress guru, but I am sure it’s done a little different. Default Times New Roman font for WYSIWYG editor looks horrible and there is no chance of changing it without changing the actual post.

There is no button for <!– more –> tag. It just isn’t there. Spell check in this software also unaware of plural form of the word “blogger“. It is a shame for a blog editor version 3.

Uploading of the image works like magic. Although developers couldn’t resist to doing things their way. In order to align image to the left (like I did below), you have to specify RIGHT alignment in image properties window. Why is it done this way – beats me.

Blog manager allows import of last ten posts only. If you want a backup of old posts – forget it. While navigating the list of posts – don’t count on arrow keys, mouse is your only friend. You can manage multiple blogs, but the whole “management” consists of posting to those blogs and looking at last 10 posts anyway.

Additional perks of this blog editor include DropPad and Q-Ads. First is a huge icon hanging on top of other windows. It allows you to drop pictures and texts for your next post. Sort of like Garbage Bin for your blog. Q-Ads is (borrowing explanation from Qumana’s web site):

Q-Ads is an advertising network focused on bloggers – it’s a way to insert keyword-driven ads into blog posts, templates, and static pages.

In simple terms – this is how developers want to get paid back. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I have no idea what they will be inserting and how.

Overall, Qumana is extremely simple editor. If you need notepad for your and your wife’s blog it may be useful, but if you need something serious – steer away to better solution.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: When I first tried to publish post the editor hanged my laptop. Not sure if it was one-time thing or a regular bug, but – sorry, Qumana, good bye…

Whenever new task is taken to online I almost always get happier. Google Docs, Zoho, Microsoft Office Live – all good and all merry. They all have only one drawback – they don’t work if you are not connected. However, with mobile networks getting more widespread and higher speeds the problem with not being connected slowly vanishing. After office application, CRMs and online banking comes image editing and property management. Next summer you may see the return of online grocery shopping (isn’t there already something like this?).We have almost covered all our needs with online services. You don’t even have to open the door anymore to get something. Watch movies online. Read books online. Talk to people and play games. Work, get your money, pay bills – everything could be done from the comfort of your chair. We’re becoming a civilization of most connected lonely people ever.

While contemplating on my ideas of blogging editor I stumbled upon various reviews of existing blogging clients. One of them caught my eye, so I ventured ahead and downloaded Zoundry – free blogging client. I am attempting to write this post in Zoundry, version 1.0.40.

Generally, I am not looking for features I came up with a week ago. What I want is pretty interface that would inspire blogging (instead of fighting with it) and ease of use of features that are already there. So, features offered, usability of existing features, interface and overall performance would be my criteria for blogging software reviews.

Installation went pretty smooth and I was presented with pretty typical interface screen. Input my blog’s data, confirm, click-click, everything seems to be working. Now, let’s jump a little deeper.

First important feature that jumped right into my face was spell-check. After I selected language of the blog, the software immediately started downloading spell-checking dictionary. I’m an easy guy, but it would be nice to ask for my permission first. And I don’t even want to go into spellchecker itself. The blog editing client should have at least plural form of word “blog” in its dictionary. Not a case here.

Second feature that I noticed is the ability to download previous posts. I didn’t test this client with anything but WordPress, but this is good enough for me – posts were downloaded. It’s a pity they look malformed in “Designer” view of Zoundry (especially my paid posts) and I was sort of afraid to touch them.

Next – there is no auto-save option. At least I haven’t found it. Given my habit of stopping in the middle of the post, answer phone, make coffee, go for lunch – this is bad. Auto-saving is a must – not just for me, for everybody. Even WordPress does it! No brownie points for Zoundry here. Also, Save button (with ugly icon circa 1995) is located in top-left corner of the interface. Habitually, I pull the mouse down to the place where WordPress’s Save and Continue Editing button is located. A little bit of though on the interface wouldn’t hurt here as well. Thanks to developers, the Ctrl-S shortcut wasn’t lost.

Multiple blogs feature looks and works just like an engineer would do it. There is a standard-looking tree to the left of the editing window, it has blog name, it expands to account which expands to posts. Neat, simple, nice. Not thrilling… but nice.

On my X61p 12-inch screen editor buttons look like low-quality GIFs. I’m sure everybody blogs from their 24″ iMac screens, but that beast can hardly beat 5-hour battery life on my laptop. So nicer icons would definitely help. Fonts in “Designer” screen also a little creepy: there is no way to adjust the size of them in the editor and there is a very limited number of fonts that I can use in the software itself. Why is that – I have no idea. Formatting tag buttons located in two shifted lines that takes up vertical space above editing window. The interface is locked so there is no ability to juggle toolbars similar to Office applications.

Technorati : blog, blogging client, software, wordpress

Elaborating on the previous post (WordPress or Joomla?), next often asked question that we at Zealus Web Design see is which shopping cart should one use?This one is just one notch easier. First – we already know that customer wants a shopping cart solution. Second – he is aware that whatever choice he makes is going to affect him in the future. Uploading or entering inventory is a time consuming task and not many people have time to experiment with that. But the ultimate question remains the same – what kind of problem the customer has? What is he/she selling and in which quantities?

Speaking from experience, I’ve seen customers who’s only reasonable solution would be an eBay. Some people can use quick shopping cart options, like PayPal’s shopping cart or even CafePress. Some could benefit from ZenCart, osCommerce, VirtuMart or peers. Sometimes company grows out of bunch of Excel spreadsheet and starts using CRM, sales and inventory tracking systems, such as RegKeeper, some flavor of QuickBooks or other platforms.

Using full-blown shopping system if you only need to sell two flavors of your widget is unwise. Using PayPal for web store with thousands of clients may cost you significant percentage of your business. Each tool has its own (limited) scope of use.

In continuation of Blogging Editor saga – here’s some crazy ideas that I think worth mentioned. Not sure what would be the best course of action – write the whole thing up and pass it to someone who can create a piece of software or jump on this project myself. The problem with creating the software myself is that I do programming for Windows only. And a lot of bloggers use Mac. And I don’t even have Mac, and never had.

• Have different flavors of the software – Windows, Linux, Mac
• Have two types of software – free and paid
• Probably outsource free version, while paid would have more elaborate features, targeted to Pro bloggers
• Have the software to back up posts and tags into some sort of database that can be accessed without the software itself (like OpenOffice database or similar)
• Ability to work with all major blogging platforms, including WordPress, WordPress.com, LiveJournal, Xanga, Vox, Blogger and so on.