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Category archive for: Opinion

Extraordinary support? You’d better blow my mind.

It’s all to easy to make grand claims, and then fail to follow through on them. A common example is to claim to offer fantastic support; who doesn’t want fantastic support? So many companies offer less than stellar customer service that, on the rare occasion an email is answered swiftly or competently first time around, it’s a cause of celebration.

The thing is, though, that if you fail to live up to your claims, your users won’t just be disappointed: they will be bitterly so.

Continue reading Extraordinary support? You’d better blow my mind.

Warning Signs About Your IT Pro

It can be difficult to know how good a job your IT professional is doing. If you haven’t hired many people before, or you’re not a programmer, it can be even trickier.

Fear not: this is my quick guide to some of the most common problems I’ve seen and heard about. I’ll list exceptions to each rule, but if more than a few of these match against your current professional, you might like to reconsider continuing using them.

Continue reading Warning Signs About Your IT Pro

TweetingMachine, InboxCleaner (and others) Year in Review 2011

This is my first annual review, and what a year it’s been! A doubling of revenues, several new apps launched… but sadly still nowhere near being able to work full-time on them. That’s my target for 2012; turn these from paying the rent to paying a full-time salary instead. So without further ado, here are the details: Continue reading TweetingMachine, InboxCleaner (and others) Year in Review 2011

Creating and marketing a new web app: trying to do it right

I’ve previously written about creating new web apps, and the simple fact that without some form of marketing effort, if you build it, they will not come. But what is the solution?

With my latest app – Interactwive, a tool for running contests on Twitter – I attempted to start marketing WAY before I’d even begun to scratch out the first few lines of code. Here’s how I’ve been getting on so far.

Continue reading Creating and marketing a new web app: trying to do it right

Using Message Queues Will Improve Your Life

When you’re first frantically trying to get version 1.0 of your project out of the door, it’s easy to avoid reading about concepts that are new to you: “Naaah… it’ll be quicker for me to do it my way! is an all-too-common thought that often runs through my head.

By way of example, this is how I felt whenever I was coding a feature that involved executing a task in the future, such as scheduling a status update to be sent to Twitter. Simple enough: create a table in the database for generic tasks, and a cron job to run them at regular intervals.

And then I read this fantastic blog post about why doing the above with a database is not a good again. As has happened many times, “You’re a fool” began running around in my head instead.

Continue reading Using Message Queues Will Improve Your Life