Thanks for sticking in there with me for the past 12 weeks as I’ve been on my journey as a single founder entrepreneur. I appreciate the kind words, support, and encouragement from all of you and can’t wait to show you what I’ve been working on.

I’ve been pretty quiet the past few weeks and I wanted to give you all a quick look into what I’m working on and where Widefido is headed at the moment. TodoPaper beta is getting really close. The editor is working nicely. The new features are getting polished and I’m really excited for you all to take it for a spin. I have a few things to wrap up (license keys, preferences, etc.) before I can send it your way, but we are getting very close.

Last week I got “sucked in” to the rush of playing around with another product idea. I’m testing out the market right now and hopefully will have a landing page and some screenshots for you all to take a look at later this week. It’s pretty neat and I think it will fit well into the Widefido way (simple, minimal, easy-to-use software).

Next week I’m heading out to Las Vegas, Nevada to the MicroConf conference. It’s going to be a great few days learning and talking with the great minds of software entrepreneurs. My goal is to bring everything I learn there and apply it to the business. Hopefully we’ll see some great results come out of that.

Thanks again for sticking in there with me. Stay tuned!

I want to pause today and give my warmest and most sincere thoughts to those in Boston. These types of events bind us all together and lead to a lot reflection. Adii from WooThemes had a good tweet about this:

Reminded of a couple of things today:
1. Life is short.
2. Regrets come way too easy.
3. Swing to the fences as often as possible.

My hope is that all of us take some time to reflect throughout this week and then send some good thoughts toward those affected in Boston.

Look out for a TodoPaper development status update tomorrow.

Thanks for hanging in there as I navigate the waters of my journey as a single-founder entrepreneur. Today marks the start of week 10 and I have to say that I’m very excited with where TodoPaper is at. Later this week I’m hoping to post a couple of updates to you with a detail of what will be included in version 2. For now, though, here’s a quick rundown of the improvements:

• A cleaner and more minimal look and feel.
• Better compatibility with Mac and iOS devices.
• A very nice session feature that allows you to start writing immediately in an autosaved file without having to choose a save location.
• A robust search query system, for example:

  project contains "inbox" and not @done or @due < "2013-04-08"

• Drag and Drop reordering and reparenting of projects, todos, and notes.
• Project, todo, and note hierarchy improvements, including the ability to expand/collapse/hoist any hierarchy.
• Integration with Dropbox without installing the Dropbox client on your PC.

I look forward to sharing more details about these as the week progresses. In the meantime, you should sign up to be notified for beta testing. Happy Monday!

I’ve been working from my home office for the past 9 weeks, and while I enjoy the perks (comfortable chair, unlimited coffee, few interruptions) I’ve noticed that the routine can become a bit monotonous and draining towards the end of the day, especially when I’m trying to do creative tasks like writing blog posts or designing user interface components.

I recently read about how a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that low to moderate levels of ambient noise (somewhere between 50 and 70 decibels, or about the level of a quiet conversation or radio playing in the background) can boost performance on creative tasks.

Over the past few days been exploring the use of ambient rain and coffeeshop noise to change the vibe of my office and help boost my creativity. I’ve only been trying this for a few days, but so far I feel more energized  and creative when using this technique.

Here are a few sites that I’ve been using for some simple ambient noise that can play in the background:

• http://soundrown.com/
• http://coffitivity.com
• http://rainycafe.com/

If you give it a try, let me know how the ambient noise affected your workday and creativity.

I’ve been thinking more about the “flat UI” design trend lately and have been wanting to explore what TodoPaper would look like if it moved in that direction. So, I mocked up the example above. What do you think? Tweet or email me if this something you’d like to see in the future.

This past week I made great headway for TodoPaper 2 beta testing. I wrapped up a big code rewrite and refactor which has made TodoPaper 2 much more stable. The app is really starting to shape up.

This week I’m working through the last pieces for integrating in-app Dropbox synchronization, a feature that many of you have asked for. If you’ve never heard of Dropbox, it is a file storage and synchronization service that allows you to save a file on one of your PCs or mobile devices and have that file (almost magically) be transmitted to all of your other devices registered with Dropbox. It’s a really great service and is free for 2GB of storage. You should check it out.

TodoPaper 2 is using Dropbox to synchronize your .todopaper files to and from your Dropbox account and to all of your other devices. Some of you might ask why this functionality will be integrated into the application when it’s quite easy to just install the official Dropbox client. I’ve actually received this feature request quite a bit (the #2 feature requested) from customers who are not allowed to install the Dropbox client on their work PC and/or those who run TodoPaper from a thumbdrive (since they aren’t allowed to install ANY software). With the synchronization functionality built in, you’ll be able to continue to use TodoPaper on restricted PC environments and get Dropbox synchronization without installing additional software. Plus, if I ever want to support additional services down the road (Skydrive, Google Drive, iCloud(?), etc) the base functionality will already be built.

All in all, TodoPaper 2 is really shaping up. I’m very excited with where it is heading and I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been working on. If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be notified for TodoPaper 2 beta testing. Stay tuned!

Thanks for hanging in there in my journey as a single-founder entrepreneur. This is week 8 (!) and I’m happy to say that things are progressing nicely for TodoPaper 2 beta testing to commence in the next couple of weeks. There are some of you that have been waiting for this for a long time and I appreciate your enduring patience. Invitations for beta testing will roll-out in the order that you signed up, so the longer you’ve waited, the less time for you to get access. If you’d like to get your hands on TodoPaper 2 early, and you haven’t registered yet, you should sign up to receive a beta testing invite.

I’m very excited to show you what I’ve been working on, so over the next few weeks I’ll be posting details about the new TodoPaper 2 features, along with some screenshots of the app. There are some really interesting things in store, so stay tuned!

This past week was a busy one. I was able to get through most of my tasks and start preparing the last remaining pieces for a TodoPaper 2 beta test. If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be notified for testing.

Last week I tried working with a contractor to help me out with a little development of some minor functionality and a new control for displaying contents from the file system. Unfortunately things haven’t gone as planned and I received some work that was incomplete. So, I’ll be working through getting that straightened out this week.

This week I’m also hoping to get through:

• wrapping up integration of the updated editing component
• working through the two remaining features before beta (Dropbox sync and collapsing/hoisting logic/indicator display)
• doing some more test marketing of new promotional material for TodoPaper 2, as well as another product I’m starting to get into.

My plan is to really work hard these next few weeks to get close to launching the TodoPaper 2 beta to my testers. We’re really close and I appreciate your patience as things get wrapped up. I’m also really excited to show you some other things I have brewing in the background, some of which might start to pop up in the next few weeks too.

If there’s anything you need from me this week, or just want to reach out and say hello, feel free to get in touch.

Last week was highly productive. I worked through a major piece of functionality that was causing a huge block in my development progress. That piece of functionality was a rewrite of a portion of my core editing component to fix some holes in some edge cases that I had not foreseen. I’m at a much better place now, and will continue development of the few remaining pieces for the TodoPaper 2 beta release.

So, this week I’m planning on:

• integrating the new editing component
• working with a contractor to help me with some minor functionality while I take a look at the remaining features.
• writing some new help documentation for TodoPaper to aid in the transition from 1.1 to 2.0.
• exploring some new product development opportunities with a proof-of-concept application and test marketing.

It’s going to be a busy week, but my hope is that I finish this week with a solid understanding of when I will be able to release a beta version of TodoPaper 2. If you want to stay up-to-date, you should sign up to be one of the first notified for a TodoPaper 2 beta.

I wrote this blog post as plain-text (markdown)

TodoPaper uses a minimal plain-text file format for storing your todos (and projects, and notes). I want to go over some of the details around the format and why I think you should be using plain-text to store this type of information, even if you aren’t using my software.

Ubiquitous

Plain-text is a ubiqutous file format devised over 50 years ago. It has stood the test of time as a lowest-common-denominator for information storage and transmission. Plain-text is used quite a bit in our lives and throughout the world for storing data and content. The format is almost guaranteed to be able to be opened and edited on any computer system.

Although modern word processing programs can do some amazing things…there’s one thing they can’t do: Guarantee that the words I write today will be readable ten years from now. That’s just one of the reasons I prefer to work in plain text: It’s timeless.

—David Sparks

This is where plain-text shines. It’s as usable now as it was 10 years ago and will continue to be as usable 10 years from now.

Minimal & Focused

Plain-text keeps you focused on the content. Unlike a rich-text document (like Microsoft Word), plain-text does not allow for arbitrary formatting and styling of the text. It focuses you on what really matters…the words and their meanings.

Compare & Sync

The lack of formatting makes for a simple document which can easily be compared with others. This means that if you have two versions of the same document, you (or a computer program) can compare both and illustrate the differences in the text. This, combined with smart file synchronization services like Dropbox, allow plain-text files to be shared and kept up-to-date easy.

Freeform or Structured

Plain-text files allow you impose as much or as little control on the structure of your document. The structure of the document is based on the text within. TodoPaper (and TaskPaper) files are an example of a structured plain-text document:

 Projects end with a colon:
  - hyphens start a task and can be @tagged with @done
    lines without either are notes

It’s amazing how a little structure in the document can help you stay organized, but still afford you the freedom and focus of plain-text. This structure, combined with the use of Dropbox, the peace of mind of knowing your information will stand the test of time, and your ability to edit your documents on any computer (or mobile device), are the reasons why you should be using plain-text.

SiteRelaunch

That will give you a nice 50% off the purchase price until Thursday March 7, 2013!

original photo by adactio

The web host for the Widefido blog has been down all morning. They messaged their users a few weeks ago saying that they were shutting down in April. Unfortunately, their downtime this morning indicates that fixing the issues are a no longer a priority for them anymore.

Luckily, I’ve been working on a new site for Widefido over the past few weeks. I was pretty close to launching it later this week, but with today’s downtime, I guess now is a good opportunity to launch.

What’s new?:

• A clean look and feel. Better typography and a logo refresh.
• The company site and blog are integrated under the same domain. blog.widefido.com is no more.
• New cart/checkout workflow for purchases. Paypal is no longer required for purchase. You can pay with your credit card (processing done through stripe.com).
• A great foundation for building new sections of the site (help, knowledge base, screencasts, etc) to make it easier for customers to get the information and help they need.
• A solid foundation for building and selling new products.

Please let me know if you run into any issues with the new site. I’m sure there may be a few lurking here and there given that I had to launch a little early.

Today starts Week 5 of my journey as a full-time single-founder entrepreneur. I cannot believe that 4 weeks have already passed! Oh, how time “flies” when you’re having fun (and being hugely productive!).

Over the next week or so I hope to be wrapping up some of the final pieces of TodoPaper 2 before we launch a beta release. My hope is to get the beta out to testers sometime over the next few weeks and get some feedback on the progress I’ve made. If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be notified for beta testing.

I’m also planning on launching a new version of the Widefido website this week, which will integrate the site and blog together to help me better communicate with current and future customers, as well as clean up the purchasing process. You’ll be able to use your credit card directly (through Stripe processing) or Paypal for payment. I’ve heard great things about moving to a system like this, so I hope to have some feedback for you down the road.

Stay tuned later this week for a post about TodoPaper 2 design concepting and potential future direction for the look and feel of the app.

I can’t wait to show you all what I’ve been working on these past few weeks! Thanks for sticking in there with me as I work through these last few details.

Today starts week 4 of my journey as a full-time single-founder entrepreneur and I’m excited for what it will bring.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been wrapping up some of the few large pieces of functionality remaining in TodoPaper 2. I’m definitely getting closer to done, so instead of describing what I’m going to be working on this week (which is basically tieing up loose ends), I want to show you a peak of the Drag and Drop support I’ve been working on:

Looking forward to showing you some more as the week goes on. If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be the first notified for TodoPaper 2 beta testing.

If you’d like to subscribe to all blog posts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/widefido/all

If you’d like to subscribe to only major announcements: http://feeds.feedburner.com/widefido/announcements

If you’d like to subscribe to discount announcements: http://feeds.feedburner.com/widefido/discounts

Or if you’d like to subscribe to my Twitter feed (which will include links to all blog posts and general discusson about software, entrepreneurship, and current events): http://feeds.feedburner.com/widefido/tweets

Also, yesterday I delivered my first client deliverable: user-stories and high-level wireframes of a mobile iPad application which has the potential to transform a segment of my client’s business. I’m helping with the strategy, user-experience, and architecture of the app, which is a nice change from my previous gigs where I’d only get to touch the development side of things.

One thing that I have really been enjoying about being a full-time entrepreneur has been the ability to choose the things I’d like to work on. A little software development here, a little strategy there, a little marketing over there, and a sprinkling of writing on top, makes for a really interesting and hugely productive day/week. Plus, it’s really nice being able to have the time to talk with you all about the app, my progress, where I want to go with TodoPaper and Widefido, and how I’m going to get there. I definitely do not regret any part of my decision to go “all-in” and am hugely excited to show you all what I have and will be working on in the near future.

If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be the first notified for TodoPaper 2 beta testing.

Last week was productive. I was able to finish the drag and drop support within the app. This functionality really helps with the usability of the app and I’m really proud of how it turned out. Unfortunately, in writing this drag and drop code I noticed a discrepancy in some of the backend data synchronization. This exposed a bug in the core editing component of the app. This bug is pretty critical, so I’ll be stopping my feature development to get it resolved. It looks pretty “hairy”, so it might take a few days to get through.

I’ll also be working on a small client deliverable (user stories and some high-level wireframes) for Wednesday. If you have never given Balsamiq a spin, you should. It’s really a great app!

Anyways, thanks again for hanging in there with me. If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be the first notified for TodoPaper 2 beta testing.

• Monday: Over the weekend I started down the road of rewriting a piece of TodoPaper 2 functionality (session persistence) even though the current implementation was already working (and good enough to ship). Unfortunately, this bled into Monday and took up quite a bit of time, time which would have been better spent working on things that actually need to be written for the first time. Even though this was a roadblock I did work through some consulting maintenance on Monday.
• Tuesday: After noticing my failures from the weekend and Monday, I reprioritized my efforts to the few tasks on my priority list. I spent Tuesday working through the base implementation of contextual actions, including setting up an extensible platform for future ones down the line. This will be hugely beneficial if I ever decide to improve upon TodoPaper’s syntax to additional functionality.
• Wednesday: I worked through the initial foundational work for drag and drop support. During this I discovered a few bugs in the contextual action code and fixed those. I spent the second half of Wednesday doing product research and reading through some of the material on the Micropreneur Academy website (which I just joined).

The rest of the week is looking pretty good. Today I will be posting a job for a web developer to help out with the Widefido website and blog. I’m going to be moving web hosts and doing a small site redesign. My hope is that having a web developer on-board will help make that process smooth and free up some of my time to continue with TodoPaper 2 development. I will also be continuing to work through drag and drop support in the app. My goal is to wrap this up by Friday and potentially have a screencast of some of the app details on Monday.

Thanks again for holding in there with me! If you haven’t already, you should sign up to be notified for a TodoPaper 2 beta test.

If you’re prone to getting side-tracked, take a step back and remind yourself every once in a while what your goal is and if what you’re doing is taking you there.

• Thursday: I ran into some issues that were holding up TodoPaper development. I resolved the issues, which allowed me to get back to working on some features. Unfortunately, I did not get to drag & drop as planned, but I should be able to get this soon. I also worked with my VA to do some more research around a couple of new product ideas I’m pursing. This has been a great help and I’m very excited about how I will be using this research over the next couple months. Once TodoPaper 2 is out the door I should have some really interesting things to share.
• Friday: I completed and polished the DropBox prototype into a library that I can use down the road. This should make its way into TodoPaper and some other products, so this was time well spent. I might even be able to open-source the resulting code if I can make it generic enough. That’s one thing that I want to do more of as I grow Widefido. I want to be transparent and give back to the community through open-sourcing some of my libraries.

I’m starting off this week full of energy, totally refreshed by the weekend, ready to get some really great development done. This is the first time in months that I’ve started a Monday totally amped for what the week has in store. This is a side-effect of a couple of things. I didn’t spend the whole weekend working on my “side-projects” like I had been previously. I actually got to relax and recuperate. This is uncommon, but I really enjoyed that. Not only do I feel refreshed, but because I didn’t spend the whole weekend coding, I am more eager to get started this week. Double win.

I hope to spend the majority of this week working through TodoPaper 2 features. Some things that I want to finish this week are:

• drag and drop
• contextual actions
• and dropbox integration (already underway)

Along with development, I have a few housekeeping things I need to get done. These include consolidating my web hosting accounts (they are getting a little unwieldy), posting a job for a web development contractor to help me with some small web maintenance, make a few phone calls to nurture my current consulting engagement, and do some general business maintenance. After making the decision to go full-time in your business, you learn very quickly that you will be wearing many hats, including the boring, non-technical ones.

I’m also planning on doing some more research this week around my new product ideas. If you’d like to hear about some of my new product ideas and where I’d like to take Widefido over the next couple of months, please shoot me an email. I’d really love to hear from you!

Happy Monday!

As you know, this is my first week running Widefido full-time. It’s been an interesting and highly productive week so far. Here are the things I’ve accomplished:

• Monday: I spoke with a number of customers about how they use TodoPaper and what things they’d like to see in version 2 to help make things better. I signed up to oDesk.com to look for a couple of contractors to help me with simple HTML development for my website and research tasks for the new products I have planned.
• Tuesday: I spent a good part of the day writing a prototype Dropbox synchronization tool. This will be the basis for syncronization of TodoPaper (and potentially other apps). I interviewed a bunch of job applicants off oDesk and eventually hired my first contractor to help me with research.
• Wednesday: I am taking on small consulting engagements to help with cashflow for the business and this was my first onsite kickoff. We discussed mobile strategy, marketing, and approaches to software development for a new segment of the client’s business. This should be an interesting engagement going forward. I also received the first results from my contractor and was very pleased at the progress made in the short period of time.

Overall I’ve had a very productive week so far. My plan for the next couple of days is to focus on getting a couple more core pieces of TodoPaper 2 squared away, things that have been waiting to be completed for a while, like drag & drop support. I’ll let you know how these go over the next few days.

Thanks again for staying in there with me! If you’d like to sign up to be one of the first notified when TodoPaper 2 public beta is released, feel free to sign up here.

For the past five years, I’ve continued to run Widefido. I’ve been developing and testing TodoPaper 2 in my ever shrinking free-time, and, as the months (and years) have flown by, Widefido has grown into a stable business. But, unfortunately, Widefido’s been a business that has been impeded by my conflicting day-job priorities.

I’m happy to say, though, that this is not the case any longer. As of Monday, February 4, 2012, I will be running Widefido full-time. That’s right, I’m taking the leap with Widefido and focusing on delivering to you the best possible software.

So, what does this mean for Widefido, TodoPaper, and the upcoming months?

I’m going to be focusing on delivering TodoPaper 2 to public beta (for real this time) as quickly as possible. Now that it has my full attention, I should be able to accomplish this quickly. I will be posting weekly status updates on the  development to help everybody understand what is left to be built and fixed, and when you all will be able to get your hands on the app. By the way, if you’re interested in being one of the first to get access to the public beta, sign up here: http://widefido.wufoo.com/forms/todopaper-20/

I have a couple of other products and services in development. These products will fit well within the Widefido family and I hope that many of you will find them useful. My goal continues to be to build simple software, useful software, productive software. As Derek Sivers (CD Baby) said: “a company is a laboratory for your ideas.”

I will be taking on some small consulting projects to keep the cashflow up while I get used to running the business full-time.  If you’re interested in learning about my skillset and how I can help your business grow, please feel free to get in touch: http://widefido.com/contact/

I will be posting to the blog about the business, the directions I’m taking with my various products, my marketing approaches, and various other topics. I want to be transparent as I grow Widefido, similar to other businesses I admire, and I hope that you all will benefit from that transparency as much as I have.

Running Widefido full-time also means that I am going to try to be much more responsive on my incoming email and skype messages from you all. I’ve let this slip to almost a week before I get a response out. I hope to drive this down to one day max. Please hold me to this.

This experience is going to be fun. I love making things and solving problems with software. I’m very excited and can’t wait to show you what I’ve been working on!

Here’s to 2013 being a great year!

Happy Spring Break!

P.S. For those of you wanting to purchase TodoPaper 1 right now, feel free to use this discount until April 15: springbreak

I’ve completely revamped collapsing in TodoPaper 2. You can now collapse any text hierarchy, including projects, todos, and notes, so long as the line being collapsed has children (lines underneath it with a greater indent). This makes collapsing extremely flexible.

You may have noticed that I’ve removed the left margin where checkboxes and folding indicators used to live. This helps clean up the interface: checkboxes are now the todo hyphens, and indicators only display if a line is collapsed. 

Collapsing can be achieved by holding the Control key and clicking on a line that has children, or by right clicking and selecting “Collapse” from the context menu, or by a simple keyboard shortcut. 

Let me know what you think:

Fixes an issue with Windows style newlines and .taskpaper files.

Users who use DropBox to sync their documents with TaskPaper and TaskPaper for iOS were experiencing an issue with the wrong style of newline character sequences in the documents. This bug caused incorrect rendering of projects in TaskPaper for iOS, as well as some crashes in that software. I’ve worked with HogBay Software to address the issue, and while they are working on an update to ensure newlines are correctly converted on document load, this update will resolve the issue by saving the correct style newlines for .taskpaper files. 

NOTE: This will only work correctly with .taskpaper files, as I assume that the .taskpaper file extension is going to be used on the Mac and iOS. If you are using .todopaper or .txt files with iOS, you will need to re-save them as .taskpaper files for this fix to work correctly. 

Fixes an issue with printing and font sizes.

Some printer drivers were interpreting the TodoPaper fonts incorrectly, causing printing to draw the characters in fonts that were unreadable. This fix addresses this issue by sending a correct font size and layout to the printer. 

In other news…

I know a lot of you are also wondering about TodoPaper version 2. I know it’s been a long road, but I am getting very close to a public beta release. I was expecting to release this week, but some issues that popped up need to be resolved first. I want to deliver to you a quality product and hope that you understand the delays. Thanks for your support!

What do you think? Would a plugin like this be useful to you?

Many of you have asked for advanced searching (-a excludes the display of ancestors/parents, +d includes the display of descendents/children) and I can finally say that it’s arriving to a “TodoPaper 2.0 near you”. Even though TodoPaper 2.0 is still wrapping up final beta testing, it is taking shape to be a pretty awesome improvement over version 1. (I know it has been a long road, but I am sticking to my gut and delivering a quality product!)  

Let me know what you think and if you have any other suggestions for improving TodoPaper!

I went back and forth for a while on the toolbar. Textual buttons, image buttons, rounded corners, non-rounded corners, etc. I think I’ve solidified the most minimal approach to it all by removing all of that clutter. (Which is surprisingly very close to the original layout of TodoPaper 1 with a bit of polish).

So why did I go this route? Well, after talking to a number of customers and testers, there were very few people actually using the toolbar buttons. Most of you opted for either keyboard shortcuts or just typing into the edit area. This is because TodoPaper makes creating todos, notes, and projects incredibly easy with the keyboard. (Sometimes as simple as pressing a single keystroke to quickly create a new, properly indented todo.)

I think this minimalistic UI is what you’ll see in the final release. I feel it really promotes what TodoPaper is all about:

Provide you with a simple tool then get out of your way so you can actually get stuff done.

Thoughts?

Thank you for the comments. I really appreciate the feedback regarding the UI elements. I still haven’t finalized the toolbar buttons for the application (and as you can see in the screenshot, I’m still debating on those round corners :P), but I have been working on some editor polishing.

What do you think of these hyphens and todo alignment (which is similar to how taskpaper aligns todos)?

But I need your help. I’m running into a problem with TodoPaper 2. I am having a terrible time finishing up the last few UI touches. In particular, I’m trying to figure out which icons to use in the toolbar. I love the simplicity that TaskPaper takes, “+”, “P”, “@”, but I also am fond of simple grayscale iconography. 

Do any of you have any suggestions, or perhaps know a freelance designer I could get in touch with to help push this last bit along? 

Also, I’ll be posting some more screenshots over the next few weeks to help keep everybody up-to-date with the progress of the app UI. Feel free to send me your comments and suggestions too.

“Who am I?”

This is a question often asked (in one form or another) and in response I frequently ramble an autonomous stream of key facts and life decisions. Jordan Sherer. Small town in Michigan called Hillsdale. Studied in Chicago. Software Developer and Entrepreneur. Enjoy cooking, reading, and exercising. World peace.

“That’s interesting,” one might say in a not-so-honest response, perhaps annunciating every syllable sarcastically. “In-te-res-ting.” If only they knew the truth, a truth quite different than the bland reality of my prepared ovation. 

“Who am I?”

The truth is: I am kind, generous, and loving. I am a leader. I am a listener. I am motivated. I am creative. I have a vast imagination. I create value by solving problems, even when I sleep. I learn best by doing. I have strength and perseverance. I value simplicity over complexity. And, I am always looking for inspiration and seemingly find it everywhere.

“Who are you really?”

]]> http://widefido.com/blog/who-am-i/feed/ 0 http://widefido.com/blog/todopaper-status/ http://widefido.com/blog/todopaper-status/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:06:00 +0000 Jordan http://widefido.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/todopaper-status Continue reading →]]> I’ve been getting a lot of questions in my inbox recently about the status of TodoPaper 2.0. and rather than send out 100 copies of the same response, I thought it would be best to share it with everybody.

Are you still developing TodoPaper 2.0 or has development halted?

TodoPaper 2.0 is very much still being developed. I work on it everyday. It has taken a long time to get to where we are at today, and I still have plenty of more to do. But, we are making huge headway. TodoPaper 2.0 just finished up a private beta, in which 100 lucky fellows (out of 10,000 signups) were able to test the core functionality of TodoPaper 2.0. The beta was successful and served its purpose well. We found a number of bugs along the way and a number of changes in functionality needed to be had. This is what I am working on. I know it’s been a long road past, and there is more road ahead, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to deliver a product of the utmost quality and to do that a lot of time has to be put for polishing. 

What effort is being taken to allow TodoPaper to sync with SimpleText.ws?

Syncing of tasks between pc’s (and phones) is the ultimate dream for TodoPaper / TaskPaper combo. (Many of you will agree.) Jesse from HogBaySoftware has created SimpleText.ws, a fantastic little web-service to make syncing of text documents much easier and robust. I am working with Jesse to port his SimpleText.ws client over to the Python programming language and ultimately wrap up a release for the Windows operating system. This will allow TodoPaper users to use SimpleText.ws to synchronize their tasks across devices. 

If I buy TodoPaper 1.x now, will I have to purchase 2.0 when it is released?

Widefido has a great upgrade policy, in that upgrades in the same major release (e.g., 1.0, 1.1,…1.5, 1.6) are offered at no cost to the user after purchase. Upgrades between major versions (1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0) are offered at a reduced cost to existing customers. My policy for TodoPaper 2.0 is to offer a substantial (50%+) discount to all registered customers. I often hold sales for TodoPaper, so it’s very possible to get TodoPaper 1.x for a reduced price, which would allow a user to purchase 2.0 for a reduced price later when it is released. Also, if you are a student or a senior, please feel free to contact me about your discounts as well!

I hope this helps clear up some of the air around TodoPaper 2.0, SimpleText.ws, and purchasing 1.x and 2.0 for reduced price. If you have any other questions, comments, suggestions, or just want to chat, feel free to give me a shout in the comments or by using one of my contact methods.

There are three solutions to this problem:

1. Use embedded styles
2. Use page specific style includes
3. Use page id or class selectors

Use embedded styles

The first solution to this problem is to embed page specific styles directly in the html elements. I present this solution first, as it is the worst of the three. Every developer reading this right now should be cringing.

Use page specific style includes

The second, more natural solution to this problem is to create separate stylesheets for each page.

Use page id or class selectors

The final, and my favorite solution, is to use a page id or class to identify the page, which can then be used in CSS selectors to style the element based on the page. 

create
work for it
sacrifice
set aside time
just do it
get off your ass, stop reading about how to do something, and just do it

Just make it happen

via OPEN Forum

Fax machines are outdated pieces of equipment that are bulky (i.e., they take up space in the office), slow (can anybody say dialup?), and complicated (insert expletives after the D*** thing doesn’t work). I have never once been able to operate and send a fax successfully on the first try. I’m a pretty smart guy. I deal with computers all day long. But, the moment I touch a fax machine, all hell breaks loose. Why do we put up with such a monstrosity of office equipment?

The only “Pro” of a fax machine, that I can fathom, is that “everybody has one”. So, ultimately, you should be able to fax anybody any document. But, of course, not EVERYBODY has one. I know my mother doesn’t have one. Neither do my cousins. I can’t fax my buddy in Las Vegas without having him pick it up at Kinkos. Oh, that’s right, not everybody, just every business.

On the other hand, everybody I know, INCLUDING every business that I’ve ever dealt with, has an email address. My copier, scanner combo can scan a document and automatically email it to a recipient. This is the same way a fax works! So why, oh why, haven’t we made the switch?

(I don’t have an answer)

Please, if you run a business, just say no to fax machines. Set up a dedicated email address for receiving documents instead. That way we can go about our day peacefully without having to resort to destroying the machine out of frustration.

[name omitted] is a digital media destination that harnesses the [name omitted] shopping community’s real time buying and selling activity to curate proprietary insights…

I had to read this sentence 4 times before I began to understand what was being communicated. Still, questions remain. What is a proprietary insight, and how can you curate one when the medium of curation is a blog. I would think that the public nature of a blog would eliminate the proprietary ownership of such insights. Once an insight is in the public domain, there’s no way to control the ownership of such an insight. Unless of course you file some patent or trademark or copyright. But, last I checked, you couldn’t patent an idea.

And don’t get me started on “digital media destination”.

Lesson: Go find a copywriter that won’t litter your copy with marketing mumbo-jumbolaya!