In the past I’ve done some experimentation with banner ads, podcast commercials and the like but I’ve found they never really bring in a reliable amount of traffic. They may work well for you, but I’ve never found the magic nut. After the lackluster results I got from advertising Today 2, I decided to instead […]
Archive for the ‘Advice’ Category
Deliver Your Downloads With A CDN
As an Indie developer, the most important asset you have is the Zip or DMG files that contain your product. These downloads are what make or break your business. It is important to ensure that those bits are delivered reliably and quickly to each customer. Previously I was hosting the downloads on my Web hosting […]
Embrace the Constraints
It is impressive that in under a year Apple has built an ecosystem of software that is so popular that there has already been over a billion downloads. With thousands of application choices, it seems like every niche (no matter how miniscule) is being filled by someone. Many people keep dozens of applications on their […]
AppStore: Stake your claim
Ever since the iPhone SDK was announced back in March of 2008, the predominant term I have seen to describe AppStore and iPhone software development in general is the term gold rush. The prospects of building the next Trism or Classics has led these new age prospectors (the 08 and 09ers if you will) to […]
Bento: My CRM Of Choice
I recently wrote about my transitioning to a new bug tracking system for Second Gear. In that post I discussed the prospect of using Bento: I was incredibly interested in Bento for a tracking solution, because of those reasons. Bento is an application that I have wanted to use for quite a while, but never […]
Indie Anniversary
I’ve officially been indie since the end of April and have had varying degrees of success. Out of the gate, Today 1.0 was a smash hit. The application was picked up by all the major news sites, reviewed on countless blogs and even achieved the holy grail of the Mac community: a Macworld review. I […]
Satisfactory Support
One of the things I’m doing as far as support goes for Today is using a new Web service called Get Satisfaction to handle support. Satisfaction is somewhat like a forum system, but with an interface more designed towards support and feature requests rather than just soapboxing your opinion on something. I actually was inspired […]
Just F’ing Ship It
When I first decided to pursue Today as a new development venture I knew going in that I didn’t want to spend 6 months building every possible feature I could think of into it. Not only was it not financially viable, but it’s counter-productive in a sense. I’m a big fan of foundation releases. In […]
Mac Polish Part 3: Help!
It’s been a few weeks and I am starting to feel like writing about some polish. In our last installment of Mac Polish we discussed what constitutes a good toolbar for a Mac application. In summary: Hire a professional icon designer Use illustrative imagery Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Today I want to […]
Mac Polish Part 2: Toolbars & Icons
In our last journey down the polishing road, I outlined what Mac polish was: Excellent UI design Drag-and-drop Keyboard access Authentic Apple Help (ie. using Help Viewer) Other little things that are always overlooked (like setting a table cell editable on insertion) I gave a few examples of these with Flying Meat Software’s VoodooPad. I […]
Hi. I'm Justin Williams and this is my weblog. I am the crew chief of Second Gear, a purveyor of fine Mac and iOS software.
You can learn more about me or view my résumé
In addition to this site I am frequently posting thoughts on Twitter, photos on Flickr and everything else to Tumblr.
My Software
Listen To My Podcast
Check out IRQ Conflict, where Windows developer Mikel Berger and I discuss the top 5 tech stories according to us in approximately 10 minutes.
