Ok. Over the last five hours I’ve been sorting out the DNS and getting the hosting sorted for the new product. It also has a name, “Software Monitor” and a URL, www.software-monitor.com.
Side note: Finding a suitable URL was tricky. Almost all the software statistics / monitoring type domain name variations had all been taken by cybersquatters and I didn’t want to have some made up name that might have sounded cool as it wouldn’t be intuitive as to what the software actually does. I found software-monitor.com, and this is the new home for the product.
The logo was created by me in Adobe Photoshop in around two hours. It’s not yet finished, but I have just 29 days remaining and the clock is ticking, no code has been written yet and I’ve still got some studying to do in order to find the best solution to some architectural issues. I want the design fully scalable, and I need to have the database optimised and ready for a very large amount of traffic, so I don’t have much time to spend on the front end right now.
The logo needs work on the slightly messy red line and I’m not completely happy with the colour blending, but for now it will do. I’d like to experiment with adding a heart to the logo, since the whole point of this feature is to be used by developers who truly love their software and care about the condition of their software products after deployment to a customer. However this temporary logo can remain in situ until a more suitable one is created.
Other Authors’ Progress
I’ve noticed Steve McLeod has finally picked a name for his Poker Statistics application (and has picked a domain) but hasn’t revealed it yet. He’ll be pleased to know that www.software-monitor.com will be compatible with Mac OS applications, although for full benefit you will want to use the public web services API that’s coming along soon.
Philip (misvCRM)’s software is looking good. He’s gone for a tidy Windows XP style application and looks to be following the design guidelines very well. His software is looking up to be neat and intuitive. I have formerly worked with Goldmine CRM (Frontrange) and his design looks like a neater and clearer version of this enterprise level system.
I especially like the neat styling and the appropriate use of colour and font. However the use of colons (:) in front of field labels did sort of go out of fashion several years ago and in my opinion detracts a little from the cleanliness of the app. Still, it looks impressive and I’m wondering if I can get a trial copy from him to review properly 🙂
There are also two Ruby on Rails projects that are currently catching my eye too. “Ruby on Rails” is to Web 2.0 as Irish Cream is to Whiskey. I’m using ASP.NET as I have a Windows Server running IIS, plus I want to offer Windows Web Services as a direct integration route (I’m going to use this myself around the middle of the month in a new release of a live product in order to dogfood my own solution prior to going live for my future customers). I know that if I used “Ruby on Rails” I’d effectively get a free RESTful XML integration engine, which I won’t with ASP.NET. I’ve never used ASP.NET or Ruby on Rails in anger so I don’t have a preference for one over the other. My understanding is that both these two vendors are new to RoR technology (just as I am to ASP.NET) so I’m very interested to see how Bracken and Runimal get on with their projects 🙂
Hi,
Thanks for the positive comments. I don’t think it will be a problem if you wish to have a trial of the product. I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks again.