Archive for the 'software' Category
December 21, 2007
I’ve seen companies doing soft launches of software products which makes me wonder what a hard launch is. So far the main difference I’ve noticed is that the official press release about the new application or new feature doesn’t go out until after the ‘hard’ launch. My guess is that a lot of bug fixing is going on between soft and hard launch.
So, I’m happy/thrilled/ecstatic to report that we just soft launched our new sleep and immunization recording features of Baby Insights Web! We are still working on some development issues on Baby Insights Mobile and plan to hard launch that app in January 2008. The mobile app is not web-based (yet) so we don’t have the luxury of a soft launch.
Babble Soft is offering FREE 3 month gift subscriptions valued at $19.95 until March 15, 2007 to anyone who discovers a software bug in our NEW Baby Sleep and Immunization features of Baby Insights Web. Gifts are transferrable! Sign up for your FREE account today. Happy hunting!
So far the soft launch has been uneventful (i.e., no major bugs), which is nice. Thanks go out to our development team Cressanda and especially our project manager. I recommend them highly. The smoothness of the soft launch is also because we don’t have thousands upon thousands hundreds upon hundreds of users yet. I’m banking on our foray into SEO to help get us there. I mean if the “right people” (a.k.a. target market) don’t know we exist; it’s not surprising that we don’t have thousands of users yet. Even viral marketing takes a bunch of upfront work because you have to get to the right early adopters who have major Internet influence. I need to figure out how to do a video and get it in YouTube.
Given the fact that over 4 million babies are born in the US each year then include Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and other Internet savvy countries, I’m anticipating that once those new parents and nannies find out about us, the floodgates will open. Babies and floodgates…not sure if the analogy works but I think you get the point. 
I’ve been spending my time the last couple of days doing website updates to reflect the new features. And I’m working on pulling the pieces together of a business plan for some potential angel investor meetings that I have scheduled for early next year. If you know an angel investor (or you happen to be one) who likes the baby/new parent/web application/social networking space, please send them my way! The applications we have now are only the tip of the colossal iceberg.
Now for a short SEO break:
Whether you need breastfeeding support, are excitedly following your pregnancy week by week, are experiencing baby sleep issues, or are already under way creating your baby’s first year album, Babble Soft offers unique, easy-to-use Web and Mobile software solutions that improve communication between caregivers about baby’s and mom’s schedules.
Baby Insights helps caregivers keep track of baby’s breast & bottle feeding, sleep periods, diaper changes, medicine doses, and immunization records, as well as mom’s breastfeeding, pumping and medicine intake. Having important information stored in one location makes communication between parents, their nanny, babysitters, grandparents, or doctors seamless and reliable and gives new parents insight into their baby’s patterns to help with crucial baby care decisions. Baby Say Cheese lets you create a wonderful online baby’s first year photo album with milestones and family tree that you can share with friends and family.
If you are interested in reading about how I cope with manage software launches, fundraising, and SEO consider subscribing to this blog’s feed. If you are an entrepreneur, it will be worth your while…even if I crash and burn….which I won’t…because I said so, that’s why. Now go play with your Power Rangers. Sigh.
November 16, 2007
In case you haven’t heard, I am not fond of software testing. If you want proof, just check out the following posts I wrote the last time when I had to test software.
Software Testing - DOH!!
Speaking of Software Testing
So now I’m at it again because we are about to release a new feature for Baby Insights…which is very exciting because I’ve wanted to release one of these features pretty much since we began Babble Soft. In fact the pain we experienced from this particular issue when our son was born 5 years ago was the single driving force for creating Baby Insights. Hint: the lack of this much needed activity (or inactivity) in our lives was often used as a means of torture back in the day.
Erin (my husband who works full time elsewhere and couldn’t help me with this particular issue) strongly suggested we do this feature with an expert in the field. I slowly realized that given that I’m wearing a gazillion different hats, finding an expert (who is super busy but would still somehow want to partner with an unknown company) was not going to happen. So I figured I’d do it backasswards and build something and then let an expert discover us and tweak the feature later. Doing this violates pretty much most of what I’ve studied, been told, and read about when starting a business which is “This ain’t the Field of Dreams honey…you can’t build things and they will come.” To them I say “Um…well…we’ll see about that!“
Now for a couple of great comics from Blaugh which I discovered from a post written by Pelf on Pearl’s Interesting Observations blog. The first is funny and it’s even funnier because I can’t fire myself for being honest about my distaste for software testing and my ‘build it they will come’ frowned upon strategy. The second is funny (to me) because when you test software you are pretty much glued to your computer and dream about anything endorphin related! But oddly enough, I don’t drink coffee.
September 21, 2007
We just went live with our new corporate website and since we did it in an unusual way, I thought the bootstrapping entrepreneurs would be interested in how we went about it. In my previous tech start-up when the task of creating a new website surfaced, we usually started with a blank slate which meant lots of discussion and meetings around color schemes, second guessing, back and forth arguments, feature/requirement changes and lots of time and money.
I have a bad eye for colors. I have a very hard time envisioning how things will look when they show up on the page (or on the walls of our house). I’m lucky if my or my kids’ clothes match. So this time we started with a template. Yes, a template. One we found at Template Monster. It was a flash template, but we decided not to use the flash piece because after the first two times you see it and hear it, it’s no longer very cool.
Erin and I attempted to transfer our previous corporate site information to the new site and modify the design and realized it was going to take much more time and skill than we had. So while I was looking for someone to design a new blog theme, I happened upon Swank Web Style by clicking on a link on Mocha Momma’s blog. I filled out their contact form, and was put in touch with Karen who designed our new blog theme (post about that to come). She introduced me to her partner, Vicki, for the corporate site work.
Vicki did an amazing job pulling our new corporate site together in a couple of weeks. It wasn’t as easy as any of us thought because of cascading style sheet (css) issues, alignment issues, tables vs. layers issues, etc. I didn’t know this but apparently most people design their websites now using Wordpress so they can easily add/modify pages. Since we are used to the old-school way of designing web pages, neither Erin nor I were comfortable with using Wordpress for this particular site…maybe the next one. I can only take on so much risk at one time.
Here’s the recipe:
- Find a template with the color scheme you like on a place like Template Monster
- Find a fabulous designer/coder/developer who will work until it’s done right (e.g., Vicki)
- Pick some of the most adorable pictures you can find on iStockphoto. iStockphoto is the greatest, most cost-effective site that I’ve come across for illustrations/pictures from anything from babies to lawnmowers. They now also do iStockvideo. The pictures are submitted by amateur and professional photographers and cost anywhere from $2 to $8 each. The pictures of babies and families were so cute/adorable that for about 2 seconds I thought about having another baby but then reality struck and I was reminded that all babies tend to look cute in pictures.
- Go back and forth a bit on layout and pictures.
- Experience a few late nights and Voila! You now have a great new website at a very reasonable cost in a reasonable amount of time!
August 10, 2007
It’s close…it’s close! So close I can taste it! We will soon be launching our new photo album/family tree application that integrates with Baby Manager called Baby Say Cheese (version 1.0).
We were lucky enough to obtain the domain www.babysaycheese.com using the GoDaddy discount at eMomsatHome. Anyone who purchases a subscription (for themselves or as a gift) from now until August 20, 2007 will have access to this new feature for their subscription period for Free! So even if you want to buy a gift for a baby shower you are going to next month or for a co-worker, a customer, a vendor who you know will be having a baby even 4 to 6 months out if you purchase now the subscription will automatically include access to Baby Say Cheese because the subscription period does not start until they activate it! Please check out our coupon page for any additional employer negotiated discounts.
After launch, anyone signing up for a FREE account will also have access to Baby Say Cheese. We have also made a few updates to Baby Manager which include:
- Inserted hyperlinks from home page summary boxes and Mom & Baby summary pages to the appropriate entry pages
- Added a copy down feature for the Add 10 pages for our users who don’t have a mobile device and use our custom forms for breastfeeding, pumping, bottle feeding, medicine, and diapers…this makes entering info MUCH easier if you have to do it all at once!
- some minor bug fixes
Unfortunately Safari 3.0.2 has presented some UI challenges for us because it is different enough from all the other browsers out there. Although the applications work on prior Safari versions without a problem. I think this all has to do with the iPhone.
We also plan to update our Babble Soft web site but given everything going on, I think that might take a bit more time to fit into the schedule. 
Now for some pre-release screen shots of Baby Say Cheese. The final version will have a few cosmetic changes.
Family Tree
Album
Slideshow (all information noted below ’Age: 4 weeks’ is optional)
Email to a Friend (all information noted below ’Age: 4 weeks’ is optional)
July 30, 2007
Since I’m now home in Austin, it’s back to software testing for me. I subscribe to the Dilbert comics email and I just had to share the last two comics. Oooh, I just love Dilbert.
Updated Sep 20, 2007: Well it seems as if the source of the Dilbert comics I had originally displayed has disappeared so all you see now is a box with a little red x. I have emailed Comics.com asking if I could display them directly on this post, but have not heard back. I’m sure they are probably laughing while reading my email. Suffice it say, I guess you’ll have to imagine what they looked like.
The first one was of Dilbert and his pointy-haired boss discussing software testing. Dilbert asks pointy-haired boss why he took out his entire automated software testing budget for the new project he’s working on. The Boss tells Dilbert that he and his team can develop the automated software testing…since they are after all developers. Plus since the Company already pays him then it should be free.
The second one shows the Boss asking why the project won’t be done on time and Dilbert says ‘because you eliminated our software testing budget.’ Boss then says something like, ‘don’t look at me, I’m not the one who can’t get his job done.’
Well a picture is worth a thousand words and I didn’t memorize the comics so I’ll leave the links up to the dilbert site on the off chance they put the comics back up because I’m sure it will make much more sense than my description!
You can read a great article on the importance of education software at Searcheric.org.
July 24, 2007
Speaking of software testing (via Boing Boing)
Named laws of technology
Posted: 18 Jul 2007 01:37 PM CDT
Cory Doctorow: 
The always-great tech-blog Global Nerdy has a great roundup of “named laws” of technology — laws like “Linus’s Law” (”with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”), “Occam’s Law” (the simplest explanation is most likely to be true), named for some thinker or technologist, useful in any geek’s daily round. Link
July 19, 2007
Is there anyone out there who really loves testing software applications before commercial release? I guess there must be because people make a living at it. I have worked with QA testers in the past but I never got the impression that they woke up excited every day about discovering all the things that weren’t working properly in an application. I guess I haven’t been hanging around the right bunch of people.
Personally, although I’m fairly good at catching things, testing & reviewing software is low on the list of things I get excited about. Plus I have this compelling need to ‘leave no stone unturned,’ which means it takes me longer to test and longer to document bugs, findings, etc. And I’m not a very technical documenter (e.g., that thingamabob didn’t work when I pressed this thingamajig - yes I’m exaggerating a bit) which I’m sure drives the developers crazy!
My ability to test (or shall I say audit since I was an accountant in my prior life) software is a blessing and a curse because invariably I find something not quite right and my shoulder and arm starts to hurt from all the typing, cutting and pasting, and moving my hand back and forth between keypad and mouse. Sigh. Thank goodness for Bugzilla. Oh yeah I almost forgot, the blessing part is that I usually find the unusual/hard-to-find bugs which is important to me because I want our customer’s experience with our applications to be the best it can be. Plus I don’t want people posting all over the Internet about how our app doesn’t work properly! So Microsoft and HP can you please get the Vista-HP Printer/Scanner driver issue figured out for InkJets…not just for LaserJets!!
So given my venting/hair pulling frustration about testing you might wonder why I’m heading up a software company!?! Because I find it deeply rewarding to conceive of technology applications that can help make the lives of new parents a little easier. Also, it’s a wonderful feeling when nothing crashes or blows up and you know the fixes can be handled fairly quickly. Thanks Cressanda! Everyone knows that software is never completely done (e.g., Microsoft’s Vista). However, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that our new application will have fewer bugs than Vista! Finally, I am relying on the Law of Attraction and sending out the attraction vibes for one of those elusive folks who truly love software testing to find us at the exact right time we can afford to hire them.
The good news behind all my Testing woes is that it means we are going to release a new application next month! I’ve been testing for the last few days and we have a few more weeks of testing and fixing before it’s available. Anyone who purchases a subscription now will get access to this new feature for FREE for the remainder of their subscription period. Here’s a hint: “Baby, Say Cheese”
Aruni
Aspiring software engineers can find more information on the options of a degree in software engineering as well as a wealth of other articles at Socialstudieshelp.com.
