Envied Design.net

A customer messaged me today saying that they weren’t going to buy GraffitiSuite right now for two reasons:

1. My health.  Let me say that I’m basically fine.  I feel nauseas a lot, and sometimes my brain just doesn’t function correctly but, other than that, I’m fine.  Just a little sugar problem.
2. The impending update.  The next update will be free to current GraffitiSuite customers, with the exception of any new classes.  For new classes, those customers will only have to buy the controls they don’t already own and we’ll upgrade your GraffitiSuite registration code.  So instead of paying another $170.00, you’ll just be paying the cost of the new controls.  For instance, if I add one new control and price it at $19.95 then current GraffitiSuite customers will only have to pay $19.95 and we’ll upgrade their registration code.  After you’ve made your purchase, you should email your current registration information to agcyphers@envieddesign.net and request the code upgrade(at least until we get our automated system working properly).

So there’s no need to worry.  Even if I did fall off the face of the Earth tomorrow, I have someone waiting in the wings to run the entire business, and I have the utmost faith in them.

That said, I’d like to hear what kind of classes you guys would like to see added to GraffitiSuite.  We’ve got a lot in it already, but there’s always room for more.

I’ve run across several terrible bugs in RB while working on the next release.  The only workaround appears to be switching back to R3.1.  While I hate to do that, I don’t have much of a choice.  The switch back to R3.1 will only be for my development, and I will still test in R4 before release.

One of the bugs is really driving me crazy.  On Win32, if you encrypt a project item then either try to make it external or save the project…instant death.  Memory error.  As you know, if my classes aren’t encrypted they don’t get released.  So R3.1 will be for dev, R4 will be for testing.

Myself and a few others are anticipating a R4.1, as there appear to be some significant issues in R4 for Mac as well.  I really hope it addresses these issues.

First of all, I’d like to think all of the well-wishers I’ve heard from recently.  Comments, emails, and IMs have come in from many good people, some of which I had figured would never read this website.

On to other things…

Students and educators, be sure to check out our new Educational Sales program via the link on the left side of the page.

I’ve gotten reports that GraffitiSuite has problems in 2008R4.  Although I’m unsure why, the problem happened on Leopard, and was solved by redownloading the currently available version.

Read on for GraffitiSuite and company stuff…

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So, I’ve been playing with Google’s new browser, Chrome.  I have to say that this concept is killer.  Aside from a few bugs(can’t maximize on a secondary monitor with varying resolutions), I love it.

See, I use a lot of web apps.  GMail, Google Docs, MySpace, FaceBook, my blog dashboards, etc.  I’ve come to the point that I don’t feel these are web applications anymore.  I feel more like they’re local, as I use them so much.  As such, I’m glad to see a browser come along that takes the same stance, and takes it seriously.

I really don’t feel like Chrome is a browser.  It’s more like a computing gateway, or web container.  I’m beginning to think of Chrome more as a necessity for my web applications.  I like having certain sites as shortcuts on my desktop that load into an exclusive window with all links opening up in a new tabbed window.  It’s just so much more comfortable this way.

I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on Chrome.  I know what I’m sticking with for a while, at least.

Alright, folks…the new version of GraffitiSuite is live.  If you are an existing GraffitiSuite key holder, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY MORE.  You get all of the old classes with updates, as well as the new classes.

New customers may now purchase only the classes they need.  The registration scheme allows you to purchase only what you plan to use, even though all of the classes have received great praise.

So, go ahead and check out the new demo(downloadable from any of the product pages).

Change log after the jump…

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I have had a couple of false starts with this article, so I’m giving it another try. The last couple of times were very lengthy and Rambling™, so I’ll try to pare it down this time.

Since 2002, I have been a Windows and Linux guy. Before that time, I had been a Mac user for a number of years, but after a couple of divorces and stretches of homelessness, ex-wives kept the spoils and left me with very little.

I’ve always tried to get back to having a Mac, though. Read the rest of this entry »

You know, I don’t know why I didn’t do this a couple of years ago…I guess it was because I wanted to give REAL a chance to turn things around. Read the rest of this entry »

Even as one of REAL Software’s more outspoken critics in the past, I’ve since become tired of going round and round, bringing the same complaints out of the box I keep them stored in, then putting them away for presentation again later. My complaining will accomplish little, except more complaining from others, which will be compounded to my own. Complaints can be useful if the target of the complaint listens and takes the appropriate action, however it seems that while REAL was listening (I have the server access logs to prove it), they either didn’t care enough about the issues I mentioned, or that my credibility wasn’t high enough for them to take action.

With that said, I truly want to make mine the ‘get out and push’ mentality, instead of the ‘horn-honker’ mentality. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I’ve run a few tests.  I can’t say that I’m really THAT impressed…but it is much faster than Hamachi.  And Leaf looks horrible in comparison to Dropbox(not to mention I can use Hamachi and Dropbox together).

Overall, I think Dropbox is what I’ve been looking for.  Not the Messiah, but a very strong alternative(and a hell of a lot better than Leaf).

So yeah, definitely give Dropbox a shot.  It’s killer.

So, I was accepted to the Dropbox BETA program.  I don’t remember signing up for it, but whatever.  I’ve installed it on one machine, and tomorrow will be installing it on another for it’s first real test run.  I plan to transfer 25-50 megabytes and see how the performance is.

It’s Client-Server, so the speeds on it should be pretty good.  I’ll report back when I have more info for you.

If you want an invite to the beta program, just let me know.  I’ll give them out until they’re all gone.  I have to say the service looks promising from the reviews I just read.  But this still won’t give me a VNC connection to remote computers.