• We’ve had over 200 beta testers sign up. Thanks!
• We’ve released three new beta versions to add minor enhancements (and fix one minor bug)
• One final beta version is in the works which will fix support for storing the password in the keychain (and ensure non-English letters (e.g. ???) display properly on the website)
• We’ve had interest from a number of companies in the SyncBridge Enterprise Edition (where you can run your own server)
• No-one has reported any data loss
• We’ve managed to upgrade the service pretty seamlessly 4 times in ten days

Overall, I’m really happy with how things have gone to date. I expect the final release will follow a few days after the next beta fix, which should be in a few days time.

We’ve moved the blog from our old server onto something a lot more stable, hosted by our friends at Yoyo. We decided to stop using Typo because it was unstable, just around the time they fixed the stability problems. Still, I don’t want to spend my time hacking on someone else’s Rails app at the moment. All the feed URLs should automatically redirect so let me know if you have a problem. (”If you do not get this message, please call and tell us…”)

I had an interesting day today - I got to spend a bit of time out and about in the city while still working. One of the things that ended up getting done was a release of SyncBridge 1.0b3, which helps improve the user experience. Interestingly, the code for that was written in three different places over the course of a couple of days. Four different places if you count my home.

SyncBridge is looking pretty stable. We’ve had very few bugs reported and we’ve been able to address them quickly. I’d like to add a few performance enhancements on the server side so that our resources weren’t being quite so greedily consumed, but other than that I’ve been very pleased with everything so far.

The two things looming on the horizon are SyncBridge for Enterprise (host your own server) and SyncBridge for Google Calendar. I’ve still not heard anything back from 30Boxes about being able to write a commercial app against their API, as their license agreement forbids it.

SyncBridge has been out for 10 hours. We have 52 users from 9 different countries sharing 84 calendars. Now, that’s the power of the internet! We got listed on MacUpdate, Versiontracker and we’re preparing the PRs for other sites in the Mac web today. Today is one of my best days ever. It’s just really fulfilling to see people using this app and then giving us such good feedback.

UPDATE: SyncBridge has been out for 17 hours. We have 95 users from 9 different countries sharing 145 calendars.

We’ve taken the shackles off and now everyone can have a go.

We’ve been using SyncBridge for nearly a month now and we’ve seen the good and the bad of iCal and SyncServies for more than 6 months now and come through with a smile.

So it’s out. In Public Beta. It’s free to use for the next month and after that, the subscription starts but why am I telling you all of this - it’s free for a month so GO TRY IT OUT

I’m reminded of Aidan saying that allowing others to use SyncBridge was akin to letting his kid outside unsupervised and that is certainly the way we feel now as we had several attempted downloads even before the links went active.

This is a big deal in many ways.

• It’s the first commerical RubyCocoa app. Ever. No, really.
• It’s the first commercial Nitro app (apart from those written by Nitro’s creator).
• It’s the first commerical app using ZenObfuscate.
• Infurious is the first Mac software company in Northern Ireland.
• If Aidan is the father of SyncBridge, then that makes me the bearded Auntie…..

Thought I’d add a bit more to this. I finished all the code for SyncBridge on the 6th of July. I don’t just mean code complete, I mean tested and bug-fixed etc. First thing in the morning on the 7th of July I went on vacation for six days, leaving MJ to organise our new server. When I came back, we had a shiny new server from 123reg waiting to have all the code installed and smoke-tested, except we had no shell access.

One day later, we get shell access, and find a bastardised version of the FreeBSD 4.11 (!) operating system underneath (we were expecting at the very least a vanilla install). I mean, this installation had all kinds of crazy things set up in it, and most of what comes as standard was missing.

So, a week-end later, after struggling to install a new version remotely, we get to Monday and tech support who tell us that we can’t install vanilla FreeBSD on there. By the end of Monday I have a P4 FreeBSD box installed and ready with the SyncBridge code on it, courtesy of excellent service from Exist (who chatted with me online from initial contact through to delivery of server details). Getting SyncBridge up and running on there was literally just a few hours work, installing all the necessary infrastructure.

I’ve now smoke-tested everything, and hopefully we’ll be able to get the beta out there this evening. The inaugural Cocoaheads (Belfast chapter) meeting is tonight, so we might unveil it there and get some beta testing done at the same time.

Loads of things…

• New Server for SyncBridge (yay for EXIST, and boo for 123-reg and dedicatedNOW)
• Syncbridge.com is ready to go, but not live.
• We got the SSL certificate up and running on the new server.

It’s ALMOST ready to go. So close I can taste it. We’ll have a formal announcement once we’re sure the new server is running fine.

Today, July 17th, also happens to be iCal Day. It’s the default date for iCal before you launch it because it was introduced to the public on July 17th, 2002.

Other news…

Andrew Gribben has his blog up for his new artistic lifestyle experience caf??? CreatiV. I must say - the combination of caf??? and art technology shop has me intrigued and he promises me that Aidan and I have a seat reserved for our Bedouin activities. I’ve given him a few ideas here and there on stuff he should be doing and I’m glad to see he thinks they’re good ideas!!!!

Tomorrow night (Tuesday 18th) hosts the first Northern Ireland Cocoaheads meeting in Roast on the Lisburn Road in Belfast I’m going to be so out of my league, it ain’t funny.

We’re also going to be migrating the blog to a new server to make it a little more responsive.

James at EirePreneur is running a series of in-depth intreviews with Irish startups which he’s dubbing EirePreneurZ. The first was with Karen Jackson of Gardini which is a Dublin based company founded to provide Gardens for Balconies, Patios, Yards, Terraces and Roof Tops and planters for House fronts and Windows.

Next up, he has a great interview with us on the same site. I must say, we’re quite funny. I think it’s a good sign that the second interview in the EirePreneurZ series comes from North of the Virtual Border.

The Scobleiser wrote on Thursday about what he considers to be business card best practises.. Admittedly we were trying something different when we tried something new with our new business cards.

Again we’ve had no negative feedback on our cards unless you count a merciless slagging from Guy Kawasaki which I don’t mind as he states in “Art of the Start”, - DON’T LET THE BOZOS GET YOU DOWN.

Anyway, it shows that Scoble is still capable of doing great posts despite not working for Microsoft anymore.

Yeah, you heard me. It’s complete.

We’ve just got some infrastructure stuff to do now. Get a digital certificate (GoDaddy are pissing about and handing me from support team to support team) sorted and get a new fast server sorted (again, we have one but the host, DedicatedNOW, started asking for all sort of pissy information which amount to an identity theft starter kit. I swear, if it had been possible to email organic material, they’d have asked for some. And this was AFTER they’d charged my card!).

At the end of the day, if you charge IN ADVANCE for a service that NEVER LEAVES YOUR DATACENTRE and YOU HAVE MY MONEY, why do you need a copy of photographic ID with a signature and copies of the front and back of my credit card?

Anyway. We’ll be moving to our new server homes in the next couple of days while Aidan is taking some well-deserved time off. It’s a common holiday period in Northern Ireland due the fifth season (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Marching). They’re calling it OrangeFest this year which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Are they going to rebrand St Pat’s Day as “GreenFest”?

It’s been over a week now since Aidan fixed the last bug and the only issue we have had is with some bugs in SyncServices - code that we don’t have access to. Aidan has filed a bug report and it’s apparently a duplicate so there’s not a lot we can do there. It’s not a showstopper but it makes me wish Apple were a little more transparent with this sort of things with their paid-up developers if not all their ADC partners.

We’re opening the doors for the first public beta. I have a list of people, Aidan has a list of people and it’ll feel weird giving access to this cool piece of software to people we don’t know personally. Not long now.

We’re a Bedouin company. We have registered offices but they’re not offices. We have no telephone except mobiles and some seldom used VOIP lines. We have no fixed abode. Sometimes we’re working from one place, sometimes another.

It’s notable that Wired’s Jargon Buster for June 06 had the following entry:

v. Downsizing a business by eliminating all but the core assets; employees and the communications links between them.

A company that has gone completely bedouin lacks a physical location, operating simply as a network of engineering, sales, and support staff connected 24/7 by Internet and cell phone.

Of course, it’s not just for companies as this post over in think:lab proves - bedouin is a potentially interesting goal in education. This is kind of how I see a lot of the Steiner education process, but I digress. As an example of how it works, my friend Kevin Callahan, a talented programmer and classical guitarist, offers guitar lessons over the web using iChat AV. How cool is that???

Today we spent some time walking through Belfast and I can honestly say that being Bedouin is a lot more fun during an Irish summer than it would be at any other time of the year. We really do need to bring raincoats every day though. You can never be too sure.

Now, Bob Pritchett over at FireSomeOneToday has an interesting post regarding HOVs (Home Office Vehicles). He says:

“I found the home made, the nicely done, and the one I would really like.”

Woah.

Are these not defeating the purpose of Bedouin? I suppose not if there’s no geographical location but some of these examples just seem beyond the scope of Bedouin. They’re more like a military operation - the aircraft carrier of mobile office transports.

We’ve been laying the groundwork for our transition to full Bedouin behaviour. We still need to scope out the best places for coffee and then see if they have WiFi (and if they don’t, we’ll install it).

Sounds like a plan.

Technorati Tags: broadband, bedouin, wireless