One of the software publishing maxims we believe strongly is "release early, release often." While many software publishers have release cycles of a year or greater, at Immuexa, we've committed to a seasonal release cycle: once every three months, near the start of each new season. From here on out, you can expect a new public release of Tidepool and Storymill on June 21st (summer), September 21st (autumn), December 21st (winter), and March 21st (spring). Yes, a three-month release cycle is ambitious, but it's even hairier in-house. We do a fully-tested release every month, on the 21st of each month....

As we're writing the press release for the impending Tidepool release, the issue of what category to give it has again resurfaced. Believe it or not, we're leaning towards "semantic juxtaposer" or "juxtaposer". Given that "juxtapose" just got picked as one of Merriam Webster's Top Ten Favorite Words for 2004, this further seals the deal. :) What do you think? "Tidepool's a semantic browser, a digital media organizer, an instant messaging client, an authoring tool, a contact manager, a calendaring app, a PIM sync program, and a personal publisher (blogs & photos & sounds & newsletters), all built upon an...

My wife Paula and I are taking Photo One at Moravian College, where she's a professor. She's taking the class for kicks, but I'm there to return to my roots. Between the ages of ten and thirteen, I lived and breathed photography, taking solace in my darkroom at a very difficult time. (ten year old tim, hanging around) Yesterday I developed my first "wet-lab" photographic print in more than twenty-five years. What amazes me most is that nearly nothing about it has changed in all that time. The chemicals and equipment all look and work the same, the brand names...

Streaming past are lives all around, like stars above that circle the world, like cars sweeping past on the road outside, like strangers on the sidewalk, all a blur. We're busy, so we don't notice as much as we might. Some days we miss the sad frown on the little boy sitting with her sister on a park bench. Some days the quick reflexive hug between them speaks volumes. Who's to say what frames attract our notice. Where do our viewfinders rest and why? What warrants the click? What then from the roll do we recall when back again under...

This is the hundredth post on this blog, which may not seem a big deal to those accustomed to blogs with ten quick paragraphs a day, but it feels like an accomplishment to me. In the last seven months, I've kept to no more than one post a day, trying to make each post its own little standalone written work, however marginal its view. Yesterday was another milestone: six months since we started Project Realize, our self-funded mission to bring everyone Tidepool & Storymill. We had planned to release the first selling version yesterday, but Jon and I decided to...

Talk as much as you like about sales & marketing, pay big bucks for strategists and research firms, brainstorm your branding and gonzo attention getters, but it all comes down to the simplest of requests: please give us some money. The natural response is "why should I?" The spectrum of answers can be dizzying: public radio pitches, new car "extras", "don't blame us" anxiety inducers, glamour life seduction scenes, and even straight-up "we have something you want" appeals. If you buy into the cluetrain meme, we all want sellers to be straight with us ... "here's what I got, here's...