the finger-keyboard synapse - BitWise Archives

"BitWise" archive

Monday 25 June

Resurrection (10:22) - I'm quite sure that many folks thought BitWise had been completely abandoned, stuck forever at version 1.7.2. The fact that we just passed the one year anniversary of the most recent release was not lost on me. The release of BitWise 1.7.3 is mainly to fix a few Vista-related bugs (thanks Microsoft!) and improve the IP detection and handling routines on Windows, along with a few other minor bugs that have cropped up since the last release. I know this... | 2 Comments

Friday 13 October

Intermittent outage this morning (09:50) - You may have noticed some intermittent connectivity problems this morning. One of the routers at our upstream provider began malfunctioning, causing data to sometimes get stuck in a loop. Unfortunately this event was out of our control, and even beyond the control of our data center. Full services were restored around 9:45 a.m. EDT. We apologize for any inconvenience that this downtime may have caused you. Please contact us if you continue to experience any issues. Lastly, while we do...

Tuesday 10 October

BitWise 1.7.2 for Linux updated (19:53) - The download for BitWise 1.7.2 for Linux was replaced today with a version that fixes a rare bug that affects some network configurations. The symptom was a crash when logging in that could be worked around only by setting the IP address. The new version fixes this bug; no other changes were made. Thanks to "Nikola" from the forums for assisting with finding and fixing this bug....

Wednesday 20 September

BitWise Open Source Thoughts (22:38) - I suppose it's time to clarify the bomb dropped several weeks ago by throwing around the words "BitWise Open Source." I do apologize for the lack of a timely followup. There are a few major factors motiviting this idea. In no particular order:Perceived security would increase due to critical review by the community Availability on additional systems not currently supported (e.g. PPC Linux, BSD variations) Development could be supplemented in the hands of the community The server would be available... | 2 Comments

Monday 4 September

Scrambler solved (16:25) - In honor of Labor Day, I thought I'd unscramble last week's post to save you all some labor. Nyuck nyuck. So, the phrase for reactions is: BitWise Open Source For those who have written to me saying you're too lazy to unscramble, now you don't have an excuse! ;)... | 7 Comments

Wednesday 30 August

Scambler (17:27) - I have a crazy idea. But rather than tell you what it is, you have to unscramble it! After you unscramble it, what are your reactions? COIRPTOWUESBENEIS Three words total. One word should be pretty obvious. If no one is adventerous enough to figure out the scramble, I'll do all the hard work in my next post. ;)...

Friday 28 July

Features and lawsuits (16:21) - One of the more common requests for BitWise over the year is to add a feature whereby you could search other users' shared files en-masse a-la Kazaa. As much as this has been requested, we have always stood firm that this could attract a lot of unwanted attention from various entities looking to protect their rights. Now that Kazaa has successfully been sued and ordered to pay at least $100 million in fines, I am glad that we aren't already... | 3 Comments

Monday 10 July

True confessions of the buggy type (10:47) - Back in September 2004, I posted about the longest running bug in BitWise. At the time, that bug was about a year old. It wasn't an awful bug, but a noticable bug and one that definitely needed fixing. I am almost embarrassed to report a bug that is coming up on its third birthday. This bug is actually very easy to reproduce, which leads me to ask a few questions. (See below.) Open a whiteboard, and draw a freehand object.... | 2 Comments

Wednesday 28 June

Hear the change... or don't (16:03) - For anyone who objects to the new sounds in BitWise 1.7.2, the old sounds are available for downhere here. The zip file contains a Sounds directory with all of the old sounds. Simply copy some or all of the files into your BitWise Sounds directory. I briefly debated posting this download with sounds like burps, flatulence, toilet flushes, screams, chainsaws and maniacal laughter. I guess I just didn't want any lawsuits filed by angry bosses when their computer started belching... | 1 Comments

Monday 19 June

BitWise 1.7.2 Released (13:55) - BitWise 1.7.2 was released today, featuring some minor enhancements and many bug fixes. One change that will be very noticable is that BitWise now has new sounds, kindly developed and donated by FreakyFwoof. For Linux and Mac OS X users, the IP address detection has been vastly improved, now querying the interfaces directly rather than relying on /etc/hosts. The behavior on Windows has always been correct and has not changed. You can read about the rest of the changes in...

Friday 26 May

BitWise recommended on Security Now Podcast (16:47) - A quick thanks to Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte for briefly discussing BitWise in their Security Now Podcast from May 18th. Did I mention that Steve recommended BitWise for secure IM? Steve's discussion actually reveals a bit of "behind the scenes," in that it was Steve Gibson who prodded us to add the NAT traversal technologies last year. So, thanks to Steve both for the prod and the nod! Here's an excerpt: I know the author, I’ve interacted with him,... | 2 Comments

Saturday 20 May

Bad BitWise, don't be a pig! (23:15) - Several different people have mentioned the same or a very similar bug to me in the past few weeks. The issue seems to be that when BitWise loads when Windows boots, it sometimes eats up hundreds of megabytes of memory, and after a bit, the usage will then fall back down to something normal. The conflicting part is that one person only experienced it when "Connect Automatically" was also enabled, but another gets it even though he doesn't use that...

Friday 14 April

Behold the power of Mother Nature! (12:07) - Some of you may have noticed that BitWise was down for a bit this morning. We have learned from our hosting facility that not only was there a widespread power outage early this morning, but that some of their network equipment was destroyed due to electrical damage. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this outage. We are sympathetic to our provider, and hope that you can also sympathisze with us and them for this unfortunate situation....

Wednesday 12 April

Screenshots should not be trips down memory lane (17:13) - Hidden on our servers are some "full-screen" screenshots of BitWise that show many of BitWise's features. We link to these from various software sites, and I was reviewing these screenshots and realized how absolutely badly they needed updating. I thought my readers might enjoy a trip down memory lane, though, so I've archived the old ones and linked to them here. Memory Lane: BitWise on XP BitWise on OS X BitWise on Linux The New Screenshots: BitWise on XP BitWise...

Wednesday 22 March

New sounds for BitWise? (16:45) - I am pleased to post some potential new sounds for BitWise that were designed by user FreakyFwoof. The sounds are available at: http://www.bitwiseim.com/download/BitWiseSounds.zip Even if you don't regularly use sounds, we'd appreciate anyone willing to give these sounds a try and provide some feedback as to whether or not they should be adopted as the sounds included with BitWise. Comments, questions, reactions, praises, bashes, etc. welcome! Please use this forum thread. Thanks!...

Monday 20 March

Please reboot if you are having trouble connecting to BitWise (13:56) - If you are having trouble connecting to BitWise beginning today at 1 pm EST, please reboot your computer. The old servers have been removed and are no longer forwarding connections to the new servers that were installed on March 10th. Rebooting will force your computer to get the IP addresses of the new servers....

Saturday 18 March

Potential service disruptions Sunday, March 19th (12:34) - We have been advised by our new ISP that there will be some network maintenance and expansion taking place Sunday afternoon. They will be installing new routing equipment that will provide faster access to our servers. As a result, BitWise and OxONet may experience short service disruptions anytime between 3 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 19th. While we realize that the timing is not ideal, this expansion confirms our decision to move the servers to be hosted with an... | 4 Comments

Tuesday 14 March

Offline message e-mailing fixed early this morning (15:43) - Part of our relationship with our users and customers is fessing up when we make a mistake. If you noticed that you were not getting your offline messages sent via email since our migration late Friday night, you're not alone. A mail configuration bug was silently blocking all outbound messages generated by the offline message emailing script. Thanks to the alertness of our users, this bug was noticed Monday morning and was fixed late Monday evening. Emails are now being...

Saturday 11 March

BitWise IM back online after migration outage window (02:12) - BitWise was brought back up at about 2:10 am, just minutes past our scheduled maintenance window. If you are having problems connecting or establishing direct connections, please click Setup and use login2.bitwiseim.com as your login server. Some computers and DNS servers cache IP addresses, which could cause you to continue to connect to the old server. Connections are being relayed from the old server to the new server, but your IP address is not maintained. We appreciate your patience and...

Friday 10 March

DNS snafu and possible connection problems (08:57) - Yesterday afternoon, we converted DNS services from the old servers to the new servers. It has come to our attention this morning that the old login server name, login.bitwisechat.com, was lost during the DNS changeover. If you are unable to connect, please go into BitWise's Setup and change the login server to login.bitwiseim.com. We apologize for any inconvenience caused....

Wednesday 8 March

Planned downtime Friday, March 10th (11:59) - This announcement is a reminder that there is planned downtime Friday, March 10th while we migrate from our current servers to our new servers in a new data center. The full maintenance window is from 10 p.m. EST to 2 a.m. (Saturday morning), but we anticipate that we will be back online well before the end of this window. It is also possible that we may come up and go back down more than once during this window. If you... | 2 Comments

Monday 6 March

Hack of the month: Enter key on Mac OS X (16:25) - This post is a direct follow-up to my post Saturday about the Enter key bug on Mac OS X. After another user on a PowerBook reported the same problem, I began thinking about keyboards on laptops. Using one of the small wxWidgets demo applications, the tester was able to relay to me that the Enter key was not producing the key event corresponding to Enter, but to the Numpad Enter key. Since the Numpad Enter has a different keycode, BitWise...

Saturday 4 March

Mystery of the month: Enter key problem on Mac OS X (19:28) - Every once in a while, a really weird bug comes along, and yesterday was apparently our lucky day. Has any using Mac OS X experienced any problems with the Enter key for sending messages since upgrading to BitWise 1.7.1? A user has posted a thread in the forums that the Enter key quit working to send messages on his G4 PowerBook running 10.3.9 after upgrading to BitWise 1.7.1. When running 1.7 again, the Enter key works fine. I tried everything...

Thursday 2 March

Throwing a release party on the 2 year anniversary of 1.0 (16:39) - In case it somehow managed to escape your memory, today is the 2-year anniversary of BitWise 1.0, just shy of our overall 4-year anniversary of BitWise 0.1 (March 17th). To celebrate, we're releasing a new version of BitWise and a new version of the BitWise Routing Server! BitWise 1.7.1 is a bug-fix release, with one major new feature: native support for Intel Macs through a universal binary for Mac OS X 10.4. This means that users with Intel-based Macs can...

Tuesday 28 February

The new nova & galaxy (16:19) - I'm sure some of you have been wondering what the clues were a few weeks ago about "a new nova in the galaxy." Some of you have figured it out--my hats off to you. Perhaps if you knew that we have servers named nova and galaxy for OxONet, it would have made sense. As some of you also know, BitWise and OxONet are intertwined, including sharing servers. So, what exactly is going on, then? We have some brand new state-of-the-art...

Tuesday 21 February

This is why we beta test, example 2,934 (21:08) - First, I apologize for the unusual gap between posts. Lots has been going on, which you'll find out about very soon. The old hint about the new nova still applies. :) Next up, we're still looking for someone with an Intel Mac to do some testing, especially using the voice chat. The offer for a free Plus membership for Intel Mac testing is still valid. Lastly, the past couple of days have involved some head-scratching wondering why metal-enabled windows on...

Thursday 16 February

The compiler won the battle, but lost the war (14:50) - We are very excited about the release of BitWise 1.7.1 Beta 1 yesterday, mostly because the Mac OS X 10.4 version is now a Universal Binary that runs natively on both PPC and Intel Macs. I must say, Apple has done a really nice job with their build tools to make this fairly straightforward. On the other hand, a really nasty surprise with Quicktime 7 for Mac OS X 10.3 caused the release to be delayed a day while I... | 1 Comments

Sunday 12 February

Feet to the Fire radio chooses BitWise as its "official and sole" IM (14:41) - A couple of weeks ago, I appeared live on Feet to the Fire radio. This week, BitWise has been seleted as the official and sole IM for Feet to the Fire (read the announcement). Showcasing some of BitWise's features, James (the show's host) is also offering an archive of past shows in his Shared Files. As for the rest, I'll just let's James's quote speak for BitWise (I couldn't have said it better myself!): "In these days of AdWare/SpyWare and... | 1 Comments

Thursday 9 February

Mac universal binary for 1.7.1 release (09:34) - I am delighted to report that initial testing of the universal binary for Intel Macs was a success! We were unable to test the voice chat (no microphones), but otherwise everything looked operational. If you have access to an Intel Mac and can help us test voice chat, we are still offering a free BitWise Plus membership in exchange for your testing. This means that the next release of BitWise for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) will be a universal...

Tuesday 7 February

Another Mac demise: BitWise for Mac OS X 10.2 (16:51) - The current BitWise 1.7 will be the last version of BitWise released for Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). We will leave BitWise 1.7 for OS X 10.2 available for download as long as it is functional, though it will no longer be supported. There are several reasons why we are dropping support for OS X 10.2: Only about one-fourth of one percent of our active users use Mac OS X 10.2. wxWidgets has never functioned well on Mac OS X...

Tuesday 31 January

Feet to the Fire Radio - Archive Available (15:37) - I am pleased to announce that the archive of my appearance on Feet to the Fire from Sunday evening is available! Download the Feet to the Fire BitWise segment with host James Arthur Jancik, the "Black Knight" of Talk Radio. Also, check out the Feet to the Fire site! The clip is in 24k MP3Pro format and is backwards-compatible with standard mp3 players. The file size is just over 4MB and runs about 24 minutes. Comments about the appearance are...

Monday 30 January

January was different, February will be exciting (10:13) - It's been fairly calm on the BitWise front lately, save the transition to the BitWise DocuWiki. January always seem to be a different kind of month, and I don't know why. Technically it's just like any other month, but for some reason, there's always something unusual going on in January. I'll have more to say about some of the "behind-the-scenes" things that went on during January in a few weeks, but for now, I'll just tell you that there will... | 2 Comments

Friday 27 January

Feet to the Fire Radio - this Sunday! (19:55) - I will be appearing on Feet to the Fire radio Sunday evening from 8:30 to 9 p.m. Eastern (5:30 to 6:00 p.m. Pacific). This show is broadcast via the Internet at http://www.feet2fire.com. I spoke with the host the other day, and while it initially seems like an odd match for us, the audience of this show should intersects with individuals who are likely to be interested in BitWise. If nothing else, it will be a fun experience and a low-stress... | 2 Comments

Wednesday 25 January

Documentation moved to the DocuWiki (17:55) - I am pleased to announce that the official BitWise documentation has made the transition to the DocuWiki. The DocuWiki features many new articles, more information, and better organization than the existing documentation. All current (old?) documentation links will automatically forward to the correct DocuWiki page. If you haven't checked out the DocuWiki yet, take a look; we're confident that you will be pleasantly surprised: http://www.bitwiseim.com/wiki/ Please note that the Tips & Tricks forum has been removed since the Tips &...

Friday 20 January

Blocked! (12:48) - The next time someone says to you, "BitWise, I've never heard of that, it must be really small or really new," you can inform them that not only is BitWise almost 4 years old, but that it's big enough that Comvigo's IM Lock Professional software blocks it along with all the other messengers that they have heard of. Yes, as twisted as it is, I'm happy that IM blocking software is blocking BitWise. Good software does its job, and if...

Tuesday 17 January

Celebrating freedom by doing... taxes (19:13) - I understand it's only natural for people to ask, "How was your weekend" or "what did you do special over the 3-day weekend?" In my case, however, I wish I had something better to say about my 3-day weekend. The calmness of the long weekend gave me a great opportunity to do... taxes! No, not my personal taxes, corporate taxes. Curse my Accounting degree! (I was a double-major in college.) The next time I start a business, I'm going into... | 1 Comments

Sunday 15 January

I've been replaced (on the site, anyway)! (14:28) - In November, we replaced the front page montage with an image that showed me using an old tin can "phone" with a witty caption. While this was an improvement over the jumbled montage that preceded it, it still seemed that it wasn't really saying much. It made a statement of what BitWIse was not, but it didn't really help say what BitWise is. After a lot of searching and thought, it became apparent that there's no image that just says...

Monday 9 January

Wiki Gems (10:07) - A few people have asked me about the things even long-term users can learn from the wiki. There are a couple of articles that contain features that many users probably do not know: Tip: Searching your contact list Extended away message There is also more information than ever about how TCP Punching and UDP Punching work. Enjoy!...

Saturday 7 January

Unveiling the BitWise DocuWiki (15:25) - A couple of weeks ago, I announced the upcoming BitWise DocuWiki. Now, we are ready to unveil it at http://www.bitwiseim.com/wiki/. There is tons of information contained in the DocuWiki, and even long-time BitWise users will find ways to use BitWise that they didn't know before. Remember that the DocuWiki will become the official documentation in the near future. The old documentation will be removed and the new Docs link in the navigation bar will be updated. We are very excited... | 2 Comments

Wednesday 28 December

Announcing the BitWise DocuWiki (16:30) - The first major update to the BitWise web site since the new design unveiled in May will be the conversion of the documentation into a wiki. While this may initially sound very ho-hum, this is actually a very exciting change! The benefits of the new DocuWiki will be: Expanded documentation will cover many more elements of BitWise The straightjacket presentation in use in the current documentation will be removed Many links will make it very easy to rapidly explore BitWise...

Saturday 24 December

Give the gift of BitWise this holiday season (10:15) - The best things in life really are free! Sorry, I couldn't resist. :) Merry Christmas everyone!...

Thursday 22 December

4% of 600 is 24 (10:01) - Since the end of the year seems to inspire reflection on years gone by, I thought it would be interesting to back and look at the changes to BitWise since 1.0, especially in light of our recent version leap to 1.7. I pulled up the changelog, scrolled to the bottom, and my jaw hit the floor. Since 1.0, there have been almost 600 new features, improvements, tweaks or bug fixes made to BitWise. Just for fun, I went through and...

Monday 19 December

BitWise 1.7 released (15:32) - Hooray for version leaps! BitWise 1.7 was released today, with only a few minor tweaks since the Beta release last week. Thanks to all of the testers for another great testing cycle. Download here. Something interesting that I've noticed in relation to the version leap: I am seeing many download sites that I don't personally update have been listing BitWise 1.0.7 Beta X for the recent betas. While it's not that big of a deal, it makes me wonder whether...

Monday 12 December

Something old, something new this holiday season (16:52) - BitWise 1.7 Beta 3 was released today, tweaking a few things before the official 1.7 release. There's one new feature that's definitely worth the upgrade: message number synchronization. The message numbers in your conversation windows will now be synchronized so that you can easily refer to messages by number. The 1.7 release is planned for December 19th. You can download the beta here. The beta is obviously what's new: so what's old? Just in time for the holidays, our BitWise...

Tuesday 6 December

Features area of BitWise site updated (15:25) - In the last week or so, several parts of the Features area of the BitWise site have been updated. The main features page has been rewritten to have more whitespace, better organization, and fewer words. The focus has also been changed to help give a better overview of BitWise as a whole. The headings in the feature list on the left side of the screen have been made to stand out more from the list itself, using a colored background...

Sunday 4 December

Open Sound Killer App of the Month (14:50) - I was pleased to learn yesterday that BitWise IM is the Killer App of the Month over at Open Sound. The focus of the page is "Digital Audio for UNIX."...

Thursday 1 December

Indirectly, it's like Skype is advertising BitWise (17:37) - Who would have thought that broad IM news would be good for BitWise? A discussion about Skype's announced video service brought out another mention of BitWise on Slashdot, see here. Pretty wild. Combining the Slashdot posts with the beta announcements, our hits and signups are about 50% higher than they've ever been before. Whoever says word of mouth advertising doesn't work can give me a call. ;)...

Wednesday 30 November

Everything but nickname changing (20:09) - In case you missed the announcement or the web site news, 1.7 Beta 2 was released today. As noted previously, this version features the "Without a Trace" capability so that you can run BitWise from a removable disk and leave no trace of it on the host computer. (Without any 3rd party utilities!) Interestingly, someone on Slashdot today started a thread about the "perfect" IM client. I personally find Slashdot's message board to be impossible to use and terribly unfriendly,... | 1 Comments

Thursday 24 November

I'm thankful for running BitWise "Without a Trace" (11:10) - First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States! In honor of the American holiday, I wanted to announce something new for the next version of BitWise that we can all be thankful for. :) After reading again about some new USB drives that allow you to run programs "without a trace" on any computer, I realized it would be pretty easy to allow BitWise to work this way, without even needing to use any of these 3rd...

Tuesday 15 November

BitWise discussed in The Mac ReviewCast Episode #29 podcast (16:48) - As far as I know, this is a first: BitWise has been discussed in an online podcast. It's not a review per se; it sounds more like someone saw the site and just talked about BitWise as it is presented on the web site. Even still, very cool! You can listen to the podcast here: http://www.macreviewcast.com/?p=74 BitWise is discussed from 11:18 to 12:07....

Friday 11 November

Toss those UDP router forwarding entries (13:48) - With BitWise 1.0.6.5, we began making BitWise easier to set up in terms of direct connections by incorporating "TCP Punching" technology that allows BitWise to make connections automatically through routers that support this technique. While it's not as widely supported as we had hoped, it will still make BitWise easier to use for a lot of people. Unfortunately, this technology doesn't do anything for UDP data, meaning that voice chat still requires manual configuration of routers and firewalls. Last night,...

Tuesday 8 November

We can play the version leap game too (16:13) - With the release of 1.0.6.5 today, I got to thinking... why are we stuck with these low 1.0-ish versions? Then I realized, we're not! We can use whatever darn version numbers we want. Ever since the beginning, our versions have had an extra digit beyond what most normal version schemes have. For example, our first update to 1.0 was 1.0.1, not 1.1. This was a choice made for mostly historical reasons. If you look at our version history, you'll see... | 1 Comments

Monday 7 November

New Professional "User Activity Log" (11:05) - Today we have unveiled a new feature for BitWise Professional Networks that allows Network administrators to view user activity on their BitWise Network. The log shows when users change their status, including their IP address when they first log in. The logs are archived for one full month and then deleted, but you can download the data for long-term storage. This additional service is included at no additional charge in BitWise Professional.... | 2 Comments

Friday 4 November

Thou shalt not steal my focus (17:21) - One of the few remaining bugs in BitWise that classified as "thorn in our side" has, at long last, been squished. On Windows, new windows would steal focus for a split second and then drop into the background (unless the "steal focus" preference was enable, of course). This had all sorts of nasty side effects, including dumping people out of full-screen games, closing any open window menus, randomly stealing a keypress here and there, etc. After taking what must be... | 2 Comments

Monday 31 October

Is the version half full or half empty? (22:41) - Today was the release of BitWise 1.0.6.5 Beta 1. I'm sure you're all wondering: what's with the half version? Why not 1.0.7? The answer is relatively simple: all of the functionality that we want to include in 1.0.7 isn't ready yet, but we don't want to delay the release of all the new stuff until we have everything ready for 1.0.7. A half version seemed like the perfect solution! Of course, one could ask why we wouldn't just make 1.0.6.5...

Thursday 27 October

I hardly recognize the whiteboard anymore... (19:47) - Everything looks better on a Mac. So it's only fitting to show off some new whiteboard toolbar icons using a Mac screenshot: Not only are they more colorful, a lot of them make more sense, at least to the few early testers. ;) The OS X 10.4 toolbar doesn't have the line width control; it's a menu instead. Just in case you were worried about the beloved line width control.... | 1 Comments

Tuesday 25 October

The whiteboard found its colors (17:37) - Here's another one of those "What took so dang long?!" features. Check out the new whiteboard: Having a palette will certainly make switching colors easier; the palette even saves between sessions and updates globally if you modify it. Also, to make drawing even easier, you can draw using the right mouse button, which will draw with inverted colors (using the background color as the foreground color and vice versa). Oh, and you can right-click on an image and copy it...

Friday 21 October

No port forwarding. No UPnP. Yes direct connections. (13:40) - After the release of 1.0.6, we immediately began investigating the possibility of being able to establish direct connections through routers without having to set up port forwarding or enable UPnP. As it turns out, there is a little-known method called "TCP Punching" that works with some routers. UDP Punching is used by many common VOIP applications, but applying the method to TCP is not very common. This method is not operating system dependent, so it can work on any platform...

Wednesday 12 October

The adolescent contact list (15:06) - Bugs in today's software, as much as we try to eliminate them, are an unfortunate reality. While the ideal goal is to have no bugs, the realistic goal is to have only minor bugs. :) A new version of BitWise of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) was uploaded last night around 8:30 pm EDT to address a minor, but annoying, bug. The contact list seemed to be experience some sort of adolescent growth spurt; each time you logged in, the...

Tuesday 11 October

BitWise IM 1.0.6 released (16:04) - BitWise IM 1.0.6 has been released for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Major new features include: BitWise Plus, an upgrade to BitWise Personal that provides identity verification and stronger encryption, UPnP support on Windows XP, native toolbars on Mac OS X Tiger, stacking corner popups, new status bar icons, UI enhancements, and platform-specific improvements and bug fixes on all platforms. See the versions page for a complete list of changes, or download now.For more information about BitWise Plus, see... | 1 Comments

Monday 10 October

Removing Plus access for testing (09:53) - Sometime Tuesday morning, all of the Plus memberships automatically granted to testers for testing purposes will be removed. To ensure uninterrupted access to your Plus features, you can purchase (via credit card or PayPal) a Plus membership before that time. Don't forget that right now we have a buy one, get one free offer, so for only $25 you get two memberships! You can purchase BitWise Plus using Web Services. The testers who won memberships, the translators, and other media...

Friday 30 September

Web Services "Plus" Page Testing (12:06) - I have received many inquiries about how the Plus upgrade process will work, and how the buy one, get one free deal will work. I am pleased to provide some screenshots of the new Web Services Plus page that will handle these tasks. Suggestions for improvements are welcome. Purchasing Plus Buy One, Get One Free Usage If you're planning on purchasing Plus and would like help test the purchase process (which we have already extensively tested), let me know. We'll...

Wednesday 28 September

1.0.6 Beta 2, and no other shoe! (16:30) - Here it is the day after the release of BitWise 1.0.6 Beta 2, and so far there hasn't been any other shoe dropping. Now if only the official release can achieve the same miracle! There have been some updates to the site to reflect information about BitWise Plus now that Plus is semi-public. "Personal Keys" has been added as a feature, and a BitWise Plus section has been added to the FAQ. The table on the sign up page shows...

Monday 26 September

A new way to add contacts that doesn't stink! (17:36) - Do you ever create something, stand back from it, and say, "Wow, that's brilliant! How can anyone not like that?" Then, you learn some people don't like it, and then a few years later you look at the same thing and say, "What the !$*@& was I thinking?" Yeah, that happened today. It took someone browbeating me about how terrible it was before I realized it, but thank you. You know whe you are. :) Here's the new Add Contact... | 2 Comments

Monday 19 September

Toolbars, Routing Servers, Downloads, oh my! (16:51) - Some news, all relating to upcoming releases: For version 1.0.6, there will be only one Linux download supporting GTK 2.2+ (roughly RedHat 9 or newer). Improvements in wxWidgets have allowed adjusting the program's capabilities at run-time. For version 1.0.6, a new Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) download will be made. The Tiger version will include native toolbars! Down the line, the Tiger version will also switch from Quickdraw to CoreGraphics. The BitWise Routing Server 1.0.6 will be released on Wednesday....

Friday 16 September

BitWise Plus - Another IM first (10:55) - It's been a very good week of testing the new BitWise Plus capabilities. Hats off to our testers who have done a great job finding inconsistencies, bugs, crashes, etc. Another pre-Beta version went out today to the testers after a week's worth of improvements, so Plus should be Beta-ready within 10 days (assuming no major catastrophes). BitWise Plus represents a bold stride forward among all major public IM systems. You get seamless identity verification without any complicated technical process. Once...

Monday 12 September

BitWise IM Plus pre-testing begins today (16:22) - BitWise IM Plus pre-testing begins. BitWise Plus is an enhancement to BitWise IM Personal that provides additional security for the security-conscious. Since BitWise Plus is still in the pre-testing phase (i.e. not an official Beta), information is scattered. You can read more about BitWise Plus, discuss BitWise Plus, or become a tester yourself. Look for more news about BitWise Plus soon as it moves into Beta status and towards an official release. This news was also posted today on the...

Friday 9 September

MacMerc: Freeloader Friday Download of the Week (14:43) - BitWise IM has been included in this week's Freeloader Friday Download of the Week on MacMerc.com. See here. The title of this week's tool collection is "Corporate Contacts."...

Thursday 8 September

Requesting testers for BitWise Plus (16:09) - Just in case you're not a regular forum reader, or a regular beta tester, we need a small group of users to pre-test BitWise Plus. You will receive a pre-release version of the client and access to all Plus capabilities during the testing period. Please post in the forums that you are interested, and then other testers will know who they can test with. Thanks! Testing should begin on Monday!...

Friday 2 September

First looks at BitWise Plus (18:57) - I'm pleased to bring you the first screenshots of the new BitWise Plus capabilities. Click any screenshot for a larger view: Encryption Preferences: A BitWise Plus Direction Connection: Displaying a BitWise Plus Public Key: Alert for a Different Public Key: Overview of BitWise Plus: Encryption bumped to 1024-bit RSA and 256-bit Blowfish from 512-bit RSA and 128-bit Blowfish. Ability to select your own RSA keys, allowing you to prove your identity. BitWise Plus users get all the benefits of Plus...

Monday 29 August

And then there was one [BitWise download for Linux] (10:06) - Thanks to some recent improvements in wxWidgets, we will be able to release just one version of BitWise for Linux that will work on versions of GTK down to 2.0. This will make downloading BitWise for Linux much simpler, since you won't have to choose a download based on your GTK version. The "all-in-one" BitWise will be compiled against GTK 2.6.10, and will be moved to 2.8 in a future release. The upcoming BitWise 1.0.6 Beta 2 will be the...

Saturday 27 August

A few slices of Kevin pie (10:27) - I don't have one major thing to post about today, but since I haven't posted since Wednesday, here's a smattering of short blurbs: - BitWise is now "leetware." Check it out. Look at the August 25th entry. - The BitWise Wiki got a nice start on life earlier this week. I think all of the documentation could actually be gradually moved over, and the wiki easily allows other interesting documentation, like a index of BitWise terms. - BitWise Plus got... | 3 Comments

Monday 22 August

ZoneAlarm 6 is a terrorist? and a new ZA alert when running BitWise (10:04) - The recent ZoneAlarm 6 has seriously increased the number of activities that it alerts you about, to the point where I think they are excessive and will probably terrorize the average home user. In any event, this new Zone Alarm 6 shows an additional alert when running BitWise, and in order to make sure as many people as possible see this information, I'm posting it here in the blog too. It is also available in the FAQ or the Tech...

Thursday 18 August

BitWise Plus - Enhanced BitWise IM for home users (15:39) - Over time, we've dropped some hints about the possibility of a version of BitWise inbetween Personal and Professional, still designed for home users but with some of the additional security and encryption features of Professional. Right now, the working name for this version is "BitWise Plus" though this is certainly not set in stone. This version would be sold for a small fee, either a one-time fee or an annual fee. The Personal version would remain free and ad-free! Having...

Tuesday 16 August

wiki for tips & tricks and community documentation (12:15) - What does anyone think of a wiki for community-based tips & tricks and documentation? For example, it would be great if users could collaborate to create router how-tos for port forwarding, or could create tips like setting up Linux firewalls. The forums really are not the best architecture for these types of things, whereas a wiki allows presenting a document and allowing the community to change it, rather than just have a continuing discussion. It looks like MediaWiki may be...

Monday 15 August

Get the phone, it's BitWise! (17:39) - BitWise Professional has become a very powerful and easy-to-use system for small business, but just like any product or service, there's always the need to get word out to more people. Beginning this week, we have engaged the services of a sales agency to perform some inside sales for us, bringing the world of connectivity that BitWise offers right to many businesses' doorsteps. On the "flip" side, I'm delighted to say that BitWise IM Personal is catching on faster than... | 1 Comments

Sunday 14 August

IE 7 Beta breaks 3rd party MSN connectivity (15:14) - This is pretty old news now since it was news around the time I left for San Francisco, but I think it's humorous enough that it's still worth mentioning. People ask all the time about connecting to the "Big 4" networks, like AIM or MSN. Our reasons for not doing this have always been the same since day 1. One of those reasons is that your software becomes reliant on factors outside of your control, and that's exactly what has...

Saturday 13 August

San Francisco is a lot like fun and success (19:28) - Sorry, I couldn't resist wrapping up with a last San Francisco is a lot like thread now that I'm safely back in Ohio. It was great to be away but it is also nice to be back! The LinuxWorld presentations were definitely a success, and I'm glad I went because I got to meet many of the people involved with the book on the publisher's side as well as interact with many interesting people. I was encouraged by the number...

Monday 1 August

Mac OS X native toolbars... soon (15:20) - It's good to see some wxMac changes again. Work has been made towards a native toolbar using wxMac, here's a screenshot: For those of you not familiar with Mac OS X toolbars, the little button on the upper-right of the window allows you to show and hide the toolbar. Pretty cool! Another step in perfecting BitWise on all platforms. Unfortunately, there's no support yet for embedded controls so the whiteboard toolbar is missing the spinner for the line width. That...

Tuesday 26 July

1.0.6 Beta 1 released featuring UPnP for XP (16:15) - After much clamoring for UPnP support, today's 1.0.6 Beta 1 release offers UPnP support for Windows XP. We look forward to hearing back from the community about the UPnP support and how it hopefully makes using BitWise much easier! Another major change in this version is the ability to request multiple files at once from a user's shared file list. The requested files will be presented to the other user in a list, and the files can be all approved...

Monday 25 July

New features come... sooner or later (13:10) - Part of what makes the BitWise world go around is the stream of new ideas from our users. Every once in a while someone suggests something really brilliant and realy easy, and a few hours later we can come back and say, "Alright, it's done, and this feature/improvement will be in the next version." If only it worked that way all the time. Some ideas are more complicated, will take a lot of time or resources, or don't have an...

Saturday 16 July

Mirror mirror on my web site, what's the best layout of all? (14:49) - If you haven't seen our BitWise IM home page since yesterday, check it out. Notice anything different? In case you need some assistance, here's what it used to look like. Isn't it amazing what a difference a little switcheroo makes? We hope you agree that the new layout is much improved. Special thanks go to Ooklah for sending the full non-cropped version of the really cool 3 OS logo. Tux looks so much more complete than before. ;) PS In...

Friday 15 July

UPnP comes to BitWise, at last (16:42) - If I had a dollar for every time anyone has inquired about UPnP support in BitWise, I probably could have treated all of my friends to a fancy dinner at an upscale restaurant. Too bad I don't have those dollars... In any event, my windfall is coming to an end, because the newest builds of BitWise here in the "lab" fully support UPnP when running on Windows XP (or Server 2003). It's unfortunate that earlier versions of Windows don't support...

Thursday 14 July

Now the [UI] wizard really is magical (17:21) - There are going to be two likely reactions when you read this post: "Oh, I thought it was always like that." or "Why the !#&@*% did it take you so long?" At long last, the UI Selection Wizard that appears when you first run BitWise shows reduced screenshots from your OS, rather than always showing the Windows [XP] screenshots. In case it wasn't obvious, reaction #1 above is for Windows users, reaction #2 is for Mac OS X and Linux...

Wednesday 13 July

The surveys aren't just for our health (12:31) - I was reviewing the survey results the other day (imagine that, we don't just do user surveys for our health!) and one of the responders indicated a bug that they had found. Using the Windows version, since 1.0.5 the tooltips on the status bar icons in the conversations don't work. This particular user had a very good reason for wanting the tooltips, which is why (s)he noticed it. Within 10 minutes, it was fixed for the next version. We really... | 1 Comments

Sunday 10 July

Where there's a will, there's a hack (16:34) - A common request that I've received is to release a "headless" (no GUI) Routing Server for Linux. This is certainly an understandable request, but the current architecture of the Routing Server simply does not lend itself well to a GUI-less environment. The architectural reasons are based in both wxWidgets and in the design of the Routing Server itself. I would like to thank Yelo for demonstrating a brilliant "hack" for the headless Routing Server problem. By using Xvfb, as long...

Thursday 7 July

Timezone adjustment for offline message forwarding (15:56) - We are very pleased to announce today the introduction of yet another great BitWise Professional feature. Each BitWise Professional Network can now specify a time offset for the timestamps shown when offline messages are forwarded to email. Previously, offline messages forwarded to email were always timestamped using the server's time (US Eastern time). Each Network's Master Account can choose the time offset from the Network Web Services menu. The time offsets are based on US Eastern time, for three reasons....

Monday 27 June

One release, three friends, and an invitation to all (16:08) - Today we released BitWise 1.0.5.1, the first 4-digit version in the 1.0 series. This version is indeed a minor (but important) update. The client will not notify you of the new version. There are three groups of users who will benefit the most from this update:Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) users - the corner popups did not work in 1.0.5 and have been fixed. Users using non-English alphabets / characters - the logs were not being properly saved in Unicode...

Thursday 23 June

A non-release release -- and what to call it? (15:08) - Back in the good old days in 2002 when only a few dozen people were regularly using BitWise, we used to do what I dubbed "slipstream" releases; releases that weren't announced but just silently uploaded to replace an existing release. Such releases usually solved one really obscure problem that most people wouldn't find, but that needed to be fixed before the next version was released. We now find ourselves at a similar crossroads; there are a few problems with the... | 3 Comments

Tuesday 21 June

Bad buttons! No cookie for you! (10:12) - When we designed the new BitWise IM site, we re-confirmed our choice to use buttons for the program downloads instead of links, because buttons both look better and say "press here" better than any text link. Yet, as always, when problems arise, we listen. We received an inquiry over the weekend from a user who was unable to download a new version of the software because the button system wasn't working, supposedly due to high security settings. It also wasn't... | 1 Comments

Saturday 18 June

BitWise Routing Server as a Windows Service (12:55) - Thanks to a special wedge, it is now possible to run the BitWise Routing Server as a Windows Service on Windows NT, 2000, XP, or 2003. This means that you can install and use the Routing Server on a server machine that does not normally have a user logged in; the Routing Server will start when the OS starts. This can be very useful in business environments where Windows-based servers are used. Check it out! This wedge isn't specific to...

Tuesday 14 June

1.0.5 more than an icon makeover (15:51) - The release of BitWise 1.0.5 today is probably one of the most exciting releases of BitWise in a while. While the new icons are significant and truly an evolutionary step forward, it's important not to overlook the other changes to the client, or the additional Professional Web Services features added since 1.0.4. The Web Services are continually upgraded, and here are three recent major changes:The Who's Online page now shows both the Internet and LAN IP addresses for each user....

Thursday 9 June

Choosing the right icons the first time (20:21) - This is an official companion piece to my April 20th post, "Choosing the right name the first time." The Icon Makeover continues to draw rave reviews (not one negative comment yet!). The client truly looks great, but unfortunately, all of the old screenshots on the web site don't look so great. Today was spent updating screenshots, whether just replacing icons or redoing the screenshots entirely. If you're bored, you can check out the updated screenshots:Frontpage Montage Features - Text Messaging...

Sunday 5 June

A web site is never done (14:26) - A web site is never done. Ever. (I'm sure George Lucas would agree.) The first significant noticable changes have been made to the site since it went up about a month ago.A random quote from a pool of available quotes is displayed on the home page.Many of the feature pages have a quote displayed, but these do not change.The first Features page, the one that shows when you click Features on the navigation menu, is meatier and explains more about...

Thursday 2 June

Motivation from a crisis (19:45) - It seems that every BitWise release has one "crisis" that rears its ugly head at some point. This beta's crisis deals with whiteboard redrawing on Windows and was brought to my attention thanks to [a new!] forum member. To reproduce the bug, make an object on the whiteboard that causes scrollbars to appear; the whiteboard will immediatelly begin to refresh like crazy. Not pretty at all, but fortunately relatively easy to fix. In the process, the logic for handling the... | 1 Comments

Monday 30 May

Successes and (mostly) good news (21:57) - A smattering of good news tidbits:Still so far so good with not locking up in Windows since Friday's driver update. Knock on wood. It is wonderful to be able to log in to Windows in 10 seconds instead of 15-20 minutes. (This is after Windows boots and shows the login window.) I got the rear speakers working in Linux. Took me long enough to find the "New DSP (EXPERIMENTAL)" support in the kernel configuration. It seems even more odd that... | 2 Comments

Saturday 28 May

Back up and running... maybe.... (16:26) - What a week! Between the now-finished book proofreading, the computer rebuild, and some personal matters, the BitWise 1.0.5 Beta release obviously didn't happen this week. However, I'm now motivated to get it out on May 31st, so that's the new plan. The newest wrinkle in the computer rebuild that may or may not yet be resolved is the semi-frequent random lockups in Windows. :( I'm hoping that my latest effort, locating a newer driver for the onboard Highpoint controller (which... | 1 Comments

Thursday 19 May

Connect with the originals, it does (22:53) - There are no spoilers in this post. Unless you either live under a rock or have pretty much no interest in any pop culture, you probably are aware that the final Star Wars movie was released today. Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith lives up to the original trilogy much better than Episodes 1 or 2. I had been looking forward to its release for months and this afternoon I saw it. The acting is better, the pacing is better,... | 1 Comments

Tuesday 17 May

They look even purdier in a real window! (16:57) - So rather than show just a jumbled bunch of icons, here's what the new toolbars look like on Linux: Contact List: Conversation Window: In other news, 1.0.5 features the ability to be able to paste text as well as images to the whiteboard. It can be very, very convenient. Also in other news, a public service announcement: the conversion process from wxImage to wxBitmap does not work on wxMac, leading 24 x 24 toolbar icons to have a black background...

Saturday 14 May

Wow, they're so purty! (11:01) - Here are the new BitWise icons: One of the biggest changes is that there are more file transfer icons, used to help differentiate better among all the different file transfer windows. Also, special thanks to Lyrion for assisting with the lightbulbs icons! With these icons, the client is not only getting a significant visual upgrade, but it will also match the look and feel of the web site. Surely everyone agrees that both of these are nothing short of wonderful!... | 3 Comments

Monday 9 May

Extreme Makeover: BitWise Icons (16:56) - In my April 23rd post, I talked about some of the changes for 1.0.5, centering mostly around the icons used in BitWise. A recent comment in the user surveys said something to the effect of, "The icons look like Windows 3.1 and need to be updated." Sadly, it is true, but everything is about to change. After releasing 1.0.4 last week, I was eager to see what kind of difference some newer icons could make for BitWise, and I am...

Thursday 5 May

BitWise 1.0.4 released (16:30) - At long last, BitWise 1.0.4 is available to download from the download page. I'm sure that many users will be seeing the new web site for the first time when they go to download the new version. :) Now it's time for me to take a breather after a new web site and new client in the same week. In other news, it seems that my previous post may not be accurate inasmuch that the list of blocked file types... | 4 Comments

Monday 2 May

Tigers are pink! (21:16) - We're about 48 hours out from the launch of the new BitWise web site, and things seem to be pretty smooth overall. There were a few broken links found early on, but they were quickly fixed. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out the page X doesn't render correctly on browser Y, but maybe my coding skills really are that stellar. ;) So the crisis du jour was learning that BitWise for Mac OS X... | 1 Comments

Friday 29 April

Getting ready to "flip the switch" (14:50) - If nothing catastrophic happens in the next day or so, I'll be throwing the switch on the new web site sometime tomorrow (Saturday). What this will mean is that the old site will no longer be accessible; redirects will automatically move you from the old site to the new site. About time, eh? Hopefully doing it over the weekend will allow for a smoother transition and any major fires can be put out before Monday (though hopefully there won't be...

Thursday 28 April

It's a match made in heaven (16:57) - One of the tasks for the new web site was integrating the navigation of the site into the phpBB forums. I did this a while ago, and the result was functional, but not completely satisfactory. The navbar colors clashed with the default theme, the navbar "shifted" a bit between the forums and the other pages, and the shadow had to be removed for the integration not to look really bad. So, basically, it looked... bad. After realizing that the new...

Tuesday 26 April

No garbage! (21:12) - There are some days that everything is worth it. Here's a message [edited for clarity, grammar and language] that I received today from a long-time BitWise user: "So I refuse to install Yahoo on my laptop. At the beginning, I was given 2 options: "typical install" or "custom." I of course chose custom. However, by choosing "custom" so as not to install all the toolbars and other stuff... it permanently checks "use Yahoo as my default search engine." No amount... | 2 Comments

Saturday 23 April

1.0.5, 2.6, and 24 (10:07) - The new web site is only about a week or ten days away from launch, and the new 1.0.4 client is scheduled for May 5th. Even amidst this, I started procrastinating, I mean, experimenting, with icons in the client. Lyrion has created some really nice new lightbulbs, and we have access now to over a thousand icons from the icons purchased for the web site. I thought to myself, "Self, wouldn't it be great if the web site and the...

Wednesday 20 April

Choosing the right name the first time (12:09) - I have some advice for anyone who thinks that they will ever be selling a product or service: name everything correctly the first time. As is evident on the new web site, quite a few things are being renamed in conjunction with BitWise 1.0.4:bitwisecommunications.com -> bitwiseim.com BitWise Chat -> BitWise IM Free BitWise -> BitWise Personal Professional BitWise -> BitWise Professional Pro Group -> Pro Network Group ID / Group # -> Network ID Chat Room -> Conference Pro Group... | 2 Comments

Monday 18 April

All eyes set on the first week of May (09:53) - The first week of May is going to be one of the most important weeks in BitWise history. Here's the plan: Big item #1: On May 2nd, we plan to switch over to the new web site. The old site will be programmed to redirect to the new site, with many pages having specific redirect targets (for example, trying to reach the old download page will take you to the new download page), while secondary pages will simply direct to... | 1 Comments

Monday 11 April

BitWise 1.0.4 Beta 3 released (16:09) - Well, we blew right past all of the possible release dates outlined in the Beta 2 post. That's OK though, we weren't expecting to enhance the client so significantly, nor did we expect that we would spend so much time making the new web site as advanced as it is. Anyway, both the new site and the client are very close to release, and by May 1st (or thereabouts) both the old site and BitWise 1.0.3 should be memories. For... | 2 Comments

Wednesday 6 April

The plan for April (22:18) - March coding brings April testing (similar to that April rain and May flowers line). The web site is completed inasmuch that all the major elements are now in place. Many updates remain to be made, such as embellishing certain pages, updating various documentation with new features and screenshots, making sure items have been changed consistently, etc. For example, "chat rooms" have been renamed to "conferences" and "Pro Groups" are now "Pro Networks," leading to other changes like Group ID becoming...

Sunday 3 April

Progress or backwards compatibility? (21:28) - Unless we're working on a "major" release of BitWise (e.g. the last major release was 1.0 last year), we've always tried to ensures that everything is backwards-compatible. That is, someone running 1.0.4 can chat with someone running 1.0.1 and not have any problems (unless the feature is altogether missing from 1.0.1, of course). However, 1.0.4 will have two non-backwards compatible changes to the whiteboard. Here are the two non-compatible changes: 1) Previously, resizing a whiteboard image changed the original image.... | 4 Comments

Thursday 31 March

Whiteboard corruption mystery solved (10:13) - On January 10, I posted about "The great whiteboard corruption mystery" where prolonged or heavy use of the whiteboards was causing Windows computers to "mess up." There was no rhyme or reason and no reliable way to reproduce the problem, and so it had been without a fix for quite a long time (I think someone originally posted about it in the forums a year ago). As I was proofreading a part of the wxWidgets book that Julian had written,...

Friday 25 March

For the first time: the new web site unveiled (21:22) - It is with great pleasure that we want to give our loyal users and forum/blog readers the first chance to use our new web site and provide feedback. We hope that you will find the new site more attractive, more organized, more interesting, more informative and more fun. The full announcement is available in this forum thread. In order to facilitate and consolidate the discussion for the new web site, comments are disabled for this post; please use the forum...

Saturday 19 March

More interactive new web site features (10:39) - The new BitWise web site has many more interactive pages where the reader has the opportunity to try something themselves or give us feedback. Some of the recent interactive additions:The FAQ and documentation pages provide a way for users to submit suggestions for FAQ questions and new documentation articles. Each documentation article can be rated by the reader to provide their thoughts about the quality of the documentation. A new Direct Connection Setup Wizard provides customized instructions for setting up...

Thursday 17 March

Happy Birthday Version 0.1! (11:02) - The first release of BitWise, version 0.1, was released three years ago today on March 17th, 2002. That night, we had about 10 users online. It was quite a thrill to have 10 users online on a system that didn't even exist one month prior.... | 3 Comments
First peek of the new web site (10:32) - Many of you have been wondering what the new web site will look like. Here's a shot of the new front page (click for full size): Some things to note:There are three site themes, for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Each theme has its own color, orange, green, and blue, respectively, and each theme will have its own screenshots. The news items are readable simply by clicking on the blurb, which will expand the item in-place. The screenshot will... | 4 Comments

Wednesday 9 March

Will you be my moo? (21:23) - You know it's a good day when you ask someone, "Will you be my moo?" The best part is I don't know what it means, I just thought it sounded funny. Plus I really need to start living up the craziness of the aoeu message from last week... :0 Potpourri this evening: - The wxWidgets book manuscript has finally been submitted after a series of extensions (remember it was originally due March 1st). We also have received a first draft... | 2 Comments

Tuesday 1 March

aoeuaoeuaoeuaoeu! (11:36) - It seems that every time I wonder what I'm going to post about, something falls in my lap. Tonight was no different. If you were lucky enough to be on late this evening, you received a wonderful message from *BitWise* saying "aoeuaoeuaoeuaoue." This message was added as an offline message for every single user, so if you were online, you received it. If you weren't online, your copy of this wonderful message was, I regret to say, already deleted. How... | 10 Comments

Thursday 17 February

Three years and 1 day ago, there was no BitWise (14:01) - It was three years ago today that Jon McKenzie and I first conceived of creating a new instant messaging system, although the name BitWise wasn't created until a few weeks later. During its first weeks, BitWise was simply called Chat Client and Chat Server. True confessions: Jon actually worked most of the next day, unbeknownst to me, coding the proof-of-concept server in Perl. I had no idea how eager Jon was to start, but it was his initial enthusiasm that... | 2 Comments

Monday 14 February

Why does Mac OS X include IE? (20:09) - Today was a day of battling browsers. Victory was sweet with all but IE 5.2 for Mac OS X, which I hope has been banished from OS X 10.4. The latest version was released in 2001, and it shows. A couple of places on the new site make clever use of iFrames (which probably could be "better" done in CSS, but that's a discussion for elsewhere). In particular, two places resize the iFrame based on the content, which was relatively...

Thursday 10 February

Always do the eas[y][ier] parts first (22:32) - I've received lots of positive vibes about the change to the web site, along with offers to help. They are all much appreciated, and we'll definitely need all the feedback and testing we can get once we're ready for it! I suppose a little information about the layout couldn't hurt. :) As indicated previously, it's going to be simpler. The double-layer menu from the current site will be no more. The site's areas will reflect the main reasons to come...

Monday 7 February

Web developers are the losers in the browser wars (12:00) - We announced last week that a new BitWise web site was underway, and so far we're extremely pleased with its potential. There is still a lot of work to do, but one thing slowing us down is browser compatibility. The new site is going to be a bit more dynamic (nothing revolutionary, don't get too excited), and dynamic content is always a risky proposition. Consider our browser compatibility list (each item represents a distinct testing entity): MSIE 5 on Windows... | 7 Comments

Wednesday 2 February

Kind of changing the name, kind of not (09:11) - About two and a half weeks ago, I announced in the forums that we were re-evaluating a lot of things, all the way down to BitWise's name. We received a lot of good, interesting and creative name suggestions. In the end, however, we've decided to basically stick with what we have, with tweaks. BitWise is currently presented as two divergent products, Free BitWise (commonly called BitWise Chat) and Professional BitWise (commonly called BitWise Pro Groups, or BitWise Communications), with two... | 1 Comments

Monday 31 January

BitWise 1.0.4 Beta 2 released (14:57) - At long last, BitWise 1.0.4 Beta 2 has been released, our first release of the new year. More information is available on our Alpha/Beta page. A logical question might be when the final release of 1.0.4 will be made. The answer to that question depends on a variety of factors related to timing of other events, as well as the reports we get about the beta version. Three possible dates are February 17th, February 28th, or March 17th. As a...

Saturday 29 January

Whose blog is this? (22:09) - Things are busy getting ready for the 1.0.4 Beta 2 release on Monday, so in the meantime I have a question. When you think of this blog, how do you think of it? Do you think of it as my personal blog, a blog mostly about BitWise, a blog about technology, etc? What kinds of posts in this blog are the most interesting? Please be honest! Why do I ask? There are good reasons that I'd like answers to these... | 4 Comments

Monday 24 January

More joyous platform differences (18:56) - As I've mentioned a few times recently, the file transfer manager in the next version has a slider that allows you to control the bandwidth used by file transfers. It's a vertical slider that sits on the right side of the manager, with "fast" at the top and "slow" at the bottom, which is fairly intuitive. Imagine my surprise when I realized that vertical sliders on OS X orient themselves with the low value at the opposite end of the...

Friday 21 January

1.0.4 Beta 2 coming soon (17:07) - The splitter windows are now operational on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. If you'll allow me (you will? Thanks!) I'd like to offer up some good advice for fellow programmers dealing with resizing on gtk: resizing may not occur until idle time if you programatically change the size of a window. You have been warned. Consider this scenario: you have a window whose size and position is saved, as is the position of the "sash" of the splitter window.... | 1 Comments

Monday 17 January

File tranfers and resizing on steroids (22:09) - It's official: the impressive changes in version 1.0.4 definitely did not stop with Beta 1. Due out "soon," Beta 2 will offer a 50-100% increase in file transfer speeds over LANs using a combination of powerful new preferences. 1) On-the-fly file compression when sending files must be explicitly enabled; since most files sent these days are already compressed, trying to compress them again slows down the process by consuming a lot of CPU time without reducing the amount of data...

Saturday 15 January

To steal focus or not to steal focus, that is the question (22:24) - Sometimes you can't win for losing. Honestly. If new windows pop up in front of other windows, some people get ticked off. If new windows don't come to the front, some other people get ticked off. How in the world are we supposed to choose a default behavior? I caught wind today of someone who was very angry that the chat window stole focus away from their game, and they uninstalled BitWise because "Trillian never did this so I'm using... | 4 Comments

Thursday 13 January

Surveys starting up, results coming in! (14:35) - The active user survey is now running completely automated, sending the survey link to online active users (according to our definition of active) at regular intervals. The user survey for users who stopped using BitWise are being sent a link via email, but these are still being done manually until the backlog of slightly old accounts can be processed. Pro Groups have also begun to receive their own special survey. Thanks to those of you who have already filled out... | 2 Comments

Monday 10 January

The great whiteboard corruption mystery (20:02) - First off, if you haven't checked out the forums recently, 2005 has started with a posting deluge and there's lots of interesting discussions and ideas to read! On to the main point: there's a mystery afoot and we need your help to solve it! There have been a few reports, both in the forums and to us directly, about whiteboards becoming garbled up after extended usage. Unfortunately, there hasn't yet been any reliable way to reproduce this behavior, nor are...

Friday 7 January

Mass Add Feature added to Pro Group Web Services (11:23) - Pro Groups now have another great business-oriented feature available to them for managing contacts and contact lists. A common issue that arises when setting up a Pro Group is that most users should have most other group members on their contact list. What a manual entry nightmare! Now after creating your Pro Group's users, adding everyone to everyone's list is a snap! With the "Mass Add" feature, a Group can easily add contacts in bulk. I'll let the screenshot speak... | 7 Comments

Wednesday 5 January

Voice over IP can't be regulated by states (20:12) - I have received many links and news article from BitWise users regarding the current court cases involving Voice over IP (VOIP) software and whether or not the states can regulate VOIP. Last week, in an appeal, VOIP has been ruled a data service and cannot be regulated by the states. Unfortunately, it's not over yet as some states want to appeal to the Supreme Court. Link The two-page decision was issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth...

Monday 3 January

User surveys up for testing (11:22) - Before Christmas, I ran a series of blog posts with possible survey questions for a survey that we're putting together to learn more about our users and how we can better serve them. I am pleased to announce that these surveys have been constructed and are ready for testing! There are two surveys, one for active users and one for users who fall inactive. The purpose of the testing is not to collect meaningful information, but rather to find any...

Tuesday 21 December

What should we want to know about how you use BitWise? (14:57) - The past few days, we have been asking about possible responses to some BitWise-related questions so that we can create meaningful surveys to learn how to better serve current and future BitWise users. Now it's your chance to say what's on your mind: what haven't we asked that you think we should know about you and other BitWise users that should go on a survey? We're listening, speak to us. :)... | 3 Comments

Monday 20 December

Part 5 of Questions for BitWise users (09:20) - This entry is the 5th in a series exploring possible answers for questions on some surveys in development. Because we want the surveys to be as complete as possible, we are soliciting information from you, the BitWise users. This set is more open-ended than the previous questions. 1) How can we ask about user's experiences with the web site in terms of visual appeal, layout, navigation, etc? 2) How can we ask about the online documentation and its usefulness? Thanks... | 5 Comments

Saturday 18 December

Part 4 of Questions for BitWise users (09:12) - This entry is the 4th in a series exploring possible answers for questions on some surveys in development. Because we want the surveys to be as complete as possible, we are soliciting information from you, the BitWise users. What could be some possible choices for the following questions: 1) Where did you first hear about BitWise? 2) Did you experience any problems with direct connections, and did you view our online help? Just to be sure everyone is on the... | 7 Comments

Friday 17 December

Part 3 of Questions for BitWise users (09:43) - This entry is the 3rd in a series exploring possible answers for questions on some surveys in development. Because we want the surveys to be as complete as possible, we are soliciting information from you, the BitWise users. What could be some possible choices for the following questions: 1) Why did you originally sign up for BitWise? (Check all that apply) 2) What have been your experiences meeting other people online using BitWise? (Check all that apply, one choice being... | 6 Comments

Thursday 16 December

Part 2 of Questions for BitWise users (09:28) - This entry is the 2nd in a series exploring possible answers for questions on some surveys in development. Because we want the surveys to be as complete as possible, we are soliciting information from you, the BitWise users. What could be some possible choices for the following questions: 1) Which BitWise features do you use regularly? (Check all that apply) 2) Which features would you most want to see added to BitWise? (Check all that apply) Just to be sure... | 5 Comments

Wednesday 15 December

Part 1 of Questions for BitWise users (09:58) - We have decided that in order to better serve past, current and future BitWise users, we need to know more about them. To that end, we are in the process of creating a series of surveys. Because we want the surveys to be as complete as possible, we are soliciting information from you, the BitWise users. (And if you're not a BitWise user, you should be!) ;) At this point, we are only proposing questions and gathering possible responses. In... | 8 Comments

Wednesday 8 December

Hey person at my keyboard, step away from me! (19:31) - There have been quite a few articles recently in/on a variety of magazines/web sites about the vulnerability of Linux and Mac OS X to viruses and attacks. The general feeling seems to be that Linux and Mac OS X are safer partly because there is less reward (fame) in bringing down only a few machines. If someone were to write a virus or worm for one of these operating system, it probably wouldn't get very far because most of the... | 4 Comments

Sunday 5 December

Do some [immature] people get off on publicly trashing software? (16:38) - I learned a long time ago that part of being actively involved with the software that you help to create is being able to objectively handle and process criticism. The world is full of critics, some gentle, some harsh, some with valid points, some with nitpicky irrelevant points. Part of continuously improving software is learning to ignore the rants and honing in on the major valid issues. BitWise is not perfect and will never be perfect--no software is ever perfect... | 2 Comments

Thursday 2 December

BitWise 1.0.4 Beta 1 (or: why is it all about Linux and OS X?) (22:04) - We are very pleased to have released BitWise 1.0.4 Beta 1 today. While there is nothing revolutionary in this new version, it's another small step of evolution into perfecting BitWise and adding more of the touches that make BitWise so much fun to use. If you want revolution, you'll just have to wait for 1.1.0 next year. :) (Yes, that's a big bomb of a hint with no details. I hope it drives everyone crazy!) Anyway, one question that we... | 3 Comments

Monday 29 November

OS Libraries and Development (16:57) - One of the questions I get asked when others find out that I work on Windows, Linux and OS X is "Which platform is your favorite to develop for?" I haven't really had a good answer until today. The criteria for my choice: the amount of time spent fighting the compiler, the OS, or standard system libraries. From this perspective, my favorite platform for development is OS X. Back story: regardless of how you feel about Microsoft, you have to... | 4 Comments

Saturday 27 November

I'm thankful for old BitWise screenshots (23:14) - I hope that everyone in the States had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I've certainly been enjoying some time off, but I thought I'd post a fun little set of screenshots of BitWise version 0.1.7.9, released October 1st, 2002. As primitive as it was, I still have some very fond memories of those early versions... Click on any thumbnail for the full size picture. Buddy ListChat WindowFile Transfer PS: The file transfer shot was taken with only a single router between the...

Wednesday 24 November

Czech translation of BitWise now available (21:05) - I want to thank user Volt for translating BitWise into Czech. It is very exciting to be able to add Czech to the list of languages already available (Spanish, French, German and Dutch). The Conquest game phrases have not yet been translated, but we wanted to make the translation downloadable so that it could be used ASAP. The file on the web site will be updated once the translation is finalized, including any "bug fixes." The Windows setup program has...

Sunday 21 November

BitWise Chat #1 result on google search for BitWise (17:50) - Most individuals like to google themselves to see where they are mentioned on the Internet. I would bet that most small or mid-size companies (maybe even some large ones) also google themselves to find "the buzz" on the Internet about the company. Every once in a while, I try searches for "BitWise" or "BitWise Chat" or other various related word combinations. For a long time, a search for "BitWise" by itself listed BitWise Chat as the #2 result. BitWise is... | 4 Comments

Tuesday 9 November

The FAQ as documentation (22:12) - Much my delight, I was speaking with a user the other day who told me that he had actually read through almost the entire FAQ because it contained a wealth of useful information. In my dreams and wildest fantasies, every user reads the FAQ. ;) Back here in reality, though, he pointed out that the FAQ isn't very friendly for someone who wants to read through all the questions and answers as pseudo-documentation because you have to click on each... | 4 Comments

Sunday 7 November

Fixing BitWise by fixing wxWidgets (22:53) - About 7 weeks ago, I posted that I had been "wxPromoted" and had the capability to track and close wxWidgets bugs and patches. It wasn't too much longer before that led to additional rights, and for the past month or so I've been a "wxWidgets developer" with the ability to commit changes that I make to wxWidgets back to the library itself. This certainly is not only a great honor but a great responsibility. I thought I would share how...

Saturday 6 November

Websites, Blogs, Forums oh my! (10:05) - I've realized that there are three "main" BitWise-related areas: the main site, the forums, and this blog. I'm sure that there are those who have discovered the blog, but not the forums, or have discovered the forums but don't see the immediate value. Well, let me give you an example! One of the most significant areas of the forums is the New Feature Ideas forum where others and myself post new ideas for BitWise. Some ideas are minor, some ideas...

Sunday 24 October

MacWorld recognizes BitWise for confidential chats (21:32) - If you have the November issue of MacWorld magazine, turn to page 35, or if you don't have it handy, click here for the electronic version of the ChatBarrier X3 10.3 review. I can't help but notice how closely this review of ChatBarrier mirrors my "review" that I posted back in June right here in this blog. The mention of "military-grade" encryption still causes this involuntary rolling of my eyes... Anyway, the best part of the review is in the... | 2 Comments

Friday 8 October

Kevin Hock, author (23:02) - I have some very exciting news to announce: I have recently joined Julian Smart, original founder of the wxWidgets C++ GUI framework, as a co-author of the new wxWidgets book to be released next year by Prentice Hall. I will be contributing chapters on sockets, data structures, installing wxWidgets and creating cross-platform projects. It is an honor to contribute to this book alongside Julian and other core wxWidgets developers. This truly is an amazing opportunity for me as a developer... | 3 Comments

Monday 4 October

Tradeoffs: the glory and the difficulties (23:41) - It's been a few days since 1.0.3 was released, and things have been smooth overall. It's always a relief to roll out a new version and have things work well; releasing always causes some anxiety because suddenly many people are switching to a newer version that doesn't have the known reliability of the previous one. Anyway, that's not really the subject of this evening's post. We've been getting some really great feedback about the new voice chat feature. Several people...

Thursday 30 September

Anniversaries, Favorites and Releases (14:43) - The turn of the month from September to October is beginning to carry a lot of historical significance for BitWise. Today marks the release of BitWise 1.0.3, making BitWise the first and only cross-platform direct-to-IP encrypted voice chat. Don't worry, there are still many new trails to blaze, and we'll keep the "firsts" coming. I think September 30th, however, will be one of those special BitWise dates that I'll always remember. The days either side of September 30th also carry...

Tuesday 28 September

Routing Server quiet release, surprise new documentation (10:26) - Sometimes the best things go unheralded. Yesterday the BitWise Routing Server 1.0.3 was quietly released, preceding the release of the 1.0.3 client by a few days. Staggering the releases makes things easier here, letting us focus now on only the client release. The only major addition to the Routing Server since 1.0.2 is the ability to direct the UDP traffic for voice chats. Continuing with the additional documentation, various events spurred the creation of two unplanned new pages, one detailing...

Sunday 26 September

Client calm, but a document and duty deluge (20:44) - I realized that there hasn't been much BitWise news either here or elsewhere since the last Beta release almost two weeks ago. This certainly doesn't mean that nothing is being worked on! The end of last week were spent working on some new documention, a total of four new documents. The new documents cover Voice chat (soon to be part of an official 1.0.3 release), Grouped Conversation View, Logging and Contact List Options. Hopefully at least someone will look at...

Thursday 16 September

Longest running bug? (16:05) - "Have you really been typing for the past 10 minutes?" my friend Nick BWed me the other day. I am known for sending some lengthy messages from time to time, but I definitely had not been typing for 10 minutes straight. I had received isolated reports about people "stuck" in typing status according to BitWise, but this time I actually had a pretty good idea of what caused it. This bug has been around since grouped conversation view was introduced... | 3 Comments

Wednesday 8 September

BitWise in your language, every step of the way (17:27) - After some gentle prodding, I revisited the whole Internationalization issue with BitWise. For some time now, we have offered translations of the BitWise client in Spanish, French, German and Dutch (we'd love to have more!), but obtaining these translation files required navigating our English-only website. After some looking around, I found that I could not only present the entire setup program in other languages, but could even have the setup download your translation file automatically (if one exists for your... | 1 Comments

Friday 3 September

Positive vibes at the end of the week (21:36) - One of the best parts of producing software is receiving feedback, especially the positive kind. What's sometimes even more interesting is where you find comments made about your software, and what features people find noteworthy. Even as the hits continue to increase, I still like to glance through the referrer logs and see what sites are sending us the most traffic. Today, there were several hits from a forum, and while references from forums are quite common, what made this...

Monday 30 August

Apple's C/C++ Development Follies (17:57) - While today's big news is that BitWise 1.0.3 Alpha 2 is out, the really big news is that there is now a version of BitWise for Mac OS X 10.2 (previously, 10.3 was required). What some people have asked over time is why this version has been so long in coming when BitWise has worked on OS X 10.3 for over 6 months. This has even led to some scathing criticism from time to time, "You can support Windows 98...

Wednesday 25 August

OS X BitWise major overhaul coming soon (23:10) - Version 1.0.2 was a major overhaul of the Linux version of BitWise, and now 1.0.3 will be a similar overhaul for OS X. Just like with the Linux version, the primary reason is upgrading to the latest wxWidgets sources. Because wxWidgets is a very actively developed project, many significant changes and improvements are made over time, and the official releases simply don't keep up with the changes. Not all of the changes are wxWidgets-specific, however, many of them are changes...

Thursday 19 August

128-Bit Encryption comes to the Free BitWise (15:04) - We are very pleased to announce that effective immediately (no client upgrade required), the Free BitWise now employs 128-bit Blowfish encryption on your messages, whiteboards, file transfers, etc (and the voice chats if you're using the alpha version). This is a tremendous boost beyond the previously-used 64-bit Blowfish as we strive to continue to protect your privacy. The Pro BitWise encryption is unchanged; Pro users continue to have the option to use up to 448-bit Blowfish (256-bit outside the USA/Canada).... | 2 Comments

Wednesday 11 August

News flash: Free software is free--it's your choice to use it (11:05) - 99% of you are probably rolling your eyes (justifiably!) at such a "news flash" because it is such an obvious statement. If you're a part of the 1% that are shocked by this announcement, by all means, please read on. One way or another, I end up talking with some of BitWise's new users on a daily basis. If you're not familiar with BitWise, it's a free-for-personal use instant messenger that is one of my jobs. In any event, I... | 5 Comments

Monday 9 August

BitWise 1.0.3 Alpha 1 Released with Voice Chat (16:37) - At long last! The alpha with voice chat is finally available. This represents several weeks of intense development and we couldn't be more pleased with the results so far. We dare you to compare! Read more on the official Alpha/Beta page here. With the bulk of the voice chat implementation finished, hopefully time can be spent again on eliminating the last few major issues with the newer wxWidgets Mac OS X code so that the OS X version can have... | 1 Comments

Saturday 7 August

Voice chat alpha release early next week (23:40) - The BitWise voice chat programming and testing has continued to go extremely well. Additional rounds of testing helped track down some additional bugs, as well as refined the featureset somewhat. Of about 8 tests so far, half of them have been better than telephone quality, with the other half having slight lag, but within acceptable limits (some lag is to be expected). I still believe that BitWise voice chat is going to exceed Skype's quality, but the final verdict will,... | 1 Comments

Monday 2 August

BitWise Voice better than Skype? maybe... (11:18) - I suppose I could talk about some useless piece of technobabble news, but instead I thought I'd fill in how things have been going with the implementation of the voice chat. Something tells me its the right decision. In my last post, I talked about the lag/latency in the voice chats that I had tested up until then. I found where the latency was actually being added in as a protection to the audio buffer, and have made it a... | 1 Comments

Thursday 29 July

Can you hear me now? (11:26) - The delay in more news about the voice chat certainly isn't because there is nothing to report (I love double-negatives). Indeed, the voice chat has been shaping up very quickly. Since my last post, many additional elements have been added in: alert preference for voice invitations, an incoming voice chat request window (that can flash), encryption of the voice data, real-time bitrate changes, display of the actual bitrate, mute for incoming and outgoing sound, display of icons and loading voice... | 6 Comments

Monday 26 July

Voice chat gets preferences, control, initiation and a UI (11:50) - So after my preliminary tests with voice chat on Saturday, I've been playing (working isn't the right word to describe how much fun this is!) with getting the voice chat implemented in BitWise. Last time, all I had was hardcoded parameters, no UI... just encoded audio being sent and received. So much has happened since then, in only 2 days. A UI window was created showing some information about the voice chat session and giving you control over several quality... | 1 Comments

Saturday 24 July

The first BitWise Voice Chat (23:08) - I must confess that I am surprised by how "easy" it was to get some solid proof-of-concept voice chat working in BitWise. It's only been a few days that I've spent any time playing with it (probably 2 solid days or so), but with impressive results. Today, my old friend Matt in Houston, TX, spoke (literally) to me over BitWise. He came through loud and clear, without any hiccups (though unfortunately I couldn't talk back at him due to a... | 1 Comments

Tuesday 20 July

Next BitWise Frontier: Voice or Video? (17:29) - One big decision that will be made "soon" is whether we'll consider voice chat or video chat as one of the next major features in BitWise. While such posts would normally go in the "New Feature Ideas" forum, this one is significant enough to have a bigger appearance. So here I am. This is long, I apologize, but it has to be, there's lots to think about. I am frequently asked, "Does BitWise support voice chat?" and/or "Does BitWise support... | 10 Comments

Tuesday 13 July

You shouldn't make fun of your "customers," but... (22:12) - The biggest drain on any service-based company is customer service and support. However, there are times when support can be highly amusing. While I really don't want to make a habit out of poking fun at people, this customer support request today was simply too much. Plus, I don't really feel that badly about it, this person isn't a BitWise user despite asking for a password reset. One of the services that we provide our BitWise users (a very rare...

Friday 9 July

Why proofread what nobody reads? (19:31) - I like to know how to properly use the software that I have. In a perfect world, software should be intuitive enough that manuals aren't needed, but any reasonably complex piece of software is going to have a few procedures complicated enough to need some documentation. I'm one of those who still wants a nice printed manual with my software, a luxury that seems to have gone the way of the Amiga. So it is with much passion that I... | 10 Comments

Tuesday 6 July

Releases, Licenses, and Reality (23:32) - Today's been an exciting day! At long last, BitWise 1.0.2 was released, featuring many enhancements (small and large) over 1.0.1. After the delay last week, it felt really good to finally release it. One very important change, not related to functionality or features, is the new license agreement with 1.0.2 (retroactive after 30 days to previous versions). Until now, the free BitWise could be used for any purpose, but we can no longer offer such generous usage. Now, non-personal usage...

Saturday 26 June

Are hidden features really features? (23:41) - Something I struggle with frequently is the value of "hidden" features in BitWise. My definition of a hidden feature is a feature that is not immediately obvious--you would have to either have it specifically told to you or you would have to accidentally discover it by clicking or typing something unusual. Generally speaking, I do not add hidden features, because they tend to be useless (nobody knows about them, so nobody uses them), making them a waste of time to... | 7 Comments

Friday 18 June

The "Perfect Website" paradox (14:33) - I've decided that web design is largely a thankless job. You can't please everybody all of the time, and on top of it, people are always either too reluctant or too willing to offer armchair advice. I find it amusing that there seem to be so many books and sites dedicated to how not to design a web site. Perhaps what's really bothering me is the world's obsession with glitz. We want glitzy cars, glitzy movies, glitzy stores, and among... | 3 Comments

Wednesday 16 June

Releasing software on your birthday (17:19) - I'm a person that is always enamored with "milestones" and "landmark dates." It shouldn't be too much of a surprise then that I like to have BitWise releases, if possible, on dates that have had some significance in the past. While we didn't make the date, the original release date for BitWise 1.0 was going to be exactly 2 years since we first conceived the idea of BitWise (February 17th, 2002). BitWise 1.0.2 is currently planned for a July 2nd...
Software Reliability (2 years later) (15:13) - In a nod to my previous blogging life (back before blogs were "cool"), here's an updated version of the last post I made some two years ago. Enjoy. Of all the stories you don't want to hear, this is one of them, from the August 2002 Wired Magazine: Ed Yourdon was on a tarmac in Pittsburgh when he got a glimpse of the coming software hell. His New York shuttle had been cleared for takeoff when the pilot pulled a... | 1 Comments