I’ve just uploaded yaTimer 2.8.2 to the server, this is a free upgrade to all current customers, you can get it from the upgrade page or wait a few days and for the auto update system will take care of it.

This version contains major improvements to the synchronization system and should solve problems when trying to sync large amounts of data with yaTimer Central.

A small percentage of people do bad things, this is human nature, thieves existed ever since people had things that can be stolen.

And today where almost every technology product is connected to the entire world via the internet a lot of those technology products need to be secured against bad people.

The first thing security people typically try to do is to detect and block the bad things – this can be spam, viruses and other malware or even more sophisticated attacks.

Every detection system by its very nature has two ways it can fail – it can fail to detect the bad thing (this is called a “false negative”) or it can detect a good thing as bad (“false positive”).

false negatives are very visible and obvious failure and sometimes it has disastrous results – an example of a false negative is a spam message gets in your inbox or a virus gets into your computer.

Because false negatives are so obviously bad security people work very hard to avoid them, often amateur security people work takes things too far and create a system that avoids false negatives by creating lots of false positives.

False positives tend to be much less visible, for example an e-mail message that gets lost, and they almost never have disastrous results – from a security point of view.

So what if we detect a valid e-mail as spam once in a while, you are still very well protected from those evil spammers – but what if this mistakenly blocked e-mail was from someone who wants to buy a million dollar worth of products from you? does it still seems like a good tradeoff?

So what if innocent software sometimes get detected as malware, the important thing is that we don’t let actual malware into your computer – but what about the damage to the reputation of the maker of that software you misdetected?

Internet explorer has a very clever security system called “Smart Filter”, if something is popular and bad the antivirus vendors probably already took care of it already – so it blocks everything that isn’t popular with a “might be harmful” message – this is a very nice way to block unknown bad stuff but it also, by design, blocks every good small unpopular software on the internet.

I sell Giraffe Upload, a niche software product with a very small audience – you can guess how I just love Microsoft classifies my product as “might be harmful”, even with yaTimer (that is popular enough to not be harmful) I’m nervous every time I release a new version because as a new file IE never seen before it will be blocked again for who knows how long.

Everything is life is a tradeoff, when security people who don’t see the big picture makes those tradeoffs for you they give you systems that are more secure but less useful – don’t let them.

Experienced security people often understand false positives damage the system they are protecting and do very good work in preventing them – but there aren’t enough of those people, not even in big security companies that should know better.

2012 was a very eventful year for me, at the beginning of the year I completely stopped doing client work and concentrated full time on products – then in the second half of the year I had to take too much client work and couldn’t spend nearly as much time as I wanted on the products.

There are some changes in my personal life that are going on at the moment (all good – don’t worry) that will again free up my time to work on the product.

Like every year here are my summaries and plans for each product:

yaTimer time tracking software

In the beginning on 2012 yaTimer was at version 2.6.6.3, I’ve just released yaTimer 2.8.1 in time for the new year.

yaTimer had more upgrades during 2012 than any previous year but those were typically small upgrades – the big upgrades are still planned for yaTimer version 3.

I’ve started selling yaTimer as a subscription in the end of 2011, this was successful and a great business move because it evens out the earning over the year and makes cash flow more predictable.

During 2013 I’m going to keep moving to the subscription model by making it more prominent on the site and by making the one-time payment option more expensive.

Also, for customers that bought with the one-time payment option I’m going to start charging for upgrades (after the first year of free upgrades is over, obviously).

yaTimer Central synchronization and team tools for yaTimer

yaTimer Central has remained almost unchanged for the entire year, but a new and radically better version is almost ready and will be deployed during 2013.

During 2013 I’m going to make the integration between yaTimer and yaTimer Central better and slowly add more features to yaTimer Central.

Giraffe Upload photo backup software

Giraffe Upload is slowly gaining more customers, it has improved substantially since it’s release in 2011 and will continue to improve in 2013.

There’s a new version that will be released in a few days that includes a major bug fix and some UI updates.

Useful Photo Tips

My photography blog has been quiet for most of the second half of 2012 because I simply didn’t have the time to write for it – I’m going to start posting regularly again soon.

I also want to release a series of on-line photography courses using this blog, I’m not sure I’ll do it in 2013 because I need to grow the blog some more before I can do it.

This blog, the productivity tips and the yaTimer Newsletter

All of those also suffered from my lack of time during the second half of 2012 and will also return to regular activity soon.

Squirrel Clock, Task Zebra, Invoice Squirrel and the unnamed anti-procrastination software

Squirrel Clock never actually took off and during 2013 I will either rewrite it (again) to be a tablet based time clock of shut it down.

Task Zebra was originally designed to help freelancer both manage their time and to get paid on time, this combination proved to be problematic so it was divided into two products – Task Zebra became yet another task list and the “get paid” portions moved to Invoice Squirrel

The world doesn’t need yet another task list so during 2013 I will shut down Task Zebra.

Invoice Squirrel didn’t get much interest and will probably never be developed into a full product.

The anti-procrastination prototype was shelved because after my experience selling Giraffe Upload to consumers (as opposed to businesses) I thing it will be really difficult to make it economically viable.

Start Menu Search for Windows XP and the timer software website

Start Menu Search was officially retired, you can still buy it but I’m not going to do anything with it.

Also, the timer software website that I never did anything interesting with was closed – you can expect the content that was there to appear on this blog soon

Open Source project

Everything Up? Server Self-Test – is still alive and I use it every day, it probably needs some “marketing” work (that I don’t have time to do) before anyone else will use it.

My A/B Testing system – It doesn't have a catchy name yet but I’m going to release it as open source this year – after I see it works well on my site.

The software running this site – It’s a CMS only a programmer can like – and I really don’t expect it to be used by anyone else – but I have no reason to keep it secret so it too will be release as open source.

Ok, those are my plans, hope you have a wonderful 2013

yaTimer 2.8.1 is released and ready to download, this is a free upgrade for all current customers.

This version fixes some problems when synchronizing with yaTimer Central and a small improvement to the screen saver detection.

Also, as of today, Windows 8 is officially supported.

As always you can get the upgrade on the yaTimer upgrade page or just let the auto update do it for you.

I’ve had some problems with our mail server, I don’t know what exactly happened yet but messages that were sent over the last 2 days or so may have been lost.

If you sent me e-mail over the last 2 days and didn’t get a response please resend your message.

I’m very sorry for this, I will set up better monitoring so this doesn’t happen again.

Again, I’m sorry and thank you for understanding.

This Sunday we updated Giraffe Upload, as part of the update we introduced a new subscription level we call HOME PLUE.

The Giraffe Upload HOME subscription will always have everything you need to backup your photos from one computer – but video backup, unlimited computers and some really nice new features will only be available in the HOME PLUS edition.

Because we love our customers and want to be extra fair we will upgrade everyone who subscribed before this update to the new and improved HOME PLUS edition FOR NO EXTRA COST.

And because we didn’t do this yet you have a chance to also get this upgrade – this represents a 25% discount for the lifetime of the subscription.

I will upgrade the accounts early morning on June 7th 2012 – so anyone who subscribed the the HOME edition before that will get the free upgrade.

To buy a subscription go to http://www.giraffeupload.com/Dashboard/Buy

I’ve spent a good part of this month doing the paperwork involved in running a business (and it’s not even over yet) – and obviously every minute I’m doing paperwork is a minute I’m not working on my products.

So, all product releases that were planed for May are delayed to June – this includes the major upgrade to yaTimer Central that was announced on the yaTimer newsletter.

Also on the schedule are:

yaTimer 2.8.1 – a minor bug fix release, currently scheduled for the beginning of June

And yaTimer 2.9 – a larger version with some new features, the last version before yaTimer 3.0, this one will probably be released on July, maybe even August (depending on the features that will go into it).

Over a month ago I’ve asked readers of this blog to answer a quick survey about a potential web version of yaTimer, a little later I’ve also asked people on to the yaTimer newsletter to answer the same survey.

I would like to start by thanking everyone who answered, this really helps me decide about the future direction of yaTimer.

The results are not even close – almost 74% don’t want a web version, if a web version existed 57% would not use it, another 35% would use it but only when they can’t use the desktop version.

So, I’ve heard you, current customers of yaTimer don’t want to use a web based time tracking tool (not surprising because there’s really no shortage of web based tools for those who want them).

And, as always, if you want to influence the future of yaTimer just leave a comment on this blog or send me an e-mail, I’m listening.

Giraffe Upload just went social, you can now connect with the people behind Giraffe Upload and get relevant news and information wherever and however you like (all those were just created so they are kind of empty at the moment – don’t let that stop you):

• Giraffe Upload on Facebook
• Giraffe Upload on Twitter
• Giraffe Upload on Google Plus
• Or, if you prefer to get updates via e-mail, subscribe to the Giraffe Upload e-mail list.

And, if you want to send us a private message and not use any of the social networks, you can always contact us via e-mail at GiraffeUpload@nbdtech.com or use the contact form

I’ve updated the Giraffe Upload web site,  the home page now explains better what Giraffe Upload does, there’s a new page about shooting directly to SmugMug and the page about different ways to backup your photos now has a nice summery at the top and text instead of the endless table of the old version.

Also, you can now signup for the free trial from every page of the site.

As always, I want to hear your opinion, you can leave a comment, send me an e-mail or use the contact form.