Beta Update & Go-Live Plans

Good news – the beta of Affixa is going superbly! Thanks again to those who enrolled, and if you enrolled but have heard nothing from me, check your junk mail!

Upcoming Updates

An idea came to me whilst sending a range of family history-related files to a long lost cousin via Yahoo! Mail. The various files were scattered all over my hard disk, so I created a folder, created copies of all the files I wanted to send in this new folder, re-sized the image files, used Affixa to send them by email, then deleted the folder. It seemed harder work than it needed to be, so that got me thinking about a better solution: attachment baskets.

The idea is that you can create multiple baskets into which you can drop your files. Once you've collected all the various files from around your hard disk, you can attach the contents of a basket to an email in one click.

There are several side-benefits of this:

• You can save the contents of a basket and send the same range of files over and over again, for example:
  • your Christmas list - so your relatives get you something you really want this year;
  • the directions and map to your office building;
  • the Project Initiation, Requirements and Design documents for your customer's project;
  • your CV / resume.
• You can build up the collection of attachments for an email over time and send them when the collection's complete;
• Re-size photos or zip together files by applying the action to your basket as a whole, rather than to smaller groups of files that are scattered all over your hard disk;
• There's no copying involved; all files are referenced from their original locations. So nothing out of date will ever get sent.

Of course, this will all work with Drop.io too! If you haven't had the chance to look into Drop.io yet, make sure you set some time aside to have a play. It's an ideal way to share your files with friends, colleagues and collaborators. (http://drop.io/)

Another new feature will be the ability to automatically include standard "to", "cc" or "bcc" recipients on any email. This is especially handy for those of us that blind copy emails to CRMs on a regular basis (e.g. Highrise from 37signals). This will be an account-level setting.

The Roadmap

The current target for go-live is January 19. The Affixa web site is almost finished and will appear at affixa.com at some point over the holiday period.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a very happy, prosperous New Year,

Chris

Update on Affixa..

Some of you might have noticed by now that Affixa's not yet emerged! Don't worry, it's still happening, it's just taking a bit longer to get things going than I'd thought (not a technology thing, just "the rest of my life getting in the way" thing!).

So what's new?

Well, the first thing is I've relented on the approach I'd proposed for charging for Affixa. There will still be a free Personal version of the software, just like gAttach! and yAttach! are free now. But there will also be a Pro version of the software that will cost about £1 per annum for individuals or £5 per annum for businesses.

If you're curious how the Personal version will differ from the Pro version, here's the detail:

Feature	Personal	Pro
Gmail integration with Windows	Yes	Yes
Yahoo! Mail integration with Windows	Yes	Yes
NEW - Multiple Accounts, including the capability to have Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows Mail (etc) accounts.	No	Yes
NEW - Signature support for Gmail and Yahoo! Mail	No	Yes
NEW - Launch a different web browser to your default for each account.	No	Yes
NEW - Zip your attachments before uploading to Gmail or Yahoo! Mail	No	Yes
NEW - Automatic detection of problem attachments (e.g. .exe's, .zip files containing .exe's etc)	Yes	Yes
NEW - Drop.io integration for large or problem attachments.	No	Yes
NEW - Use custom names to identify accounts	Yes	Yes
Guaranteed One-to-One Customer Support for any issues you encounter	No	Yes

Note that the Gmail features above also apply to Google Mail (UK / Germany) and Google Apps Mail.

The good news is that the functionality is all written and just needs to be tested fully.

You may notice that AOL and Windows Live Hotmail are missing from the above list. These might join the party a little further down the line.

Resolved: Message Not Appearing In "Drafts"

The good news is that this issue is now resolved and an update is ready and waiting.

The bad news is that the hosting company that the web site uses seems to be having a very bad day! You'll notice that www.gattach.net is currently down.

I'll update this post as soon as we're live.

You can download the new version here:

http://www.gattach.net/download.html

Message not appearing in "Drafts" folder

It seems something has changed in the last few days with Gmail which has broken gAttach!

A fix has been implemented tonight (UK time) but requires further testing at this point.

A new version will hopefully be made available to the public late tomorrow evening (Thursday, UK time).

Watch this space for further updates!

File Hosting Providers: Who do you use?

I'm curious which file hosting providers you all use when you want to send large files, or when you have to work around Gmail's restrictions on file attachments, for example.

Let me know who you use and why in the comments? Many thanks!!

Beta Testers Wanted!

I'm looking to establish a community of about 25 beta testers for Affixa.

The software should be available for beta testing in October. All testers will receive a free lifetime licence for the software.

Testers will be selected according to:

• The country in which you're located;
• Your first spoken language (e.g. English, Spanish, Russian, etc);
• The Windows Edition you use;
• Your processor model (i.e. x86 or x64);
• Computing experience (e.g. novice or developer; both are required).

Testers will be required to run Affixa through a series of documented tests on their computer. Results of those tests will need to be submitted back to me.

If you're interested, just drop me a line using the Contact Us form. Choose "Beta Testing" as the subject and provide the details outlined above.

I'll not be able to reply to all submissions and the candidates will be picked from all the received submissions at the beginning of October.

So it's been a while..

..but things are moving on at pace with "Affixa", as version 2 will be known.

The main goal is to make Affixa your computer's email switchboard, allowing you to choose which email application or webmail system you want to use each time you use the email functionality in Windows or other desktop applications.

This will help people who use Outlook for work email and Gmail for personal stuff, for example, or where two people might use the same Windows account to access different Gmail accounts (a very common situation within a household, I've discovered).

Of course, if you only have the once account configured, it'll work pretty much like gAttach! and yAttach! does at present.

The following work has already been completed:

• Multiple accounts supported across various providers;
• Yahoo! Mail integration work is complete;
• Gmail integration work is complete;
• Desktop Mail (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows Mail) integration is complete;
• Windows Live Hotmail integration is almost complete;
• Signatures are now used in draft messages where available.

Here's a screenshot of the work-in-progress Options screen (it'll change again before release):

Translators - thanks for all your messages. Still not quite ready for translation yet, but I've not forgotten about you! Thanks for your patience.

Version 2: Almost-Freeware

I've taken the difficult decision that from the version 2 of gAttach! onwards, the software will no longer be "donationware" for individuals. The simplest reason I can give is that in my particular case, it just isn't working. Instead, it'll be "almost-freeware".

How successful has the donations model been?

I'll lay my cards on the table: with just under half a million downloads, the total amount of donations received is just short of £30 (roughly US$60) thanks to fewer than ten donations.

My personal view on software like gAttach! is that it should be made available to as many people as possible without cost and that people should be able to show their appreciation by donating according to how much they feel the software is worth to them. So given that literally 99.99% of people using my software haven't made donations, the implicit assumption would be that it's of no value to end users.

However, this is clearly not the case: the great reviews and sheer quantity of downloads in such a short period of time are evidence to the contrary, as are the countless hours of answering support emails (typically where it's a dodgy PC setup that's the problem, rather than gAttach!).

Personally, I must confess that I'm disappointed that many of the people I've helped haven't even replied to say thanks, let alone made a gesture by donating 50 cents.

From a lifestyle and financial point of view, I'm sad to say that it's simply not possible for me to continue on the existing basis.

How things will change:

When "Affixa" (the new version) is launched, the following changes will happen to licensing for individuals:

• you will be able to use the software for free on 5 different occasions (e.g. using "Sent To > Mail Recipient" five times);
• to continue using the software, you will need to buy either an annual licence for about US$1, or a lifetime licence for US$5.

I've tried to hold true to my belief that software should be free as much as I can with the new charging structure by making the licence cost incredibly low. It's enough for me to be able to justify my time and efforts both to myself and more importantly to my wife; so I can at least buy her a decent bunch of flowers every now and then for ignoring her whilst working on the software!

For those few people who were kind enough to donate or have volunteered to help translate the software during version 1, you'll automatically get lifetime licences at no cost upon release, regardless of how much you donated. Thanks for showing your appreciation; you certainly have mine!

So what else can I buy for a dollar?

To put the new charging structure into context, here's what else costs $1 in the USA these days:

• One McDonald's Double Cheeseburger;
• Two-thirds of a small coffee at Starbucks;
• Sending a "virtual" Birthday Balloon to a friend on Facebook;
• Two-thirds of a 1.5 litre bottle of Coke;
• One-third of a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes;
• One packet of Lay's potato chips;
• Parking for one hour downtown.

And if you're in the UK like me, you get even less than the above! It's just short of $10 a gallon for gas here at the moment..

Your Personal Information

One piece of feedback I received in the last 48 hours was that a user was uncomfortable with the type of information that was being sent to me in the event of an error occurring.

This convinced me that gAttach! needed to provide more information and control over the detail in the diagnostics sent back to me.

Today's new version includes a much clearer explanation of what happens and allows you to preview the information before it is sent. You can also control the level of detail sent; the default setting is one by which no confidential information is sent to me.

Hopefully you'll not be unlucky enough to encounter an error, but if you do, here's how the new screen looks:

gAttach! and yAttach! Featured on Windows Weekly Podcast

I was tipped off today that gAttach! and yAttach! have been featured as downloads of the week on the Windows Weekly podcast.

I'm feeling very honoured today!!

Take a listen. We're mentioned after about 1 hour and 9 minutes.

Moving from Google Apps to Yahoo! Small Business Mail

Not directly related to gAttach! or yAttach!, but a friend asked today if it would be possible for him to move his emails from his Google Apps account to a new Yahoo! Small Business Mail account.

It's not a straightforward operation, but it is possible. The main sticking points are that Google only uses POP3 and IMAP with SSL on non-standard ports and that Yahoo! has no IMAP support whatsoever.

I thought I'd post a mini how-to on the blog in case it's ever of use to somebody else in the future:

1. Enable POP3 access in the Settings screen in your Google Apps mail account;
2. Sign up for an ordinary Gmail account (i.e. not a Google Apps account);
3. Configure your Gmail account to pick up mail from your Apps account using POP3. Ensure you specify the non-standard port number and to use SSL as per these instructions;
4. Wait for your Gmail inbox to be filled with all your Google Apps messages;
5. Use this service to move all the messages from your Gmail inbox to your personal Yahoo! Mail account;
6. Once you receive a message in your personal Yahoo! Mail inbox telling you that the transfer is complete, move the messages from the newly-created folder to your Inbox;
7. Configure your Yahoo! Small Business Mail account to pick up messages from your Yahoo! Mail personal account using POP3. Note that you'll most likely have to use an IP address for the mail server (plus.pop.mail.yahoo.com = 209.191.108.191, pop.mail.yahoo.com = 206.190.53.11)as it doesn't seem to accept yahoo.com domain names;
8. Click "Check Mail" in your Small Business Mail account and wait for all the messages to be transferred to your inbox;
9. Delete the POP3 account from your Small Business settings;
10. Delete the messages from your Personal inbox.

gAttach! On LemonTV.tv

In Spanish, after one a half minutes:

The Times, They Are a-Changing..

Just wanted to keep you posted on a couple of changes in gAttach! Land.

The first is that we have a brand-spanking new web site design, which is based upon an Open Source template by Wolfgang:

The second is that I've decided that the licensing model needs to change.

DON'T PANIC! gAttach! will always be free for individuals using the software for personal purposes!

For organisations though, I've found that the donations model just doesn't work. Larger organisations prefer to deal with a licensing model as it's what they understand best. Plus the percentage of donations to downloads currently sits at 0.03%, which isn't great.

So this will hopefully allow me to cover my costs, break into the enterprise and ensure gAttach! stays great for everyone.

New Beta Available

Just one week on from the last beta release, here's another!

This release fixes several issues around the Firefox 3 integration delivered last time. Hopefully it should now work as described in earlier posts for everyone! Note that I decided to finesse the existing "Plan A" approach rather than adopting the "Plan B" I referred to in my last post. So this means it still only works with Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla Firefox 3.

I've also introduced a new feature in response to some of the feedback I received about logging in. Some people felt better about typing in their username and password into a Google web page, rather than directly into gAttach!. From this version onwards, you can choose to either:

• let gAttach! log you in automatically; or
• log in via your web browser beforehand.

Download the new beta from the Download page.

Beta Feedback: Effortless login using Firefox 3

It seems this isn't working as seamlessly as it should for many people.

The state of play seems to be that it works fine when you've not got Firefox already open, but if you've already got a browser open and you're not logged into Gmail, you get taken to the login screen.

Oh well, fear not. I have a plan "B" which I've tested tonight against all the scenarios above. It should also work in Firefox 2 and potentially other browsers (e.g. Opera, though I've yet to test this).

I'll add this into the next beta!

So remind me what the "B" is for in "BCC"?

Some of you may have received the very first gAttach! Email Newsletter yesterday. If you did, I owe you an apology! Despite the best of intentions, it seems that everybody's email addresses were still in the BCC field by the time they arrived in inboxes.

I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, so I'm a bit stumped why it happened. My only guess is that my web host's mail server forgot to strip them out when sending. I'll get on to my hosting company and figure out what's going on.

Apologies again!

UPDATE: The problem has been traced to the version of the webmail software (Round Cube) installed by my web host. Why not use Gmail? I just needed a fine level of control over the HTML used, which I can't quite get as easily with Gmail yet.

PS: The feedback is mainly good so far. All the reported glitches are in the same bit of code and are just around situations I hadn't foreseen. I'll hopefully get a new beta out any day.

Bellybuttons and Opinions on How to Log In!

The similarity? Everybody's got one.

One of the things that you'll notice in the current beta is that the pop-up web browser approach of logging in is gone.

In the beta, you enter your username and password in the Options screen and it never bothers you again.

Today, somebody wrote to me saying he doesn't like the approach used in the beta as much as the pop-up browser. The main reason is that he doesn't have the same confidence that his details are being used properly. There was something about that Google login screen that gave him reassurance.

The trouble is that the pop-up browser was glitchy on some machines (most notably those running XP with Internet Explorer 6 installed - even if it wasn't the user's default browser), so I'm reluctant to bring it back.

I'd also argue that you're still using gAttach! to log in and that if I was person of questionable morals, I could still harvest your credentials. So whilst it seems more reassuring, the potential risk is still there.

Don't worry, the only party your details are ever submitted to is Google and your password is stored in an encrypted form!

gAttach! definitely has to log in to do anything, so the question is "how?".

Before I go live with the new "release" version, what does everyone think to the following proposition? In the next beta, have a choice of two means of logging in:

1. Enter your details in the Options screen (the approach used in the current beta); or
2. Choose "I'll log in via my default web browser". This will require somebody to log in using Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7 and choose the "Remember me on this computer" option. If you try and send a file and you're not logged in, gAttach! will pause and ask you to log in via your web browser then click "OK" to continue.

I'm keen to know people's thoughts... what would be the best balance of functionality and reassurance that gAttach! could offer?

Let me know in the comments?

gAttach! In Your Language

One of the major parts of my day job is in the world of software localisation, so it's always been an early goal to make gAttach! available in as many languages as possible. I'm now looking for volunteers who are willing to translate the software into other languages.

Just get in touch if you're interested. A history of previous translation work (software or non-software) is desirable.

UPDATE: I've already found translators for:

• French
• Lithuanian

New Beta Version Available

Fresh out of development today is a new beta of gAttach!. This resolves the handful of reported issues that have been reported since the last version went live (7 June 2008), and also delivers one of the most requested pieces of new functionality: better support for Firefox 3 and the removal of any dependency upon Internet Explorer.

From this beta onwards, there's no need to type in a username and password at all when creating a new message. gAttach! will log into Gmail without bothering you, do its work and then launch your web browser and typically log you straight in there too. That means it should now be just as efficient to use gAttach! to send one attachment as many.

This new functionality will work with Mozilla Firefox 3 (and later) and Internet Explorer 7 (and later). This functionality won't be introduced for Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 6, so I'd urge you to upgrade to the latest version of your browser if you use one of these.

The most significant "fixes" in this release include better support for proxies requiring authentication, fewer timeout issues and hopefully the elimination of the rare situation where gAttach! is installed but seems to do nothing! x64 users should also find that this new version works fine on their systems.

Please note that this is a beta release, so it will most likely have a few bugs in it. Reporting any issues should now be easier too: you just need to click one button. I'll try to fix any reported issues as soon as possible and do a final software release in the very near future.

The full list of updates can be found on the version history page on the gAttach! site. Download the beta from this page too!

From Obscurity to Big Time!

It's been an absolutely exhilarating month for me as the gAttach! developer. In just three weeks gAttach! has had tens of thousands of downloads, has been featured on prominent blogs and sites, will be appearing on a covermount CD in Japan, and I've received bucket loads of emails from newfound fans.

One of the changes you might have noticed is that gAttach! is now hosted completely on the http://www.gattach.net/ domain. My personal site was starting to buckle under the load of all the demand, so I decided to separate gAttach! off into its own site.

I just want to thank everyone who has tried gAttach! for their time and involvement, and I'm especially grateful to those who have made donations. Keep a lookout for many more of the great ideas that have been submitted to me in future versions of the software!

gAttach!: Featuring Effortless Authentication in Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer!

One of the biggest pieces of feedback that I've received has been that Firefox users don't like having to authenticate more than once.

I fully appreciate this and I've spent the weekend perfecting something Firefox users will love: no need to type in a username and password at all. That's right, choose a file, get gAttach! to attach it and go straight to your web browser without typing a thing. Internet Explorer users will get the same deal.

OK, so it's not completely without authentication; after all, how we otherwise manage to upload the attachments? The key difference in the next version will be that the dependence on Internet Explorer will be gone. You'll need to enter your username and password in the gAttach! Options screen instead. gAttach! will log in to perform the attachment uploads, slip your browser a few cookies so it can log in automatically, and hey presto!

This change in approach will also allow me to implement another frequently requested feature in a future version: multiple accounts.

Other things on the current "to do" list include a working x64 implementation, doing some groundwork for translations of gAttach!'s user interface into other languages, and fixing some time-out issues for larger attachments. There are also a few smaller issues that will be resolved too.

I had hoped to complete all these changes by tomorrow, but work and family life have made progress a bit slower than I'd anticipated. I hope to release the new version of gAttach! as a beta very soon.

Great News, Bad Timing!

Arrived at work this morning to check my email and found tens of messages about gAttach! and yAttach! Looks like FreewareGenius did a review of the software and liked it! Hurrah! It's since been picked up by Lifehacker and other prominent bloggers.

As is probably expected with new software, there are the inevitable few bugs that have arisen. The two most common ones are for people in countries where a point is not used for a decimal (e.g. 5.1 in the UK is 5,1 in France) and an odd issue where gAttach! doesn't realise that it's logged in.

I'm working hard to resolve these, but the infuriating thing is that my home broadband is currently not working (gAttach! and yAttach! are personal projects rather than a professional venture), so I can't do any testing! Talk about really bad timing. Hopefully my ISP will get my line sorted out as soon as possible.

There have also been some really good suggestions, including the capability to have multiple accounts, to pick up signatures, etc. I'll look at including these in the near future.

So thanks to one and all for trying gAttach! and yAttach! For those of you having problems, hold tight! I'll get 'em fixed ASAP.