Re: Last details before the first release

From: Edwin Lau (edwin_at_iredsoft.nospam.com)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 09:08:25 +0800

I used to store everything to the registry but now have moved to the
traditional ini file type for the sake of
portability.

I am using the DeepSoftware's Storage Library which allows you to deploy
different methods. Works
great from my perspective.

http://www.deepsoftware.ru/rsllib/index.html

I don't use anything complicating for icons. For the program, I merely just
use the Project Options/Application
Settings to load the icon. They are pretty small so no issue in embedding
them. If you have more than a ImageList
might not be too bad an idea. If they are huge in file size such as JPEG or
something then I would host them as
standalone files and load as and when needed, in this case, it would be in
the onCreate or onActive event depending
on the requirements.

As for advertisement, it depends on what your marketing model is. For
shareware, I would use something like
Robosoft http://robosoft.rudenko.com/ which has a list of shareware listing
sites which it could submit to. It is
semi automated but easy to use. Get it listed on traditional sites such as
Download.com would help. It is not
free but quite a number of visitors for my software comes from there.

Also, it is not too bad an idea to say submit your url to the various search
engines. There is also the option for
paid advertisement or affiliate sales which you can explore. There are also
services for Press Releases too.
Anything to get the word out.

Software Protection and Trial period would definitely be useful. Warez is a
big concern here and anything
which can be replicated or cracked open, would find its way to warez sites.
I've learnt that those people
who downloads warez would most probably never pay but if you are hosting
your downloads from your
website, it can still cost you a bundle especially if you need to pay for
bandwidth charges.

I noticed that some people may download and try a program and if you don't
remind them that it would
timeout, they may just forget about it and you do not get paid. So some form
 of Trial period with the
periodic nag screen might help. I am currently using the SoftwarePassport
from http://www.siliconrealms.com
but there are of course other solutions out there such as IceLicense
http://www.ionworx.com/IceLicense.html
and the likes.

As to which model you want to take, it is up to you. For me, I have a fully
functional program with a time out
period. Others do release a freeware scaled down version which never times
out and for the other features,
you need to purchase a license for a 'Pro' version. It could also be a
scaled down version which would time out.

Personally for me, I think it is better to have a fully functional program
so that the one interested would not feel
shortchanged when after they purchased the program for the pro features and
realized it is not what they thought
it would be. But of course there is the security concern about this model.
If the protection mechanism is foiled,
the party may have full access to the program features.

All the best.

Edwin

"Alfredo Bellei" <info@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4217cc98$1@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
> I'm near to release my first software. Now i need to know your ideas about
various topics.
>
> - My program has a main settings form. I wanted to use classical approach
and put a treeview control to the left side and right side is the place
where i can change the related settings. Now i want to know what do you use
for to store these settings ? I don't remember where but i saw an article
about to store settings with object oriented way with creating a component
and stream it's details to the registry. Or do you think that i should store
everything to the registery in a classical way ?
>
> - Most of the programs are using resources for to store the bitmaps, icons
of their program. How do you design this structure. I mean do you assign the
resource at OnCreate event to the ImageList or ? I don't have any idea.
>
> And the first release of my software will be a beta version but i think
that i still need some advertisements before to start to sell my software.
So what is your suggestions about it ?
>
> The last question is, i'm not sure how i'll sell this software(limited
version may be free and additional things might not be) Not decided yet. So
what would you suggest about the licence. Do you think that i should still
release the first version for a limited period(30 days or more) or free
without any limitation. This is a client-server application and
communication protocol might be changed in the next releases. And it'll be
impossible the current release to communicate with the next release for now.
Do you think that i still need to put some protection ?
>
> Best Regards,
>
> ---
> Alfredo
>

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