Tag Archives: random

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I remember a time where people would participate in concept development, actively discussing things they like or don’t like in my plugins. And most of all; It happened in a friendly manner with a certain flair. In a way that made me feel appreciated and valued. Some of you may be old enough to remember that time. You know, way way way back in 2008-ish.

Times changed

Now? I rarely get feedback on new features, questions, services or anything at all. Posts such as this one or this one.

But also;

  • Support tickets where I have to ask the client if they’re helped and their problem has been solved because otherwise the ticket would linger open and unanswered by them for days. Because – why thank the guy who spends time to help you. That’s so 1999.
  • Angry emails when something doesn’t work as they would expect. Often because the user doesn’t read a manual or misinterprets a feature.
  • People buying something from me and then jump through all the hoops in the world to extort that money back from me (Yes, among some others, that’s you Aaron!)
  • Or just nothing. No response or input at all. Until they have something to complain… Then I have to work overtime.

It takes the fun out of my work. It really does and it’s this attitude that killed a few plugins I used to develop.

Realization – Rationalization

I didn’t quite realize this until earlier today. For the past 2 years I have said to myself; “I don’t use wp-events (plugin) anymore so I stopped developing it.” But that’s not so true. I stopped actively developing wp-events because of the community – Or lack thereof. Going my direction apparently wasn’t good enough. And asking users (you) for direction went unanswered.

I don’t really use AdRotate either. And the vocal part of the users are (generally) not very friendly but it’s still an interesting project for me. I like to make the plugin. I have a certain image of how internet advertising should be (in my opinion) and the ultimate goal for AdRotate is to make that a reality. But we’re still a long ways off. Where most other advertising plugins suck at their core functionality and only focus on making it as hard and inconvenient as possible to use the plugin.
And now, with AdRotate Pro it became even more interesting to maintain the product and build on it’s success and see where we end up.

Me

I’m pulling out. Me and my Mac against the world or something along those lines. Madness you say!

I realized a while ago I don’t care enough about the personal side of any community to really fit in. All this social awkwardness, pretending to care and feelings of not belonging makes me want to disconnect sometimes. And that is reflected in the development of my products. I have a vision for all of my products. What others say or think about it is not really my concern unless it makes sense. But more often than not it doesn’t or it doesn’t suit the product as I want it to be. And as mentioned above; If I ask for input it’s often ignored anyway.

So I’ll go my own way. And that suits me just fine.

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And so the world comes to an abrupt halt…

[3/14/13 23:27:46] Mathias Jørgensen: He was in bed
[3/14/13 23:27:50] Mathias Jørgensen: And suddenly
[3/14/13 23:27:55] Mathias Jørgensen: I hear him outside my door
[3/14/13 23:27:59] Mathias Jørgensen: He takes the Internet
[3/14/13 23:28:00] Mathias Jørgensen: Leaves
[3/14/13 23:28:13] Arnan de Gans: the whole internet?
[3/14/13 23:28:18] Mathias Jørgensen: YES

And if that’s not bad enough. Apparently it’s kept in a box.

[3/14/13 23:31:49] Arnan de Gans: then take the interweb back
[3/14/13 23:31:52] Arnan de Gans: before it disapears
[3/14/13 23:31:55] Mathias Jørgensen: I can’t
[3/14/13 23:32:00] Mathias Jørgensen: He took it
[3/14/13 23:32:02] Mathias Jørgensen: The box
[3/14/13 23:32:17] Arnan de Gans: internet comes in a box?
[3/14/13 23:32:23] Mathias Jørgensen: Router
[3/14/13 23:32:27] Mathias Jørgensen: He unplugged it

Sadness overwhelms me…

Or not ;) Haha!

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That’s what someone said to me somewhere last year. He believes that in order for a company to be successful you have to please everyone. All the time. At any cost.

“You must please all the people all the time or you will fail in your business.”

But why? To me that makes no sense at all. You can’t possibly please everyone. And “all the people”? Why? People are not customers. They are potential users and hopefull will become customers at some point.

Sure if they come to you with genuine interest and questions. Do your utmost. Even if they peek at you. Try to get their attention and interest. But that’s about it.

Soon after this discussion with the guy I lost my job and decided to start my own business. This wasn’t a new idea. Just a means to an end in a poor economy. I had been doing a lot of development work in the past years already and found that pleasing the people who care for your product is more important and rewarding than supporting the masses.

Starting my own business gave me a viable way to finally do something more with AdRotate for WordPress. Spend more time developing ideas and work out new ways. As some of you may have noticed quite a bit has changed in the past 12 months.

Among other things, I have (finally!) brought support under one roof with the AdRotate site. Also I’ve tried to make support a bit more personal and friendly. I’ve tried to streamline the sites I maintain to make it easier for people to reach me and find information.

A bigger change is that AdRotate now has a premium version. And it’s fairly successfull so far. But it didn’t please everyone. If some are to be believed I’ve ruined their business. Well that’s too bad, if not spending 25 euros ruins your business it wasn’t a good one anyway. Others are just hugely displeased because I ask money for a product that was free before. I don’t believe those people were going to buy AdRotate anyway, even if AdRotate was a paid product from the start. It was a calculated risk and decision that I know will work out in the end.

Some others have been left in the dark because I simply had no time to help them with their projects. Over the past months I have turned down some projects and disappointed a few would-be customers for projects I simply had no time for. Unfortunate. And I hope they think of me for their next project. Perhaps I can make a better impression that time.

But then there are the heaps of happy and satisfied customers that I left in my wake. A whole bunch of them came back for more. Extra work. New projects. And some even said I’m their go-to guy for anything related to websites. Awesome stuff!

And that’s how it works for any company out there. It’s unrealistic, to say the least, to think you can please the world. It’s dumb to even try.
More realistic is to try your best in supporting existing users and customers and see that group grow and hopefully convert users into customers.

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Last night I couldn’t sleep very well and I had this idea about a series of pages/articles I want to write. But I was already in bed… So I pulled out my iPad keyboard and thought I’d start making some things on the iPad until I fell asleep.

A bunch of people I know or read stuff from have said that the iPad has replaced their laptop for keeping their blog up to date and do everything related on there, too.

I was less successful, the Endless bickering to get WordPress text editing to work properly on Mobile safari was off-putting to say the least. The experience is far far far from optimal and fun. As it just doesn’t work right. Half the time my cursor would get stuck in tinyMCE (The text editor WordPress uses). The other half of the time the keyboard I use had me mistype words because the keys are slightly smaller than on a regular keyboard. And then I wanted to insert an image…

I needed a screenshot. Easy enough. Made one. Then set out to crop a selection of that image and draw a circle on it. I’ve tried iPhoto, Photoshop Express, I bought Photoshop Touch, Penultimate and some other tools. None did it right, eventually I managed to draw a wobbly circle with Photoshop Touch. But that image wasn’t saved to my Photoroll or something. The final image which showed the preview of the edited image uploaded the original. Fail!

So after about an hour of that, I gave up. It’s not for me.

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So, while chatting on Skype, we’re being all smart and thinking about playing Planet Side 2… Then suddenly!

[1/7/13 5:25:10 PM] Fraz: rlvknlg.exe wants to use skype
[1/7/13 5:25:15 PM] Fraz: seen that before?

Of course I haven’t. So I tell him.

[1/7/13 5:25:21 PM] Arnan de Gans: i dont use windows remember
[1/7/13 5:25:25 PM] Fraz: nub
[1/7/13 5:25:26 PM] Arnan de Gans: exe are for windows noobs
[1/7/13 5:26:00 PM] Fraz: sexehcutables
[1/7/13 5:26:21 PM] Arnan de Gans: OFCOURSE its a virus
[1/7/13 5:26:26 PM] Arnan de Gans: what else can it be

But then the smartest thing happens! :)

[1/7/13 5:27:26 PM] Fraz: im not dumb enough to get viruses or malware
[1/7/13 5:27:33 PM] Fraz: i havnt had one for over 3 years
[1/7/13 5:27:46 PM] Arnan de Gans: http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/rlvknlgexe-in-task-manager [1/7/13 5:27:48 PM] Arnan de Gans: ok
[1/7/13 5:27:51 PM] Arnan de Gans: but you have one now
[1/7/13 5:27:55 PM] Arnan de Gans: so deal with it
[1/7/13 5:28:13 PM] Arnan de Gans: so your genius has left you
[1/7/13 5:28:21 PM] Arnan de Gans: and now a dumb houses in your face

Turns out his Antivirus doesn’t seem to work either. Fail!