Developing eWrite

In July I wrote about moving the ewrite applications away from software as a service and back to software as a product and the reasons for doing so.

Springloops has played a huge part in facilitating this change. Our applications eWrite Lite, eWrite Messenger and eWrite Essentials (eWrite Lite and eWrite Messenger combined) are now all managed and deployed from SpringLoops. Our applications, updates or bug fixes can be sent to a customers site in seconds from any location.

Up until now users of eWrite Lite needed to go to www.ewritecork.com to log into their account. This is no longer the case and this login form has been removed. Ewrite users were sent an email about this change last week. Users can now log in to their applications by going to www.yourdomain.com/ewrite/

In the near future this login form on www.ewritecork.com will be back. It will be a new section allowing eWrite customers to manage their accounts, to review customer data and renew subscriptions.

As a developer Im quite aware that I should have begun to use version control a long long time ago to develop our apps.

More than once I read about and tried to use CVS or SVN. The learning curve to set these systems up on a server is probably not too steep but I was continually dissatisfied and turned away from it.

I wrote my own version control system at one point using PHP to monitor changes in the files and collect any comments in the changed files. The PHP code could also upload the changed files to the users servers. This worked quite well for a time but I was worried about security and I had a tendency to get bogged down in the development of the system itself instead of what it was supposed to do to help me in my daily work.

Earliy in September I came across SpringLoops and found they offer a free version of their source code management tools. Their free version allowed me to create 1 repository so I signed up and created a repository for eWrite Lite.

I installed TortoiseSVN on my desktop machine and on my laptop and got used to downloading and updating the code from both locations and getting familiar with the terminology.

I’ve read plenty of tutorials and blogs where developers encourage the use of version control. More than once a developer would write “Use version control, you can thank me later”. The smug feckers were right. I’ve been using SpringLoops and TortoiseSVN for a few weeks and its allowed me a freedom to concentrate on the development of the software rather than fiddling around with my own bad habits.

I used to have HP servers in the attic running Ubuntu Server with Apache, PHP and mySQL to host, develop and backup everything I was developing. I sold off all the servers, replaced a dodgy router and ran CAT5e 100MBPs cable through the building rather than using a wireless connection.

On my desktop machine I use WampServer to deploy a development environment of Apache, PHP and mySQL in Windows XP. I can write and test the code on my local machine and use TortoiseSVN to commit the changes to SpringLoops and deploy the stable versions to customers sites.

Im still learning my way around SpringLoops and version control abilities in general. I’ve upgraded to the ‘Field’ package on SpringLoops to allow for more repositories and servers to deploy to.

The packages that are available are more than enough for my needs in some cases but lack a little in others. For example the ‘Field’ package Im using now has 10GB of space, 100 protects and 20 servers per project. The space and projects are way more than I need, but the servers per project are important to me, I need more.

The next package up allows for only 30 servers. I emailed SpringLoops to ask if there were customized packages available. They seemed helpful at first asking what I would need. I asked for at least 50 servers per project and far less space and projects. I’d be more than happy with 10-15 projects and 2-5 GB of space. I didn’t get any reply to that, they probably think Im joking. I’ll contact them again shortly to see if they’ll allow it.

Developing with SpringLoops for the past few weeks has been great. I’ve been able to develop the eWrite products much faster, commit changes to the server and deploy these changes to clients sites with just a couple of clicks, It is far far faster than FTP. I wish I had joined the version control party sooner, the eWrite software and my time are all the better for it.

A small pat on the back today as I look back over September for some small victories.

• 888 visits to ewritecork.com
• 703 absolute unique visitors
• 122 referrals from prominent Irish bloggers
• 52 people used the eWrite Lite Demo
• ewritecork.com has reached Google Page Rank of 4, was 1.
• 2 new ewrite lite users, Amharc Alainn and Energy Cert.
• 2 award nominations awards.ie and it@cork.com
• Finally began using SpringLoopgs and TortoiseSVN for version control and deployment
• Collected about 200 business cards from networking

I’ll be having a drink this evening and a cigar if I can find one.

Ambitions for October include getting a demo of eWrite Messenger online for people to try, cleaning up the ewritecork.com content to better explain our products and services, bringing in more money to eWrite.

I started this blog with the intention of being as open as possible about what Im doing with eWrite, warts and all. Still learning how to do this.

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If you were to spend 1,000 Euro of your own money on your own business, what would you get?

At the start, spending your own money on the business isn’t unusual. If you were past this point or if some extra money landed on your lap, what would you spend it on?

There are a couple of things I would like to spend money on for eWrite. Sometimes its hard enough to get money out of a business to move things on fast enough.

Im considering spending this amount of money myself, currently Im thinking of the following items, I won’t mention their price but in total they are roughly equal to 1000 Euro.

• Paying for a logo recently designed for eWrite
• Paying for a set amount of time for a writer to improve the content of our website.
• A paid account with SpringLoops for better version control of our software for a few months.

Other items I have considered spending money on are BNI membership, travelling to items such as Future of Web Apps in October.

Have you spent your own money on your business in the past? Do you recommend it or advise against it ?