One step backwards, two forwards?

I have a bit of a dilemma. I want to start pushing the advertising of NeverOverwrite again but I'm not happy with one of its current limitations. In the early days (around beta time) a user suggested adding support for subfolders when choosing to begin monitoring a folder. I added this in a rather loose way, but I've never been entirely happy with it.

The reason being, there are several scenarios in which the previous versions of files can appear to vanish. Examples are; moving a file to another subfolder, renaming a subfolder, or moving a subfolder to another subfolder. These are instances where the software currently loses track of the history of the files, and it's too easy to do in my opinion. I have done it myself, and while it's pretty easy to correct (by undoing the move or rename) it's far from perfect.

I've spent some time analysing all the scenarios I can think of and I've come up with 9 that aren't presently handled. Of these 7 can be handled fairly easily but 2 are not straightforward.

For example, moving a monitored file to another subfolder is a scenario in which the user would (quite rightly) expect the history of the file to follow the file itself. But moving a file results in a series of Windows events (not just one) which are not easy to differentiate from the user deleting a file, and creating a new one in another folder which happens to have the same name.

There are some strategies I can use in all these scenarios, but they will take time to implement and test, and I don't believe it's the best use of my time at this stage. I would rather get a solid product released, with a more polished and reliable feel before moving on to this work.

So I've taken the decision to roll back the subfolder support until a later date when 1) I know it can be done, and 2) there's enough users of the current version to justify the work.

Hopefully this is a step back that will get me two steps forward in the long run.

New trial model

A few days ago I uploaded a new version which has been in the works since the end of last year. It’s been amazingly difficult (but not entirely surprising) to find the time to work on NeverOverwrite since I signed up to a new contract in Southampton (100+ miles from home).The work has gone in dribs and drabs.

So what’s changed? Well unless you’re coming to the software as a new user you may not notice too much. The trial model has turned literally on its head from where it was. It used to stop monitoring after 30 days when the trial expires, but still allow users to access the previous versions. A few users who have kindly taken the time to respond to my requests for feedback made me realise that perhaps this isn’t the best way to acquire new customers!

The latest version will carry on monitoring your files, and saving all the versions even after it expires. The difference is you can’t access these versions once expired (Preview and Drag’n’drop are disabled). I think this is a fair deal, we shall see how it is received. The whole trial system is also slightly less naggy (only one reminder per day, and none inside the first 3 days) and the user can register by selecting “Register...” on any NeverOverwrite context menu instead of only being able to do this via the Previous Versions window.

There’s also a new menu option “Tell us something...” which is available on the Previous Versions window. I want to make it as easy as possible for users to give me feedback on what they are finding painful, or fruitful! Rather than them having to go to the website and dig out the email address, compose an email etc. (which personally puts me off), clicking this menu option will take them straight to a contact form on the site, 3 easy fields (name & email optional) and one click to send the feedback. I hope that’s easy enough!

In fact the contact form has meant I can finally get rid of the email addresses on the website which has been causing me some sleepless nights (ok not literally). Even more so recently as I’ve had the odd email pop through about certain “performance enhancing” blue pills, always a worrying sign...

join the Queue

A few users have been asking for some improvements in the overall speed when monitoring large folders. I hadn't really anticipated people using NeverOverwrite for monitoring anything other than say Microsoft Office type documents. But several of you are routinely using it for monitoring folders of around half a gig(!) with photo's etc. While the database NeverOverwrite uses scales very well (I've tested it with several gigabytes of test files, constantly adding and retrieving) the user experience was far from ideal since when first instructing NeverOverwrite to monitor the large folder, it must wait until the initial versions of all files are saved in the database before continuing. For Half a gig this can take a couple of minutes as you can imagine. All this manifested as a huge perceived delay when clicking on the "Start Monitoring" button.

Happily I can now announce this is a thing of the past! These large processes are now queued to be processed in the background and NeverOverwrite will now return straight away with "... now monitoring your folder" message. You can even tell it to monitor other folders straight away, these being added to the queue. Note though that if you open a Previous Versions window somewhere, and a large background task is running, you'll be shown the Previous Versions dialog with the version list greyed out. The version list will automatically be enabled and show the file versions when the background tasks are complete (no need to click the Retry button).

I'm hoping this will make the user experience a bit more palatable when dealing with these big folders. Give the new version a go if you're one of these "power users" :) Version 1.0.11.0 with the changes in was added Sunday 4th October. Uninstall you current version if you have one (opting to keep your data files). Also a restart of Windows is required after installing the new version in order to pick up all the changes.

Feel free to comment on how you find it!

Generating more traffic to your MicroISV

After much searching around for a good solid starter resource for getting traffic to your microISV site I found the following:

http://www.followsteph.com/how-to-generate-traffic-to-your-website.html

Steph's blog has been around for a long time and the eBook isn't advice from a fly-by-night but really solid and practical. Importantly for me I can read and digest it in a day. Some other resources looked good but were so wordy I doubt I'd get through it before losing interest in the whole idea! Definitely a recommended purchase (I'm not affiliated).

On becoming more visible

The price of NeverOverwrite went up a few days ago. I was a bit concerned this would put people off buying it but having done some research on similar apps out there it actually fits in quite well with the average price now.

I've also done a round of registering the software on shareware sites. Most of these I doubt your average user will ever visit, but for the links back to neveroverwrite.com they are valuable. It's also a nice feeling seeing your software listed on another site for the first time :) I can recommend RoboSoft which I used to do the job. It's not quite as "automatic" as I'd hoped, still requiring a few hours work, but the end result is your software registered on hundreds of sites.

One happy outcome is that today when i google "neveroverwrite" I have taken over the page one results. This wasn't the case even just a few weeks ago, google would say "did you mean 'never overwrite'?" etc.

I've also shortened the trial period to 30 days. While 45 days made a lot of sense to get people used to the software, it makes less sense from a business point of view. All those extra 2 weeks add up. 30 days seems to be the industry standard and I don't think it will stop users installing and trying out the software.

Reviewers wanted

Anyone interested in writing a quick review of NeverOverwrite? If you have somewhere visible to post it and you’d like to write a small review for public consumption then drop me a line. There’s a free license in it for you :)

Increase price for more sales obvious move(!)

The world works in a strange way, I am coming to believe. Ever since I asked the joelonsoftware forum for an opinion my neveroverwrite site i’ve had comments that the software is too cheap. I am slowly coming round to the logic that having a sub-20 dollar program might give out the message that neveroverwrite is a cheapie fly-by-night product - which it isn’t (some serious work went into it readers!). The original idea was to make it so cheap people wouldn’t think about parting with a few bob to have it in their tool kit. But since sales have been so slow (zero to date) could this counter-intuitive step actually work? Or could it hurt potential sales? Well I guess so but since everyone to date seems quite happy to run the trials down I can’t be too worried about that.

I’m blogging about it as I’ve decided to put the price up to $29.95 in what feels like a bold-time-will-tell move. This will probably happen in the next few days so if you want to take advantage of the current price then get your orders in now folks.

Next is the matter of if the 45 day trial is too long... hmm