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Suppose I have a freshly compiled and tested 100 MB software. I want to eventually distribute it and sell it online as a product. This is a cross-platform product (done in C++).
What are the needed technical steps to achieve this? For each step, a description and an example of some software (if pertinent) would help. Also, how important is it would be helpful too.
My problem is that it is not really clear what are the stages to go through to release a software online. This list would help me a lot to know what steps I should investigate in priority.
What I am not talking about / interested in (because it is mainly the results I got while searching for this):
Website building;
Marketing & Sales;
Continuous Integration servers;
Steam, Mac Store, Windows Store;
Open Source.
Steps I identified:
Obfuscate: not sure about this one;
Licensing System: activation code system integrated in the software directly (See Digital River, SafeNet, Reprise, Flexera);
Installers: MSI for Windows (see Wix), DMG for mac;
Code Signing: ensures that your users do not get warnings (Verisign, GlobalSign...)
Free Trial Distribution: putting the installers on our own site is risky because of bandwidth and lags. Your users should be able to download a free trial quickly wherever they are. So a CDN would help (AWS CloudFront).
Auto Update System: notifiy the users, download and install new versions (Omaha);
Activation: this allows the user to activate the product online or directly from within the product;
I think that these two steps are the missing pieces in your list:
Write documentation (in your case PDF/RTF/HTML, or online tutorial)
Integrate a payment provider that will accept the payment on behalf of you
With the above two steps you should be ready to go.
There are some books that I can recommend you (they are 10 year old now, but you see shareware/try before you buy/ software is an old thing - nowadays people tend to write web apps or mobile mostly):
http://www.alibris.com/From-Program-to-Product-Turning-Your-Code-Into-a-Saleable-Product-Rocky-Smolin/book/10572213?matches=50
http://www.alibris.com/Micro-Isv-From-Vision-to-Reality-Bob-Walsh/book/9122742?matches=37
Related
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I'm working with my brother on a website idea we have, and we'd like to use a tool to plan sprints and assign estimates to individual tickets.
Atlassian's JIRA+Greenhopper looks fantastic but costs $20/month and at this stage we're just validating our idea and would rather not spend money on a tool if we can avoid it.
Are there any free alternatives to these tools?
Taiga is 100% free and has all the features that comes with something like JIRA.
http://taiga.io/
It even has a burn-down chart! So that's a win!
Here's a site with a nice overview of what Taiga integrates with and real developer opinions on the tool.
http://stackshare.io/taiga
Trello is a good tool for creating task boards and tracking work for small teams.
https://trello.com/
I get this question a lot as a Scrum Trainer.
I strongly recommend Index Cards and a Physical Scrum Board. While it won't calculate time addition for you, that task is trivial and the 'information at a glance' that a Scrum Board offers is hugely beneficial.
If you absolutely HAVE to have an electronic board, try Visual Studio Online (TFS in the cloud) which, at present, is free for up to 5 users.
Another option (We use Jira) would be YouTRACK. http://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/buy/
It is free for up to 10 users and seems to offer pretty much the same functionality.
DISCLAIMER: I have never used YouTRACK on any level. IntelliJ is a great product though.
For Agile project management, I have used extensive Thoughtworks - Mingle
It's free for 5 users.
Another good alternative could be agilefant. Agilefant offers a free and open source product that can be downloaded and deployed into your own private cloud.
If you are looking open source project management, which you can host on your own, the following list could be useful:
ProjectLibre is a java based ms-project rich client alternative
LibrePlan is a rich client and based on these videos it seems like ms-project and includes hours spend by user on task, collaboration was not visible in the videos
OpenProject is a web based software with features such as issues, time lines (gantt chart), calendars, meeting notes and more
Redmine is a web based software using the Ruby on Rails framework that includes issues, work log, a wiki and a gantt chart and more.
You can also check TargetProcess (http://www.targetprocess.com/pricing/) it's free for 5 users
i use it for three months and it's very good
I used Trello (http://trello.com) and Mingle (http://getmingle.io) on two different projects. Trello is great for tracking tasks and collaborating for small team. My trello project team had 3 members, we were distributed. We also use Google drives to track unstructured information. My mingle project team have more than 10 people, and used it for years. Team love using it for standup on big touch TV and different roles (BA/QA/PM) like it because you have have your own workspace track different tasks and sometime build their own report).
IceScrum.
It's open source and you can run on your own server.
The best open source project planning in my opinion!
https://www.teamwork.com/pricing
"If you don't pay after the 30 day free trial you can still use Teamwork Projects free forever"
"We also have a Free Forever Plan with 2 projects and 100mb space"
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I am trying to use Advanced Installer as an application installer and auto-updater. Most of the resources is available on Advanced Installer website only.
Have any one used it before? I would like to hear more about bugs / stability issues if there are, especially auto-update feature
Regarding the bug/stability issues, you can see from the release history the frequency on auto-updater bug fixes (six this year - four in v9.2 and one each in v9.1.1, v9.0.1 and v9.0).
What I've noticed is that occurring issues are promptly solved.
I posted earlier the following:
I have used the free version of Advanced Installer, including its auto-update feature, and I have not experienced any problems with it.
Please note that I was talking about the ability of Advanced Installer MSI scripts to automatically remove older files when upgrading to a newer version of a program. I was not talking about the ability of the application to check for an update automatically. That's probably not in the free feature-set.
I have used advanced Installer It is really good.I would recommend to use it if you are developing a msi setup file for web applications.It is even integrated
with several other tools used for developing such as wix,inno setuo etc
I have not used Advanced Installer, however, just wanted to refer InstallJammer which is a multiplatform installer http://www.installjammer.com/, which I have been using to create application installer and easy to use and configure.
I am using the Advanced Installer daily for my work . I can say that their manuals are not helpful enough, especially for people who do not have any experience with those tools
. However if you pay for support , they can help you almost immediately .
For sure there are some limits about this tools especially if you want your build to be MSI the UI will not respond as well as the exe - but i know they are trying to fix this issue .
If you learn how to use it FOR sure you are going to like it.
The nice part about advanced installer is that they collect analytics (you have to pay for this feature ) and they can show you how many downloads per day , or how many users chose option 1 rather than option 2.
Or you can send those statistics to your webserver and with POST can manipulate however you want - which is free!
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I am looking for an installer solution like it is used for Google Chrome:
When you click Download, you don't actually download the installer, but a very small Downloader, which then downloads the Chrome Installer, and launches it afterwards.
I know Sweet Labs is developing Ignite, but it is still in closed beta.
Are there any similar solutions out there, which are ready to use?
How about Google Omaha? (Actually used by Google Chrome) It seems to be the thing.
The Omaha project provides a shared autoupdate and install system for
Windows client products at Google that works on multiple Windows
platforms, including Windows Vista. Goals include the following:
One autoupdate mechanism which allows teams to roll out updates with no dependencies on other product teams, without having to write
their own client or server logic One autoupdate server that handles
all autoupdate requests - each product team will not need to roll out
and manage their own server One desktop autoupdate client shared by
all desktop client software - there will not be separate programs
running for each installed application
A tiny meta-installer which includes the update client (and knows how to install it if necessary) and a reference to the desired
application which the update client can then download and install
One-click web install of applications once the update client is installed
Support for rich update deploy logic allowing multiple tracks for public release, beta, development and "canary" experiments
Support for restricted user environments; for example, users without administrator privileges
Providing a shared runtime for other functionality common to all Google client applications: Crash reporting
Advanced Installer can do that too. It creates a small executable that can launch an MSI package from an URL you specify, so the package downloaded by the user is very small. As a bonus, you can split the application in features, and set it to create one CAB archive for each feature, so the actual install process will download only the CAB files for the features installed, reducing the download time for users that don't install all the features.
To have the user see only a small progress bar instead of full MSI dialogs you just need to tick a checkbox from Install Parameters page.
However, you should now that this feature is available only in the commercial licenses, you need at least a Professional license. You can test it, during the trial period access to all of its features is not restricted.
I now have this quite complete list of solutions:
Google Omaha
AdvancedInstaller
Somoto BetterInstaller ( + adds recommendations from which you make money)
Ignite (not available yet)
Or possibly create your own using the WiX Toolset, NSIS or Inno Setup.
All of those are free solutions, except for AdvancedInstaller. It has a free edition too, but cannot be used to create this package type; for this you need at least a Professional edition.
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I am looking for an Open Source & Free Browser based Adhoc / End User Reporting Tool preferably based on Java (any other technologies are also welcome).
I have researched on JasperServer Pro, BIRT & Pentaho. Even though these are open source & free, the end user/adhoc reporting components needs to be paid annual license fees which is not quite affordable for us. So please tell you suggestions
Thanks In Advance.
Mhm ... I'll throw in a paid one: i-net Clear Reports (used to be i-net Crystal-Clear). The reason I do this is simple: I think it fits your needs, but it's a one time investment if you're happy with what it offers. Its constantly being improved and the support is much better than of the most open source or free communities (that should be taken into account).
The product is entirely Java. It has a powerful ad-hoc reporting component that is made to be an easy-to-use thing for non-technical users. Your users won't have to know anything about reporting at all. They simply select the kind of report, the data et voila there is a report suiting the needs.
The reporting server has a great web GUI for ad hoc reporting (and much more), but you could also access a Java applet.
The end users will not need any training since the GUI is highly intuitive. All reports (depending on security settings) can be accessed via DAV our a report repository gui.
The server supports different security settings on a per user or per group basis.
Disclosure: Yep. I work for the company who built this.
fyireporting has a report editor component and is licensed under the Apache v2 License. I still have to do an in-depth evaluation, but it looks quite good from the website.
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We are looking into solution which involves playing copyright protected video using Microsoft DRM Server and Silverlight player. the video will be played to registered users on the web using Silverlight player.
I've read all MSDN documentation on this subject and kind of get an idea how it is supposed to work.
However, I couldn't find information on pricing and installation of Microsoft Inidividuazation server. Hence, here are my questions for someone with experience in this area:
How fast is it to setup a quick "proof of concept" solution involving windows DRM and Silverlight. Can we do it on our own or need Microsoft help?
What is the pricing for such solution in operations?
thanks!!
To answer your first question: Micorsoft Silverlight has built in support for Microsofts latest DRM technology: PlayReady DRM. To set up a proof of concept solution you will need a license server and a packaging server, both of these are availible through the PlayReady Server SDK which is built upon the .NET framework. Notice: it is an SDK, not an out-of-the box server, so some developing needs to be done. To set up a proof-of-concept solution you will need the SDK, which is accessible to you after a licensing progress that can take a few weeks. For the Silverlight DRM client, all you need is the silverlight development kit, availible free online. It's hard to say how much time that needs to go into developing the license server and packaging server since it depends on how much staff that is availible to the project and the skill of your staff, but creating licenses for the silverlight client is the easiest license to create. It should not be an overwhelming project to take on. You can set up this proof-of-concept solution your self, but you will need to involve microsoft to license the server sdk.
To answer you second question: The pricing for the Server SDK is 30k $, with additional cost depending on number of processors in the license server or a small additional cost for each license that is released by the license server. So it depends on the size of your service and customer base. If you need to release a lot of licenses you will need at more powerful license server, plus release a lot of licenses.
I would also suggest looking into PlayReady service providers. These sell production-ready playready solutions to be used by other service providers that don't wish to implement a whole PlayReady solution by themselves. A list of available service providers is available from Microsoft's PlayReady homepage.
I hope this answers have been at least a little helpful, and I wish you all luck!
You can ask from Microsoft WMDRM 10.1. It is for SERVER 2003, and It's free !!!