Balsamiq Blog

Weekly Update: week of March 17th

by Peldi Guilizzoni. March 23rd, 2008 under Company / Business, Development / Technical — 1 Comment

Hi there, I’ll try to keep it short this time

Coding

- I finally got around to writing the licensing, serial-key / 30-day-trial code I needed. I was dreading it, but it ended up being kind-of fun to write.
- I have a few critical bugs to file in the Confluence integration story, but after that I think I’ll be ready to post a 30-day trial downloadable plugin to the site. So exciting, getting close!
- I added the serial key code to the MockupsOnAir version, so it’s fully functional only to license holders and not everyone.

Site

- I added a couple of pages and refined some others. This is more of a way of life than a TODO item…anyways the site is pretty close to being ready to launch I think.
- I signed up for Google Webmaster Tools and submitted my sitemap to Google…boring stuff but it had to be done.

Company

- I got my EIN (tax ID)
- I opened a small business checking account

In other words, Balsamiq Studios LLC can now legally accept payments, whoo-hoo!

My TODOs for this week (and probably next):

- fix the remaining Mockups+Confluence bugs
- add my plugin to CruiseControl to publish my builds live auto-magically (gotta learn some tricky ANT+Maven stuff)
- set up my site with e-junkie (bad name, great payment processing service)
- add more pages to the site
- redo the introductory video using the confluence plugin version
- meet with a small business CPA and get set up with his favorite bookkeeping software (I did research into it, and all I have to say is YUCK!)

Thanks for listening and keep that feedback coming! I am especially interested in hearing what you are using Mockups for and how it’s working for you. And if you are not using it, why not?

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Weekly Update

by Peldi Guilizzoni. March 16th, 2008 under Before the Jump, Branding / Marketing, Development / Technical — No Comment

Let’s see, what did I do this week.

Website:

• I wrote a few more pages, including the Privacy Policy (I know, fun). Still too many broken links though, I’m not at a state where I want people to see the site yet. I’d say I’m still a few weeks away, so please refrain from advertising my site to anyone.
• I set up Google Webmaster Tools, interesting stuff
• I coded up a monthly newsletter with CampaignMonitor. Head over to http://www.balsamiq.com to sign up for it, I’ll be sending the first test newsletter out soon.

Coding:

• I worked on the desktop version, which I’m calling “Mockups on AIR” to see if I can take advantage of some AIR buzz. This version of Mockups is important because it bridges the online/offline worlds (a shortcoming of many web apps today) and it supports full keyboard shortcuts without me having to go crazy with hacky javascript (for now). I am going to give a version of it away that only has a few features, with the full-featured version (with open/save/save as/export png features) available for free to people who bought the plugin. I don’t want to sell it as a standalone product though, I don’t think it’s worth my time at $20-$50 bucks a pop. Try it out! http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop (if you want to know the temporary user/pwd to unlock all the features email me).
• I set up CruiseControl. This is totally awesome. I check in a feature or a fix, and within 2 minutes my website is updated with the latest build, of every variation of mockups that was touched by my check-in. Just like magic.
• I added 12 new icons (bringing the total up to 71) and the following control types: Image Placeholder, Street Map, Charts (Line, Bar, Column, Pie), Cover Flow and a Formatting Toolbar (so that you can mock up a text editor). This brings the number of controls available to 53, which I think is plenty for version 1 (but if there is something you really miss let me know, it takes me about 10 minutes to add a control type).
• I refactored some code and fixed some annoying bugs related to clicking and dragging. The app should feel much smoother now. Try it out! http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/live

Beta and others:

• I added my friends R### and R###, thanks for joining guys
• I Installed Parallels and Windoze so that I can use Captivate and Quickbooks in it.
• I am looking for quotes to add to the website regarding Mockups or Balsamiq as a whole. If you have been using Mockups and have something (hopefully positive) to share and want to get a little free publicity, don’t be shy! See Andrew’s quote on this page http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups for an idea of what I’m looking for.
• I should be getting my business tax number this week. Once that’s set up, I can get a bank account, CPA and all that good stuff.

Ok I think that’s enough for now. Oh and I also worked full-time at Adobe and prepared some for the big move to Italy. No big deal.

Until next week, Peldi

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Continuous Integration is rad

by Peldi Guilizzoni. March 11th, 2008 under Development / Technical — 1 Comment

I just finished setting up my first CruiseControl project (I can’t afford Bamboo right now).

So now every time I do a check-in that’s related to Mockups Live, if the build is successful it automagically goes live here within 2 minutes. If the build fails, I get emails nagging me until I fix it.

Totally awesome.

The resources I used to do the set up:

• this article by Peter Martin – go Adobe Consulting!
• CruiseControl Configuration Reference

Next I have to make it up build numbers, create perforce labels and all that good stuff.

I feel like a software powerhouse (of one person). Good times.

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Too overwhelmed to post

by Peldi Guilizzoni. March 11th, 2008 under Before the Jump, Company / Business — No Comment

Hi there, you might be wondering what happened to me in the last couple of weeks. In short, so much has happened that I was too overwhelmed to write an update about it. The dust is settling a bit now, so here it goes.

Highlights:

• I made the jump: I gave notice at my job, there’s no going back now!
• I bought one-way tickets to Italy for May 1st.
• I (mostly) integrated Mockups with Confluence
• I incorporated my LLC
• I met some great people
• I completely re-did the website, and this time it’s for real

…not bad for a couple of weeks huh?

Quitting my job

I didn’t sleep for 3 days about this one. I hated the thought of leaving my company, my friends, the products I have worked so hard on, and to cause stress to my boss and colleagues. On the other hand, I just had to do it, my mind is focused on Balsamiq and I really want to give it my best shot.

I had never quit a job before, so I was really, really nervous about it. Luckily my boss, and his boss, and really everyone at Adobe is a great, great person. Everyone was both sad and supportive and understanding and everyone wished me luck in my new endeavors. I was sincerely moved by everyone’s reaction. It was really incredible. If you are reading this and are looking for a software job, go interview at Adobe right now. It’s simply an awesome company to work for. I can’t stress that enough.

I’m staying on part-time for a couple of months to assure a smooth transition, we are already interviewing some great candidates to replace me.

We’re moving to Italy!

May 1st, one way tickets. We can’t wait. Of course we have to sell / pack / store / give away all of our stuff now, which should be fun Stay tuned, I think I’ll make a little Google Site for it.

Mockups, meet Confluence

With the help of Atlassian’s Jonathan Nolen I was able to code most of the server-side integration of Mockups with Confluence in a couple of days. It was fairly smooth and a lot of fun. Jonathan is now on the beta, hi Jonathan!

Seeing the integration come together was awesome, it basically was seeing my vision come to life. I can’t wait until it’s all done and working well.

I also decided to make Mockups a plugin for JIRA as well, Atlassian’s super-popular bug-tracking / project management tool. This will significantly broaden my potential customer base, which is a good thing.

I incorporated my LLC

Easy: I met with a lawyer that came recommended once, then the rest has been over email / mail. Two weeks later I have an LLC in California. Interesting how hard it seemed at first and how painless it was in retrospect.

I met some great people

I had a nice long lunch / walk with Chris Kohlhardt of Gliffy fame. We had a long conversation about Gliffy and Balsamiq and my motivations for going into business with this idea. I have a lot to learn from him and I am confident we’ll find a way to help each other’s companies be successful.

In my visits to Atlassian I also met a few people there like Laura Khalil and others: I like how young, fresh and “hungry” the Atlassian folks are…it reminds me of Macromedia back when I joined in 2002.

Another thing I want to mention here is that my friend Ryan at Yahoo really wants to buy Mockups, but they use Twiki there. So I looked into it and the integration looks doable, I’ll have to dust off my Perl but I think it’ll be ok. I sure wouldn’t mind having Yahoo as a customer

Yet another website redesign

Oh man, this was a lot of work (like, three full days!). I started in Illustrator, designed it up, then coded it in Dreamweaver with CSS (I think I’m finally getting the hang of it), then ported my design to a Drupal theme (another first for me, I had never used Drupal before). I also decided that I hate the way Drupal deals with blogs, so I decided to keep my Wordpress blog, just skin it with the same design as the rest of the site. The result is live at www.balsamiq.com.

It might not be the best site out there, but:

• it’s fully my design (well of course it’s inspired by what I consider the best sites out there)
• I can edit every aspect of it through a browser, including adding pages etc. – this is hugely important, since I seem to tweak the copy of it multiple times a day
• It’s easy to maintain since it’s template-based (one header and footer files, so to speak)
• I can easily tweak the design (colors and spacing) now that it’s all CSS based
• It will scale better and (hopefully) it conveys my message better: “I make plugins for web office suites. Many plugins for many web apps. And my plugins are nice, you should buy them.”.

I am happy with it. Of course now I have to populate it with the tons of pages I have planned and tweak it forever, but it’s now much easier for me to do. I also learned a few things in the process (Drupal, PHPMyAdmin, Wordpress themes, CSS, more Illustrator practice…), which is always nice.

What’s next for Balsamiq

• Finish up work at Adobe
• More website content
• Back to the plugin (finish it for Confluence, finish/fix the client side, do the JIRA integration)
• Get a bank account for Balsamiq
• find a small business CPA (I have some names)
• Set up CruiseControl (I can’t affort Bamboo..yet)
• …a lot more

Onward!

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