Wateree Blog

Syncman was one of Merlin Mann’s picks on MacBreak Weekly yesterday. For those (undoubtedly few) who don’t who Merlin is, let’s just say his “internet-famous” Inbox Zero concept revolutionized the way that I deal with email. It’s a constant struggle, but zero is always the goal.

I actually noticed when Merlin bought a license a few weeks ago. I wanted to thank him, or maybe blog or tweet about it, but I thought nah… that’s so cheesy. Well, to hell with that.

You’re famous. You like my software. That’s awesome!

Software developers are simple creatures. We’re old school craftsmen in an era of bits and bytes, and nothing gives us more pleasure than for our ‘work’ to be the object of consideration and praise.

This boost to my motivation comes with very good timing. I’m finally back into the development of the next major version of Syncman. If folks are still happy with the current version that hasn’t seen a significant update in more than a year, then I can’t wait to show them how much better it can be.

Wow, it’s been a while. But that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening! Ok… not that much has been happening, but I have finally rolled out some changes that will hopefully help me to move a little faster in the future.

The website and blog have been given a much needed makeover. A bit more stylish, and a lot easier for me to update and maintain. I’ve dropped Wordpress in favor of a simple homebrew static site generator. No more Wordpress updates to fret over! The new blog doesn’t support comments, but I like to think of this as a feature. Not that there were bad comments before, I just don’t think the blog is an appropriate place for discussion.

I’ve also locked down the Google Group and removed any links to it. The group has been a thorn in my side for a while now, and I’m glad to see it go. Copious spam led to the necessity of moderation, which wasted my time and sometimes caused long delays before questions were answered. I now realize that Syncman is not a product that benefits from a community. It’s more “set and forget” software, with almost all questions better answered from a well tended FAQ and a direct link to personal email support. Hence the updated support page.

One last change was the adoption of FastSpring for processing payments. This is another change with the purpose of allowing me to spend more of my Wateree Time on developing Syncman instead of on maintenance and administration. Let’s see how it all goes… but I’m optimistic and excited!

ps: If this update to the blog has by chance caused turmoil in your feed reader I apologize. It should only be a one-time thing.

Hi all,

Quick note to let everyone know that Syncman is the MacUpdate Promo for the day. Today and today only get Syncman for more than 50% off ($5.95)!

So if you’ve been trying out Syncman, but the financial crisis has so far prohibited you from dropping the full €9.95, well… today is the day for you.

ps. A few comments there already about how this functionality is already available with Address Book. That was to be expected, but for first time visitors here’s what I wrote about it back when that feature was first released.

UPDATE:

Many thanks to all those that took part in the MacUpdate Promo yesterday. Special thanks to all those that gave great reviews in the comments. Feedback like that is what motivates development.

I’ve decided to let the promo continue (at a slightly lower discount of 30% off) for an undetermined amount of time, so if you missed the promo yesterday you’ll still have a few days to get Syncman at a great discount.

pps. There was a problem yesterday with license files for users with special characters in their names. The license should still work as expected, but might be terribly mangled. If you’d like a fixed license, just let me know.

Also known as the “beating your head against the wall” sound. Turns out I left a doozy of a bug in the 1.2 release. When adding contacts to your Gmail account, Syncman would not add these contacts to the My Contacts group. This could cause strange problems, especially if you opted not to synchronize Suggested Contacts.

I’ve just released Syncman 1.2.1 (Syncman > Check for Updates) which will properly add any new contacts in Address Book to the My Contacts group in Gmail.

After updating, if Syncman still wants to delete a bunch of contacts from Address Book, the easiest solution is to empty the cache Syncman > Preferences > Advanced > Empty Cache and sync again. The downside to the ‘easy’ solution is that it leaves a bunch of duplicate contacts in your Suggested Contacts. The alternative solution, which doesn’t do this, is to manually move those contacts into My Contacts in Gmail.

I sincerely apologize for this lapse in quality control. If you’ve been bitten by this bug and need any assistance in getting your contact lists back in order, please don’t hesitate to contact us. And many thanks to Ross on the Syncman group for noticing and helping to track down this bug.