http://www.freewarebb.com Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:11:16 +0000 60 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58704-spotlight-chun-zhang-of-efficientpim-free/ Q: Your real name:
A: Chun Zhang

Q: Also known as:
A: Paul Zhang

Q: How old are you?:
A: 36

Q: Your freeware software:
A: EfficientPIM Free; Efficient Address Book Free; Efficient To-Do List Free; Efficient Reminder Free; Efficient Calendar Free; Efficient Notes Free; Efficient Diary; Efficient Password Manager and Efficient Sticky Notes.

Q: Your website:
A: http://www.efficientpim.com/freeedition.htm

Q: When did you start developing freeware?
A: I have started developing EfficientPIM since Dec. 2005, and the Beta version was officially issued in May 2007.
Since 2008, Efficient Address Book Free, Efficient To-Do List Free, Efficient Reminder Free, Efficient Calendar Free, Efficient Notes Free, Efficient Diary, Efficient Password Manager and Efficient Sticky Notes had been issued one by one.

Q: Why did you start developing freeware?
A: Developing the software makes me full of joy. It feels good if my software can be used by more friends, and brings them high efficiency and joy. So I decide to issue the free version besides the commercial version.

Q: Is it a career, or just for fun?
A: I think both. For me, develop the software is a kind of fun and enjoyment. Of course, I am also confident to earn an abundant life for my family through developing software.

Q: What's the most difficult project/development you've done?
A: I have encountered one non-technological problem when developing one management software of the construction industry around 2004. It requires a clear understanding on the tender process of the construction industry before develop this software. Then I know to develop a software does not only require software development technology, but also deep understanding on the practical requirement of the customers in this industry.

Q: Please tell us a little about yourself:
A: I live in one municipality called Chongqing in the southwest of China with my family. This is one beautiful mountain city in the upstream of the Yangtze River. I am an independent software developer. I love football besides the enthusiasm on developing software.

Q: What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?
A: I have developed a serials personal information management software including EfficientPIM, Efficient Sticky Notes and etc. with customers all over the world.

Q: Any failures you'd care to tell us about?
A: I am a perfectionist, that is also the reason why the new version of my software are often been postponed. Besides, I am not very good at English, so my communication with counterpart and friends all over the world is not so smooth.

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?
A: Please do not only regard it as one job! It requires your internal enthusiasm on developing better software.

Q: What websites do you visit to relax?
A: I usually visit sina.com, csdn.net, qq.com and other website.

Q: Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?
A: I am now developing the LAN version of the EfficientPIM.

Q: What's your favorite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?
A: The book which influences me most is "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", "The Shawshank Redemption" is my favorite movie, for my favorite food, it must be Chongqing hotpot which is preferred by most of the local.]]> Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:11:16 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58704-spotlight-chun-zhang-of-efficientpim-free/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58651-spotlight-pascal-baspeyras-of-coollector-movie-database/ Your real name:
Pascal Baspeyras.

Also known as:
(cool) Hector.

How old are you?:
38.

Your freeware software:
Coollector Movie Database.

Your website:
http://www.coollector.com

When did you started developing freeware?:
I started programming when I was 13. I had bought myself an Oric Atmos, but for several months, I had no screen. So all I could do is blindly program some music and sound from the command prompt. With the years, I've made all kind of programs for myself, but Coollector is the only one I ever made available to others.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
I'm a big movie lover, so I started developing Coollector for my personal needs. I made it freeware because I wanted a maximum of persons to use it. Also, I didn't want to waste my time and energy with user payments, accounts, anti-piracy protection, etc...

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
I'm trying (struggling) to make a living from Coollector.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
Coollector is the project of my life. There seems to be no limit to the improvements that can be done to it... Like managing other types of collections (books, music, games...) or translating the database into other languages than English. And some other developments that I keep secret for the moment. I can't imagine moving on to another project. It'd be like abandoning my loved child.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
The most striking about me is that I don't have any social life at all, even though I'm a rather pleasant person. I've not always been like that, but I want so much for Coollector to become a success, that I live and breathe for it. I work so hard on the program that I'm often at the verge of exhaustion.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
To have had the mental strength to never give up, or even considering giving up, in spite of the success being much longer to come than I expected.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
I think the current interface is a failure. It's ugly, and new users have difficulties to get it. I think Coollector's concept is exceptional, but the interface is clearly the weak point. Fortunately, I've designed a new interface that'll be much more functional and understandable, and I'll devote the next months to implement it. Also, I'll be using the Clutter Toolkit library, which allows candies like animations, transparency, gradients, etc... And I'll replace that puke-inducing blue background, LOL!

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
You must be warned: programming is a school of frustration!. Adding a new feature always takes longer than what you expect. You'll stumble on bugs that'll drive you crazy. But there's no alternative if you want your ideas to become reality. You have to go through this suffering. It's like walking in the mountains: you suffer a little, but you have great satisfaction after it's finished.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
Technological blogs like engadget or downloadsquad.

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Well, let's start with the new interface... After that, I still have plans for the next 5 years, LOL !

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
Younger, I was into science fiction (Isaac Asimov "Foundation", Dan Simmons "Hyperion", Tolkien "Lord of the Rings"). But I don't find time to read books anymore. My favorite movies are Pulp Fiction, Dr. Strangelove, True Lies, Forrest Gump, Bladerunner, Silence of the Lambs, Conan the barbarian, the Indiana Jones movies, the Lord of the Rings movies, the Star Wars movies, the Alien movies, the Terminator movies, etc...

But since a few years, I watch more TV series than movies: Dr. House, Lost, 24, Seinfeld, Monty Python, Desperate Housewives, C.S.I. Las Vegas (not Manhattan, nor the awfully braindead and bling-bling Miami), etc...
I was much impressed by the first season of Prison Break and Heroes, but less by the following ones.

When I was a teen, I played video games a lot. But after playing Warcraft II for 3 days in a row without going out, I realized how addictive the video games had becomed, and how easily you could be swallowed into spending all your time playing them, and that in the end it wasn't any good for you. So I stopped playing completely. I still like to see how video games are evolving technically, but I stay away from the joystick as if it was a line of cocaine.

I won't talk about food, because the way I feed myself is horrible. I even take vitamin supplements to compensate the ill-balance of my alimentation.]]> Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:45:04 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58651-spotlight-pascal-baspeyras-of-coollector-movie-database/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58584-spotlight-oliver-pfister-of-freevimager/ Your real name:
Oliver Pfister

Also known as:
Conta, my high school nick name, my site name contaware.com comes from that

How old are you?:
35

Your freeware software:
FreeVimager

Your website:
http://www.contaware.com

When did you started developing freeware?:
I started developing FreeVimager back in 2004. It was first released to the public in 2007. In 2006 I released it to my friends.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
Just out of curiosity in 1999 I started writing a graphics library.
In 2001 I used part of the library while programming on a GPS viewer for the company I was working. In 2004 I returned from my 2 years long around the world trip. At that time the mega-pixel cameras started to appear on the market and one of my friends complained about the slowness of loading its pictures on his laptop so I started to implement the fast loading algorithm of jpeg pictures available in FreeVimager and realized that the viewer could be useful to others.

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
It is both fun and work: during the week I develop FreeVimager and ContaCam (my commercial product), I do system administration for a company and sometimes I develop web sites.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
It was hard to write all the metadata (EXIF, IPTC and XMP) handling for jpeg and tiff files: I wanted batch processing for XMP and many other special things that I wrote from scratch.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I live in Switzerland, in the south part of it, very close to Italy. My mother tongue is italian, I love pasta and pizza. I will soon marry, no kids yet. Other than programming I like to practice sports, go out with friends and do long walks in the mountains with my future wife.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
Having more than 100'000 downloads on my site (without considering other freeware or shareware web pages). Despite the classical looking interface of my software I'm happy there still are people considering quality software over shiny GUIs.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
I'm a bit slow in releasing software because I test them too much. FreeVimager could have been released one year earlier...

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
I learned a lot about programming by just doing it. My approach is program something for fun and see what comes out. You can read a lot of books but they are useless without any experience.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
When I want to relax I do meditate, if it really must be a site then I check the progresses of the cool free Windows: http://www.reactos.org

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Yes, I have a 32 bits DOS version of FreeVimager to release, meant to recycle old PCs as slide-show viewers.

What's your favorite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
I read a lot of spiritual books, I like the Matrix movie, I hate TV shows, I do not play computer games, I'm vegetarian and I like swiss chocolate, obvious ;-)]]> Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:34:05 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58584-spotlight-oliver-pfister-of-freevimager/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58544-interview-with-frank-niessink-of-task-coach/ Your real name:
Frank Niessink

Also known as:
Frank

How old are you?:
38

Your freeware software:
Task Coach

Your website:
http://www.taskcoach.org

When did you started developing freeware?:
I started developing Task Coach in 2004. It was first released early 2005. I was joined by Jérôme Laheurte soon after the first release. We´ve been working on Task Coach together since then.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
Like most open source developers, I scratched an itch. In my case, I was really bad at keeping track of all the small and bigger tasks I had. The task managers available at that time were either too simple or too complex for my taste. I wanted hierarchical tasks, without all the complexity of project management software. So I started to work on Task Coach.

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
For me, it is mostly fun. Although having hands-on experience with software development is useful in my day job as an consultant.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
Well, I work only on Task Coach, so not much choice there. Within that scope, I remember creating a Debian package was rather challenging.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands with my wife, two kids, and a cute rabbit called Fox.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
Doing over 100 releases of Task Coach in 5 years.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
Task Coach still isn´t bug free despite all these years and over 3500 automated unittests.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
I learned a lot about programming by reading: about design patterns, test driven development, languages, etc.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
Lifehacker.com

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Plenty of small and big ideas, mostly limited by available time rather than imagination. Ideas include multi-user support, more import and export functionality, integration with web-based todo managers, etc.

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy, Groundhog Day, Friends, Netrek, Home-made pancakes.]]> Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:09:14 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58544-interview-with-frank-niessink-of-task-coach/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58489-interview-with-jalon-zhai-of-chromeplus/ Your real name:
Jalon Zhai (Chinese name 翟俊龙)

Also known as:
chromeplus in forum.chromeplus.org

How old are you?:
32

Your freeware software:
ChromePlus

Your website:
www.chromeplus.org

When did you started developing freeware?:
Jan 2009

Why did you start developing freeware?:
Enjoy the feeling of millions of users

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
Fun and become a Career

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
ChromePlus

Please tell us a little about yourself:
Well, I majored in Computer science. Before the start of ChromePlus, I was an architect in Nokia network department. I left Nokia when it combined with Siemens Networks to be SNS. Now with ChromePlus, I feel very happy that there could be so many users of our product and there are also so many warm-hearted users can communicate with us though our forum.chromeplus.org. We have a strong team, and to we are also happy to provide professional ChromePlus related service or other software cooperation.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
The enrollment of university. I was not a good student and would often escape school. It was a miracle to me and my teachers. I still remember the day I went to my high school to fetch my university entrance letter, and I met my English teacher who taught me when I was in Grade 1. She asked if I managed to gain entry? I said: yes. She stopped and asked again, well, good, an academy right? I said, no a formal university. She stared at me for half a minute and astonished: Wah! How could that happen :-)

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
Well, I have tried another software in Android named dictmemo, but not many users.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
Persuade yourself that you're really interested in this first and work hard on it! Start from a programming language, C++ is a must for professional guys. Broaden the experience in different language/techs.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
Google. Search for some divinity or supernatural evidence. I like this also.

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Broad cooperation with different organizations such as Auti-virus corp. News website, e-commerce website etc. Browser has all the genes to cooperate with every kind of internet element. And ChromePlus is specially the most suitable one to achieve these. ChromePlus can turn over the normal way of internet browsing. It leads to the next generation internet.

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
Bible(Book), the Matrix(Movie), Hero(Game), Barbecue(food).]]> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 07:17:37 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58489-interview-with-jalon-zhai-of-chromeplus/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58448-interview-with-jan-fiala-of-pspad/ Your real name:
My real name is Jan Fiala. I don't hide my identity. You can see it on my web page or in PSPad about dialog.

How old are you?:
41

Your freeware software:
PSpad editor

Your website:
www.pspad.com

When did you started developing freeware?:
2001

Why did you start developing freeware?:
I wrote some programs for myself, then were useful to others.

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
My career was programming and it partly continues currently.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
PSPad editor. It's developed 9 years already

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I started my career as an IT specialist after university. After some time I change job to software developer. Programming was and is my hobby.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
PSPad, from simple tool for my use and it's now an editor used across the world.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
Developing needs ideas, some basic knowledge, much patience and too much time for development and support. Really, time is the thing I am missing right now. Time for support means answer tens of mails per day, be active in forum. It's really time consuming.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
I like knives and books. There are two local forums where I relax. And the third is a support forums for IT and programming. This gives me great pleasure to help someone if I am able.

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
There are many things requested by users. PSpad is several years old, driven by user wishes only. E.g. rewrite project and add FTP support, better code page handling, rewrite search engine...

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
We are not a TV depending family. I keep up to date with the news on TV and sometimes watch a movie. More often I relax with books - I like sci-fi or fantasy books. I have several eBooks with me everywhere in my PDA.]]> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:10:01 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58448-interview-with-jan-fiala-of-pspad/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58365-interview-with-henk-van-loo-jr-of-ssuite-office-software/ Your real name:
Henk van Loo Jr.

Also known as:
SSuite Office Software : {Super-Suite Office Software}

How old are you?:
Almost 38

Your freeware software:
A whole bunch of them, mostly office suites.

Your website:
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/index.htm
and
http://ssuite5element.webs.com/thefifthelement.htm

When did you started developing freeware?:
My first little project was SSuite Personal. It was just to be a small and useful office suite that I was going to use for myself. I just finished my studies{2002}, when i started development on the software.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
I did try to sell my office software at one time, but OpenOffice completely destroyed the office software market in the lower end of the spectrum. So I decided if you can't beat them, destroy them with better alternative office software that's also free for everyone. - {Everybody wins }

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
At first it was just for fun, but soon it became a career for me.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
The most difficult development is currently how to create portable software without using dll's or activeX components.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I don't have much to say, I program software together with my brother Marius when I have the time. To supplement my income, I work as an Electrical Contractor. I do maintenance and new installations on new and existing Engineering shops in our area. Mostly lathes, boring mills, and Sub-arcs.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
My most important creation to date, SSuite Office - Excalibur comes to mind. It was such an effort bringing all those applications together in one harmonious working environment.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
My life.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
Never work for a boss, not worth the effort. If you don't like it, don't do it.

What websites do you visit to relax?:


Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Keep expanding the range of useful software applications for everyone.

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
My favourite book is Blade Runner2
My favourite movie { as if you don't already know } - The Fifth Element and BladeRunner.

See the entire range of SSuite on FreewareBB HERE.]]> Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:03:36 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58365-interview-with-henk-van-loo-jr-of-ssuite-office-software/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58330-interview-with-maor-and-mayan-cohen/ Your real name:
Maor and Mayan Cohen

Also known as:
Twins Software Solutions Ltd.

How old are you?:
28

Your freeware software:
Visions and Animosaix

Your website:
http://www.twins-solutions.com, http://www.animosaix.com

When did you start developing freeware?:
Our first freeware was Visions, a 3D image management software. We started developing Visions in August 2006 and it was first released to public in April 2008.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
We wanted to develop a software that everyone can enjoy without having to spend money.

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
Both. Developing Visions is fun, but it is also a career. Visions is developed and distributed by our registered company, Twins Software Solutions Ltd.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
Developing Visions is a very challenging project. Its unique 3D management environment was very innovative when we started. In addition to its 3D environment, Visions is a comprehensive software solution that includes editing, album creation and sharing capabilities. It requires knowledge in many technologies.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
Mayan Cohen: CEO of Twins Software Solutions, 28 years old, married + 1, BA and MBA degrees in Business Management.
Maor Cohen: CTO of Twins Software Solutions, 28 years old, married, B.Sc degree in Computer Science.
As the company's name implies, we are twin brothers. We started working on Visions project together in August 2006. Today the company develops and manages no less than five projects. One of them is Animosaix, a free photo mosaic screensaver for Windows.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
Visions is a very important milestone in software development so far and for us especially. It was the first full 3D image management system back in 2006 and 3.5 years later, it's still one of only few software of this kind.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
The only thing we can consider as failure is the fact that Visions still doesn't have enough acknowledgment as we believe it deserves two years after the first beta release.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
Love what you do, listen to your users and keep your software simple.
One of the most important things when starting to develop software is to do it with love that will help you unleash your creativity.
In addition, listen to what your users have to say. They won't use it otherwise.
Last but not least, Keep it simple. Although some users like sophisticated software, most of them want it to be simple and intuitive.

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
We have many plans for freeware software but we still cannot reveal them.

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
Our favorite TV show is Seinfeld.
Our favorite game was Doom. Especially because of its innovative technology comparing to the times it was published.]]> Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:55:48 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58330-interview-with-maor-and-mayan-cohen/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58288-interview-with-freeware-developer-alex-balfour/ Your real name:
Alex Balfour

How old are you?:
75

Your freeware software:
My main freeware offering is Calendar Magic. Other freeware items are the Su Doku Assistant, Fifteen Magic, Waffle Magic and Algorithm of the Gods.

Your website:
http://www.stokepoges.plus.com

When did you started developing freeware?:
In 1995, on taking early retirement.

Why did you start developing freeware?:
Although I've never been a professional programmer, I've loved programming ever since attending my first programming course (Ferranti Sirius machine code) in 1961. When I retired, I started developing various programs of interest to me and decided to make them freely available to anyone sharing these interests.

Is it a career, or just for fun?:
It's purely for the pleasure I get from starting from an interesting problem, figuring out a way to solve it, then developing and debugging the code. It has also been a marvellous way of making friends with people from all over the world.

What's the most difficult project/development you've done?:
While my background is in Mathematics and Computer Science, I have never studied astronomy. This made implementing some of the calendar systems in Calendar Magic quite a challenge. The hardest one was the Hindu lunisolar calendar.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I spent the first half of my working life as a university academic and the second half in the IT industry.

What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?:
Creating a unique product in Calendar Magic -- there is no other product even remotely similar. The feedback I've received from users about it has also given me considerable pleasure and satisfaction, particularly feedback from users who are blind or nearly blind. To me that means much more than any money I might have received by offering my programs as shareware.

Any failures you'd care to tell us about?:
More of a regret than a failure. My freeware offerings are written in Visual Basic 6 which is now obsolescent. I'd like to start using a more modern programming language but there seems no way of doing this other than by rewriting all my code completely. This is a daunting task. For example, Calendar Magic contains over 50,000 lines of code.

Sadly, it just isn't going to happen.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?:
Keep your options open and don't become too narrow a specialist in one area. If your specialism goes out of fashion, you may find job opportunities drying up incredibly quickly.

What websites do you visit to relax?:
I find my relaxation in other ways. For example, I've been a keen tennis player for around 60 years.

Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?:
Nothing major. Calendar Magic will mainly evolve now through suggestions from users.

What's your favourite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?:
Book: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar
Movie: ?????
TV Show: Fawlty Towers or Fools and Horses
Game: Tennis
Food: Chinese]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:53:19 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58288-interview-with-freeware-developer-alex-balfour/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58236-freeware-developers-tell-us-your-story/ here on the Developer Spotlight section. Each week we mail our members and your spotlight can be included in this mail for even further coverage!.

This is a great way to take your site even further and let others have a peek into your development world and history!. To participate you will have to be a registered member. Once you complete your registration you will receive a welcome PM, just reply to that PM requesting a move to the "developer" group and we'll make the necessary changes (only developers can start a new topic in this section, other groups can reply). Please include a little info about yourself in the PM, such as your website and your software so we can verify it.

If we are already listing your software on the site you can claim ownership of it, SEE HERE for more info.

We have a standard template for you to use below - just copy and paste the following questions, give an answer for each and pop it all in a new post on the Spotlight section or PM me and I'll be glad to do it for you:

Q: Your real name:

Q: Also known as:

Q: How old are you?

Q: Your freeware software:

Q: Your website:

Q: When did you start developing freeware?

Q: Why did you start developing freeware?

Q: Is it a career, or just for fun?

Q: What's the most difficult project/development you've done?

Q: Please tell us a little about yourself:

Q: What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?

Q: Any failures you'd care to tell us about?

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?

Q: What websites do you visit to relax?

Q: Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?

Q: What's your favorite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?

Look forward to your responses
Kind Regards
Marko and The FreewareBB Team]]> Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:25:51 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/58236-freeware-developers-tell-us-your-story/