>Please update your projects listed below by March 7, 2019 and ensure they are no longer using Google+ APIs, or requesting Google+ OAuth scopes.
Sure, it won't be that difficult to change, but this isn't something you do every day. You do it once and then forget about it. The initial investigation of how to add a Google login and then implementing it was done 2 years ago -- now I have to go off and research and learn how to do it all again in a different way.
Desktop subscription based: Devexpress Winforms and ASP.net component suite (best Windows component suite on the market - leaves free alternatives in the dust). Add in Express components for building office add-ins (could not build my core product without it)
Both of these combined cost me about €1,000 a year. Well worth it too as they make my software far superior to all the competition that use free components.
SaaS: Hotjar for website heatmaps and session cams (HUGELY VALUABLE!). Linkedin Premium for help contacting potential partners (HUGELY VALUABLE!). Feedbin, RSS reader. Mailchimp
[All of my own products are desktop apps that consumers pay $60-$150 for. Sales are up.]
For me, it’s so regular that I can see it creep up on me — all the major features completed, only the polishing and websites to complete, and it starts to hit me, trying to drag me down.
Steven Pressfield wrote a short book called The War of Art that talks about this. It’s common to any creative endeavour, whether you’re writing a novel or building a product. I’ve written a novel as well, and it hit me at the same time and in the same way — near the finish.
You need to power on through and come out the other end. All the problems and issues others have talked about will be there waiting, bit that’s a different can of worms.
The GDPR legislation coming into force in the EU in May has got me thinking about other ways to reach my users. My mailing list will be essentially worthless as every customer was opted-in by default rather than by choice. Emails typically have a 35% open rate — ok, but not great — making it likely that asking them all to opt in again would reduce my active email list to 10% or so.My core...
When I turn up for interviews, nobody bats an eye, and all interview questions that touch on previous jobs talk about what I've been doing in the past 3 years.
When crunch time came, I took the first job I found, worked there for 6 months as a C++ developer, and then started working as a .Net contractor after teaching myself C# over the space of a few weeks.
Forward 4 years: I earn top money as a contractor, have released 4 new applications and a couple of web apps — all far better than anything I released during my failed solo career. For me, the truth was I produced more and of better quality when I was in full time work than when I had all the time in the world. There’s a saying: “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”
Contracting 6 or 9 months in different companies actually helps with my own software, as I learn new ways of doing things, get new ideas for products, and get huge confidence boosts from doing well in each new job.
Off the shelf, yes. But third party providers like Devexpress and Telerik have stepped into that gap and now produce some very polished component suites that sit on top of Winforms. At a cost, of course, and more geared towards the enterprise market.
I've used component suites like these in new .Net desktop products and without fail they're received well.