What’s The Easiest Way to Quickly Resize Photos?
This week I got many photos ready for a web page photo album. I needed every photo scaled to the width of the web page, and scaled again, very small, to be used as a thumbnail. This could have taken hours using a photo editor. Instead, it took minutes using one of my favorite free …
Web Graphics: JPEG, GIF , or PNG?
There are a great variety of image formats available. Choosing the right format for Web graphics is simplified by the fact that browsers support only three image formats: JPEG, GIF, and PNG. Which format should you use on your website? That depends on the type of image you have and what you want to use …
Should You Ignore the “Publisher Could Not be Verified” Warning?
If a publisher could not be verified, is that program harmful? Not necessarily. If the publisher could be verified, is that program safe? You cannot assume that either. Why does the warning appear? How can you stop the warning from appearing? The publisher could not be verified warning was intended to make computer users more …
How to Protect Your Software from Piracy
There is nothing you can do to your software to guarantee that no one will be able to make pirated copies of your software, or use your software without your authorization. But there are a few things you should do to make your programs more difficult to copy and to make it illegal for others …
Create Your Own Icons
Would you like to replace that default desktop icon that is used for your program? Do you need special icons in your program? Many existing icons are copyrighted and you may not use them for your own purposes. Now you can create your own icons! I am working on my next program which needs some …
Sales Per Visitor (Conversion Rate)
How many sales can you expect per visitor to your Web site? How many sales can you expect per download of your program? Statistics show these are very small numbers. But if you track these numbers, know what is reasonable to expect, and plan your marketing accordingly, you should be able to determine strategies to …
Free Web Space
The first step in creating a Web site is to acquire some Web space. Before locking into a paid Web hosting service, or a free service that puts ads on your site, check into the Web space that you might already have. Most ISPs give their customers free Web space as part of their Internet …
What are Cookies and Tracking Cookies?
Cookies are harmless little bits of information left on your computer by a Web page. Those little bits of information may be used to simplify or personalize your next visit to that page or Web site. Unfortunately, these bits of information can be used as tracking cookies. So how harmless are they really? First of …
Is Symantec’s File Insight (SONAR) Deleting Your Programs?
Symantec’s File Insight (SONAR) program was recently added to the Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security programs. SONAR automatically deletes or quarantines any program it believes may be malware. This is a problem for you as a software developer if it decides your program looks like malware. Symantec provides instructions for how to prevent your …
Windows 7 UAC: Permission Prompts and Access Errors
How do you keep Windows UAC (User Account Control) from asking for permission every time your program is run? How do you avoid access denied errors when your program saves data? By putting your program’s files in the Microsoft intended locations you can prevent these bothersome prompts and troublesome errors. Why Do Permission Prompts Appear? …
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Many of the tips, techniques, and tools discussed in this blog are demonstrated in a detailed step-by-step tutorial in the book, This Little Program Went to Market, by Annette Godtland.
The book takes a computer program through the entire process of creating, deploying and distributing a program, then selling and marketing it (or any other product) on the Internet. Read more.
Programs at Market
Take a look at some of the programs I've created at Godtland Software Corporation. I created, deployed, distributed, sold, and marketed these programs using the techniques mentioned in this blog and detailed in the book. Read more.