Incremental Blogger

I understand what you're getting Loren... I get it all the time myself from my family too.

"Make some money off your work!"

But that's not my work... that's the results of my interests in programming. ;)

And of course to add to the difficulty of recieving payments since PayPal doesn't serve Malaysia, and I don't want to pay for a credit card gateway... hahahahah

Heck I'd be happy if people just mailed me 5 dollar bills :P

There's no doubt though that you, Microsoft, and all your Tablet PC users benefit when your ideas grow. And money is a great motivator to keep people going and making the product grow. Until then, strong communities and positive feedback from users, friends, and family, can keep you going. It works for me.

software business and software authoring are 2 different things. Writing software is one thing, selling software and related services is a different thing. Next time folks tell you to make money from your work , suggest to them that they could jump on the bandwagon and sell the stuff for you since someone has to write the stuff and you can't do it all. You should discourage pople from making it seem like you are being screwed by society, encourage them to take an active interest in whatever you are doing. You would be surprised at some of the ideas that can come from "Laymen"

>> You would be surprised at some of the ideas
>> that can come from "Laymen"

I'm not sure about the "Laymen" part, but one of my favorite "out of nowhere" success stories is Mike's. He was working at a local computer store several years back and got called into an architectural school to check on some computer equipment. He was inspired by what he saw and contemplated writing a program for the architectural industry. He asked the experts he knew and they all told him that it couldn't be done, especially since he was going to be targeting the latest undersized, underpowered, overly expensive and unproven computers. So he hunkered down in the evenings and weekends writing tools that he needed to build his dream application. He even wrote his own programming language to leverage the most out of what he wrote. Anyway, a year later he took what he had and showed it around. Sure enough a few saw value in it, joined forces and launched a company around his work. They dubbed the program AutoCAD.

I really like your AutoCAD example :-) Good point.

The way I figure it, unless you create something ground breaking, I really doubt anyone will be willing to shell out any amount of money for it. Personally I don't think the whole "micro payment" idea will work, because in our minds even a little bit of money is worth a whole lot more than no money. For instance, you tell someone they can go to a 3 hours presentation on some new thingy-a-jig and there will be free coke, and they do it. You offer them a coke for a dollar and they will probably say no. Even though 3 hours of their life, even if they are uneducated is worth $15.

So as far as software goes, I think that unless you create something that is truely ground-breaking, no one will ever really pay you money for it. Thats why I give most of my programs away, but doing so has earned me a reputation which got me a few jobs. In this way, I get my payment from them. And thats how I explain it to friends and family.
-Lewey

Hey Loren,

This might be a silly question, but have you ever considered working for Microsoft? Or do you prefer the freedom of being an independent developer?

Just curious.

-KHD

Hi Kevin. Right now we're building a great team of people, working on a breadth of exciting and interesting projects, and learning and exploring new issues of an evolving, new technology.

At the end of the day you probably do what you do because you are passionate about the tablet, Unlike many cynical "tech elite" who have this whole thing figured out "and don't think it will succeed since they type faster than they hand write", you can see the potential of this type of computing and how it can make folks more productive. Your passion by itself is a reward. To enjoy doing something in IT today with all the cynism and negativity is a blessing. You have the right attitude. Forget the money thing, if you are running a business then the issues are different with market shares and sales targets, but if you are excited seeing tablet software come alive, hang in there, this thing will get very exciting , very soon, its kind of like windows when Windows showed up. The elite of the time said it neeeded too much memory and expensive video. I can't believe that people thing humanity is doomed to QWERTY. Its a no brainer and like they say , "we have only scratched the surface".
You have to stay the course, human history is full of examples of people that believed in something other than the selfishness of human beings. Write Tablet software, That is a noble cause and at the least you will be able to get a fun competitive job when all computers can do handwriting and speech, because its the natural direction of computing.
Like i said avoid folks that make it look like you are doing free work, what they can't understand is your passion, because often times they have resigned themselves to a never changing world and we know IT CHANGES and thats is constant.

I don't even have a Tablet PC, but I still enjoy your software.

InkPlayer is just a great program and I've used it a lot. Just so you know your projects are enjoyed by those outside the Tablet PC realm.

BTW, any updates to InkPlayer since .03?

Yeah, I've been meaning to post the newer versions of InkPlayer and ShareKMC. I'll try this weekend. Thanks, PromoGuy!

I kind of resent the implication that Microsoft copied the abletFactory dictionaryTool. The fact is the tool was concieved written and completed many months before it was released. In no way was I even aware that there was any third party product out there.

Omar, yeah after I posted this I saw your comments I think on Scoble's blog (or maybe it was on yours?) about the sequence of events. I should have linked to those comments here. They would have completed the story well.

I also mixed two issues in my original post. One was the concern others have as to whether I should post applications as I work through them or not. Lots of people tell me this. Over the years I've learned that if I've thought of something, there's little doubt that others have too. I expect it. But it's hard to convince people of this. On a tired Friday I was trying to share some of that concern.

The other issue was how I thought at the time how much more efficient it would be if we could avoid duplicate efforts. It was a temporary utopian thought that I convinced myself of otherwise by the very next day.

In all of this I learned I've got to be more careful writing when I'm tired. :-) Who wants to read a bunch of rants anyway?

Sorry for the implication and thanks for all the time you've put into the dictionary PowerToy. It's works great!

Of course I totally understand. We (microsoft) have often developed products and features, that take much longer to test and roll out then we'd like. Windows Media 9 had many features that Apple got to tout first in iTunes 3. When we released WMP9 we were accused of copying. However, the reality is, with the long product cycle of WMP9 it would have been impossible to copy something that Apple demoed and ship only a few weeks later.

But no one cares to ever hear that story ;-).

IMHO the functionality in something like the Dictionary tool should be offered as part of the platform. I just helped fill a temporary void. And I also plan on posting the source for the Dictionary Tool to GotDotNet in a few days or weeks. Just as soon as I get free time. My goal is to provide folks a way to get some of their own features in there, and to fix some silly bugs that I missed.