http://www.freewarebb.com Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:31:12 +0000 60 DeveloperSpotlighthttp://feedburner.google.com http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/97727-joost-bloemin-answers-qa/

Q1 Joost, you have earned your stripes as a coder in the trenches, so to speak, being a music freak, as you put it in your developer profile and having picked up programming as a hobby. Has this made it a challenge for you to discuss things with fellow coders along the way, or has this not been too much of an issue or obstacle for you, so far?

Actually, i did a 4 year (engineering) electronics/telecommunications/programming study, but being a musician and audio-freak i only studied that to be able to work in the area of my main interest, developing audio/music equipment and software. I am very happy that i succeeded in earning a living with the work that i always wanted to do. Of course, often, things you like are things you mostly do the best.

I also never once worked for a boss :-) Although a customer is also your boss of course. But during the years my work involved more selling my/our own products instead of doing contract-developments for customers, which i used to do in the beginning.

My company has evolved in many different ways since it was started in 1988, first i was on my own, then with 2 partners eventually with 4 people personnel also, then when things started changing in the market and everything became more software, we're now with 3 and a few freelancers. When we were with 6 It was a great time, as i was making 3DTop in the middle of this ( 1999 and on) and 2 of the company worked on plugins for 3DTop also. We learned a lot from each other and there was much teamwork. We were working hard. very concentrated and fruitful.

Only obstacle was the time available, we were working hard to earn our daily bread. 3DTop was more of a hobby that suddenly became very successful.

Q2 Hey Joost, I'm inclined to ask where the inspiration came from for creating 3DTop?. Was it something you thought about for a while, would have liked, or did it just come about by accident?

With a friend of mine i wanted to make an entire OS in 3D in the early 90's, at the time we were looking into making our own computer with only GSP's ( TMS 34020 of TI). I did some experiments on an Atari ST computer, programmed all in Assembly . But due to other projects this was all put in the fridge. Until at one time, end of 1998, i had some spare time , was looking into OpenGL, did some experiments and within 1 week i actually had a 3-dimensional desktop, that was fun !

The many many many positive reactions of people at the time were for me completely baffling, wow, i'm popular :-) Especially the simplicity was great. Maybe some people had thought of this already, but even if they did, no one made it or came out in the open with it. There were some people doing a bit like it, but those projects were much too weird/elaborate, let's start with simplicity and see what happens from there was my motto.

And it really is that easy, why should we use flat non moving icons to look-for/remember things, when an icon can be any 3D model also, with or without animations or with userinteraction/feedbackfromsoftware ? Fun can be useful also :-) Look at all the movements being baked into current OS-es.

Technically of course there are some issues:
- 3d model complexity will always be limited
- picture quality of text/lines in 3D is not as good compared to flat 2D resolution optimized icons. Anti-alisaing is needed which in turn reduces possible complexity again.

But we all knew this would/will change in time ...

This is possible on consumer grade computers since late 90's and what i find very disappointing that nothing has progressed much. Yes, OSX/iOS is mostly OpenGL, which is good, but the icons are still based on flat images. How stupid is that. They do have some of the same fun kinetics that 3DTop had also. At that time i wanted to put some natural movement or behaviour into 3DTop also, actually here my interest in audio/signal processing was helpful, kinetics (natural movements) are mostly only higher order filters, not on audio but on movement this time.

Q3 Hi Joost, it's an honor to have you here. I stumbled onto 3DTop by chance and will probably never stop using it. It's an amazing piece of software. I would like to know, though about your Lupa mixer. Was that project inspired by a personal preference of yours, being that you are someone who seems to be involved in music, or did you notice a need for something of that nature ??
I too am a music freak.
Thanks for taking the time to be here.

A friend of a friend of mine was working for Philips Classics Recording studios who wanted to buy a new digital audio mixer (this was 1993). We got an introduction and it just "clicked", they saw our passion/abilities and we already had a product that did what they wanted to buy. We "only" had to upscale it a bit, to a 32 channel digital mixer with automation. We also were the only one with motorized pots which was a big pre. We were working on this with 4 people at the time.

Q4 Is your software development your means of earning a living or is it at this point more of a (serious) hobby. If the latter, what you do for gainful employment?

Earning a living. Currently with luci.eu . The customers who buy this are mainly broadcasters, where naturally support is a big issue. It also often "clicks" between them and us.

Q5 What led you into software development? Was there a specific thing or event that inspired you to learn to write software?

Yes ! the ability to use literal mathematics to change the tone of sounds. You do some multiplications and additions in software and the sound changes. This was really a WOW moment for me at age 23, when i was doing this in 1985 , programming a 68000 processor of an Atari ST in assembly.

Q6 Having, myself, played around with BASIC, FORTRAN, ASSEMBLER and C in the eighties, I realize how difficult it is to learn programming, even to my mediocre standard. Did you formally study programming at any time along the way, or did you exclusively teach yourself as you went along?

Formally i started with Fortran in my study, remainder i taught myself. After study i went on in Assembly exclusively for digital signal processing, even programming graphical interface GEM on Atari ST could be done in assembly, there even were books for that which i used intensively. At the end of the book it even had full asm-listing (with commentary) of many OS functions's source, open-source before it was being invented.... Then picked up C, used that for a very long time, combining with assembly where needed. Started using C++ only 5 years back, as i didn't need classes much before that.

Also did a lot of DSP programming for TI, Motorola and AD DSP's. In either C or assembly.

Basically if you know one programming language you can teach yourself any other language. It's not that difficult if you're creative. What you need most is imagination, to be able to think many steps ahead in your head. If you record your brainwaves during programming you'll see theta-waves that a tibetan monk would be proud of :-)

Doing a lot of mind-sports helps a lot in training also.

Q7 3DTop is a really light application. Do you have a ceiling on its size, considering all possible modifications in the future? I like the lightweight portable feel, although I suppose it would be easy to see how the program could grow some in size. This is why I ask.

I have no ceiling on size. You know, as it relies on OpenGL a lot, 3DTop can apparently stay reasonably light. I say apparently as it just happens to be so small, i don't know why, but i also don't know why other software is so huge :-)

In the future , i'll add more ready made desktops. Then the size of the download would increase of course, but not the size of the main program.

Q8 Any ideas or comments on where you see Freeware industry going in the next 3 or 4 years?

We'll be paying more and more for content or hardware, while the enablers would be free.

Not all software has content though, so then consider it to be a work of art for which you have to probably have to pay. I do think programmers are artists.

Q9 Where do you hope to be in the next 3 or 4 years? Pushing Microsoft into second place?

I hope 90% of all software has 3d-models inside the resource of their app's . And a plugin that interacts with the 3D-desktop.

Q10 Joost, you mentioned that you would like to make it possible for individuals to create desktop themes or packages that they could sell. Well, I love the flexibility that plug-in architecture brings to a program. Applying your thinking on themes to plug-ins, do you have any ideas about plug-ins or on whether you think they might be for sale like the themes (or are the plug-ins in your mind something different and to keep free)?

New plugins can be for instance ways for notifications , that would be visible in the 3d-model of an app. If an app contains a plugin , 3DTop could automatically install and use that also, just like a 3d-model. Hmm, that would be a nice new feature of 3DTop ...

Plugins could be free or not, it depends on the one who programmed it.


Cheers, Joost


Once again thankyou to Joost for supplying us with a small amount of the details of the life of a developer. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we look forward to the future and whatever it may bring with regards to Joost, 3DTop, Lupa,, and whatever may be coming in the future from Joost and his friends and partners...]]> Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:31:12 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/97727-joost-bloemin-answers-qa/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/87349-spotlight-mark-straver-aka-moonchild-of-pale-moon/ Q: Your real name:
Mark Straver

Q: Also known as:
Moonchild, MC, Wolfbeast

Q: How old are you?
40

Q: Your freeware software:
Oh, a bunch. Pale Moon, Pale Moon migration tool, Pale Moon backup tool, Address Flipper, RPG Dice helper, and a number of other small misc tools

Q: Your website:
http://www.moonchildproductions.info

Q: When did you start developing freeware?
1995 or so

Q: Why did you start developing freeware?
Why not? A bit of a strange question, to be fair. Most of the freeware I've made is to improve upon things and to provide help to users. A lot of it was born from things I personally wanted to streamline or improve, and I think there's no reason why I shouldn't make this available to others as well, in the hope it is useful to them. Not everything needs to bring in revenue, there's already enough greed on this little planet.

Q: Is it a career, or just for fun?
It's certainly becoming a career.

Q: What's the most difficult project/development you've done?
Hmm, I'd have to say some of the stuff I've done as part of my academic education. That's been a long time ago though - so as for recent projects/developments, the most involved is the Pale Moon browser.

Q: Please tell us a little about yourself:
I was born in Roosendaal, the Netherlands, in 1971, and I've lived in a good number of different locations in the world, ranging from the USA and different places in Europe to Australia. I currently reside in Sweden. I've followed a professional Master's level education in Laboratory Informatics and Automation, and it may come as no surprise that as a result I have in-depth knowledge of computers, computer systems, networks and programming. The other side of me is a very creative one: drawing, sketching, colouring, shading - in traditional media as well as digital - makes up a good part of my legacy. In this same creative field is my current occupation as professional translator, it being mostly creative work (writing) - although of course the technical background of the education helps tremendously for technical manuals and similar texts. You could say I'm very multi-faceted, and at home in many disciplines. My focus is slowly shifting back towards IT, though, since that is where my passion really lies, and if I can make a career in it, I'll certainly not let the opportunity pass me by.

Q: What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?
Having traveled a full circle around the globe. The obvious growing success of Pale Moon. Surviving in a rather unforgiving modern society

Q: Any failures you\'d care to tell us about?
I fail at learning to speak Swedish It's one odd language to try and learn!

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?
A few very important things: - Keep things structured and clearly named/commented. If you don't, debugging and finding issues in your code becomes almost impossible. - Don't try to cut corners! - Don't give in to greed. Only consider making commercial products if and when you think you can make a polished product. Don't be afraid to give something to the community before you want to take something from it.

Q: What websites do you visit to relax?
The odd flash gaming site for a few lost minutes, otherwise I tend to relax off the PC or 'net, watching movies, maybe playing a game.

Q: Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?
Nothing particular apart from enhancing and continuing to support it

Q: What's your favorite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?
Book: Stephen King/Peter Straub's "The Talisman"
Movie: I don't have one single favorite - I like many!
TV show: Haven't watched TV in many years
Game: Titan Quest and similar action RPGs Food: Horse tenderloin]]> Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:54:24 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/87349-spotlight-mark-straver-aka-moonchild-of-pale-moon/ http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/87305-spotlight-joost-bloemen-of-3dtop/ Q: Your real name:
A: Joost Bloemen

Q: Also known as:
A: Joozzt

Q: How old are you?:
A: 49

Q: Your freeware software:
A: 3DTop

Q: Your website:
A: www.3dtop.com

Q: When did you start developing freeware?
A: 1998

Q: Why did you start developing freeware?
A: As an experiment

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

Q: What's the most difficult project/development you've done?
A: Our Lupa digital audio mixing console: http://technicadelarte.com/Lupa.html

Q: Please tell us a little about yourself:
A: I'm an audio-freak and musician who made a career out of his hobby (audio-freak).

Q: What would you consider to be your major accomplishments to date?
A: Lupa, 3DTop and Luci

Q: Any failures you'd care to tell us about?
A: The lawn in my small garden.

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in developing/programming?
A: Save money, spend time.

Q: What websites do you visit to relax?
A: Hmm, i read a lot of newspapers/techblogs online, but i think they are not relaxing as such. To relax i play guitar and bass-guitar.

Q: Do you have any particular plans for your freeware in the future?
A: Yes, to offer paid content, but keep the software free.

Q: What's your favorite book, movie, tv show, game, and food?
A: reading books is not a hobby of mine so i never do - movie: District 9 - tv show: none - game: Duke3D - food: Gamba's]]> Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:06:14 +0000 http://www.freewarebb.com/topic/87305-spotlight-joost-bloemen-of-3dtop/ 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/