Going Micro - Building a Micro-ISV

APHound v1.10 Released

2016-11-22T13:47:00.001+00:00

APHound v1.10 is now available.

This release contains the following updates:

Enhancements

Dynamic detection of USB WiFi adapter plug-in and removal.
Improved data rate information for 802.11ac
Improved support for 802.11a
Internal changes to support planned future releases.

Fixes

Support for dual access points on a single MAC (Turtle Beach Wireless headset).

Visit the APHound website for full details.

APHound v1.9 Released

2016-04-23T14:17:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.9 is now available.

This release contains a number of internal enhancements to the APHound code which are required for future features, however there are also two important changes in this release:

Enhancements

Improved security and cipher information.

Fixes

Fixed an application crash with some 5Ghz access point channel configurations.

Visit the APHound website for full details.

V1.8 - A perfect storm of a release.

2016-01-20T17:48:00.000+00:00

APHound V1.8 was certainly a long time in the making!

It started with two main development targets:

Add scrolling to the site survey
Add zooming and scaling to the site survey

In the end neither made it in to the release. Image scaling support was added but that was to support the main change which took up all of the time:

Window Resizing

Way back at the start of development for APHound I made a decision when developing the UI. It was a minor thing, just how to set a background colour for a portion of a control that doesn't normally get filled. It was just one little thing that I thought tidied up a part of the UI.

Boy, did that one come back to bite me!

The custom control code for that little fill had a knock-on effect on how window resizing was handled which finally manifested itself around v1.4ish with a strange effect on maximize/restore handling. After much head scratching and debugging I decided to pull all of the window resize code and rewrite it to allow me to keep the fill and correct the maximize/restore handling.

That met with the festive holiday season and an upturn in client work which resulted in a perfect storm of delay.

Still, the fix is in and I've released v1.8 as the first of 2016. Scrolling and zooming/scaling are back on the board for v1.9.

One big change I did make in v1.8 was an adjustment to the feature list for the Free edition. This was a long pondered decision. There's always a need to differentiate a paid version of the application from the free edition to the extent that the user who pays to use the application gets access to a feature set which clearly sets it apart from a free edition. But, there is also a need to make the free edition useful.

Previously, the difference was that the paid user feature set had full access to the site survey, 5Ghz support and extended access point information. But with more and more people having access to 5Ghz WiFi, and more devices making use of it, I wanted to add 5Ghz support to the free edition.

That left a much reduced feature set difference between editions so adding one feature to the free edition meant another had to be dropped - in this case the site survey. Extended access point information and the site survey are now the difference between free and paid licences.

And the new website? Sitting waiting on me finding a few days to finish it off.

APHound v1.8 Released

2016-01-20T16:43:00.000+00:00

APHound v1.8 is now available.

This release is primarily a fix release with one enhancement, however the feature list for the Free edition has also been amended.

The changes in v1.8 are:

Changed Features

Free version loses Site Survey but gains 5GHz support

Enhancements

Window resize code rewritten

Fixes

Correct min/max window handling for site surveys
Exception could be generated in site survey resize
Site survey thumbnail scroll button can be hidden
Access Point marker not appearing on the Site Survey

Visit the APHound website for full details.

End of the client year…

2015-12-18T19:43:00.003+00:00

This is just really a test post to see if Open Live Writer has been successfully updated to work with Google Blogger.

But, today marks the end of the fee-earning client work for the year too. From now until the end of the year it’s APHound v1.8 and the new APHound website.

Ok, it’ll be relaxed development time and it will most likely include too much chocolate and beer, but I’m ok with that.

Just a quick update II...

2015-12-15T19:40:00.000+00:00

For the moment I'm having to use the Blogger web interface to post. Up until about a week ago I'd always used Windows Live Writer but it appears Google have deprecated an authorisation API when Open Live Writer launched. Unfortunately it looks like OLW needed the old API too!

Anyway, there was another point to this entry - the purchase process for APHound.

I've been using a combination of e-Junkie, PayPal and other card processors for some time but recently I started to look for an e-Junkie alternative. I don't have anything bad to say about e-Junkie, it always worked for me but I thought the was the EU VAT rule change could maybe be improved and I hadn't seen support for different payment processors change in a while.

So, with the cart and payment processor options having moved on over the years, I looked around and settles on DPD for the cart and a combination of PayPal and Stripe for payment processing. I was impressed by the look and feel of the DPD offering and the admin interface was easy to use.

Integration with PayPal and Stripe was seamless and all I really needed to do was tweak the licence code generation script to handle the different POST parameters.

One notable change, from a purchasers perspective, is in the handling of EU VAT. With e-Junkie I had to, essentially, use a VAT-inclusive price. This meant that, in addition to the card fees, I was also absorbing the tax cost for EU customers. With the switch to DPD the licence cost for APHound Plus is still $19.99 however EU customers will have VAT, at their appropriate local rate, applied at the checkout.

Just a quick update...

2015-12-15T19:23:00.000+00:00

No, I haven’t forgotten about v1.8!

I’ve made a few twitter posts since the last blog entry about v1.8 but I completely failed to include the content of them in an update here! Me bad.

I decided to make v1.8 the last release of 2015 and pushed it’s release to late, very late, December. I had been trying to stick to a release-per-month update cycle but it didn’t make sense for this one, so I changed the cycle.

By extending the cycle for v1.8 I also get to do one other big thing – completely re-vamp the website. I played around with this a short time ago and got absolutely nowhere whilst wasting a lot of time. However, I now have a layout and plan for the new website and it’s on track.

As for v1.8, my intention was to work on new features for the site survey functionality. That’s still the plan but I started rooting around in the window resize code and realised a decision I made way back at the start of development had come back to bite me. The upshot is I’m re-writing the window resize code….and some of the window painting code. But hey, coding is fun.

I’ve also started looking forward in to 2016 and the plans for APHound. I have to say I’m looking forward to it – the Trello boards are shaping up very well in terms of regular releases but there’s one item on it that I can’t wait to start. More on that one after I think it through a little more and finish off some prototyping.

APHound v1.7 Released

2015-10-19T09:43:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.7 is now available.

This release is essentially a technical upgrade release which was focused on an upgrade to the development environment, new Microsoft runtimes and an upgraded chart library.

The upgrade to the new Microsoft runtimes means that the APHound installer has grown from a, reasonable, 3-4Mb to a whopping 15Mb in this release. I’ll be aiming to bring the install size back down over subsequent releases.

The changes in v1.7 are:

New Features

The access point list now shows the station count and channel utilisation when they are provided by the access point.

Enhancements

Upgraded to the new Chart Director v6 library.
Upgraded the development environment to Visual Studio 2015. This included shipping the new Microsoft runtime environments.

Fixes

Fixed excessive flickering on the chart refreshing.
Fixed an elusive memory leak in the access point group handling.
Amended the display of SSID in the access point list to ensure it’s updated if the SSID changes while APHound is running.

Visit the APHound website for full details.

APHound v1.7….in progress

2015-10-07T18:44:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.7 is still waiting to be released. I’ve been trying to stick to a schedule of a minor point release in each month but that has slipped a little with v1.7.

Functionally, the new version of APHound is ready and tested but there has been a testing delay caused by some problems with my virtual test machines. In the end this required a switch back to VMWare after a flirtation with Hyper-V and VirtualBox. VMWare might not be the snappiest performing virtual environment but it sure does work.

A second issue, the one I’m still dealing with, is my decision to move the development environment to the new, shiny, Visual Studio 2015. The way the runtimes are now redistributed has caused a bit of a packaging headache since I’m loathe to ship more than APHound actually needs.

Hopefully the packaging issue will be resolved in the next day or so and I can release v1.7 over the weekend.

One big thing that did happen was that the trade mark registration for APHound completed. So APHound is now APHound® ! Of course, that means more work in the form of documentation and website changes but it’s a series of changes I don’t mind making.

APHound v1.6 Released

2015-08-20T18:49:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.6 is now available.

This release is focused on enhancing the signal survey feature for Plus Edition users:

New Features

Signal Surveys can be exported as web pages. Click here to see a sample
Signal Surveys can now have free-form text markers dropped on them. Useful for noting important information when the survey measurements are being taken.
The access point list now shows a manufacturer name. This is based on the MAC address so may not always match the name the access point is marketed under.
Access points can now be assigned a user-defined alias. This helps identification of the access point, especially when multiple access points share the same SSID.

Enhancements

User changes to the column widths on the access point list are now saved and restored between APHound runs.
Signal Survey now shows the number of measurements made (and number remaining for Free Edition users) and information on any loaded survey background image.
Signal Survey now has pop-up tooltips to show measurement values and text marker free-form text.
Signal Survey now shows more access point information at the defined location of the access point.
Signal Survey now shows directional lines to indicate the progress of the survey.

Visit the APHound website for full details.

APHound v1.5 Released

2015-07-23T08:54:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.5 is now available.

This was originally planned to include updates to the signal survey feature but too much time spent looking at a new website (when will I learn!) resulted in a smaller bug fix and feature update..

New Features

Update process is now handled by APHound rather than downloading via a browser.
Uninstall of the Free edition now prompts for user feedback.

Defects

Supported standards could occasionally be set to an invalid value.
v1.4 introduced a bug to the Plus edition where the registration information could be requested every time APHound started.
Base standard was not always set for an access point in the access point list (although supported standards were).

Visit the APHound website for full details.

Aaaaargh Websites.

2015-07-11T08:22:00.001+01:00

By now I should have been gearing up to release a v1.5 with an expanded signal survey feature. Instead I’m finishing off a maintenance feature before locking v1.5 as, primarily, a small bugfix release.

Where did v1.5 development go wrong? One word - website.

I’d spent some time analysing the analytics from the website as I was reviewing the AdWords campaign and there were a couple of things I wanted to address on the website. This, of course, turned into a completely new website which in turn morphed into a compete time soak because, as a developer, I’m awful at graphic design!

In the end I stopped working on the new website and returned focus to at least making a release during July.

Lesson learned…..again!

But, there was a great moment in the last few weeks – sales!

Whilst the download stats for the Free edition have been very healthy the sales of the Plus edition have been slower to get going. However, having been through the process of releasing a new application before I was completely fine with this. I knew that there wasn’t a big enough feature difference between Free and Plus and I started to address that in v1.4 with the addition of 5Ghz and 802.11ac support for Plus users. The expansion of Plus features will be the primary focus for the next few releases.

One great bit of news - the website mentions that I’d like to use part of the sales income from APHound for charitable donations. Well, that fund has now started. It’s still small, but from tiny acorns…

I’ll post more on the donations fund when it reaches an amount that prompts the first donations.

APHound v1.4 Released

2015-06-12T10:31:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.4 is now available.

The main changes for this release were to add support for 5GHz access points and to add support for 802.11ac.

New Features

Added support for 5GHz access points to the Plus Edition.
Added support for 802.11ac to the Plus Edition.

Enhancements

Replaced chart legends with colour coding on the access point list.
Save and restore the splitter bar position when the application exits and starts.
Added additional fields to the access point information tab.
Added a grid to the signal survey when no background image is loaded.

Defects

Hidden access points will now always be issued with a consistent “Hidden #n” number.
Channel width representation on bar charts was overflowing and appearing too large.

Visit the APHound website for full details.

APHound V1.4 – Dev complete, finally!

2015-06-05T19:26:00.001+01:00

Well, that took longer than expected - and in the end I bumped a couple of “would be nice” updates from v1.4 to v1.5.

But, I got the two big items for this release finished – support for 5GHz WiFi and 802.11ac support. Both of those took longer than I’d planned but that was simply because I didn’t like the way the code was evolving and decided to refactor some more of the 2.4GHz code to make it useful to 5GHz.

Apart from those two big items there’s also:

A bug fix for the way hidden networks are displayed.
Some additional fields on the Access Point Info tab.
A grid on the signal survey display when there’s no background image.
The main splitter control position is saved between runs of the application.
Libcurl has been dropped in to replace native API calls.
The chart legend boxes have been removed and the entries on the access point list are now colour coded.

So, a decent mix of changes.

Final testing should hopefully complete over the weekend and a release is planned some time next week.

Lift-off for V1.4

2015-05-15T08:31:00.001+01:00

APHound v1.4 development has been slow to get off the ground this month but I’m finally moving it along. The slower start is just down to one of those Micro ISV realities – having two jobs. The bulk of your time is still taken up earning a living, which fortunately for me means doing the thing I enjoy most - software development, and most of your “free” time is taken up with your Micro ISV.

But hey, any excuse to code!

So, v1.4. The main driver for this release is to add support for 5GHz Wi-Fi. I’ll also be finishing off the support for 802.11ac which I started in v1.3. The changes to detect 5GHz, and 802.11ac capable, access points are already up and running and the initial information display and RSSI tracking is good. Next up is handling the channel allocations.

The Trello board for v1.4 has a few other things on it – internal download of updates, additional fields on the access point information tab, some internal refactoring and a couple of minor bug fixes – but the slower than normal start and the desire to keep up the, roughly, monthly release cycle might push some of these things in to v1.5.

The other item of note this month is that I started the first Google AdWords campaign. I purposely waited until I had a couple update releases complete before I undertook any form of advertising since I knew there were some improvements I wanted to make before I was happy with APHound.

The initial AdWord stats are much better than anticipated and, after a few tweaks to the ads and the keywords, the traffic to the website has grown massively. I’ll let the first campaign run its course then sit down and look at the user/website interactions which will help drive the next website update.

V1.3 Released

2015-05-04T15:17:00.000+01:00

APHound v1.3 is now available.

This release was, primarily, to add the extended access point information tab but it also includes a number of additional enhancements and fixes.

New Features

Added a new tab to show extended access point information for Plus Edition users.
Added the capability, for Plus Edition users, to vary the time between Wi-Fi scans.
Added the capability to display 40Mhz wide channels on the access point list and channel charts.
Added the display of Co-Channel and Channel Overlap counts for Plus Edition users.

Enhancements

Display the MAC address on the bars on the channel charts.
Reduced flickering on data lists.
Selected interface is now remembered.
Selected access point is brought to the front of the channel charts.
Numerous internal enhancements to improve the responsiveness of the user interface and the handling of data.

Defects

Fixed issue where supported data rate information could contain duplicate values.
Fixed issue where hidden access points could be displayed with a zero MAC address.
Fixed issue where the presence of a 5Ghz access point could cause APHound to crash.
Fixed issue where the channel chart doesn’t always show all access points.
Fixed issue of out of range value being used for the allocated channel on the access point list.
Fixed spacing of adjacent channels on the channel totals chart.

Visit the APHound website for full details.

APHound V1.3 – Code complete…phew!

2015-04-30T17:46:00.001+01:00

V1.3 turned into one of those releases that sometimes comes along – so much fun (is that wrong?) that there was always room for just one more thing. But I finally stopped and reached code and test complete. I just have the help file and website changes to do and it’s good to go.

I did add the new Access Point Information tab, which was the main point of the release, which contains a little more information than the access point list for each access point. It allows access point data to be displayed side-by-side for comparison.

Looking at the Trello board there’s also a bit more in this one, such as:

A couple of bug fixes
A good chunk of refactoring
Support for channel bonding/40MHz channels
A co-channel and channel overlap count
User selectable scan intervals

I finally took delivery of a 5GHz, and 802.11ac, capable access point and USB dongle which allowed me to do some initial testing to identify the changes required to support 5GHz networks. That looks pretty good already and it’ll form the basis of V1.4.

I had a good look through the APHound Trello board to try and plan a bit further out. There was enough detail to plan not only V1.4 but also V1.5 and V1.6 too. But enough of that, I need to get V1.3 out of the door first.

APHound V1.3 in full swing

2015-04-12T13:45:00.001+01:00

Progress, so far, on APHound V1.3 in April is proving to be much better than V1.2 was in March. The development of this release just seems to be flowing a bit better.

Looking at the Trello board for APHound there’s a bit of a mixture in this release. A few minor bugs fixes, a new feature and tab for the Plus edition and a chunk of code refactoring in preparation for future changes.

The new feature/tab is for displaying more detailed information on each access point and to allow side-by-side comparisons of the data from multiple access points.

I’m also hoping to squeeze in the display changes for access points which can utilise secondary channels.

Refactoring wise, there’s some more efficient data handling and interpretation of the data returned from the scans along with improvements in string and display scheme handling which will enable future customisation.

I also, finally, ordered 5GHz kit to allow development of support for 5GHz access points. I haven’t fixed which release that will appear in but a quick scan of the Trello board would place it in V1.4/V1.5.

Back to it!

The sloooooow month.

2015-03-26T07:44:00.001+00:00

A period where the output from development slows happens from time to time. Usually it’s down to the optimistic developer under estimating a task, unexpected bugs or some external time soak. This month has been like that, but with an added “planning to put too much into the next release” tagged on.

To stick to the “release early, release often” mantra I’ve decided to release the one new feature I’ve added over the past few weeks. It’s a new chart which shows the channel allocation and signal strength of each reporting access point.

I had this chart in an early version of APHound but decided against releasing it because I could never get enough clarity in the display of the data when the number of access points grew. It just looked jumbled. But I was tweaking the colour and opacity of the bars in the chart and I think it now looks good enough to release.

This feature will be for the Plus version only since I’ve decided that version needs more to differentiate it from the Free edition.

All going well I should have a new release out this coming weekend.

V1.1 Released

2015-03-09T08:49:00.001+00:00

Bugs. Only it was the flu that delayed the v1.1 release rather than something in the code. Still, APHound v1.1 was released last night and is now available for download from the APHound website.

The main aim of this release is to finish off some features which didn’t make the launch version and to address a couple of small defects.

New Features

Added a “Last Seen” date and time to the access points.
Added a new split-bar to the window to allow for better use of the display area.
Added a pop-up context menu to the access point list for more check/uncheck options.
Added access point grouping.

Enhancements

Improvements to local data storage. This was primarily the introduction of SQLite which will be required for future features.
Retain access point information on screen rather than remove them after they stop appearing in scan data.
UI change to make the access point list a little better looking and to add some functionality to it.

Defects

The installer wasn’t setting the application version information correctly.
Occasionally an access point would remain on the charts even when de-selected.
Include channel 13 and appropriate spacing to channel 14.

All of the changes apply to both the Free and Plus editions.

Work now starts on v1.2 which, looking at the list of potential changes for inclusion in the release, will be more focused on the Plus edition.

Towards v1.1

2015-02-19T19:31:00.001+00:00

I’m approaching the end of the third week post-v1 launch and I’m still pleased with where things are.

The website stats took a slight dip towards the end of last week but they’re now back up and showing steady day on day increases.

I’d opted for a sort of “soft release” for V1 since I knew there were a couple of things I’d rather have in place before kicking off any AdWords campaigns or sending out more information far and wide. Those things will be addressed in V1.1 which is now code/feature complete. The initial soak tests to check memory and resource use are done too.

I’d originally intended to release APHound v1.1 towards the end of February but with a fair wind it looks like this weekend might be possible. The changes for v1.1 open up some exciting (well I think so :) ) possibilities for v1.2 which I’m really looking forward to getting started on.

One Week On

2015-02-08T13:22:00.001+00:00

It’s a week since APHound v1.0 was released so I thought I’d pop up a quick update.

The web stats for the site continue to look reasonably good and they’re still slightly better than I expected them to be at this point. Downloads of the Free Edition continue to be slightly higher than anticipated. It’s likely that over the course of the next week I’ll look at the initial Google AdWords campaign.

Development on v1.1 is on track and nearing completion already and I’ll be looking to move that into a release candidate test phase over the next week.

The main focus for v1.1 has been the introduction of SSID grouping in the access point list with the initial version simply grouping the SSID list according to SSID name. Networks with multiple access points of the same SSID will be grouped together, single access point per SSID networks will appear as a single grouping and any access points which have stopped reporting will move into a “non-reporting” group. Grouping can be enabled and disabled via a new menu option.

Custom groupings will start to make an appearance from v1.2.

Another key reason for the quick move from v1.0 to v1.1 is that I want to give the upgrade process a good end to end shakedown and this quick release of v1.1 will enable that to happen.

Back to work!

Release Day + 3

2015-02-04T20:21:00.001+00:00

APHound was released on 1st Feb, 3 days ago, so what’s happening now?

Actually, I’m pretty pleased with the stats from the website. The visitor counts are higher than I hoped for over the first few days and the free edition is starting to be downloaded.

The aim for the first week was just to see visitors on the site, maybe a handful of downloads too, and then to have a look at the site analytics to see how people were browsing.

Work on v1.1 is progressing and I know what changes will be in that release. It’ll include a couple of small bug fixes which missed v1 and also a small UI refresh for the access point list to include the first version of SSID groups. Under the covers will be the introduction of SQLite for some data handling.

So, not an Earth shattering first update, but enough to push the application forward and also test the upgrade mechanism. It’s also an “enabler” release which paves the way for features planned in v1.2 and v1.3.

Timetable wise I’m aiming for the end of February for v1.1.

And our dog Hank is doing well too!

Release the hound!

2015-02-01T10:08:00.001+00:00

The last item on the v1 release checklist has been complete and the holding page on the website removed.

APHound v1.0 has been released.

Full details on the website at www.aphound.com

The Free edition is free for personal use and for use by registered charitable organisations. Business users can purchase a licence for the Plus edition.

I’d say a short break is in order before continuing (yes it’s already started) v1.1.

Good to go!

2015-01-31T19:00:00.001+00:00

Today was a big push to try and recover some of the lost time from last week.

My development PC is working well after it’s upgrade to Windows 8.1.

I had to install Stardock’s Fences again – just makes life so much easier. And I’m trying out their Windows 8 start menu Start8. I say trying it out but after using it for a day I won’t be uninstalling it. It’s just too good.

A coffee fuelled morning resulted in the website being completed and a number of end to end tests for purchase/install/update with a real build of the software. The tests highlighted a couple of small issues which were easily corrected.

The afternoon ended with the help files complete. To be honest there’s not much to them but they take time because of the image generation and actually writing the text. Again, the Dr. Explain package was a great help.

So, as I type, all of the build configurations (Debug, Release, Demo) for both the Free Edition and the Plus Edition have just completed with zero warnings and errors.

My I’ll finish off a check in to the repository and tag the release then I’ll put my feet up for the evening with a beer.

Release day is tomorrow!