Since version 1.0, we’ve received a ton of feature requests. The most popular by far has been “make an iPhone version”, and yes, I am working on MYStuff Mobile, which will be a companion app to MYStuff 2. But there’s been a lot of other ones that may seem mundane, but are important, such as improved CSV import.

As we stated previously, MYStuff 2 is a ground-up rewrite, complete with a new and improved interface. (And yes, the new version will migrate all your old data). But when we sat down with our feature list for 2.0, and realized while there’s a ton of new features, some of them should have been part of MYStuff from the very beginning. We didn’t feel that users of MYStuff 1.x should have to pay for an upgrade to get features that should have been there all along, but at the same time there’s a bunch of new features that will be worthy of a paid upgrade.

Our solution, then, is that we’re going to release two versions of MYStuff 2. MYStuff 2, and MYStuff 2 Lite. All registered users of MYStuff will be able to upgrade to MYStuff 2 Lite for free, and be eligible for discounted upgrade pricing to the full version of MYStuff 2.

MYStuff 2 Lite will have all the same identical features as the current version of MYStuff, but we’re adding a bunch of new (long overdue) features. A few of these include:

• Improved CSV import
• Total values for each Category
• Right-click functions
• User-editable columns
• Smart folders

Obviously, this isn’t a complete list of all the new features of MYStuff 2 Lite, but it should give you an idea what to expect. Of course, there are a few unexpected “wow cool!” features in MYStuff 2 Lite that we’re keeping under wraps for the moment, and the full version will set a new standard for “stuff management” software.

Now the $64,000 question: when will it ship?

I wish I had a firm date, but in the world of software development, there are “hope to ship by” dates and there are “actual ship by” dates. The two sometimes coincide, sometimes they are vastly different. I’ll just say that the “hope to ship by” date is December 31st, 2011 so that people can use it to record the deluge of new stuff acquired over Christmas.

Stay tuned!

{ UPDATE } Based on feedback from MacUpdate customers, the names will be “MYStuff 2″ and “MYStuff 2 Pro”. So all registered users of MYStuff 1.x will be able to upgrade to MYStuff 2 for free, and be eligible for a discounted upgrade to MYStuff 2 Pro.

Also, I’m now expecting a ship date around the end of January. Personally, I’m disappointed I haven’t been able to get the new features implemented as fast as I wanted, but as my engineer wife reminds me, “innovation takes time.”

When developing software, there’s lots of things you have to do to make it ready for public consumption. Every aspect of every interaction must be reviewed, and testing every possible thing a person could do that would result in breaking your program. So in addition to using the software myself in my daily work, I deploy it to a team of beta testers who beat on it too, and catch things I never would because everyone uses a program a little differently.

So when you think it’s perfect, when you think you have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, you ship it.

And you misplace a decimal point or some other mundane detail that winds up not being so mundane.

(Yes, I just made an Office Space reference. I think fully 65.3% of my daily dialog is made up of movie, TV show, or lyrical references. And the more arcane the better.)

Two “mundane details” marred an otherwise perfect launch of Stock Keeper, forcing us to quickly release Stock Keeper 1.0.1. Looks like I just had my glitch for this mission. (See, there I go again with the movie references. This time to Apollo 13.)

So if Stock Keeper is giving you the “the 30-day demo has expired” dialog, be sure to update to the 1.0.1 release. You may have to download it manually from here and replace the 1.0 version, but regardless how you do it, download the update and it will cure all your ills. (Three references in one post… a new record!)

Prior to software development, I spent 13 years pushing pixels as a graphic designer and ad man. And from one viewpoint, it can be said that software development isn’t that much different from advertising. Namely, you have a problem to solve, you have various tools to use, and you have to figure out the best way of solving it that appeals to people.

In advertising, that involves coming up with a message that has broad reach, and visual imagery that has aesthetic appeal.

In software development, that involves figuring out how someone will use your program in their everyday lives, and make the program visually appealing and easy to use.

In advertising you use the Adobe products and/or QuarkXPress to do your work. In software development on the Mac, you use Xcode.

In advertising, you have folders full of images that you use for concepting and developing your layouts. In software development, you have folders full of icons and other graphic bits that you use for assembling your user interfaces. In both situations, people spend hours searching for and managing their collections of raw materials. No application on the market helps people solve this problem. It’s time-consuming and a royal pain. And it was a situation that was long overdue for a fix.

So while working on MYStuff and MYComics I realized that I could apply my experience in graphic design and advertising to the problem and come up with a solution that would appeal to both graphic designers and software developers. (And anyone that needs to manage digital media assets.) The idea for Stock Keeper was born: An enhanced iPhoto-like application with a built-in web browser for searching online for stock photos and icons, and the ability to track usage licenses, where the media came from, how much was paid for it, and more.

After 3 months of development, we’re very excited to release Stock Keeper. And at $19 we hope that everyone can afford to make their media-management lives much easier. Head on over to the product page and download the demo.

In the past few months, we’ve been in contact with Universal Uclick about MYComics, and during those discussions we’ve agreed to scrap some of the future features we had planned, such as web scraping (which would display the comics without displaying the web page). Comic authors who are syndicated through sites like GoComics make their money from ads and merchandise found on the pages hosted by GoComics. Far be it from me to advocate taking money away from the people who have used their talents to provide us entertainment over the years.

Other features are in the works, however, which will further improve your comic-viewing experience while at the same time respecting the copyright of the authors.

Needless to say, we are very excited about the added functionality iCloud will bring to the MYStuff platform, especially MYStuff 2 and MYStuff Mobile. We’re actively looking into iCloud and MYStuff compatibility at the moment, but it looks like the current version of MYStuff will “just work” with iCloud in the same way MYStuff “just works” with Dropbox.

As the developer resources are made available to us, we will be optimizing MYStuff to work as fluidly as possible with iCloud across multiple machines. Check back here for more news as it becomes available.

We didn’t, however, test a “new install”, as in “a new user launching MYStuff for the very first time.” And unfortunately, there was a bug that only affected new users.

Ouch.

Fortunately, it was reported quickly (late in the afternoon yesterday) and we had the bug fixed and a new release thoroughly tested and posted by this morning. If you downloaded the 1.5.5 release, either manually or via auto-update, you’ll need to manually update your copy of MYStuff to 1.5.6. Simply download a fresh copy and replace your old version.

Which brings us to the future of MYStuff 2. In recent months, we are beginning to appreciate how Apple felt when Mac OS 9 was out and OS X was under development: you still have to support the older technology, but you can’t wait to leave it behind. Old software code has a way of being like the “junk drawer” in your kitchen: you start out with it all neat and clean and organized, and over time it becomes filled with things that you should have thrown out a long time ago, or put away in their proper place but never quite got around to it.

After over 2 years of active development, MYStuff’s code has gotten to the point where it needs more than just a little house cleaning. MYStuff 2 is going to be a ground-up rewrite.

Radical? We don’t think so. There are a lot of benefits for us as developers, but the real winner will be our customers. Like Apple’s transition from Mac OS 9 to OS X, we’ll be laying a new foundation for the future growth of the application. (And trust us when we tell you that we have some great plans in store for MYStuff 2 and beyond.) From faster performance to more modern technologies and exciting new features, we know that doing a complete re-write for MYStuff 2 will be more than worth the effort.

It started off innocently enough. One of our customers reported a bug: Only “All Categories” was showing in the Category list. We quickly figured out what was causing the bug and figured out how to prevent it from happening again. Fixing existing databases affected by the bug proved to be problematic, however. After trying to fix it 8 different ways, we finally contacted Apple Developer Support. We provided them with a bunch of information, and after waiting three business days we finally got this reply: “I don’t have any new information on your request at this time, but I wanted to let you know that it has not been forgotten.  I will let you know as soon as I have something to report.”

So that’s where we’re at as of right now.

If you’re experiencing this problem, be aware that we are working hard to resolve it.

We diverged from work on MYStuff 2 and MYStuff Mobile to scratch a personal itch. (I know that sounded bad, but it’s not what you think. No anti-fungal creams were involved nor required.)

I love comic strips. Ever since I was a kid, the Sunday funnies were one of the highlights of the week. That and Saturday morning cartoons and pancakes. I started out with the usual Sunday funnies: Peanuts, Family Circus, and Garfield. As I got older, I abandoned those for The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes, Doonesbury and Bloom County. And while my favorite comics have come and gone, (and been replaced with newer strips) my love for comics has remained. Even today, I start my workday with coffee and comics.

My problem is that I like to keep ones that I think are funny so I can dig them up later: sometimes to share with friends when the context is appropriate, sometimes to insert into a presentation to illustrate a point. This is no big deal when you have a few dozen or even a few hundred. But when you have over 1500 Dilbert strips alone, finding that one where Wally is trying to convince Pointy-Haired Boss to let him work from home is, well, a daunting task.

I had tried a bunch of solutions to make everything more manageable. Importing into iPhoto was an imperfect option, since it cluttered my iPhoto library with comic strips. I wrote an AppleScript that would automatically file strips dragged to the Desktop based on the filename, but when websites changed their naming conventions the script would break and I’d wind up with a Desktop cluttered with “dim.gif”, “dim-1.gif”, “dim-2.gif”, and I’d have to manually name and file them into their respective folders. QuickLook helped browse my collection, but it was still far from ideal.

So MYComics was the solution. It is designed to be a lightweight and fast little program that allows you to view your favorite comic strips, save the ones you like, share them with Facebook, Twitter, and email, and then get out of your way.

We know the 1.0 release is pretty basic. There’s a handful of enhancements that we have planned, such as “web scraping” (searching the web page for the comic and only displaying that) and pre-loading, but we wanted to keep the 1.0 simple so we can see where our users want us to take it.

Download the demo and take it for a spin. It’ll run fully-featured for 30 days.

Since MYStuff 1.0 shipped, we’ve put out 5 major updates, with a bunch of great features:

• Location filter bar & CSV export (MYStuff 1.1)
• FileFinder introduced with iPhoto browser (MYStuff 1.2)
• FileFinder added manual and image searching & CSV import (MYStuff 1.3)
• Support for moving your database to other locations like Dropbox (MYStuff 1.4)
• Updated interface & support for all file types with built-in media player (MYStuff 1.5)

Thanks to user feedback, we have a bucket of new features and big changes, too many to add on to the current line of MYStuff. As a result, we’re starting up development on MYStuff 2. We’ll keep MYStuff 1 updated as necessary with any needed bugfixes and any compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, but all new major features will go into MYStuff 2.

In addition to MYStuff 2, we’re also working on MYStuff Mobile for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad. This is the hottest request from our users, and we want you to know that we’re listening. MYStuff Mobile will ship in 2011.

We’re also actively seeking new beta testers to help us make MYStuff 2 and MYStuff Mobile as feature-rich and bug-free as possible. Interested in being a beta tester? Click here.

And if you want to keep tabs on what’s going on, be sure to follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed.