Update from 03/02: PayPal donations are possible now.

Update from 03/04: Current information. Please see below.

Update from 03/04: More products added to the offer (MySQL Debugger and several products from Dair Computer Systems)

Update from 07/03 and 08/03: Surgery went well, the tumor is malignant, but no metastasys. Hoping for the best.

I have a personal request to all people willing to help, and in exchange we’ll send you a free license for any of our software titles (Web Log Storming, Agenda At Once or CD Label Designer). Also, we want to thank George Schmidt and Dennis Reinhardt who both wish to join this effort by giving away a license for their products under same conditions: MySQL Debugger, HtmlApp Studio, DialogDevil and TelephoneMessagePad. Thank you, George and Dennis!

A friend’s 5-year-old son, Andrew (Andrej) Knezevic, has, unfortunately, been diagnosed with a brain tumor (dg. tu trunci cerebri). As we live in Serbia, a relatively underdeveloped country, the only possible treatment is a surgical operation that can be done in Zurich (Switzerland). However, the cost of this treatment is nearly 100,000 € that must be paid by his parents (see below for the current information). Needless to say, it’s the kind of money they, or most people here, don’t have. They already contacted various charity organizations, but responses are either slow or negative, and for this little kid every day matters.

That said, I would like to ask you kindly: instead of buying our software, please donate what you can to this family in order to help their boy getting better. There’s no minimum amount – now is not the time to be picky, as every dollar or euro means a lot.

After you do that, please submit a ticket message or leave a comment below and we’ll send you a license key. Please don’t forget to include an amount you’ve donated and the software title you are interested in.

For further information visit a Facebook group page (mostly in Serbian, with few English sentences) and feel free to forward this article to anyone you know (you can simply use Tweet button above or other social network buttons below).

Sincerely,
Vladimir Radmilovic
Dataland Software

Current information

Thank you all of you who helped Andrew in any way, either by donating, spreading a word or both.

03/03: As Andrew’s condition becomes worse with each day, the clinic accepted to do a surgery even though there is no enough money yet. At this moment he’s in Zurich and we are waiting for further news. There’s still need for about 50,000 €, so if you haven’t already, please consider contributing now or forward this post to you friends. Thank you in advance!

03/04: Andrew is currently on the intensive care and he’s feeling slightly better, thanks to therapy he’s receiving. Doctors expect that he will be ready for a surgery in few days. What’s most important, according to information currently available, the main surgeon is optimistic! Let’s hope that everything will be alright soon…

07/03 and 08/03: Thanks to all who participated, the 100,000 € checkpoint is reached and there was enough money for the surgery which took place on Saturday, March 6. Surgery went well but, unfortunately, the tumor is malignant. Later analysis shows that there is no metastasis, which is a good part of the news. Still, Andrew and his family will now need more money to finance a chemotherapy and other treatment, to return debts and regain property they sold. That’s why we will continue with this offer.

Andrew feels much better after the surgery. He’s not in the intensive care room anymore, he’s talking a lot, smiling and doctor is very satisfied how recovery goes so far. He’s a strong boy and we all hope and believe that he will beat the illness!

You can see latest photos here.

PayPal donations

Please go to PayPal transfer form and donate to an email address dmaci _AT_ bluemail.ch (of course, replace “_AT_” with “@”).

Spendenkonto (for donors from Germany)

MATIJEVIC/ANDREJ KNEZEVIC
Kontonr.: 4833783
BLZ : 505 922 00
Volksbank Dreieich eG
Verwendungszweck: Spende für Andrej

Payment instructions for wire transfer

Intermediary Bank/ Correspodent bank

SWIFT-BIC: DEUTDEFF

Name: DEUTSHE BANK AG

City, Country: FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY

Account whit institution/ Beneficiary’ s Bank

SWIFT-BIC: KOBBRSBGFSO

Name: KOMERCIJALNA BANKA A.D. BEOGRAD

Street: Svetog Save 14

City, Country: Belgrade, Serbia

Beneficiary

IBAN/Account Number: RS35205903101160712320

Name: JELENA KNEZEVIC

Street: Sv.Miletica 6

City, Country: Stanisic, Serbia

Recently we had an unpleasant communication with one of our users who claims that our application sent an error report to us without his consent. Needless to say, we really take a special care about your privacy from the day one of our existence, avoiding any “sneaky” practices that lot of companies utilized until few years ago, when they still weren’t illegal. Ethics is and was the first law that we choose to oblige to.

That’s why this kind accusations immediately raised our alarm and we started to test our bug reporting routine in order to find and fix this misbehavior as soon as possible. However, all our tests went fine and we couldn’t reproduce the problem this user is referring to.

Regardless of that, we have left open the possibility that there’s either a bug or a misunderstanding causing this, and tried to get more information from him. Unfortunately, not just that he was not able to help, but his e-mails also contained some contrastive descriptions, let alone an attitude that was preventing any rational communication.

Considering that, and the fact that no one ever complained about this issue before, we would like to be sure: has any of our applications ever sent a bug report to us without your permission? If yes, please let us know as soon as possible so we can take further actions.

What’s error reporting?

“Hunting” bugs and crashes without any details is a “mission impossible”, as all that you get is a description like “Access violation at address 004E046E in module ‘Application.exe’. Read of address 000001B4.” or “Range check error”. With these alone we can’t do much – they barely inform us about error type and nothing else. That’s why any developer who’s serious about building a stable software intended for distribution to wide audience can’t imagine doing it without some error logging library, either built in-house or purchased from another vendor. For this purpose we use great EurekaLog.

These reports usually contain basic information that could affect program running: operating system with a version, amount of RAM, HDD, processor type and speed, running processes, etc. Most useful part of this report is a so called call stack, which shows us exactly in which function of our code problem occurred and what other functions invoked it. Also, there’s more information useful only to some types of applications: computer and user name, LAN IP address, etc. Sometimes, when call stack doesn’t suffice to locate an error, there’s a assembler code, computer register values, short memory content  (from this specific application) and, if user agrees, a screen shot.

How does it work in our applications?

As error reporting function should be and is completely voluntary, if error happens the first window that you see looks like this:

As you can see, there are two buttons at the bottom: “Send Error Report” and “Don’t Send“, so user has a clear choice to send it to us or not. There are also a two optional placeholders for your description and Email address (useful in case we have additional questions about the error).

In the middle of the window there’s also a “click here” link that you can use to inspect data this report contains before sending it. If you click on it, you’ll see a window like this:

At the left there are two checkboxes: “Send this error via Internet” and “Attach a Screenshot image“. By turning them off you can, once again, make a decision about sending. There’s also a convenient checkbox at the right (”Copy to Clipboard“), in case you want to send us error report manually by using your Email client (with some editing, if you wish).

It’s important to say that we don’t know who sent an error report, unless you explicitly leave us an Email address or name (in the first window) or send us a follow-up message pointing it out.

We hope that this article resolves any questions that our error reporting could raise, but feel free to contact us if you have any additional concerns.

Here’s an opportunity to get a Agenda At Once PIM software license for free. We don’t ask much – probably anyone can accomplish at least three of these requirements with minimal effort; some are so trivial that we’ll need to withdraw them at some point…

1. Write and publish a mini review on your (or someone else’s) blog, website or productivity forum.

2. Comment and submit a (honest!) rating at some of popular download websites (download.com, softpedia.com, fileforum.betanews.com, snapfiles.com, …).

3. Send us at least 10 suggestions or bugs. Everything counts, regardless of importance or severity. And this includes website and help (user manual) errors, obscure parts or wording improvements.

4. Finish one of presented TrialPay offers (subscribe to a service, join a network, buy different product, etc). Feel free to browse a list and find something that you like.

And of course, if your trial is over before you had chance to review it properly, just ask and we will send you trial extension key.

“Opinions are like noses, everyone has one”

When I mention that my company is selling PIM software, I almost can hear “On no! Another one?!”. Other PIM developers surely share similar experience, so let me try to explain what the heck I was (we were?) thinking.

Back in 2002, when our first products just started to pick up and I was getting serious about all this stuff, I needed PIM / to-do list application that I can actually use. After trying out dozen of existing products, I finally came to the conclusion that none of them suits my needs. Some were too complicated for what I need, some were too simple for what I need and some were just too ugly for my taste. Of course, I was aware that these products were perfect for some other people, but still, I needed an application that does things differently.

Full of enthusiasm, without hesitation, business plans and similar mumbo-jumbos, I sat down and started a new project: Agenda At Once. Back then I didn’t know what we will do with it: give it away, sell it or just use it internally. I was simply satisfied with a feeling of creating something new and innovative.

After seeing what doesn’t work for me, I had a decent picture of what will. I took these as starting points:

1. My job doesn’t include much fixed appointments – I should probably pay most attention to to-do list management.

2. Of course, time after time I do need to schedule or attend a meeting, so application should have this possibility too.

3. It should be possible to divide tasks into subtasks. Strangely enough, in 2002 not much (if any) PIMs supported this.

4. It should be possibile to enter free-form notes somehow, for any data that doesn’t stricly fall into a “task” category.

5. It should be really easy to use – drag & drop, plenty of keyboard shortcuts, descriptive and simple interface.

It turns out that what worked for me worked for lot of other people too. Soon enough users started suggesting new features and most of them were implemented in all these years. Although number of features and options is multiplied compared to first release, I think we succeeded to maintain almost same level of simplicity and keep original philosophy.

So, what’s the answer? My guess is: yes, as long as at least one developer is motivated enough to create it – there’s a good chance that many non-developers have similar noses opinions.

Here’s an opportunity to get our Agenda At Once PIM for half of a price. On November 11, 2008 you will be able to get full license of this award winning PIM for only $19.95 (US) via Bits du Jour daily software deals website.

Agenda At Once combines the best aspects of other personal organizer applications. It’s a complete PIM system, integrating to-do management, scheduling and planning, contact and note functions.

In addition, it is easy to use and responsive, while being feature-packed but not power-hungry.

With its optimally-designed interface, Agenda At Once will rapidly put you in charge of your – or your team’s – personal information. You’ll be saving time and accomplishing so much more that you’ll be wondering how you even managed without it.

Don’t miss!