Antair releases RE:mind for the BlackBerry
This evening, as the Tofurky settled, we released Antair RE:mind; our latest product for the BlackBerry platform.
Instead of messing around inside a calendar and scheduling upcoming tasks, RE:mind lets you quickly create “follow-ups”. This allows you to work your way through the morning INBOX and quickly mark important e-mail to follow up on “in an hour”, or to mark a missed phone call for following up “tomorrow”.
Antair RE:mind allows you to quickly create e-mail, phone-call, and personal follow-up reminders with as little as 2 clicks.
Behind the scenes, Antair RE:mind runs on the third generation of our custom user interface infrastructure. This is the first product to run the latest UI code. For comparison, you can take a look at Antair Spam Filter for the BlackBerry, which runs the first generation of our UI code, and the Antair Auto-Responder for the BlackBerry, which runs the second generation. The third generation of the UI code makes our apps look very slick. I’m very proud of it.
Back-office redesign.
Four years ago, when we were first starting out, we hardly had any time to breathe, let alone time to building a comprehensive back office system to help manage the company. Initially, things ran in Excel. Later on, we did manage to put together a rudimentary system (with pieces of tape, some loose belly button lint, and the ugliest Perl code ever written). It was what it was, but it worked for us at the time.
These days, we’re still pretty busy, but we do have the time to invest in better internal tools. So, over the weekend, while The Joy of Painting played continuously in the background, I rewrote our back office system.
Here are some before and after screenshots. Click on them for a larger size.
Before:
After:
Software Development Internship at Antair
A paid internship has opened up at Antair.
“We’re seeking intelligent, highly motivated internship applicants who are eager to learn the most they can about how a software application goes from first thought to a finished product.”
Debugging BlackBerry User Interface Code
The most effective debugging techniques are usually the simplest; printf(), echo(), System.out.println().
If you’re debugging UI code for the BlackBerry, here’s your printf() :
protected void paint ( Graphics graphics )
{
graphics.setColor ( 0×00FFFFFF );
graphics.drawRect ( 0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight() );
super.paint ( graphics );
}
A great new iPhone game.
Check out Eyegore’s Eye Blast. A new title from RetroDreamer – right in time for Halloween.
Vote for Antair
Antair BlackBerry Spam Filter has been nominated for the 2009 Handango Champion Awards for Best Phone Tool.
If you’re a customer, or simply want to support the company, please don’t hesitate to send us a vote or two.
Our revenue numbers for the year.
You’re probably here for the wrong reason.
I never understood the need for software startups to publicly disclose every step of their growth; particularly their revenue numbers.
Small companies do this all the time. Companies that end their year with a few thousand dollars of revenue do this. It’s all in the spirit of “being open”.
Bah.
The only people interested in such things are other founders; usually those who just recently started their companies and are looking for some inspiration.
You’re standing on a six-inch tall wooden crate preaching to those who, with a bit of persistence and some work ethic, will eventually figure out how to build a wooden crate of their own.
At best, it’s silly fodder for your blog. But usually, it’s nothing more than a form of self-congratulatory masturbation.
It’s the same as when companies building their first offices obsess over photos of other offices; it’s corporate porn.
Speaking as a founder of a company that’s been growing for the past five years, I can tell you that after a certain point, the companies that you “look up to”, are those that no longer disclose their revenues publicly – probably because they matured beyond this nonsensical need.
That’s when things become interesting.
Incidentally, I’m being a complete hypocrite here, but am nevertheless pleased that I was able to stick the words “porn” and “masturbation” into a post that has nothing to do with either.
Defying Gravity on ABC.
Before the show started, I called it “watered down sci-fi” — Desperate Housewives in space.
As soon as the dialog mentioned “our YouTube feed” in the context of space exploration some time in the future, I knew I called it right. I’m waiting for someone to pull out an iPhone at some point within the next two hours of the pilot episode.
I hope to be proven wrong, as we’re seriously craving good sci fi since the end of BSG, but, I mean, Firefly lasted for less than 20 episodes, and instead we get this stuff.
Or maybe I’m just hard on any new entry into the genre …
HTTP Error 413: Request Entity Too Large
Having trouble downloading that .MP3 onto your BlackBerry? Well, you could always go find a USB tether and a laptop, download the MP3 to the computer, and perform the usual transfer nonsense.
Or, just visit http://mini.opera.com from your BlackBerry, download the Opera Mini browser, and use that to download the .MP3 directly to your phone – just like you wanted to in the first place.
Where I program
Andy Brice has put together a great post entitled Where I Program. It features a great photo collection of programmers’ offices and work spaces. Our new office space at Antair is covered in the post as well.
