wyDay blog

I promised that I'd have the next version of InstantUpdate out by the "end of June or the beginning of July". I didn't lie. I synergised truth with fact-drought.

You may have noticed my spiffy new vocabulary. It's the forward thinking that we have adopted to mashup the long-tail business. I will also be phasing out the personal singular tone in favor of the plural active tone. We think it's best. I may not agree, but we disagree.

Who am I to argue with we? I am only one but we are one.

The singular tone we used in the past was about boxes thinking outside. But it was raining outside. The brilliant boxes got mashed-up.

We blame the long-tail dog.

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Updates to InstantUpdate coming soon. I'm working long hours to make it as great as possible. You'll see.

The Release Candidate 2 wasn't out for a week before I got my first user submitted translation: Serbian, translated by Ivan Stambolic. This made me realize that though I spent months thinking about how to execute the translation editor, I hadn't made it easy for contributing translations.

I'll have this oversight fixed in the next version of InstantUpdate. For now, I've created a page for user submitted translations. Additionally, there's a section about contributing new translations and fixes to existing translations.

Fixing translations

As I mentioned in the Release Candidate 2 anouncement, InstantUpdate comes with 11 translations. However, the translations into these languages were done by a machine. Not a walking, talking, singing, dancing, machine. A dumb machine that thinks in probabilities. Thus, these 11 translations almost definitely contain errors.

If you speak (or write) in Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, or Swedish, any fixes would be appreciated.

Why contribute translations?

Or more like: "Why contribute translations to a closed source project?"

The InstantUpdate Client won't remain closed source for much longer. Once InstantUpdate hits '1.0' I'll be releasing the source code of the Client under an Open Source license. I haven't decided what license, but it will likely be similar to Mozilla's model (i.e. a dual licensing model combining GPL and proprietary). More on this later.

Multilingual altruists everywhere: get crackin'. I'll be grateful.

InstantUpdate 1.0 Release Candidate 2 is out now. This is a fairly large release; it has more bugs fixed and features added than any previous version.

New features:

• InstantUpdate Client is now translated to 11 languages (Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish)
• Create and edit translations using the new translation editor
• InstantUpdate is now code signed which produces friendlier warnings when Vista's UAC elevation is needed
• Appearance templates can be edited
• Files can now be executed either before or after your update
• Programs created with the .NET Framework are automatically optimized

Notable Bug fixes:

• InstantUpdate Designer correctly supports Windows Explorer drag and drop.
• Full support for custom set fonts, including Windows Vista's SegoeUI
• InstantUpdate Designer starts and runs considerably faster
• Keyboard accessibility improvements
• Vista's UAC elevation is only called when absolutely necessary
• Plus much more.

And, as always, the forum is open for questions, comments, bug reports, and general help of any kind. No registration is required, just drop by.

Download InstantUpdate 1.0 RC 2