wyDay blog

This is a short, but long overdue, update to tell you we've extensively tested all of our products with the current pre-release build of Windows 10 (10240), and everything is working perfectly. So if you're using the latest version of TurboActivate and TurboFloat (get the latest versions on your API page), and the latest version of wyBuild, then you'll be able to continue to use the best licensing and updaters with all currently supported versions of Windows.

(And of course, with TurboActivate and TurboFloat, you'll be able to continue to use the best licensing on Mac OS X, Linux, and soon Android in addition to the Windows support).

We'll of course test everything with the final Windows 10 once it comes out.

We keep an up-to-date list of compatibility and requirements on their own pages:

• See the latest wyBuild compatibility / requirements.
• Also, see the latest TurboActivate requirements and TurboFloat requirements.

Big changes coming

This past week we did major work and expansion to our server infrastructure to support the big features that are coming to LimeLM in the very near future.

The only changes that you will see currently (as of me writing this) is a healthy speed-up for all requests (managing licenses in LimeLM, online activations, deactivations, web API requests, etc.). But visible — and very cool! — features are coming soon.

So, stay tuned for big updates to LimeLM, TurboActivate, TurboFloat, and wyBuild that will be rolling out over next 3 months.

I'm excited! I can't wait to show off our hard work to our growing, loyal, customer base.

We've been hearing a lot about licensing companies shutting down lately. The most recent one to leave the scene is Sharify. Apparently Sharify is shutting down at the end of March 2013.

And because of this we've had an influx of "licensing refugees" — customers leaving old and defunct licensing products for LimeLM. To make this transition easier we've done 2 things:

1. We're providing a discount for all customers that switch to LimeLM.

2. We've made importing your old data very easy.

The discount: Basic plan for Solo Price

For customers that switch over to LimeLM anytime between now until the end of July 2013 you'll get the Basic plan for the Solo plan price ($11/month). This special price lasts for as long as you stay on the Basic plan. We hope your business grows so you can outgrow the Basic plan and move up — mutual self-interest :).

Whether you're switching from Sharify or one of the many other old, defunct, or poorly designed competitors taking advantage of this discount is easy. Here's how you take advantage of the discount:

1. Sign up for LimeLM

2. The shoot us an email (or give us a call) with something that we can use to verify you were a user of one of our competitors (any competitor — still standing, soon to shut-down, or long defunct).

After you take those 2 steps, we'll manually apply the discount to your account.

The quick sales pitch: why LimeLM?

So why should you choose LimeLM? Well, we have a whole article about it: What is hardware-locked licensing and why choose LimeLM?. But here's a brief rundown of our benefits:

• LimeLM and TurboActivate (the part you include with your app) work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Solaris and Android support will be added soon as per customer demand.

• You can integrate TurboActivate into your app no matter what programming language you use. Right now we have example integrations for all major programming languages (C, C++, C#, VB.NET, VBA, Adobe AIR, Java, Delphi, etc., etc., etc.). We add more example integrations based on customer demand.

• We make things dead simple for you to create and manage your licenses.

• We've made things even easier when your customers activate your app. You can even use our pre-built TurboActivate wizard to make online activation (or even offline activation) absolutely painless.

• You can automate absolutely everything so you never have to log into LimeLM if you don't want to. We have an extensive web API so you can integrate into your existing back-office processes.

• We have customers ranging in size from small one-man companies to Fortune 500 companies. In other words, large and small companies alike put their trust in us.

• We've been profitable since our first year in business and we've been growing steadily. This means we're not going anywhere.

On top of all that, if you're still not sure whether you want to use LimeLM then you still have a couple of options. We have a free plan that you can play around with. Or you can contact us and we'll walk through any questions or concerns you have.

Migrating from your old licensing

Switching to LimeLM is fairly easy, and you can make it seamless for your customers. Read the "How to switch your licensing to LimeLM and TurboActivate" article for the best practices.

Also, if you have old license meta-data you want to import into LimeLM then simply click the "Import product keys" link in your LimeLM dashboard:

The import wizard requires data to be in CSV format. To get the data out of Sharify, for example, just click the "Sales as CSV" link in your Sharify dashboard:

Have questions or need help?

If you have questions or need help you can contact us by email, forum, or phone. We'll be glad to help.

Sign up for LimeLM right now. You'll be glad you did.

Over the last couple of months I've gotten a surprising number of questions asking about the same thing: how to debug a Windows Service like you would debug a normal Window Forms application. There are lots of hacks to pseudo-debug a Windows service like running your code from a console, or even adding a massive amount of logging throughout your code.

But what if you need to run your Windows Service as it normally runs (i.e. as an actual service) in order to track down bugs?

The good news is that's there's a little snippet of code to make debugging Windows Services a snap. The first thing to do is to add the following DebugMode() function to your app:

C#

/// <summary>Helper function to attach a debugger to the running service.</summary>
[Conditional("DEBUG")]
static void DebugMode()
{
    if (!Debugger.IsAttached)
        Debugger.Launch();


    Debugger.Break();
}

Visual Basic .NET

''' <summary>Helper function to attach a debugger to the running service.</summary>
<Conditional("DEBUG")>
Shared Sub DebugMode()
    If Not Debugger.IsAttached Then
        Debugger.Launch()
    End If


    Debugger.Break()
End Sub

When you call the newly added DebugMode() function within your Windows Service, if there isn't already a debugger attached to your service it gives you the option of adding a debugger:

Now you can debug your service like you would a Windows Forms application. Also, because you're using the [Conditional("DEBUG")] attribute on the DebugMode() function when you compile your service in "Release" mode all the calls to the "DebugMode()" function will be removed.

Pretty cool, huh?