The end of 2003 brought big changes for me and 2004 should continue right where 2003 left off.

After 6 years of working with some great people at several software companies, I’ve decided to make the move to Denver an opportunity to try something new. I’m going to be working on my own as a contractor and an independant developer. My hope is that this will allow me to devote more time to my software projects.

In a nutshell: I’ll be doing some contract work (mostly UI design stuff) for my previous employers, working on some new projects and releasing several new products.

Contracting

I’m available on a per project basis for user interface design and web site/web-based application development; or perhaps you need a customized version or implementation of something I’ve written. I’ve got a couple of projects in the pipeline right now, but I’m always interested in talking about ideas and opportunities. And since people have started asking: yes, I’m available to do WordPress installs and little things of that nature. If you’re interested in working with me on something, give me a holler. My resume and references are available by request.

My Software

I’ve been told repeatedly by a number of people that a multi-user version of tasks is a product I could sell, particularly to small businesses. The fact that I was approached by people willing to help sponsor the development was more reinforcement of this. Right now, I’m pretty close to having the multi-user version (Tasks Pro) ready to go, I guess we’ll find out if it sells or not. 🙂

Once I have Tasks Pro out the door, I’m going to be following it up with the single-user version (Tasks 2.0 – a beta will be available to people who have donated) and a single-user hosted service. This will be a subscription model: 14 day trial, then you pay a monthly fee and just go to the web site to use the service – just like Yahoo Mail or Hotmail for email. This is another reason I’m looking to get the security audit for tasks. I’m currently looking at various payment systems that handle the subscription model – if you have some experience in this I’d love to hear from you.

I will be generally keeping a single feature set throughout these versions with the difference being that Tasks Pro supports multiple users. I’ll have more on new features (hopefully a roadmap) soon.

I’m also planning to add multi-user capability to photos and changing the data model to mirror the IPTC spec. This will allow organizations like newspapers and magazines to import all of their already IPTC tagged photos and make them searchable over the web. See the Photos Roadmap for more information.

So will I be able to make a living? I hope so – stay tuned. 🙂