Today we’re a week older and wiser. It’s been a superb week here at Banana Bee. Denoise spawned some interest, got few reviews on the web, and was downloaded a magnitude more times as I expected. I got valuable feedback, supportive words, even a bug report on which I’m working to fix. The sales are also slowly coming, which is a good sign.

I want to thank you all for this. You are the most important part of this journey.

Customers. Testers. prMac. Slicehost. eSellerate. MacSB group. Apple. And, the most important, my family.

Thank you.

Today marks the date of the first release of Denoise, a product I’ve been working on through past months. It’s a small Mac application implementing a denoising algorithm for images - photos and scans.

I’m very enthusiastic about the release, I was anticipating to show what I’ve already done to a larger audience, and discuss the future direction. The development before reaching 1.0 was a lonely one, something I’m not used to from my previous career where development is based on concrete user’s needs. Development of new product is very different in this regard, everything is based on a guess - that there are people with the same taste as me and they are willing to become my customers.

Denoise is a result of my own need. I once had a grainy photo. I liked the photo so much that I wanted to improve its quality. I found some programs that promised help, but testing them didn’t bring me anywhere. I either didn’t understand their interface, or I was not happy with the result. Then I stumbled upon the GREYCstoration, a freely described algorithm and an open-source implementation for Linux. Thanks to Mac’s Unix underpinnings I got it running on my Mac in few hours, and was surprised by the result. Using command line utility for imaging was no fun, but I got the result I wished for.

I didn’t start to develop Denoise at that time. That came much later when I brainstormed the ideas on what I want to develop for a Mac. Having an application for easy denoising of photos makes so much sense. So I went ahead and started implementing the algorithm my way. Some parts I’ve done using Core Image - the powerful image-processing technology on a Mac, other parts are optimized for execution on velocity engine of PowerPC or SSE instructions on Intel processors. All that to make the complex process of denoising as fast as possible. On top of that I created a Mac user interface using the Cocoa framework.

Actually, I planned Denoise 1.0 to have more features and richer user interface. But pretty soon in the development I missed the feedback, and got the need to have it out as soon as possible. I cut few features, made few shortcuts, and simply released.

Today the site is up, Denoise is available for download, press release is out, I’m excited about me becoming Indie, and looking forward to continue Denoise’s development.

Magic is in the detail. I’m still getting surprised at how many things have to be thinked of when releasing software.

Today I had a surprise after I found out (thanks analytics) that a slovak macblog wrote a note about Denoise. On one side I’m really pleased about the published article, especially as it is very positive, on the other side I realized my mistake not saying clearly on the website that Denoise is shareware and not free software, as author of the article suggested.

So I went ahead and added a note on the web saying clearly that Denoise is shareware.

Another problem I’ve found is how I count download statistics. I use google analytics, and I also track clicks on download links using javascript function to send notification to analytics. I let details about statistics for another blog post, what I want to mention today is that I don’t get any numbers from download links not being located on my website - for example direct downloads from mentioned article.

So another small job I did today is enabling apache to log requests to my web sites.

Daniel Jalkut, the MarsEdit guy, wrote a post recently about blogging and how everyone should have a blog. Perfect timing for this theme, as I published my first post only few days ago.

Actually, I already have another blog, a personal one, since 2005 or even longer. Daniel lists all feelings I have about that blog:

• Nobody reads my blog
• I don’t have anything to say…
• I’m not a very good writer…
• I don’t have time to blog

I find this situation interesting. I already know that I’m unable to maintain a blog, and I start a new one anyway. Why ?

Is it related to the fact, that every successful mac developer has a blog ? Can I grow my business without blogging ? How do I start spreading word of mouth about my product ?

These are all valid questions and I’m looking forward to get answers. But my reasons to start a company blog are different.

I start to feel that I have something to say. From time to time I have the need to talk to someone about all those things that I get excited about, or go through. It’s easier to find someone to talk about all things personal, but what about the Mac, Cocoa, or Business themes.

This is a different league in comparison to a personal blog … which is just … you know, a personal blog, things I can discuss in person with anybody around. But with whom should I discuss what’s up with my code, website, payment processor … ? I don’t know many people with a Mac, and Cocoa is unknown term all around me. It’s not like I’m living in a cave, actually opposite, there are more companies doing Mac software here as probably in any other city in Europe. But it doesn’t matter if I don’t show up.

The other reason is having kind of a diary. I went through few interesting periods in my short life, but I don’t have anything to remind me of them except my own memory. It’s tempting to try to document something.

Now I only hope blogging is more like a conversation over a beer than writing a diary. For me it’s still more of an experiment as commitment. Basically all I want is having some fun.

I’ve read lots of first posts over the years, and they all sound so enthusiastic. When people start blogging they think they’re gonna change world, but they can’t even remember the password to blogger or what they use the next evening.

I admit it from the start. I don’t plan to write often. I’m not going to put my brain here. Don’t expect to find posts over hundred words here.

So why this weblog ? I’m getting into Mac programming. Even better, I want to sell my cocoa baby, so starting a small mac business. Some call it living the life, but I’m not going that far. Not yet. I’m living the life at daytime, and this chocolate thing I do instead of sleeping, that’s not life. That’s pure fun. Did you know that unhealthy foods taste best? It’s the same with programming. Writing code at unhealthy times feels good. Having a product out and blogging about it is a good match, and I’m looking forward to both.

Enough with words. It’s getting late, time for Xcode.