Noodlings

As the year winds down I thought I’d do the obligatory year-end reflection. As usual, I’m overdue for a blog post so this will make good filler until I can come up with something more interesting.

The main thing to note is that I’m now fully indie. What that means is that Noodlesoft is a full-time affair and that it is supporting me financially. This actually has held true for some months now though it’s only now that I’ve realized that I haven’t really mentioned it here. So yes, Hazel has gone from a preoccupation to an occupation. I have done the occasional side contract here and there but Noodlesoft is paying the rent on its own.

After what seemed like an unending beta period, 2007 saw the release of Hazel 2.0. With that release, I felt Hazel had become much more the product I had originally envisioned and its reception has been great. I also dabbled with promotions this year, including MacUpdate and MacSanta, both of which were great successes. Also, a promotion with ScreencastsOnline worked out wonderfully as, in addition to the added sales, I got screencasts out of it which I’m now using on the site.

What didn’t go so well? Well, I’d say the main thing would be Leopard. A lot of stuff broke that shouldn’t have and I’m still tackling Leopard bugs now. Yes, I’ve had access to seeds for some time now but fact of the matter is that a lot of the stuff was fixed by Apple in the final month or so and more stuff broke with the GM and subsequent releases.

I hesitate to make any announcements on what’s in store for 2008 but I’ll mention that Leopard adoption is much higher than I anticipated. As a result, I am seriously considering making Hazel 3.0 a Leopard-only release. What’s going to be in 3.0? I still haven’t worked that out so it will be some time until that happens. Until then, there will still be 2.x releases that will still run on Tiger as there’s still stuff I can put in there that doesn’t require Leopard. And of course, there’s always the possibility of a new app though I have to say that nothing has gotten past the drawing board phase yet.

In any case, 2007 was a good year and I’m hoping that 2008 will be even better. A big thanks to all of you for your support this year and best wishes moving into the next.