March 2007

Server Change...Possible Downtime

Monday, March 26, 2007 @ 3:41PM EDT by: Kevin

Folks -

I am in the process of moving tpasoft.com to a new server that will ultimately allow me to do new things with the website that I was not able to do before. This of course means there may be a transition period where the web site for TPA Software may not be up or loading fully. When this time starts I will post (or try to anyway) a news article about it. Other features which may go offline during this time are the ability to download, the "Check for Updates" features of our programs may not work or work improperly and those few people who bothered to donate for WeatherMan may be reverted back to an unregistered state for a small period of time. These are all normal glitches during a server change and ultimately will all fix themselves during propagation (which means the act of the new DNS for this website updating across the Internet). This can take anywhere I am told between 24-72 hours...so if you experience any glitches of the aforementioned items during that time then please be patient. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me (kevin@tpasoft.com) and I will do my best to reply in layman's terms. :-)

Thanks for the patience and understanding.

Fade-It Update Posted

Sunday, March 18, 2007 @ 6:45PM EDT by: Kevin

I am pleased to announce an update to TPA Software's Fade-It program which offers compatibility with AOL's latest release of their 9.0 software dubbed AOL 9.0 VR (Vista Ready). Please note that this does not include compatibility for Windows Vista at this time. Compatibility for Windows Vista is already in the works and will be released at a future date. No ETA yet folks. It's be finished "when it's done". That's always been my policy as I will not work to a deadline. All that does is produced rushed and sloppy software and I think we can all agree that's not something we want. :-)

If you are here for the update for Fade-It, you can download it here: http://www.tpasoft.com/fadeit/update.html

Update on Vista compatibility

Thursday, March 8, 2007 @ 5:48PM EST by: Kevin

Let's start with the good news first, shall we? :-)

Last week I managed to acquire a cheap bare bones laptop with Windows Vista installed. One hurdle cleared!

The not so good news: Vista is a significantly different operating system from Windows XP and of course everything prior. For those who already have it, I have one word to which you will probably understand: UAC. Windows Vista is designed with very increased security in mind and from the standpoint of a software developer is as big an evil as it is a good. Literally, one is prompted to do just about everything from launching legacy programs to changing system settings. Of course most of this can be turned off, but that sort of defeats the entire purpose of having it in the first place. I can see where it would greatly protect the average user who does not fully understand the inner works of a computer, but for those who really know what they are doing, it's a real pain in the...well, you know. ;-)

Needless to say, I've go my work cut out for me on completing updates for Vista compatibility...but that's okay, because I like a good challenge! I think to start I am going to do one of the smaller programs first, like either WallPaper or Fade-It to see how much of a fiasco this is going to be. WavMan is a big program with lots of stuff going on that you never see. It's over 50,000 lines of code and that's not including all the support files that need updating as well. Put in layman's terms, it's a *huge* undertaking...and I figure if I start small with a smaller program the transition will go much smoother and hopefully quicker, because I'll be able to build of what I am learning. And believe me, this is a very big learning process. I think I've spent the last week or do doing little more than research on Vista and all it's new policies and protocols as to apply them to my programs. It's paying off and in retrospect kinda fun. :-)

So, there is the latest news regarding Vista compatibility. I will post more as I have it and as progress is made. Hang in there!