As many of you who have subscribed to Shauns Haveamint mailing list might know already, Mint is running free.
I love the Shortstat by Shaun Inman, but Mint just is insane, absolutely the best looking program on the freaking web, Shaun is a god when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Also, Shaun apprecieates beauty even if not from his own two hands, he might be using Vanilla as a forum of choice when he puts up the user help and general Mint forums.
Mint costs $30 per site and I dont think that is half bad, and you can bet your bottocks that I'm going to be using it, when I get my budget in order.
I was hoping that Mint would be free to use if you just wanted to check it out. Like having a dual license or something, free for the little people, pay for the corps type of license. As much as I would love to check this out, I'm afraid I'll have to pass since there's a default sticker price :(
So is it just prettier than the likes of AWStats or what? For those wondering WTF Mint is click here.
It would be good for people that don't have access to any other logging tools via their host but for $30/site wouldn't they be better just paying for a better host or am I missing something again?
Well, my host has a statistics page, but it is no where near the usability and looks as Mint.
And if Shaun doesn't cancel the Shortstat project, there is a free version there also, besides, I like the handy feature of adding it to the sites I want. I got my own siteworks behind my public sites and alot of people who I work with visit the siteworks to check out my progress and comment on things, so I don't really want to track them too, when I only want to see how my public site is doing.
Besides, I really don't see the point on the "$30/site wouldn't they be better just paying for a better host", yeah maybe they would, but then again, if they paid 30$ extra for a better host, wouldn't they be better staying on the old host and getting this software? And Mint is single payment, unless you have a host that is single payment I really don't see the connection.
I also just now loaded the mint compatibility test, and mint requires curl to be on your server? that seems a bit lame, I wish I could see the source to know what mint is accessing with curl and offer an alternate solution for it.
Well only real cheap hosts don't provide logging tools and an extra $30 would be plenty to upgrade for at least a year to one that did.
I'm guessing this is mainly going to be a hit with those like my girlfriend who use external site tracking sites because they don't like AWStats and the like, to each their own I guess. :)
it does look very nice but likewise i'm not up for paying $30 (even though it is very little in terms of time taken to have developed the software) for the stats.
I guess it appeals more to people who have used Shortstats, and people who just love things that look nice, I really can't say anything about the functionaly, but watching the video really made it seem pretty nifty.
I mean, as far as forums go, Vanilla is actually on the short end of the plethora of functions that many mainstream forums offer, but I'm drawn to it because of the simplicity, additivity and good looks. And like Shaun, I'd like Mark to go fulltime developing Vanilla, FB and maybe some more proggies he has cooking in his head, and I'm just thinking that maybe after Mark has some 10k users using Vanilla and he has just used few years wokring on his applications, I just think that he might want something for it.
Or would you say "why I would buy Vanilla or FB, I can get similar but not nearly as good and pretty programs for free"?
i wouldnt pay for vanilla as a program because i have no need for it. likewise with the stats app (though i didnt look into it in a great deal cause i'm meant to be pretending to work)
I fully agree that mark deserves something for it and i'd love him to go fulltime because i believe it is where his passion lies (if it wasnt i'm sure he'd have given up by now?!) but if i donate (which i probably will at some point) it'l be more as a gesture of how much appreciation i have for his programming abilities and the manner in which he creates his programs than because i really want to use his app. The two do go hand in hand but i hope you can understand what i'm getting at.
"Or would you say "why the I would buy Vanilla or FB, I can get similar but not nearly as good and pretty programs for free"?"
Well forum software is something that is presented to the outside world so how it looks & performs matters a great deal where statistics is just something I look at and at most that is only once a day so I don't really care how it is presented to me as long as I can get the data that I want, which is usually just the search keyphrases and referrers to see where my traffic is coming from.
I understand you, donation being act of appreciation towards the developer, and buying a program being a necessity that isn't viewed nothing more than a normal action when someone is going to use the program for his needs.
But Mark could go in to other direction, Vanilla and FB being free for personal use and nonprofit sites like communities, and a nominal fee for commercial use. If something is free, I can't talk my boss in to donating money for a program I view suitable for our needs, but I don't think he has nothing against a small fee, like I have already talked in to the use of Mint (btw, our host doesn't have statistics logging for reasons utterly insane).
stats logging can use a lot of space but not *that* much. And yeah, i'm happy to pay for programs for company use myself, but as a single user i feel less obliged.
I have started plans on my first non-free service (just planning, not programming). Don't get too excited, because chances are that most of you will not need it or use it. But I anticipate that there will be thousands of others who *will* want to use it, and it will be a very nice application to use :)
Teamware is a buzzword from the 80s and early 90s, it's basically a compilation of programs that helps people work better together. Project management, calendars, messaging, sometimes e-mail, contact list and all that shit.
What I really want is a teamware with a modular construct. Just a base with few functions, like extension manager, user manager and calendar, maybe messaging system, then rest of the program is done with modules and extensions. This way I could tailor the software for the needs of my company/group/whatever.
I don't know about that. My new service will not be free - you'll have to pay a monthly fee to use it - but you will make money through it, so it all works out in the end.
However, any application that isn't used directly for making money (I believe) should be free. I still have plans for making a blogging tool with a vanilla-style framework, and I have spec'd out plans on another tool that you will all love. Both of *those* will be free.
I'm walking a fine line on that whole "making money" issue. I do believe that advertising like adsense works, but I don't believe that it is the right way to make money for _me_.
Oh, and mini: I don't know what you think it is, but it's not that - this idea is new.
Mark, if you need help figuring out elements and thingies for your Blog Engine, I might be something of a help, I have seen alot of blogs and used alot of different engines while I have been involved in webdesign.
Kosmo - I'm thinking that the Lussumo blog will be absolutely the most simple blog you can imagine: Snippet text, full body text, formatters (like Vanilla), tags, and comments. Everything after that will be done with extensions.
Mark, maybe you could at some point make this all in to a CMS or something, make all these separate programs the possibility to connect to each other, Vanilla would be cool comment system, just make it somehow show the post on top of the page and list of recent posts show on the sidepanel (maybe an option you could activate using a modular template system like what WP has), and possibility to add galleries using Filebrowser.
Hmm.. it sould so good that I'm getting excited, uuh.. sweet, when you do the blog, I'm going to change to that :P
and of course everyone cares and must know the stats for your website, therefore you would have to share your mint to let everyone know you have an extra $30.
vanilla totally deserved the hype it got and deserves more. mint does not the hype it already has gotten.
even though mr. inman is a good designer, i think the glitterati (as much as there is one for web geeks) sometimes blinds people on the internet. i mean, say if joshua davis did awstats in flash, you would not be able to escape it for a week in realtime. people would be all over how "cool" it looks and how "choatic" the background design would be.
I have the logging tool from my provider but if i want quick access to general visitor stats then I look at mint. It's quick and simple. I didn't expect anything more than I got.
I can make up million reasons not to use Mint and another million to use it, aswell I can do that with Vanilla and so many other programs out there.
Besides, why the hell people seem to thing that AJAX or little bling is so bad thing? I'd drool all over Vanilla if it had AJAX interface, it would make it more complex and slow it down, but it would atleast look cool.
AJAX and such are the future, I have fully interactive operating system where I can make everything look the way I like with just few clicks of my mouse and I don't need to know about any kind of editing or language. So why shouldn't I have that freedom on my web application? Web applications have gone forward on a break neck speed on the last couple of years, but they still are extremely primitive and well.. the word dynamic can be only used on the content, when will it be used on the nterface aswell?
Compared to other industries like games industry for example, there are about ten times the amount of developers on web based applications than there is on the games industry, but still games industry takes leaps in one year that is compered to ten years in web. We have the technology people, why not use it.
Weed is an open-source version of Mint written in Ruby on Rails. Get this. The work that has been done so far is only 72 hours worth.
Wow. That gives you an idea of how powerful Ruby on Rails is. I'm betting your could write Vanilla in it in less than a week. I am pretty much a beginning programmer and I am definitely a beginner to both Ruby and Rails. Yet I by myself have managed to get a registration/login system up and running. It really is amazing what you can do.
no mark, the problem with vanilla development is that you do it, then you do it better, then you scrap the whole thing and do it amazingly. Then you go to sleep and your subconscious takes over and rewrites it incredibly. You could get it done in 1/4 the time if you just let your subconscious take over.
Not that Ajax is entirely bad, but it does have it's drawbacks, mainly the one problem with it is that it's hinged on javascript. So it works for and against you either way, the only way around it is to have a fallback as plain posting methods for users who don't have JS enabled for whatever reason, or if something is misfiring.
What would be nice is if Ajax was in fact some kind of browser default by means of simple calls instead of complex JS arrays. Much like XUL or (dare I say it) ActiveX perform things directly in the browser. It is after all what Ajax is in a sense mimicing to a certain degree. Now if we could get some browsers that fully support it and integrate it into their default routines, it would be a nice standard to see.
I heal your lech, but it is prettymuch the same problem web designers all over the world are facing, some browsers render CSS just right, some make minor changes and browsers like IE just toss the rules and fuck you in the ass.
It's the same with JS, some people may have it enabled and some might not, it's just that when you have a program with AJAX interface you have to let your users know that you have to have JS enabled. Just like with normal windows applications, you need things like Direct X and such to run program, so you let your users know what they need.
I would never pay for web software, dont care what it is or what it does. There are many others out there that are free/opensource, and do the same thing.
"Asking" for a donation is one thing (its not mandatory) but a fee? Hell no. Having a dual license I have no problems with, free for the little man, some $$$ for commercial use. That makes sense. Why would I shell out $30 for something to toss up on my website, or a gaming clan site...not gonna happen, and it doesnt make sense to.