Yep, I’m still here. And work continues on Jetrecord. But there’s not much to say at the moment. I’m only writing to let you know that I’m doing some winter cleaning on the site and I’ve decided that it’s time to delete any unwanted accounts.
So, if that’s you, meaning you don’t want a Jetrecord account anymore, all you have to do is absolutely nothing. On December 15 I’m going to start deleting accounts for anyone who hasn’t logged in between now and then.
On the other hand, if you want to keep your account and your flights, you have until December 14 to login to Jetrecord at least once. You must login in order to keep your account. You don’t have to log any flights or do anything else. Just login.
There are two reasons for this. The most important one is that I’ve switched to a new, more secure authentication scheme and it involves migrating your password. In order to migrate, you have to login. I can’t do it automatically.
The second reason is that I want to clean the house, so to speak. Jetrecord has a free account, which makes it really easy to sign up and give the service a try at no risk. But that also means that there’s no incentive to use it. And if you’re not going to use the service, there’s no reason to have an account.
Of course, as always, there will continue to be a free account, no matter what happens in the future with paying accounts. If you don’t want your account now, you can create a new account later on if you wish.
Obviously, this decision is important for you if you have flights stored on Jetrecord. If you do, and you’ve decided not to keep your account, you can export those flights to several different formats of logbook software.
You can export your flights here: http://jetrecord.com/YOUR-USERNAME/flights . Scroll to the bottom of your flights page. There is a drop-down box where you can select the software you want. Then hit the Go button.
Of course, to export your flights, you have to login. And if you login, I’ll assume you want to keep your account. If you export your flights and decide you still want to delete your account, you can do that here: http://jetrecord.com/account/confirm_delete . You will have to confirm that you want to delete your account. Once you do, your account and all of your flights will be deleted immediately.
If you have any questions about this, just let me know (support@jetrecord.com). The important thing to remember is: to keep your account, login to Jetrecord by December 14.
This last month has been a slow one for Jetrecord, if only in terms of performance. The once-snappy server environment got bogged down and there didn’t appear to be any reason for it.
I would love to tell you that we got famous and were seeing record growth, but that’s not the case. We just hit something in the road and no one could figure out what.
A quick ticket to our host confirmed that we weren’t crazy (well, if you don’t count the fact that we refer to ourselves in the first person plural when it’s just one person running things.) Apparently sites of all kinds were seeing trouble with the particular version of the OS we were on. They offered to move us to a new, updated version for no charge. Of course, we accepted.
Migrating everything over, getting all the settings, the data, the cron jobs, the symlinks, and all else is no small feat, so it took a little longer than expected. As of right now, though, you’re reading this from our clean-as-a-whistle server, so it looks like everything worked.
And I made sure to migrate the data several times just to confirm that the precious flight logs would be in good hands. We’re backing up twice a day, same as always. And I did the final migration right as the DNS was switched, which means that even if you were editing right up to the last minute, it should be there. Of course, let me know if you see otherwise.
Anyway, performance should be back up to where it was before the slowdown. There are more changes coming but I’m not able to speak to those right now. The most important change coming is that I’m going to be a dad for the second time, to another boy, some time in the next few weeks. If I take longer to answer your emails, you’ll know why.
Logbook Pro joins the growing list of logbook software supported by Jetrecord for importing and exporting your flights, with one caveat. Logbook Pro doesn’t export to standard CSV format and Jetrecord will only import files in standard CSV format.
To get around this and import your flights into Jetrecord (until Logbook Pro is updated), one small step is required. Import your Logbook Pro CSV export file into Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice first and then re-save as CSV. When you do the import into one of these programs, make sure all fields are imported as text and then re-save as CSV. After you have saved the file, make sure all fields have double quotes around them by inspecting the file in a simple text editor.
Now import your file into Jetrecord as usual and all should go well. Note that you can also export all of your flights into Logbook Pro CSV format if you want.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this feature. Mucho thanks to Todd “MyFlightBlog” McClamroch for requesting this feature and helping me with testing.
Running a company is hard, especially when you’re the only one in it. I’ve been trying to think of witty things to say about this and the current state of Jetrecord because I wanted to keep that “Real Voice” going at all times but right now nothing comes to mind. Maybe by the time we get to paragraph six or seven I’ll have something funny queued up. For now I’m just going to use my best CRM skills and say things like they are.
Jetrecord, the application, is running great and has been for several months. Almost everything is automated and it’s a rare occurrence when something fails. The last time I saw a showstopping error on the site was a few months ago, I think. I couldn’t even tell you for sure when or what it might have been. I’m just guessing.
The application has never lost any data. Never had any corrupt data. Never had any security incidents. It runs pretty fast as far as web applications go. It’s hosted on a great system. In short, I’m really happy with the way things have gone and I see no reason why it can’t continue running for years and years to come.
The one thing that has bugged me to no end is the design. I’m a freak about design even though I’m not a designer. I really care about the way something looks and feels and the type of experience you have when you use it. I care because I use tons of products every day, both physical and virtual. The ones that are bad make the ones that are good really stand out. You tend not to notice great products and great design until you use something that sucks. And then you blame the company and all the people working for that company. How could they let such a crappy product out of the warehouse?
I also care because I believe when you have the knowledge and power to make something good, you should make it good. I know how to build web applications. I know what makes them tick. I know where the pitfalls are across browsers and operating systems. I speak usability, accessibility, findability, and lots of other -bilities that make web sites and software do what they do. Therefore, I MUST make a great web site. To not do so would be disrespectful, dishonorable, and selfish.
So last summer I started working on a new design on paper. I was pretty happy with what I came up with, but not happy enough to make we want to build it. It was lacking that oomph, much as the current design is good, but lacks that oomph. You know what I mean? That oomph? It’s sort of indescribable in English. I kept at it but ultimately moved on to implementing new features. I kept telling myself that I would revisit the design at some point but I got swamped with other details.
Then, in November, my family and I had to make a hard decision. We had reached the end of our cash window which had allowed me to work on Jetrecord full time since April of last year. There has always been a plan to have premium features on Jetrecord for paying accounts, but really, I’ve just never felt like the time was right. I know, I know. It’s a business and a business needs to make money to survive, right? I’m not so sure anymore. I think a business, and really, a product, needs people who care about the product more than it needs money. But that’s beside the point.
Back to November. I took a contract programming gig to help us pay the bills. I kept working on Jetrecord on the side. This continued until February when we decided that I needed to put all my effort into finding a full time job. Long story short, I have a job. I’m a senior software engineer at PublicEarth in Boulder, Colorado and we’re making a really cool web application. The company has, at its core, the one thing that all companies need: people who care.
What does this mean for Jetrecord? Truly, nothing, really. But that’s also the bad news. I have not much free time now. I’ve really hesitated in writing this because I’m afraid that everyone will cry Vaporware!, grab their data, and run. “The End of Jetrecord!” in large type on the front page of The New York Times. At the same time I’ve realized that running the company in secrecy and with trepidation is not me. I refuse to do that. You, the users, deserve better. You deserve to know what’s going on. If you’re trusting me with your data, or if you’re considering trusting me with your data, you should know what’s happening here.
As I’ve stated before, Jetrecord runs great and will continue to do so. There will be new features added from time to time. Maybe with a job I might even be able to afford the services of a real designer. But improvements will definitely be slow to come. Being realistic really sucks sometimes. If you’re building a competing product (and I know there are several) now would be a great time to launch and kick ass. I would welcome it.
The flip side of all this is that sometimes saying “no” actually frees you up to do really great things with the free time that you do have. It may turn out that this next year of life for Jetrecord will be even more fruitful than its first. I can only hope.
