It doesn’t seem to want to stop snowing in Edmonton for some reason, but that’s not the season I’m talking about… I’m talking about the one that concerns the government taking a certain percentage of your earnings every April.
While walking DD to school last week, she educated me on a fictional Queen of Fables who, for her punishment, was banished to the US Tax Manual for eternity! I then educated DD on the meaning of the phrase “fate worse than death”!
Happy April 30, everyone!
Every Tuesday night, my business partner and I have a date. A working date. It’s in our calendars for 9:00 to 10:30. The place is always the same – the basement office – so no babysitter is required. And there’s plenty of parking. We’ve had this standing date for about a year and a half, since we returned from the Business of Software conference in 2011.
I mentioned in Working Together – Part 1 how SatMP is like our second born child. Well, like our first born child whom we drive to various extracurricular activities, we need to drive this baby places too. Only, by driving, we mean staying put, and by places, we mean putting in the time. When we made this earth shattering discovery, we were both gainfully contracted i.e. day jobs, and found we had a hard time tackling our to-do list. And boy did the list grow while we were at the conference. They say the way to eat an elephant* is one bite at a time but those bites are sure tiny when you’re tired and there are competing demands like laundry and bookkeeping. The obvious time slot would have been our namesake Saturday mornings, but those are now for family activities… so during one of our lovely dinners in Boston, we committed ourselves to one whole night a week to pampering our SatMP.
And by whole night, we realistically knew it would be only an hour and a half by the time DD is tucked in, dishes are done, computers are booted up, sparks fly and before we turn into pumpkins**. Still, those 90 minutes times two people is synergy at its best. It’s uninterrupted (almost) focused coding (and stuff), software testing, blogging and Mini-Guide updating.
These standing dates are called, aptly enough, Get’er Dun.
How and when does your small business manage to get’er dun?
* no elephants are hurt at Get’er Dun nights
** no pumpkins are hurt either
This is part 2 of dealing with Microsoft’s SmartScreen Filter. You can find the first part here.
I figured the best way to deal with SmartScreen filter was to get Mini-Compressor Windows 7 certified. Windows 8 had just been released but I figured if I could get Windows 7 certified upgrading to Windows 8 certification shouldn’t be a problem. At the time I had not tested Mini-Compressor on Windows 8 but I had done lots of testing on Windows 7.
I found the Windows 7 certification site at:
I logged in with a Microsoft account and was then told I need to create a company account. To do that I need a code signing certificate. I knew I would eventually need a code signing certificate but didn’t think I would need one so quickly in the process. I clicked the link to code signing certificate from VeriSign for $99.
Once on the Symantic site I was prompted for some information and to link my Windows Live ID:
An e-mail is then sent to you to confirm your e-mail address. Follow the directions in the e-mail.
I was then prompted for the type of certificate I wanted. I chose Microsoft Authenticode.
Then I had to pick validity period and a couple of other options. I had to choose one year because I was getting the special Microsoft discount. I also choose to Enable Auto CSR Generation. This lets your browser generate the keys for your certificate rather than using a third party tool.
Then the code signing certificate is generated.
Now that the keys are generated I need to enter some information about Saturday Morning Productions, contact info, and finally some billing information.
Finally you get an order summary.
The certificate is ready but Symantec won’t give it to me until they verify that I’m actually Saturday Morning Productions. They did this by e-mailing me and requesting documents. In my case they asked for business registration documents which I provided them. Unfortunately the phone number on my business registration documents was out of date.
They asked for a phone bill with my company phone number. That turned out to be a problem as well because my phone bill, for some reason, only had my personal name on it, not Saturday Morning Productions. As a last resort I got a notary letter. Luckily we know someone who is an excellent real estate lawyer.
This process took a week or two. Thankfully the people at Symantec where polite and patient during the whole process
Once they accepted my notary letter I was prompted to pick-up my certificate. It is important that you use the same computer that generated the certificate to download the certificate. Once you have downloaded the certificate you can transfer it to another computer.
To confirm that you have the certificate open up Internet Explorer and then open the options dialog. Then click the Content tab and then click the Certificates button. You should see your new certificate in the Personal tab.
To export the certificate so we can get it on our build machine you need to, unsurprisingly, click the export button. Then follow the steps in the wizard. In my case I left all the defaults as this was my first time. After I was sure the export worked I went back and removed the key.
Make sure you enter a good password and don’t lose/forget the password.
Finally choose where to save your key. Choose a safe location that is backed up and hopefully encrypted.
You know you have a valid code signing certificate when you can use it to sign installers and executables. I’ll detail how to actually sign stuff in another post.
Some of you have asked for a little more detail on our physical workspace, as an extension on our series – working with a spouse.
This may be taken as a belated February Hallmark Holiday post.
Our basement-based office is in the basement. We cannot make this clearer when we say only one of us gets the window seat. As in, there is only one window seat. I like the afternoon sun hitting me as I, ahem, analyze businesses. Chris doesn’t like it near him as he develops software. I got the window seat.
The entire space is 11 feet (3.35 m) by 12.58 feet (3.84 m) so, really, that sunlight is going to shine.
In this 11 feet (3.35 m) by 12.58 feet (3.84 m) space, we have the following furniture:
This is where the magic happens. This is where Mini-Compressor and other secret projects are conceived and developed. This is where support calls are answered. This is where we consult when not on client site.
If you ever find you and your spouse co-owning a basement-based software and consulting company, we think you can get your best result by building an exactly 11 feet (3.35 m) by 12.58 feet (3.84 m) room in your basement, cramming it with the above furniture items, getting awesome chairs and giving the window seat to the person who is least like a vampire.
Then let your creativity flow.
If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!
- Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall
Microsoft’s SmartScreen Filter is the bane of small Independent Software Vendors (ISV) everywhere. Maybe that is a little harsh, and I have no proof that SmartScreen Filter is a problem for other ISVs, but it has, and as of this writing, still is a problem for Saturday Morning Productions. Besides, that first sentence is a good sensationalist sentence, perfect for a newspaper article or blog post.
So what is SmartScreen Filter? It’s a technology in Internet Explorer that tries to prevent users from visiting websites and downloading software that might harm their computer. That is a noble goal and one I fully support. The problem is the implementation.
SmartScreen Filter works by checking if the software being downloaded has been downloaded by other people. If lots of people have downloaded the software and haven’t reported any problems then SmartScreen Filter thinks the software is safe and tells the user so. If lots of people have downloaded the software but reported problems then SmartScreen Filter warns the user about downloading and installing the software. That part is fine.
The problem is SmartScreen does not trust new software by default and when a user tries to download and install said software they get a nasty message in red like the one below.
How many people are going to be downloading software that displays that message? Thus starts the problem with SmartScreen filter:
If no one downloads your software, SmartScreen won’t trust you! How can SmartScreen trust you if no one can download your software!
So begins my epic quest to get Mini-Compressor off SmartScreen’s naughty list and onto the nice list. This includes getting a code signing certificate, trying to get Windows 7 certified, which has the long winded name “Windows 7 Software Logo Program” (WSLP), and other unknown perils. I wonder how far I will get?
I’m taking part in Movember again this year. Why, you ask? Why not, I say. I get to grow a moustache, help change the face of men’s health, and annoy my wife with my awesome facial hair. That’s why. Well actually, there is another reason. I’m getting close to the mandatory prostate exam age and, well I think my “official” Movember reason says it best:
“I hope the Movember money is used to build a diagnostic tool that doesn’t involve sticking things where the sun doesn’t shine. Like a Star Trek Tricorder.”
Then I can hopefully avoid the below situation:
You can support me by donating here: https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/payment/member_id/1883084/
Or you can support my client FAS’s team: https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/payment/team_id/742033
Remember, I’m the coolest part of the team, so why even bother with those bozos? How else can I convince you to donate? Well, I think Penny Arcade says it best:
How can you help change the face of men’s health without changing your own face?
P.S. – Don’t forget to Donate: https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/payment/member_id/1883084/
Some people ask what’s it’s like to work with a spouse. Since we at Saturday Morning Productions are all about full disclosure and basement-basedness, I thought I’d take some time to shed light on the subject.
First of all, Chris and I don’t always work together. Yes, our desks are side-by-side in the office, but we also have day jobs that take us away from the basement so it’s not like we’re always in each other’s faces like other husband and wife teams can be.
As far as personalities go, we’re truly opposites. He has a sweet tooth and I’m more about the salty and crunchy. He’s an early riser and I’m a night owl. I like things quiet while I work and Chris might have a podcast or a movie (!) on in the background.
Now, where these differences really matter is in how we (can) complement each other. That’s complement, not compliment.
Chris is big picture. I’m detail-oriented to the nth degree. I can pound out blog posts in 2 minutes and it takes him a long time to come up with a subject*. He’s a Coder and I’m a Business Analyst. Ah-ha! There’s the rub! Years ago, in my singing days, that was the holy grail – if you were a singer and could find yourself a pianist and date/marry him, you just won yourself the lottery! Imagine the endless (and free) accompanying you’d just got! Same deal here. Chris gets someone to do what he considers grunt work (proofreading, thinking, planning, documentation, customer-support) and I get someone to fill the void that is my very basic programming skills.
Sure works well if you can look at it that way.
We can both agree that we love Saturday Morning Productions as a second born child, but we have different responsibilities in raising it. All the responsibilities are important – they just need to be divvied up so they fall on the right person to get it done.
* to be fair, our topics are very different.
Some of our followers have asked about World vs. Canada sales that our last news post was about. “Why do you track your sales in two ways?” they ask. Well, without revealing our sales figures, we can tell you this much. We have two columns: sales to Canadian customers and sales to World customers. The Canadian customers pay $7.50 plus GST. We’re located in Alberta so we don’t charge nasty HST or any PST. The non-Canadian customers pay $7.50 and there is no tax charged on it.
For bookkeeping purposes, we need to record the sales separately so we know how much GST we collect and need to remit to the government.
And from these figures, we can analyze them to see things like sales increases (yay!).
We hope that answers your questions.
We’re back in the basement and in full form after a relaxing break. (Well, Ada and DD had a nice break. Chris joined us when he could.) Thanks lovely customers for allowing us time away from our email and phones.
We took a very long driving trip as well as a staycation. Along the ways, we saw how Saturday MP fit in the spectrum of industry. If you remember back to social studies class, you learned the term cottage industry. We basement-dwellers have taken it one step further and are using our primary residence as the headquarters of our multi-dollar corporation.
We witnessed a few other examples of thriving businesses that are trying to copy our model.
While on our trip to Victoria, BC we took in Fisherman’s Wharf, a charming tourist area! There, you’ll find moored houseboats and a few of them have business operating out of their main floors. That’s where we became acquainted with a fine gentleman by the name of Jackson. You may know him as Jackson’s Ice Cream Float. While SaturdayMP headquarters are hardly as aesthetically (or gastronomically) appealing, we also operate our bread and butter from our lower-most floor.
We made our annual visit to Fort Edmonton Park and marveled at the blacksmith’s shop and bakery downstairs and living quarters upstairs. Perhaps one day we will also make it into the history books in more ways than one!
We hope you enjoyed your summer as well, and more importantly learned something valuable.
