Chris J. Karr, November 28th, 2008

My apologies for the lack of recent updates. I’ve been quite busy with school and other affairs, and I haven’t had a whole lot of time to blog lately.

One of the things that has kept me busy is establishing Audacious Software as something more than a checking account where I direct Amazon referrer income and the occasional donation to one of my open source projects. As of last week, Audacious Software is now Audacious Software LLC, a Chicago software products and services company focusing on building the next generation of mobile, desktop, and web-based applications. I’m going to save the official “development philosophy” pitch for a later blog entry, so please stay tuned.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be transitioning from my role as a graduate student at Northwestern University to that of a full time software designer and developer. I made the decision to make the switch when I realized that designing, creating, and supporting software is something that I’m passionate about and is a vocation and craft that I’m prepared to pursue to the fullest extent. I have a number of existing projects that I’m looking to take to the next level (Books, Shion, Pennyworth) and a variety of new ideas and collaborations that I’m looking forward to pursuing in the months and years ahead.

For all the readers out there who are users of any of my software, I’m planning on consolidating and simplifying the online presences of each project. Programs like Books and Pennyworth will be brought under the Audacious Software banner and their respective sites will be subsumed into the main company website. In terms of customer support, I’m investing in some new infrastructure that should improve the way I handle bug requests and user inquiries. I realize that support as it stands at the moment is often subpar and one of my first priorities will be to improve that aspect of my interactions with users.

I also wanted to thank everyone who’s supported my work in the past. In addition to improving user communication, I will also be focusing on improving existing products. I’m looking forward to giving Books the attention it deserves and pushing out the next iteration of the Books platform in 2009. I’m planning on continuing to develop the Pennyworth system and work on establishing a suite of applications that illustrate the potential of context-aware computing. My goal for Shion is to make it more compatible with the growing number of home automation devices. In the weeks ahead, I’ll post more details about my specific plans for each product.

In addition to developing my own software, I’ll also be looking for opportunities for collaboration or consultation with third parties. I feel that my work up to this point has equipped me with a nice collection of tools and techniques that I’d be happy to bring to others’ projects. If you are (or know) someone who is interested in hiring a developer who is proficient in developing applications across a variety of platforms (including Mac, Windows, iPhone, and the web), I’d be interested in talking to you.

Since it’s Thanksgiving evening and I should get back to planning how I’ll be eating leftover turkey over the next two weeks, I’ll wrap this entry up here. Over the next several weeks, I’ll share more details about the plans for individual products, so please stay tuned. However, I’d like to thank everyone who’s been along for the ride over the past several years and whose support has enabled me to take this exciting step.

Thank you.