Fat Fingers and Fake IDs

Right now, there isn't any easy way for a user to change his or her Kerika ID. This isn't a problem as long as you didn't use a fake email ID (like the genius who signed up as "bogus@crap.com") or were careless when typing in your email ID (like some people who clearly made some typing mistakes). We will create a more comprehensive user tracking system in the near future, which will make it easier for people to update their IDs and names, but for now, the email ID and name you use could stick around for longer than you might like...

So, what can you do if you start off on the wrong foot? Well, the problem is easy to fix if caught early on, although it can be time-consuming:

• Start up Kerika and create another ID on your computer, this time making sure you type accurately and honestly.
• Exit Kerika, and restart using your old (bad) ID.
• Send an invitation to your new (good) ID.
• Exit Kerika, and restart using your new ID. When you get an invitation from your old ID, accept the invitation and then exit Kerika.
• Now, restart Kerika using your old ID. Grab everything on your home page and share it with your new ID. Depending upon how much stuff you have, this could take several minutes while your computer sends all the messages to the server. Once your computer is done -- check the lower-left corner of your Kerika screen to see whether your computer is busy sending messages or not -- exit Kerika again.
• Now, restart Kerika using your new ID. You will get a bunch of stuff from our server. Once you are done receiving all the data from your your old ID, exit Kerika.
• Now restart Kerika using your old ID. Select everything on your home page, go the Tools menu and click on the People option. When the People viewer shows up, your old ID will be listed as the Owner, and your new ID will be listed as a Team Member. Select your new ID and delete it, effectively kicking your new ID off the team list for everything.
  
• Now restart Kerika using your new ID. Wait for all the updates from the server to compe through. Once that's done, your new ID will now have complete copies of everything that you were working on using your old ID. Go ahead and become buddies with other team members and re-share stuff with them.

Yes, this is a pain-in-the-rear way of fixing the problem, and hopefully we will have an easier fix in the future...

Getting the word out

If you search for the phrase "smarter alternative to email" on Google, Yahoo, MSN or Lycos, we are at the top of the results returned.

If you search for "alternative to email for distributed teams" using these search engines, we are again number one!

Another visit to Bothell

Back up the highway yesterday to UW's Bothell campus to present Kerika to Alan Leong's Strategic Operations Management class. And once again, a very warm reception and very positive feedback from the students.

There is no doubt in my mind now that Kerika serves a real, unmet need within the student community, as that I have noted before. I hear the same things from students each time: the need to manage files, the need to share ideas, the difficulty of scheduling group meetings... We need to figure out how we can get this software in the hands of more students, particularly in time for the Fall quarter/semester!

Avoiding the Kerika Servers

Let's consider what happens when you update a document that you are sharing with several buddies. If some of your buddies are currently online, your computer will start to immediately send them the updated document. This communications takes place directly from your computer to theirs (that's the beauty of peer-to-peer networking).

But what happens if some of your buddies are not around to get their updates?

In that case, your computer will automatically forward the document to a "storage server" at Kerika's data center, where it will sit and wait for your absent buddies to show up. And when these folks do show up, they get their missing updates from the storage server. And once every last one of your buddies has gotten his or her updated copy of your document, the storage server will automatically discard its copy.

We call this "server-assisted peer-to-peer networking" -- it combines the store-and-forward model of email with the immediacy of instant messaging, and it's a popular feature for most users. Some folks, however, may not want their documents to ever come through our storage server -- for greater privacy.

That's easy to set up: just go the File menu in Kerika, select the Send Documents option, and turn off "Automatically send documents." From now on, your documents never get sent to anyone until you manually push them out. When you see that all your buddies are online, you can push out your document updates -- all at once, or one by one.

Port Numbers

A question that came in from one of our users:

When I run Kerika while using one specific ISP, it couldn't go online. But, using another ISP it worked fine... Could be that the first ISP is filtering some TCP or UDP ports?. In that case, which port does Kerika require to be enabled ?

The answer: Kerika uses port numbers 10421 and 10422

Trouble Upgrading?

One of our users had some trouble recently upgrading from version 0.9.4 to version 0.9.5. When she tried to restart Kerika after installing the new version, the software seemed to go through the motions of starting up -- it asked her to select her Kerika profile -- and then simply disappeared. There wasn't anything on the screen to suggest the application was still running. When she brought up her Windows Task Manager (with a Ctl-Alt-Del combination), she could see the Kerika application was running, but it was nowhere to be seen...

If you have this problem, try the following steps:

1. Go to your Kerika data directory (see previous post on where this is located on Windows PCs).
2. Your data directory contains a directory called Users and another called Templates.
3. Go to the Users directory. In here, you will find one directory for every Kerika user profile that you have set up on your PC. If you have set up just one, as is the case for most people, there will be just one directory with a name like "someone@somehere.com"
4. Go into this directory (e.g. "someone@somewhere.com"). Inside here, you will find a directory called Library.
5. Go into Library and then delete the following files, if they exist: History.xml, RecentPageHistory.xml, and RecentDocumentHistory.xml.
6. Now try starting Kerika again: it should work without problems.

(In case you are wondering, these files are used by Kerika to show the most recent pages, documents, etc. that you were working with.)

Making Backups: Macs

My last post talked about how Kerika uses two sets of directories: one for the software and one for the data.

The Mac situation is similar, but the details are a little different and reflect Mac conventions of how software is managed. When you download Kerika for the Mac, you get a ".dmg" file which lands on your desktop and is then unpacked to create the Kerika "application packge". This package sits in your Applications folder; you can find it using the Mac Finder.

The data directory is called "Kerika" and is located in your "root folder." (I am not going to explain what the root folder is; I will assume that Mac folks know what I am talking about.)

So, if you want to back up your Kerika data, and you really should, just make sure the Kerika data directory is among the files that you backup.

Making Backups: Windows

When you install Kerika on a Windows PC, it sets up two sets of directories: one we call the "programs" directory", and the other we call the "data directory". All the software is kept in the programs directory, and all your pages, user information, etc. are kept in the data directory. Keeping the software separate from your data helps ensure that the data are preserved when you uninstall Kerika or upgrade to a newer version.

The programs directory is usually C:\Program Files\Kerika on Windows PC, but the location of the data directory depends upon your Windows login name -- the name you see when you first boot up your PC. If you have multiple logins on your PC, there could be several of these. Some people just have the default "Administrator" login name since they are the only ones who access their machines.

If your Windows login name is "Administrator", for example, the Kerika data directory would be "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Kerika".

If you do regular backups of your PC (and you should!), please add the Kerika data directory to the list of items that get backed-up.

Mac > Windows!

Our user base certainly doesn't reflect the general population out there: more than twice as many people have downloaded the Mac version as compared to those who downloaded the Windows version.

I think this is mainly due to Apple featuring us on their site, in the Productivity Tools section. This has clearly driven a lot of traffic our way, and has caused other sites (like macupdate.com and softpedia.com) to pick up and promote the product. While I am happy to get the "100% Clean" certification from Softpedia, I am not altogether thrilled at being listed as a "file sharing application" -- I don't want to attract any song-swappers or bootleg-bandits!

I am going to try to make the product available through download.com as well; let's see what this does to the numbers...

Laptop=Desktop

Some of our users who regularly use two machines, e.g. a laptop and a desktop, have found an ingenious use of Kerika: to synchronize their files and projects across both machines. Here's how they do it...

Each machine has a separate Kerika login: e.g. the laptop could be laptop@wherever.com, and the desktop could be desktop@wherever.com (This only works if you have at least two Kerika IDs.)

You login to your laptop, say, and become buddies with your desktop: in other words, laptop@wherever.com sends an invitation to desktop@wherever.com. Then you login to your desktop and accept the invitation. Now you have two separate Kerika IDs that are buddies with each other.

If there is a particular project or file that you want to replicate between your two computers, just make sure that both Kerika IDs are have access to the item(s) in question.

For example, if you want a file on your laptop to be synchronized with your desktop, add the desktop ID (e.g. desktop@wherever.com) to the file that you own on the laptop. That's pretty much it. Whenever you update the file, on your laptop or your desktop, the other machine will automatically get a copy of the new version.

If your laptop updates the file, you can later access this on your desktop by selecting the file and then using the Tool-->Versions menu option: you will find the updated version listed there (along with any versions contributed by other team members). You can synchronize your desktop by selecting the version from laptop@wherever.com and pressing the "Replace Your Version" button.

As I answer questions from individual users, I will try to post generic versions of the answers here so that others might also benefit. Hopefully we will be able to add a proper user forum for this site in the future. (And if anyone has suggestions on how to do that cheaply, please contact support-at-kerika-dot-com.)

Conversations

We just put out a new release of Kerika this afternoon: 0.9.5 Beta.

Yes, I know this too soon after 0.9.4 got released just 2 weeks ago, but we have a good reason for doing this:

We originally had an instant messaging (chat) function in Kerika that we called Conversations. When we first started what invitation-only beta testing with a small handful of people at the beginning of the year, those folks didn't seem to have much need for IM. In the interests of simplifying the product and the user interface (and let me tell you, the first version was really over-crowded with functionality and buttons!), we took out the Conversations feature altogether.

We figured that no one would miss it. Well, we were wrong about that.

In the past week or so I have gotten a lot of feedback to the effect that adding an instant messaging capability to Kerika would be a great idea. We already had this function built, so we decided, in an impromptu sort of way, to bring it back.

To access this new feature, you need to upgrade your Kerika if you have version 0.9.4 Beta. Here's how you can check which version you currently have:

• Windows users: Click on the Help menu and select the "About" option.
• Mac users: Click on the "Kerika" menu and select the "About" option.
  

And here's how you can upgrade:

• Windows users: first, uninstall your old Kerika. The easiest way is to go to your Programs Menu by clicking on Start-->All Programs-->Kerika and selecting "Uninstall Kerika." Then, download and install the new version.
  
• Mac users: just download and install the new version.

All your old projects, documents, account information, etc. are preserved when you uninstall or upgrade Kerika.

Let me know what you think of this new feature...

One Happy Camper

Weihan Wang, who is part of the JXTA developer community, has given us some very encouraging feedback: his post on dev@jxta.org calls Kerika a "killer app" that can be an "ideal alternative" to Groove.

We sure do lap up any praise and encouragement we can get! It isn't easy being an entrepreneur, and the encouragement we get from our users is what keeps us going...

Off to a good start...

Although we have been doing what I would describe as "private beta testing" through the first quarter -- meaning, beta testing on an invitation basis with local users -- as of last Monday (April 3), we are in a more public beta test. In fact, I suppose we could say we have done a "soft launch" of the product.

We have gotten some nice exposure from Apple, to the point where, as of today, we had 337 people try out Kerika on Macs versus just 82 on Windows PCs.

This certainly wasn't the ratio of Mac-Windows users that I had anticipated, but hey -- whose complaining?

Another surprise: the number of non-US users seems to be greater than the number of US users. We have seen particular interest from Europe (mostly Germany, France and the Netherlands, with a little Sweden thrown in the mix). I guess we should start thinking about creating local-language versions pretty darn soon!

And on MacUpdate...

Looks like the MacUpdate site picked up Apple's inclusion of Kerika: we are now listed on their site as well!

On Apple's Web Site

We are the Featured Download in the Productivity Tools section of Apple's website. Very nice. Very nice, indeed!

100% Clean

Just got the 100% Clean certification from Softpedia: this means they tested it and confirmed that it has no viruses, adware or spyware!

Back to School

Another visit this evening to the University of Washington's Bothell campus, thanks to an invitation from Alan Leong who asked me to present Kerika to his Competitive Engineering class.

Had a great time as usual: talking about what I love to talk about, with a very appreciative and perceptive audience. The students were a diverse bunch, ranging in age and backgrounds, and so the Q&A period was a lot of fun.

A trend worth noting: for some time now, US companies have been pushing universities to produce graduates that are good at working in teams. As a result, universities and colleges everywhere are shifting to more group projects as part of their pedagogy. This is particularly true in majors like business and engineering (and presumably not true at all in majors like physical education?)

When students need to work on group projects, they often don't have many attractive choices for infrastructure. Most schools have something like Blackboard, or its open-source equivalent Sakai, but these are oriented towards the needs of instructors and administrators rather than student groups.

Students tend to like Kerika because it is light-weight and intuitive, and it works on Macs -- which are increasingly common on campuses -- and works across networks. Plus, they can manage large files that email cannot handle: "legitimate" files, I hasten to add, not song-swapping or stuff like that. Students tend to have large files simply because the "digital generation" is very comfortable with embedding graphics (e.g. pictures and illustrations pulled off the Web) in their presentations and documents.

And I like working with students a lot: they have a great, open attitude towards new technology!

Piccolo

We used a really great UI toolkit call Piccolo to handle our Idea Pages display. This is an open-source technology that came out the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, and the godfather of Piccolo is Ben Bederson although the project has since expanded to include a wide range of users and contributors.

Piccolo comes in two flavors: Java and .NET. We naturally used the Java version! Most applications that use Piccolo are of an academic or research flavor; we are one of the few commerical products.

The zooming and panning features of Kerika's Idea Pages, plus the miniature views found in the sidebar (use View-->Pages to see the sidebar) are a direct benefit of using Piccolo.

Piccolo's a great toolkit if you want to build a great UI!

Sun Partner

I just signed up with Sun Microsystem's Partner Program. This is supposed to give us wider visibility within the Java users and developers community. Stay tuned...

User Zero

I think our very first beta user was Fred Mednick, the founder and CEO of Teachers Without Borders, a very interesting nonprofit that is focused on closing the educational divide through teacher training and community teaching & learning centers.

Fred suffered through our earliest versions, which, quite frankly, had a bunch of usability and reliability problems, and he has provided us with a lot of useful feedback. Some features in the product today are a direct consequence of his suggestions and requests, such as being able to capture Idea Pages as pictures (use the File-->Export As Picture option). Fred also introduced us to other folks in the nonprofit world who become beta users.

Fred has also very generously offered us a testimonial, saying that "Kerika is fabulous as a visual display and a collaboration tool. Even more, Kerika has helped me create breakthrough aha! ideas. Thank you!"

Fred's off on his travels, and we wish him bon voyage. His mission and passion takes him all over the world and frequently well off the beaten path; in a couple of weeks he will be in Pakistan.

Hell Night

Last month there was a "Hell Night" at UW Bothell for Alan Leong's class of budding entrepreneurs. Various student groups that have been working on business plans during the Winter Quarter fought for attention and fake money from visitors. Each group set up a booth to showcase their product or business plan, and the visitors milled about, drifting from one booth to another. Each visitor had a fixed sum of funny money that they could invest in any businesses that seemed promising, and the students had to work hard to make compelling pitches of their business plans.

I am not sure what the students thought of the experience, but it certainly was fun being one of the visitors! Several of the pitches were very good and featured some really innovative ideas. The event also gave me a chance to meet some of my beta users, one of whom, Tim Yang, was pictured in the local newspaper.

Big Man on Campus

A funny thing happened on the way to market... I had always envisioned Kerika as a product for "professional" users -- you know, whilte-collar folks, "knowledge workers", "information workers" -- the kind of people I used to work with in the past when I was at Jiway and Morgan Stanley.

One of our early beta users, Adam Philipp (a great patent attorney, by the way), introduced me to Alan Leong who teaches at the University of Washington's Bothell campus. Alan suggested that his students, who need to work on group projects, would be good beta users. He introduced the software to some of his students who were working in small groups to produce business plans.

Much to my surprise -- and I have to confess I had received Alan's suggesion with skepticism at the outset -- the students turned out to be some of our most regular and enthusiastic users! It turns out that

• Most students have to work on group projects, particularly in their senior years.
• They don't get much by way of technology support for working in distributed teams other than plain old email.
• Email really doesn't hack it for student projects: these folks like to embed graphics in their files -- after all they are the so-called "digital generation" -- which means their ordinary files are too darn large to be emailed around.
• And, of course, they very much appreciate Kerika's ability to manage all their documents and help them stay on the same page (excuse the pun!)

I am now rethinking my business plans and strategy in light of this rather exciting and serendipitous discovery.