Fernando Valente's weblog

Currently I’m busy as hell. I’m working on a new Mac app and I hope to finish it soon. Working 10˜12 hours a day is painful!

Well, I’m not broke like I have no money to eat and my stuff is being sold by a court, but I’m not rich yet. In fact, I was born broke. For years my goal was to be rich. Right now for example, I wanna save a million dollars. It might sound weird, but that’s enough for me to set up a company in the US and support it for some time until it becomes profitable.

So, I found a possible answer for the question about why I’m not rich yet. I had nothing to do and for some dumb reason, I Google for “How to make a million dollars”. I came across an article at HowStuffWorks. Well, usually this kind of article are totally useless. To me, it might have been useful.

So, it basically states there are 2 ways to become a millionaire.  The easy one is to born to a rich family. Well, that almost happened to me. My great grandfather was a millionaire in a time a million was worth a lot more than it’s today. Imagine a million dollars in the 60s. He was able to make this amount of money in some months. Sadly, he had alzheimer’s disease and everyone let my uncle take care of everything. Well, my uncle was not only a leftist(not a leftist leader, but someone who believes in a part of the Marxist ideology, a clear sign he needed a brain transplant), but he also was a very lazy guy. He kept saying “My dad made all this money, so he has the right to lose it”. What an idiot, asshole, son of a bitch(I hope none of my relatives will read this)… My grandmother, great grandmother and aunt weren’t innocent too. My poor great grandfather died in misery. I feel sorry for him. The irony of this is that my great grandmother and my aunt died very poor too, with a debt that’s greater than the United States’ national debt. To complete that, no one admits they are broke. They keep acting like they were rich and try to convince everyone about that. Well, if I was rich I’d try not to let people know about it(excepting for the girls I want to fuck). I don’t like bloodsuckers.

The harder way the article cited was to start a business. Well, I already have a business. I even pay my bills from it. The article also stated that working for other people is a waste of time for those who want to become a millionaire. Simply because by doing this, you’re making OTHER PEOPLE rich, not yourself. Currently, my income comes from developing custom solutions to other companies. Mainly for advertising agencies. It made me see that I’m making other people rich, not me. My goal was never to do this. I’m doing this now because that’s what pays my bills. My goal was always to create products for the final consumer and sell those products directly(or by using a middle man, AKA retailers) to them.

Unfortunately, my projects that are focused on the end user that are under development are a little stuck. I hate suffering of depression. This makes me very tired and doesn’t let me work the way I’m supposed to. Considering I’m tired of working, it gets a lot worse. Also, it makes me addicted to sugar, which might make me develop type 2 diabetes. While anti-depressants help a LOT, they ain’t magical drugs. I’m even considering trying low doses of testosterone to make me feel better.

Getting back to what I was talking about, I got 2 projects which are under development. One is a web based service which shouldn’t give me much profit. It’s almost finished. The second project is a Mac app which isn’t that close to be finished yet. Weirdly, I started this project in December last year. The Mac app will have some integration with the web project, that’s why I’m prioritizing the web one. The Mac app has a great chance of becoming profitable.

Well, these are my thoughts on this subject. I will try to focus more on end user projects. I won’t abandon the custom solutions stuff yet simply because I still need the money from it to survive. If you want to read the article from HowStuffWorks, just click here.

Just made a decision. I’m not sure how impossible the “mission” related to this decision is, but I will just try to do it. I cannot tell much yet, sorry. If it works out, I will post it here.

After a crazy app rejection because it contained “BBC” and “CNN” on the description of the app, FireRocker HD is finally on the AppStore. My best selling app was Radio Tool X Deluxe. It was discontinued and replaced by FireRocker. All Radio Tool X products were discontinued, but those who bought them can download the FireRocker equivalent for free. Now the app is beautiful and full-featured. I hope my sales will get better.

More information at www.firerocker.com.  There are a lot of stuff coming on Chiaro. Actually I got 2 goals, make a thousand dollars p/ week and be a well known iOS and Mac OS X developer. I hope they are gonna happen once FireRocker for Mac comes out…

No, that’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t have a girlfriend/wife/whoever who has just gave a birth. I’m talking about my new application. It’s called FireRocker and it came to replace Radio Tool X. I’m saying I’m daddy because this app is like a son to me. It’s just great. Its UI and icon are just amazing. When I say amazing I don’t mean “Good” or “Very Good”. I mean it’s just the COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN. OK, it may seem strange. Me, the developer, saying that. But no, I’m saying it as an user. It also got great functionalities.

More information and screenshots can be found on Chiaro Software website. iPad version is waiting for review and the Mac version is under development

About a month ago I accepted to be a volunteer for the Coalition Of The Willing. If you have no idea of what COTW is, check out their website. It didn’t take too long to create the app. In fact, it was a very simple app. The app contains the movie, information about the volunteers and the event and a section where you may e-mail a friend and share it on Facebook and Twitter.

I hope this will get some doors open to me. Check out the app on the App Store. It requires iOS 4.0 or above and costs nothing!

Few days ago I lost my hope™ on Chiaro. Reason? I *NEED* better icons and interfaces if I wanna have success. I was talking to a graphic designer I know. He got some freelances and he needs a programmer, then he invited me. Good, but something really tells me we won’t go too far. I got no money to hire a designer, so I will do a better research. Anyway, I think I got my hope™back. How? Music!

It’s pretty hard to understand how music is linked to our feelings and emotions. I don’t know why, but some songs really gimme a lot of hope.

Now I’m gonna sleep. Good bye

Hope is a trademark of Barack Obama in the United States and other countries.

I’m a very good programmer. I write code very well, but it’s far from enough to have success nowadays. In the 90s it was easy to make money being just a programmer. Unfortunately, party is over! You must have a great design(thank you, Apple and your damn Aqua interface). I’m the world’s crappiest designer…

I’m looking for a graphic designer who would partner with me. On every project we work together, I would get 50% of the revenue and the designer would get the other 50%. I know I know. It’s not gonna be easy to find a good(or at least a decent) designer who would partner with me. The problem is that I got stuck because of the look and feel of my apps and icons.

Software development is a very good kind of business. If you work the right way, you will be able to make so much money.

Well, if you wanna join me on that, leave a comment or email me. I hope I will find someone soon.

I tried to get some freelance jobs, so I would have money to invest on those things, but I couldn’t get anything yet.

Two or three days ago(I don’t remember) I released my first Mac application. Also the new Chiaro website went online.

The application is called Blue Moon App. It’s a powerful customer management application. It’s really nice and costs just U$10.99. More information may be found on this link. For the new website, my friend create a new layout.

The old Chiaro logo is just UGLY on a white background, so I created a new one. It’s not beautiful as the old logo, but it’s nice. There are many companies using a just text logo, so there’s no problem with the simplicity of my logo.

People use to hate a black background with white text, so I fixed it on the new website. Why don’t you just go and check it out?

Yesterday Apple approved my first iPad app, which I commented few days ago. Radio Tool X Deluxe plays 213 radio stations on the iPad, including CBC, CNN, ESPN, Antenna1, Virgin Radio and CBC! There are a lot of cool features.

This application costs just U$0.99. Yeah, I know it’s not too much, but I’d rather 2 people to buy it for 99 cents than 1 person buy it for U$1.99. Read more about it on this page.