Steve's Pad

We need beta testers!

March 9, 2008

One of the more difficult things about being an independent software developer is making sure your software is as bug-free as possible. Note that I didn’t just say “bug-free” - if you believe the mythical completely bug-free application actually exists, I have some bridges, magic beans, and unicorns I’d like to sell you.

We ♥ you

Seriously, though, we couldn’t do what we do without the kindness of you, our customers. We rely on your feature requests to tell us what to work on, your license fees to help us feed our families and keep us in business, and your bug reports to help us fix Path Finder when it does something it’s not supposed to.

We already have an awesome group of folks helping us test Path Finder behind the scenes before we roll out a new release to the public, but we need help. With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 we are now in that strange and wonderful place where Path Finder supports two operating systems, and with that comes an even more complex testing environment.

We need you

We need your help kicking the tires whenever Steve adds a new feature, improves a new one, or rolls out a bug fix or workaround. Almost 60% of you have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5, but that leaves 40% of you that are still using Mac OS X 10.4 and we need to make sure both operating systems (and both CPU types) are represented in our beta testing group.

Interested?

Here are the specifics:

  • Beta testing is, for the moment, purely voluntary. We’ve talked about finding fun ways of thanking our beta testers but at the moment if you decide to help us, it’s for the love of playing with the most recent, cutting edge builds of Path Finder.
  • Beta testing is inherently risky. You must follow the tao of backing up your system frequently. We try not to provide beta builds that could cause your computer to implode, but stuff happens.
  • We require you to be involved. Obviously everyone is busy and the amount of involvement that any single person can commit to is variable, but we still expect that you’ll let us know if you find a bug and try to get us feedback when we need it.
  • It’s all confidential. We don’t generally release beta builds to the public for a reason: they’re not ready for public consumption. We hope and expect that you’ll honour this by not sharing download URLs, builds, or any other pre-release information with people not on the list.
  • Beta testing is open to licensed Path Finder 4 customers only. For now, at least.

We thank you

Update: Thank you! We got lots of applications and we’re digging through them now. We will get in touch with you if you were selected. Thanks a lot for your willingness to help us!

Posted by neilio at March 9, 2008 7:58 PM