I’m excited to announce that Flow 1.1 is now officially available for download, for all users.

Flow 1.1 introduces a number of exciting new features:

Local Browsing in the Sidebar
You can now browse your local disk from within the sidebar in Flow, eliminating the need to interface with the Finder for uploading and downloading. As the top-requested feature, we’re glad we were able to deliver this functionality in an intuitive way that doesn’t detract focus from your remote-files, or unnecessarily complicate the interface.

Custom External Editors
You can now specify a specific external editor to be used for a particular extension when editing externally. If you always want to edit CSS files in CSSEdit, for example, you can now specify so easily from the “Editing” pane of Flow’s preferences.

Vastly better QuickLook Support
We’ve refined Flow’s QuickLook support to act just like the Finder — you can now preview any file, and can do so with the click of the button (the spacebar). Previews are no longer automatically downloaded to simplify use.

Public iDisk Support
If you’d like to access a user’s iDisk public storage, just leave the password blank!

More Secure WebDAV and iDisk
We now use “digest authentication” to connect, instead of the insecure “basic authentication.”

Custom Public Keys for SFTP
If you connect to an SFTP server without specifying a password, Flow will allow you to select a public keys it finds to connect with, as well as specify others.

Multi-touch Navigation
If you have a Mac with a multi-touch trackpad, you can now use swipe-gestures (3 fingers) to navigate around in Flow. Swiping left and right will move you back and forward, respectively. Swiping up and down will navigate to the parent directory, or enter the selected directory, respectively.

Speed, stability, and error-handling
All connections have an entirely new error-handling system, delivering stable behavior when servers act unexpectedly. WebDAV and iDisk have massively faster directory listings.

All that being said, I think it’s clear that Flow 1.1 is a colossal improvement. In fact, we’re so proud of the changes we’ve made that we have reset all previous trials of Flow. If your trial has expired, feel free to download the new release, and give Flow a try. We think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised by just how much progress we’ve made.

Until next time!,
Brian Amerige

Hey folks,

If you’re interested in testing out Flow 1.1 before it’s released, send a quick e-mail to prerelease@extendmac.com.

(And, for what it’s worth, by testing, I mean both using and providing feedback as well!)

Extendmac has, legally speaking, been around since May 22nd, 2007. In that time, with the exception of some brilliant people who’ve helped out, everything has been done by me, Brian. For quite some time now (on the order of three months), I’ve been thinking about that. And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s got to change.

Why?

Mostly because it shouldn’t have been that way in the first place. As I said, I’ve done this on my own for more than a year now, and I’ve seen firsthand why it’s important to have a team (albeit a small one) of really talented people. When it comes to design, focus, priority, and as Paul Graham puts it, “moral bearing,” having a second pillar of input, opinion, and support is indescribably useful.

Furthermore, there are things I’d like to work on (namely, a mind-blowing iPhone app) that I simply can’t do at the moment. I’ve had a concept stuck in my head since WWDC, but I know full-well that there’s just no chance of doing it without letting Flow suffer at the moment. That’s a reality that’s depressing, yes, but exciting because it’s something that can be fixed.

To be absolutely clear, though, these changes don’t mean Flow will be receiving less attention than it was before. In fact, bringing in an extra person (or two?) to Extendmac means just the opposite. We’re going to do more, faster, and probably better. (And I can stop feeling awkward when I say “we” — it’s always been a point of contention for me, because saying “I’m going to move faster”, for example, just sounds odd.)

Alright, so now that you’re convinced forming a team is a good thing, we need to talk about who, and how.

Who?

As I say on the newly updated about page, “if you’re a highly-motivated and passionate person who either knows Cocoa, breathes pixels, or wants to learn, we definitely need to talk.”

A few questions you might have, answered:

Does location matter?

No, I don’t think so. If you’re right for this job, you’ll be excellent at communicating, so location really shouldn’t affect too much. If you’re in the San Diego area, though, it’s definitely a plus.

How much does it pay?

Working at a startup means both high-risk and high-opportunity. At first, you are not going to make as much money as you would at a larger, well-established company — Extendmac is not venture-capital backed. If financials are a serious consideration in your decision to apply, don’t bother. I’m looking for people motivated the way I am — by passion, not profit.

That being said, the positions I’m talking about here are first employees, so if we do well, you’re going to do very well.

What type of work are we talking about?

That depends on your skillset. If I feel you’re skilled enough, you’ll be working on Flow itself and potentially on the aforementioned iPhone project. If you’re not quite there yet but I think you have the potential to be, think of it as an internship. I’ll put in the time and effort to train you to my standards, and in return you’ll eventually work on a few projects.

Does age matter?

No, it doesn’t. Who I chose (if anyone) is entirely based on attitude, passion, and skill-set.

Is this part-time or full-time?

Whatever works for you, truthfully. If I think you’re a match for Extendmac, we’ll work something out.

Is there a time-frame on this?

Nope! I’m committed to finding people who I fully believe would be a good fit for Extendmac. I have extremely high standards, so it very well might take some time — in fact, it probably will.

How?

If you’re interested in working with me, I strongly encourage you to get in touch. Format really doesn’t matter, but be sure to include why you think you’re a good fit for Extendmac, any work you’ve done (code, designs, etc.), and any additional information you might consider relevant.

I’m incredibly proud to say that Flow 1.0.3 is now available. This is big stuff, folks!

The list of fixes and changes for 1.0.3 goes on and on and on. From support for Amazon S3 to massive stability, speed, and efficiency improvements, 1.0.3 is a major step up from 1.0.2.

You can grab 1.0.3 by clicking “Check For Updates…” from the “Flow” menu, or by downloading a fresh copy.

I encourage you to let me know what you think of 1.0.3 by leaving a comment here, or starting a discussion, reporting a problem, proposing an idea, or asking a question on Extendmac’s Get Satisfaction page.

Have a terrific weekend!,
Brian Amerige.

Hey Folks!,

It’s been a while since we last spoke — over a month, in fact. I’m happy the say that the extraordinary gap of time was not time wasted, but in fact, time well invested.

I’ve been working on the next release of Flow, version 1.0.3. While it does have some new features, they’re not what took so long — this release took so long because architecturally, it’s a lot more stable, fast, efficient, cleaner, and more maintainable than any previous release of Flow. Good stuff.

I did mention a few new features, though. Namely, Flow 1.0.3 adds support for Amazon S3, and adds a navigation banner (back/forward/reload/address field) to Flow’s LivePreviewing in the editor.

This new version of Flow is available as a nightly release. Make sure you check out the release notes to find out known issues, what’s changed, and what’s been fixed. After roughly a week or so of testing (I need your help!), I expect 1.0.3 to be available as the official release.

—

It’s also worth mentioning that as far as support is concerned, we’re experimentally trying out Get Satisfaction; Extendmac’s support page has been updated to reflect this.

I previously mentioned wanting to move in a more open direction in terms of support, allowing you guys to give your opinions on suggested features, and easily let us know that they you’re experiencing the same issue that was previously reported, for example. I’ve stated a discussion on Get Satisfaction itself to keep track of what you folks think about all this. I encourage you to let me know!

Hey Folks!,

This is just a quick post, mid-WWDC, to let you all know that Flow brought home an Apple Design Award (albeit Runner-Up) for Best Mac OS X Leopard Student Product tonight.

It really means a lot to me have such recognition from both Apple and my developer-peers for all the work that’s gone into Flow.

That being said, I’m excited to acknowledge that I’m now on summer holiday from school, and consequently, you can expect big things from Flow this summer.

All my best,
Brian Amerige.

There are two parts to today’s announcements.

Part Un: Flow 1.0.2 Now Available

This new release of Flow fixes a myriad of issues, increases stability, and clarifies a few user interface paradigms. For more details, feel free to read the release notes.

Coincidentally, it was roughly 1 month ago that 1.0.1 was released. As a few have pointed out to me, nearly a month between bug-fix releases is rather abnormal — this is mostly due to the massiveness of these updates.

Would you prefer it if Extendmac released smaller updates in a more frequent fashion?

I’m really interested to know the general opinion on this, so I strongly encourage you to let me know via the comments.

Part Deux: Feedback Ideas

Since April 4th of this year, I’ve been wondering about the best way to handle customer feedback. At the moment, our support system is as follows:

1. You e-mail us.
2. If it’s support, it’s answered within 2 or 3 days, sometimes sooner.
3. If it’s a bug report, it’s queued to be fixed, or marked as a duplicate if it’s already been filed. When it’s fixed, we’ll let you know, and point you toward the nightly release to confirm that we’ve fixed your issue.
4. If it’s a feature request, we’ll follow up with dialogue if it’s something that necessitates it.

This is a nice system, no doubt, but I think it can be better. I don’t like that:

1. Support is a closed-system. Because there is no mechanism for browsing past cases on the customer’s part, you guys can’t find instant-answers to issues that, chances are, someone else has already run into, and chances are, we’ve already answered.
2. Some people hesitate to report bugs and/or features because they simply assume that someone else has already reported it. Right now, there’s no way for you guys to know what has already been reported.

Cumulatively, I think the problem with support today is that the collective body of information about/for Flow doesn’t grow as you invest time into giving feedback, and Extendmac invests time into addressing it. I’ve got a few ideas rolling around about how to fix this. Most notably, I think we need a system that:

1. Allows users to submit feedback, specifying an explicit preference as to whether or not the case is to remain private or public. From experience, I think that most cases are generic enough (e.g. “Doing this causes Flow to crash.”) to be safely public.
2. Provides an intuitive and simple way to effectively discover whether or not your feedback (bug/feature/support) has already been addressed. If it has, the system should allow you to let us know, in a single click, that “I have this issue too,” which effectively gives us a *far* better idea of what to address first.

In any event, this is most certainly not going to be a system that’s implemented quickly, but it’s something I’d like to see a dialogue start about. As I’ve mentioned previously, Extendmac is a rather transparent company (we’ve got nothing to hide), and this type of dialogue really counts.

Hi Folks,

It is with considerable pleasure that I can now announce Flow 1.0.1’s immediate availability.

To grab 1.0.1, if you already have Flow, click “Check For Updates” from the “Flow” menu while it’s running. If you’re a new user, you can download it directly.

The first update to Flow addresses a myriad of issues — in some areas, it’s an order of magnitude better. Feel free to check out the release notes.

As always, I encourage you to continue providing feedback as many (existing, and potential) customers have done thus-far. I often brag about how great my customer-base is — you guys simply provide the most detailed, accurate, and thorough feedback I’ve ever seen. You’re awesome!

Just a quick note on the feedback front — to be absolutely clear, I want to point out that not all bug reports or feature requests will receive a response from Extendmac. I do personally read through each and every one of them, but unless a response is necessary, I usually just file the case as closed if it’s implemented or dismissed. On the other-hand, the average response-delay for technical support seems to be between 1 and 3 days — not optimal, but it’s the best I can do at this point.

Tomorrow I’ll begin working on 1.0.2 as I continue to make my way through your bug reports and feature requests. I hope the rate of development here reassures all of you who were concerned I’d up-and-go after 1.0.
Have a great day!,
Brian Amerige.

Hey Folks,

What an incredible last four days these have been! The exciting news of Flow’s release has been received positively by more blogs and news outlets than I could possibly list here. While the focus of this post isn’t to talk about the launch, I just wanted to briefly thank everybody who has supported Flow (and myself) through this whole process, once again. As I’ve said in an unhealthy number of e-mails, it means a lot to me.

—

That being said, I want to talk a bit about the future, and mention the first bit of infrastructure Extendmac will be employing to help us get there.

While I’m incredibly proud of Flow 1.0, obviously there are bugs that must be (and will be) addressed, as well as features you’ve all made clear you want implemented. As I’ve made a point of saying in other corners of the internet, this is just the beginning of the true development cycle, not the end.

Unlike many other applications on OS X, testing fixes for an FTP app is significantly more difficult, as there are quite literally thousands of server-setups we’ve got to support. Obviously, at Extendmac, we don’t have thousands of servers to test on, so when I think I’ve addressed an issue, the best way to make sure it’s fixed, is to have the reporter test to make sure.

So instead of e-mailing internal revisions of Flow to bug-reporters, I’m going to do something a whole lot cooler. Introducing Flow Nightlies.

Nightlies are pre-release builds of Flow intended to ensure, first hand, that your bug has been addressed.

When you submit a bug report, and we think we’ve fixed it, you’ll receive a notification via e-mail requesting you verify the fix. Whether or not you do so is entirely up to you, but I get the feeling that many users will appreciate the ability to get their fix without waiting for a public, official, dot-release.

If you’ve got comments, thoughts, or suggestions, as usual, I’d love to hear them.

I’m incredibly(!) proud to announce the immediate availability of Flow, Extendmac’s new FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and .Mac client exclusively designed for Mac OS X Leopard. After a 15-day fully featured trial, you can purchase Flow for just $29.

What makes Flow different from any other FTP client on OS X?

I’m glad you asked! Flow is different because of how it feels to use. It’s hard to quantify, but immediately obvious when you begin using it. Despite being an incredibly powerful application, Flow is always light on its feet. It’s fast, it’s gorgeous, and it makes sense.

But there’s more to Flow than being delightful to use. Flow is also very smart: Flow can QuickLook just about any file on your server, can automatically copy the URL to the file you just uploaded to your clipboard, and can edit your files too, complete with tabs, syntax coloring, code sense, and live-previewing.

Words only mean so much, though. Download Flow, and fall in love with the FTP client that makes you smile.

What about support? What about the future?

Included with each license is unlimited support to help you out when you need it. Even our beta testers have been surprised at how quickly and accurately we respond — I’m sure you will be too.

As for Flow’s future, you can bet on it being big. As I’ve mentioned previously, Flow 1.0 is truly just the beginning, and I can’t wait to get started on the exciting ideas that are in place to be implemented in future Flow 1.x releases.

Thank You

To those of you who’ve been watching since the beginning: thank you. The endurance of your enthusiasm and support is what keeps me going every single day. I couldn’t have done it without you!

To Flow’s Beta Testers: thank you. You guys, all 1700 of you, have been awesome. You’ve been invaluable. You’ve been perfect. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. Together, you helped shape the development of a hand-crafted piece of software I care about an awful lot. Your participation, activism, and enthusiasm have made it clear that Flow means an awful lot to you, too.

To my family, friends, and everyone in a 10 mile radius to my house and/or TwitterFeed: thank you. I can only imagine what it has been like to put up with me these past few months. Needless to say, it hasn’t been easy, but I appreciate it. I couldn’t have done it without you, either.

Flow’s development has been a long, long journey, but I couldn’t have asked for a better beginning to an exhilarating adventure.

Passionately, Excited, And Truly Yours,
Brian Amerige.

(P.S. - Thoughts? Comments? It’d make my day if you’d let me know by posting a comment!)