So right now the Registration Component is in a good place. It's stable, the desktop client has the current feature set that people are looking for, and some work needs to be gotten underway.

So the current project is actually my own adaptation of CVSTrac. I use CVSTrac for bug tracking and project planning. If you aren't familiar, CVSTrac is a bug tracking system similar to Bugzilla, but designed for a smaller shop, making it easer to use and more appropriate to my scale of operation. Unlike Bugzilla, it also integrates directly with CVS, Subversion and GIT. It also includes a wiki for documenting your project.

I'm working on updating the appearance of CVSTrac so that it compares favorably with the prettier and more popular (but slower and less flexible) Trac tool by Edgewall. Trac is a really nice program, and I like the way that it handles milestones for project planning. The roadmap page is an especial favorite, with its graphical progress bars. To that end I created the CVSTrac Progress Bar. CPB even liked my work enough that he included a modification to CVSTrac that makes it easier to implement. CPB's feature will be available in the next release of CVSTrac, and you can download my progress bar at the URL above.

What does this mean for you, my loyal customers? Hopefully I'll be releasing an internet appliance soon that includes CVSTrac, subversion and a secure operating system on a CD. So all you'll have to do is install the CD on an available machine and you'll have yourself an automatic development server that's as pretty as Trac but fast like CVSTrac. Source control, defect tracking and documentation will be built in, with centrally managed access control to all of them.

I've set up these services for a small development team before, and the amount of time and difficulty involved didn't really seem justified. Every development team should be using these tools even if they aren't now, and don't see the need. Even as a one man operation I use these tools because they make my life a lot easier.

So why am I doing this? Don't get any misconceived ideas about altruism. I'm a greedy money grubbing capitalist at heart, and I intend to make money by selling this product. And I intend to make that money by making your life easier. For the price of my CD, you'll get an excellent suite of development tools. For about the amount of money that you should be billing your customers for an hour's work, you'll save yourself a day or three of setting up bug tracking, source control and documentation systems.