Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - Tue, 22 Mar 2005

Well, I just feel great finally getting that initial alpha release of Behold out. In the first few days, I’ve already had several dozen registered downloads and a few purchases. Some of the comments I’ve received have been very uplifting. Thank you everyone.

I’m archiving the pre-release blog. It is still available by the link at the bottom of this page, but it was getting quite large and Behold is entering a new exciting phase of development, so it is time to start this blog anew.

Next on my agenda, I need to organize all my future plans so that I can work through them in an orderly fashion and make good progress towards the beta release goal of July and the Version 1.0 goal of December. My Future Plans page that I maintain for everyone to see is also my own blueprint to follow. Any enhancements, especially those from your suggestions, and any reported bugs that need to be corrected will be added onto that page.

This is my chance to go through my many Binders of info for Behold. You might find it interesting to know that I have no less than 25 binders (mostly 1 1/2 to 2 inch) taking up 3 shelves of my library, and they are crammed full of my research, reference, and note material for Behold. Just for fun, I can list them here:

• B0 - Behold website, shareware and marketing info
• B0a - Selling software, preparing webcopy, writing help files
• B0b - Behold current work
• B0c - Behold future work planned (V2 and beyond)
• B0d - Articles about good User Interface design
• B0e - Specs for Unicode (which is a very important future addition to Behold)
• B0f - My Behold source code listings. (I believe in hardcopy for everything!)
• B1a - Info on 3rd party tools I use for install, registration, help and e-mail
• B1b1 - Info on Richview which I use for the Everything Report
• B1b2 - Info on Elpack which I use for the Treeview, Organize info, etc.
• B1c - A complete binder with GEDCOM testing procedures (my bible for beta testing)
• B1d - GEDCOM format references (including the various offshoots of GEDCOM)
• B2a and B2b - Over 500 Behold surveys and 5 years of correspondence with people about Behold
• B3 - Delphi info (my development language) plus addons for time and memory testing of Behold
• B3a - A 3 inch binder (I need a 4 inch one) with Delphi techniques I use or want to use
• B3b - Delphi websites and 3rd party components available
• B3c - Delphi programs, many with sources, that give good ideas.
• B3d - A 3 inch binder with low level Delphi source code.
• B4 - My Genealogy Software Links reference and communication with various authors
• B4a - Info on Reunion and Generations
• B4b - Info on The Master Genealogist and Lifelines
• B4c - Info on Family History System
• B4d - Info on dozens of other genealogy programs
• B4e - Info on dozens of genealogy utility programs

Add to this, about 16 books on Delphi, software development and user interface design. Plus six binders on my website, forum software and web services. Years of issues of Genealogical Computing, the NGS/CIG digest and PC World. Two dozen books on various aspects of genealogy. Another two dozen binders with my own Genealogy Research information (which I myself am patiently awaiting for Behold version 2.0 before I enter it all) … well you get the idea. It is very important to try to get and stay organized.