Raptor Services

It's the Queen's birthday long weekend here in Australia - which means many other parts of the world will also be taking Monday off.  So, I've decided to delay the release of EZ Realty version 6 over at JustJoomla for another week.  I'll spend the extra week checking over the code to catch any bugs I may have missed and to do another round of testing - because it's always a worthwhile activity - and it lessens my pre-release nerves ;-)

I know there are many who've been eager to see the new version, so I'll post more news about the changes and performance improvements in EZ Realty version 6 in the coming days.

After almost 10 months of work - EZ Realty version 6 is due for release on Monday, 14th June.  Version 6 is a major release point, as it represents a rewrite of the EZ Realty code base into MVC code structure.  As it is a major release - I've decided now is the best time to implement changes to how EZ Realty will be licensed and distributed.

EZ Realty version 6 will be released under the terms of the Creative Commons GNU GPL license, and in addition to this change in licensing - it'll be distributed via my site at justjoomla.com - rather than my commercial business site.   justjoomla.com has traditionally been used to distribute my GNU GPL products, and it's for this reason that I'm moving distribution there - to clearly delineate between my GNU GPL products and those previously distributed under commercial licensing.

The change in licensing will take effect from EZ Realty version 6, so this change won't affect previous versions - and they'll still be subject to the commercial license terms that they were released under.

While I'm sure this decision may take some by surprise, I suspect others won't be surprised at all given the changes I've made this year - such as full source code distribution and discontinuation of the licensing server.  Moving to an open source business model is simply the next logical step in where my software development is now taking me - and I hope users of my software are as excited as I am about this change.

As part of the preparation for launching JustJoomla.com and releasing EZ Realty verison 6 - I'll be taking all commercial software sales on my raptorservices.com site offline for the next week - as all of my software will be following in the path of EZ Realty.  If you simply must purchase one of my software products and can't wait for the new versions - please contact me via email - otherwise I look forward to seeing you over at JustJoomla.com in the coming week.

I know any change can be a bit of a challenge to cope with for some - so I'll take a moment to address some of the questions which are sure to be on the minds of existing commercial customers.

Availability of upgrades for EZR version 5x:-

Will there be any further upgrades to the EZ Realty version 5x packages?

Yes there will be further upgrades.  Even though version 6 will be released in the coming week - version 5 will go into maintenance mode - so I'll be releasing bug fixes as customers report bugs to me.

Price:-

Will license holders of previous EZR products receive a discount when upgrading to EZR6?

No, there won't be discounts available as existing customers don't really need to upgrade at this time - and they will be managed under the current commercial business with maintenance upgrades.

What will the new license include?  As in will the product be ion cubed or open for editing?

EZ Realty version 6 is to be released under the terms of the Creative Commons GNU GPL license.  This means you will have all of the freedoms associated with GNU GPL licensing - so there will be no encryption and no limits on how many sites you can install EZ Realty version 6 on.  You can read more on the Creative Commons GNU GPL license here:- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/

Upgrade:-

Will the upgrade process from EZR5 to 6 be automatic or are the systems incompatible?  In so much as, will changes or custom modifications be incompatible in EZR6?

EZ Realty version 6 is a rewrite of the code base into MVC code structure - so there is little in common between the file structure of version 6 and previous versions.  Upgrading will be a simple process - however you will lose all custom modifications made to the version you're currently using.

Will the database structure and naming change potentially invalidate any custom scripts?

There have been no changes to the database structure, so 3PD scripts that interact with the EZ Realty database should not be affected.  This statement is based solely on the premise that the 3PD script only interacts with the database - and not the EZ Realty files.

Will the upgrade invalidate custom addons, like Denis Dulicis SEO plugin?

It will depend on the addon.  EZ Realty version 6 uses controllers and views in the frontend URL's in line with the new MVC code structure - so addons for SEF systems will potentially be affected.

Changes:-

As mentioned earlier - the major change is version 6 is a rewrite of the code base into the MVC code structure used by Joomla 1.5, and this work was done in preparation for Joomla 1.6x.  Now, as for other changes and new features - version 6 has a couple of changes - but nothing significant in terms of features at this stage.

The admin cpanel has been redesigned and has new graphics, the auto-calculation of decimal coordinates has been removed due to problems some customers have with server settings not permitting use of the fopen() php function - and as a result - the popup find coordinates map is now embedded in the add/edit page and will populate the coordinate fields when the map is clicked.  External feeds to property sites have been removed - as I'll be writing a new single component to handle feeds for all EZ* components.

Current commercial customer support services and other stuff:-

What will happen to support services for commercial customers?

Support services for commercial customers will continue as normal at www.raptorsupport.com for now - as there is still much work to be done for EZ Autos and EZ Rider.  It is expected that EZ Realty support should begin to taper off over the next couple of months as customers get their sites built and launched - however that is just an estimate of how much demand I think there will be for EZ Realty-related support and nothing more than that.

What about the licensing server?  What will happen to my site?

Keeping up with news is important - so all customers should have upgraded their sites to the unencrypted versions that I made available to my commercial customers over a month ago.  These packages can be downloaded from your customer accounts at http://www.raptorservices.com/customers/ - and they do NOT connect to the licensing server.  Unencrypted packages are ONLY available for J1.5x installations - so if you're still running EZ Realty on Joomla 1.0x - you should think about upgrading.  Apart from making the unencrypted packages available - the licensing server is NOT going anywhere - so you're not going to wake up and find your site not working if there is a delay in getting your site upgraded to the latest version 5x package.

With my recent bout of hospitalization still fresh in my mind - as well as still feeling almost as sick as when I was admitted - I thought now would be the time to let all of my customers know that the first thing I did when returning home today was release new packages for EZ Realty, EZ Autos and EZ Rider.

All software is now unencrypted - yes indeedy - no encryption whatsoever - and it does not connect to the licensing server.  I've made this decision primarily because I don't want to be worrying about customers suffering site problems due to the licensing system - if I ever have to have another emergency hospital admission in the future.

Many of my early customers will remember the days when the software was made available like this, so I suppose I'm heading back towards my roots as a software developer.  The EZ* software products are still released under their current terms of licensing though - so while the encryption and licensing system used to enforce this - I'm back to where it all started there too with the honor system.

I will just mention that these packages do not differentiate between standard, link free or brand free licenses - as the licensing system code has been removed - and I will be returning the products to a single release format.  Over the coming days as I begin to feel better - I'll update all of the product information and my site information to recognize this change - but I'm sure I won't be getting any complaints from any customers over this particular change ;-)

I would urge all customers to download these packages now and upgrade their sites - or at least download the packages for later.

best wishes,
Kathy

I've noticed we've been having some email delivery problems over the past week, so if you've been trying to contact me - I'd like to offer an apology to anyone who has been wondering why they havn't received a reply.  My normal practice with email enquiries is to respond to them as they arrive - so my existing customers know that I'm quite quick with the replies.  Unfortunately - if you've been trying to contact me for the first time - you havn't had that usual speedy reply from me, and for that - I'm very sorry.

The mail contact form has now been disabled, and to avoid any potential problems which may be occurring with the mail server - I've included my backup business email address on the contact page - which is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This will allow you to send enquiries directly from your own mail programme to my gmail account, while I track down the problems with my mail server.  Please keep in mind though - that I frequently encounter others who've also got mail server problems - so please understand that any lack of reply from me will be due to communication barriers at either my end or your end, as I do reply to everyone who contacts me.

Hopefully the direct contact email address will resolve any problems people have been encountering, and I will monitor site email traffic to check that it's improving :-)

I've got a little problem - and I'm so fed up with it - I'm going to talk about it publicly.  After all - why should I put up with it and suffer in silence like so many others?

It all started last week when my software demo site got hacked.  No big deal - it happens sometimes for a whole host of reasons - and it was not due to the software on display.  We'll just get that cleared up now.  Unfortunately though, someone saw this as an opportunity for personal gain.

I then received an email from this "someone" notifying me that the site had been hacked, along with a polite request that I reward him with free software for his notification efforts.  Well, I never answer emails such as this immediately - because I want to know who I'm dealing with, and what their real motivation and hidden agendas may be.  After all - the damage could have been done by this very person in order to manipulate the situation to their advantage.  So, I waited.

The next morning it came.  I received an email which was short and straight to the point.  I was accused of being ungrateful, and given a day - otherwise what had been seen on the demo site page source including screenshots would be posted on the joomla.org site.  My initial complaint to the local police yielded feedback that I was yet another of many similar complaints they had recently received.  The pattern of attack was to hack a website, follow-up with the request for a reward, and then threaten the business owner with potentially damaging exposure if they refused.  Now I knew who I was dealing with and what the real agenda was.

This was blackmail and extortion - and I was the victim!!

I've since tried to engage this person in conversation to determine his understanding of how I felt about his threat, and the general theme of his responses have been fixated on how ungrateful I am.  This has nothing to do with my gratitude or the initial request for the "reward" - it's about his subsequent actions - the second email sent by him that contained the threats and consequences of my noncompliance.  That is when it stopped being about rewards and started being about blackmail and extortion.

The power of a blackmailer is that they count on your fear of what they've threatened to disclose publicly.  For some - this may have been criminal activity, some sort of personal indiscretion - or something that they think will personally or professionally embarrass you.  In this case - he has believed that the threat to publicly disclose that my demo site had been hacked would professionally embarrass me and damage my business - and that I'd give him free software not to disclose this.  That just makes me a victim who'll then be blackmailed over and over.  This is the thing with blackmailers - they hold it over your head and keep on extorting whatever they think they can get out of you.  The fact that this person won't even recognize that this is what he's doing is even more disconcerting.  How do you talk rationally to someone who can only see you as ungrateful - who can't even recognize that they've threatened you?  For the most part - you can't talk to these people.  I found my attempts to communicate my feelings only fuelled his anger with me, and in the end I had to break off communication - but things didn't end there.

Now he's bordering on cyberstalking - and has begun sending me emails wanting to know why I don't reply and accusing me of being ungrateful.

I'm sure you're wondering why I don't just give him what he wants.  Well, this goes back to the crux of the problem.  Once you comply with the demands of a blackmailer - regardless of their threats and demands - you become their mark over and over.

Being confronted with this situation - I've asked myself - just what sort of person would do this to me?  I mean - I'm 48 - yep that's right I'm that old - and I live with multiple disabilities - chief of which are epilepsy, major depression and complex regional pain syndrome - the latter being a complication of a grade IV ankle sprain that has also left me with nerve and tendon damage to the leg and foot as well as torn ligaments still evident 10 years on from the original injury and the depression being the result of the pain.  In short - I don't walk very far, can't run to save my life, and regularly re-sprain my ankle or fall over purely because of the structural damage to that ankle.

These are my demons - my daily battle grounds and the daily obstacles I have to combat before, during and after I put in the 18 hours at my keyboard every day taking care of my customers and working on my software.  I work hard, and I do it quietly - without fanfare or grandstanding on forums - because let's face it - I'm busy beating challenges in my daily life that most don't have to deal with.  I do what I do very well because I've rebuilt my life around something that doesn't require me to walk, but I don't need him adding to my burdens.

The stress he has caused me is significant.  Complex regional pain syndrome is a chronic and progressive disease characterised by severe pain worse than that of toothache, childbirth or an amputated finger.  While I am normally able to manage this pain with medications, it is exacerbated by stress - stress being caused by these unwarranted and angry intrusions into my life.  Yes - as I write this yet another hate-filled threatening email to expose that my site was hacked has arrived in my inbox - complete with a date and time by which I must comply with the demands.  This is blackmail and extortion within any definition of the meaning

How does one deal with people such as this?  Well, the options are few - but I have implemented those options.  I've lodged a complaint with the local police where I live,  I've also submitted a more detailed complaint to their computor fraud section and requested that the complaint be forwarded via their international networking channels to the relevant law enforcement agency in the originating country, I've submitted a number of complaints to his ISP, and I've engaged a solicitor for legal advice.  I suspect I will have to lodge further complaints and look at the various legal remedies now that his behaviour is ongoing and escalating.

I've also decided to post this news article - as a way to deny this person the power he thinks he holds over me and to put the situation into its proper context.  People will believe what they want to believe though - and naturally some would find a largely fictitious story built around a simple event far more entertaining and compelling than anything I've got to say.  That's the nature of carrying through on threats - one wants to inflict as much damage and punishment as possible on a noncompliant target such as myself - to "teach them a lesson".

There are certainly lessons here that many can benefit from, and the experience has allowed me to take a very hard look at my personal values, beliefs and my business.  To allow myself to be blackmailed over a hacked software demo site would compromise my integrity as a software developer.  After all - honest software developers notify their customers when security upgrades are released - so they can patch their installations.  I've done this in the past - and will do it in the future when necessary.  I've also formed the opinion that while tokens of gratitude are an acceptable practice in some situations - indiscriminate use of this may in fact encourage the type of situation I'm now confronted with - a reasonable conclusion given the incidence of similar reports to mine.

As to what this means for my business - well, I'm sure this person will go forth and make as many damaging statements as possible - and it's possible he'll damage my business.  However, I'll be here working as usual, and planning for EZ Realty's next upgrade is underway in preparation for the upcoming Joomla 1.6x release - because I choose to believe that the majority of people will be understanding of the situation as a whole.  I believe that they'll look beyond this person's angry claims of my ingratitude and question why he resorted to blackmail and extortion so quickly.

We're back from our short Christmas break, and during the downtime we've moved the site and online store to a new dedicated server.  This should result in significant improvements with site performance and accessibility, so it's an exciting time.

I've released patches for all of the EZ* components to facilitate the changeover to the new licensing server location, and the old one will continue to run right where it is - so there will NOT be any disruption to client sites.  Clients not running the latest version of the EZ* components should log into their customer account for upgrade packages, and clients who are up-to-date with their versions only need to download the license changeover package.  Customers should also visit the support site where I'll write an indepth set of upgrade/changeover instructions.

The coming year will also have some welcome changes for customers, as I'm in the process of putting in a completely new online store to manage licensing that doesn't involve connections to the licensing server as is currently done.  I know reliance on being able to connect to the licensing server has been a worry for a number of clients, and while I've offered concerned clients custom encrypted packages that don't use the licensing system at no extra cost - I've been searching for a replacement system for quite some time.  All customers will have their records transferred to the new system during the setup phase, so they'll all then have access to the new system once it comes online.  The current licensing system will also continue to run so clients will not experience any disruption to their sites.  In fact - the changeover to the new system will be no different to doing an upgrade.  I'll write more about the new system once it's online and ready for clients, because then I'll have more concrete information regarding how to go about upgrading a site.

Christmas is almost upon us and 2009 is just around the corner, and the year has just flown by for me.  It has been a big year with lots happening.  Our daughter Carissa graduated from university with a double degree, she started her professional career as a geologist, Bill and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and we almost lost Bill after he suffered a cardiac arrest in August.  Through all of this I've had my software development and clients to keep me grounded - and to give me encouragement and hope during the tough times when Bill was in hospital for heart surgery.  Bill has now fully recovered from his brush with death, and we've got a lot to be thankful for this Christmas because we can spend it together as a family.

Due to the unusual year that I've had with Bill's hospitalisation, I've decided to take a couple of days off over Christmas.  As a result of this - the store will be offline for the next couple of days.  It won't be all holidays though, as I'll be doing site maintenance on the store, upgrades to the site, and naturally I'll continue to provide essential support to existing clients via the support site.  If you find you simply must make a purchase during this time - please contact me via the sites contact form and I'll make arrangements for you to purchase the software you require.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of my clients and site visitors a safe and happy Christmas/New Year period.

best wishes,
Kathy

Today has been a big day with lots happening and lots of news.  First up - it has been a little over two months since my husband Bill suffered his temporary brush with death after a cardiac arrest, and after everything that has happened to him in the intervening weeks - he finally returned to work on light duties.  Bill's survival and full recovery has been considered a bit of a miracle by his specialists, and I'd like to say a big thank you to all of my clients and site visitors who emailed me messages of support and kept my family in their prayers.  I know you all made a difference.

While I've had Bill at home I have also been working on the EZ Autos 5.2.0 upgrade, and I know everyone will be really pleased to hear it has now been released.  EZ Autos 5.2.0 will now run on Joomla 1.5x in legacy mode, and the beta testing that has been done over the past couple of months indicates it is stable on the system.  New in EZ Autos 5.2.0 are profiling privileges, an increase to 24 images and image descriptions, data export file functions for Google and Vast sites, multiple-selector features list to replace the old system of yes/no radio buttons for lists, new configurable options to turn data sections off, support for rental/lease vehicle pricing, new fields for the display of finance information associated with a vehicle, new module to display all of the vehicle makes with hyperlinks leading to those listings, a new multilayout consisting of quick search boxes, top categories and random featured listings, leads manager has been extended to a VIP Buyer's register with unsubscribe link and email function to automatch listings with lead data, email sellers their listings reports and more.

Version 5.2.0 of EZ Autos is a moderately large upgrade, and a new user guide has also been written to provide an extensive overview of all new site functions and product addons.  My customers who've been beta testing on both the Joomla 1.0x and 1.5x systems have found it full of features - and they've done a great job helping to identify bugs and user-related issues.  I'd like to say a big thank you to all of my beta testers, because such extensive pre-release testing always helps to produce a better quality release.

Also available today is EZ Realty version 5.2.5.  This version has a number of bug-fixes to resolve a couple of issues Joomla 1.5x users have encountered, and it's also now fully-functional on Joomla 1.5x in legacy mode.  The RSS feeds and data export functions are all working on J1.5x now - as is the Realty Map component.  As those final couple of features have been been updated to work on the J1.5x system - EZ Realty is now classified as stable on J1.5.

As usual - customers can access upgrade packages from their customer account.

I'm also part-way through the EZ Rider upgrade to enable it to run on Joomla 1.5x, and it should be available sometime in the next 2-4 weeks.

This is just a quick bit of family news to let family, friends, clients and site visitors know that my husband of 25 years suffered a heart attack followed by a cardiac arrest this evening.  Fortunately, this happened during half-time at my husband's hockey match - and there were a number of nurses from the women's hockey team and a male nurse present.  They were able to commence CPR on my husband quickly, and continued until the ambulance arrived.  The paramedics then defibrillated Bill and successrfully resuscitated him.  Bill is now in the Coronary Care Unit at Toowoomba Base Hospital, and will be transferred to Brisbane tomorrow for further cardiac investigations.

I'd like to crawl out from under my own distress at the evenings events to say thank you to the members of the Rangeville Hockey Club for taking care of my husband in his time of need.  Your quick actions are very much appreciated.  Thank you also to the paramedics from the Queensland Ambulance Service, and thank you to the A&E doctors and nurses at Toowoomba Base Hospital.

I will not be around much over the coming days, so if anyone has any product enquiries - please be assured that I will answer them eventually.  For my customers - if you have support needs - please visit the helpdesk over on the support site at http://www.raptorsupport.com as I will be making arrangements for some backup support.  Please do not email me with support enquiries, as you will not get help as quickly as you will over on the help desk.

Thank you everyone :-)