I already mentioned the side project that I'd been thinking about for some time; because I actually made some progress with it, I think it's time to reveal the secret. I started thinking about this project when I switched from Windows XP to 64-bit Windows 7 (which was a great step forward, I must admit) and I was looking for a free dual-panel file manager which would be working nicely with it. To my surprise, most such programs are 32-bit only, which make it difficult to work with various shell extensions which are in turn 64-bit. The only one which I found and I'm using at the moment is slow and crashes a lot. So I thought that creating such program by taking advantage of both the newest Windows Shell API and the Qt framework wouldn't be very difficult, and that's how the idea slowly started to grow and coming to shape.

The name "Saladin" is obviously a sort of a tribute to Krusader, one of the greatest file managers for Linux. Obviously I'm not endorsing the "holy war" between Windows and Linux on either side; actually I've been promoting cross-platform software for a long time. But I decided to make an exception and this time create a project which is not only purely Windows-oriented, but what's more, requires at least Windows Vista or newer. That requirement makes creating it significantly easier and that's exactly what I need, because I don't wish to spend a lot of time working on this project; it's supposed to fulfill my own requirements in the first place and conquering the world is not its purpose.

OK, enough puns; I'm obviously going to publish the first version of Saladin as soon as it's more or less usable and we'll see where it goes from there. But working on version 1.0 of WebIssues will remain my first priority in the nearest future (like it's been for 16 months already). I just released the second alpha version and I'm going to start working on the most difficult part after returning from vacations. I'm also planning to release version 0.9.7 of the client quite soon, because it's been a while since the last stable version was released and some bugs were discovered that need to be fixed. So a lot of work awaits me by the end of this year and I hope that when it's done, I will be able to dedicate more time to other things.

I had some time today to publish photos from two most important events of June - our wedding about which I wrote last time and the Sonishpere Festival which I also announced. Instead of writing a long description this time I just want to invite you to view those two photo stories. I'm still recovering after the festival (I probably sang too much and I ended up eating antibiotics) but at least it was a very memorable wedding trip.

The wedding took place on Saturday, June 5th in Czermna, a village located in a beautiful foothill area between Tarnów and Jasło in south-eastern Poland. Even though it had been constantly raining for a few weeks, the weather forecast was very optimistic. The wedding party was organized by a restaurant and everything else was also settled so we didn't have to worry about anything. The first sign that something might go wrong was on Thursday evening, when after a few hours of thunderstorm with heavy rain the local stream started raising and overflowing into the surrounding fields. Our house was on a hill so we were safe and we still hoped that this was just local and the water level would start falling down soon, as on Friday morning it was not raining any more. However soon the rain started again and the water quickly started raising and at 2 p.m. we got a message from our restaurant that it was completely flooded.

The situation looked really hopeless, but a lot of people helped us and within a few hours we had a new hall in the local school, decorations, cooks, provisions and everything else. We also managed to find another hotel for our guests but we feared that they wouldn't be able to come because many roads and bridges in the area were completely destroyed by the water. We saw houses sunk to the rooftop and people being evacuated by helicopters and it was very sad and discouraging. Just before sunset the clouds disappeared and Saturday was indeed very warm and sunny; most water drained or evaporated and the only traces were broken trees and washed out soil. Eventually everybody managed to come and later they said that both the wedding ceremony and the wedding party were great. So even though it wasn't exactly as we planned, it was an opportunity for the whole family to unite and everybody was quite impressed how we managed to overcome the difficulties.

I will publish some photos in about two weeks, when we get them from out photographer. We're planning to have a honeymoon trip to Madera in September and that's another good thing in having a wedding party in a gym hall rather than in a restaurant, because we have some money left and we can compensate all discomforts of the wedding in an all-inclusive four-stars hotel. This weekend on the other hand we are going for a short trip to Prague because the Sonishpere Festival takes place there and I want to see Metallica one more time. We could go to Warsaw as well but this city hasn't got enough infrastructure for everyday not even mentioning large concerts and after going to AC/DC concert a few weeks ago I told myself that I'd never do that again. Besides my wife has never been to Prague and I promised to take her there so it's a great opportunity. We're also planning to spend time more actively this summer, riding a bicycle and going to the swimming pool regularly. We can only hope that after two big floodings the weather in Poland will finally go back to normal. In the meantime I managed to make the first alpha release of WebIssues 1.0, which I'm very proud of, and I also have a lot of work before the final version is complete. On the other hand I'm feeling a bit tired of this project again and I'm thinking about doing another small, experimental side project for a while. Time will show how I will be able to manage all of this.

This year the May weekend was short and I didn't go abroad but I spent it with my fiancée in her parents' home, making final preparations for the wedding party which will take place in a month from now. Fortunately it will be in a restaurant and there is not much to prepare, and the number of guests will be rather moderate given Polish standards, but even I start feeling a bit anxious about it. I'm glad I will soon get it over with :).

Anyway I don't have much time to think about it because both projects, I'm involved in are close to their deadlines. The project I do "for living" will soon have the first release for 18 months and it's going to be quite a big event. However all coding is mostly done and the client is far behind with testing, so it looks like I'm out of the woods now and there will be no big rush in the nearest future. I have to devote more time to WebIssues because I have still a lot to do and I must make the release before the end of this month (i.e. before the wedding).

Initially I thought that the first alpha version will be done by the end of last year, then I moved the deadline to the first quarter of 2010 and I'm still far behind. At the moment there are no big changes and actually some of the features that existed in version 0.x will be temporarily removed (including watches and notifications), but on the other hand there will be a web client which is being created from scratch, without relying on any third party framework, and actually a custom sort of a framework is being created along the way.

I'm very satisfied with the results, but in the initial phase it requires a lot of work and rewriting some things many times until a good, reusable solution is reached. Fortunately there is no pressure from marketing or sales (I guess that's one of the freedoms associated with free software). Besides I'm a bit oversensitive when it comes to code quality, but I treat WebIssues as some way of dealing with bad code offsets (although I must admit that my commercial project is not particularly bad code given the industry standards ;).

The mimec.org website was brought online exactly four years ago. As usual I'm using the anniversary as an opportunity to summarize the passing year. The number of visitors of this and the related sites steadily continues to grow twice a year and exceeded 200,000 this year. Fraqtive was downloaded over 6,000 times, just like last year, even though no new version was released so far; I'm going to make a new release later this week though. Finally my "flagship" project, WebIssues, experienced more than threefold increase in the number of downloads, almost reaching 10,000, and that makes me very happy.

After many doubts I eventually decided to take the risk and start working on version 1.0. It turned out to be quite a challenge, especially because I was doing everything from scratch and I had to learn PHP web development by experimenting on a living body. Fortunately I managed to extend the development team, which also proved incredibly difficult. It looks like most people who have the right experience to participate in such complex project very quickly lose their enthusiasm for work if they don't do it for money. It's not a very good omen for the free software, but I believe that those remaining dedicated units can still make a difference.

In my personal life it was also a very important year. Teresa and I are now engaged and we're planning to get married in June next year :). Besides almost everything is in place in our new flat, including the modest home theater I recently bought. It's really good to finally have a place of my own. I also traveled quite a lot this year - short vacations in Germany, festival in France, holidays in Spain, not to mention two trips with my company to Prague and Zell am See in Austria. Now I look forward to spending Christmas with my family and take some rest from coding and everything else.

Today I released new versions of all three Qt articles of mine: Modern Qt style for Windows, Simple XML-based UI builder for Qt4 and Simple template-based relational database. All contain minor improvements and bug fixes made during development of the latest version of WebIssues. The most popular one, the Windows modern style, was downloaded over 800 times and is used in a few applications, including commercial ones. Thanks for all support and donations I received so far!

In a few days I will also release new stable versions of both the WebIssues Client and WebIssues Server. This time there will be no preceding beta releases and only minor improvements and bug fixes will be included because I'm trying to dedicate most of my free time for development of version 1.0. However a good news for Mac users is that an OS X binary package of the WebIssues Client will be available.

Because of that the new version of Fraqtive will be released a bit later; I'm going to start working on it soon so you can expect a new release in December. Although I'd like very much to also release WebIssues 1.0-alpha1 by the end of this year, it will most likely be delayed as well. Over the past few months many people had been coming and going from the WebIssues Team but sadly until recently none of them had made any serious contribution to it. But things are improving - as usually, it seems, near the end of a year.