I wanted to give you a quick heads up regarding improvements in our scheduling of two things:  Aurora updates, and our e-mails. 

On the last update, we used a three week time span, and felt it was well worth it.  Based on that, we’re going to do it again and continue that way for the foreseeable future.  Three weeks simply results in the best combination of responsiveness and manageability.  So, instead of an update this Friday, May 5^th, it will be May 12^th.  The next update after that will be June 2nd, right before our Annual Convention in Orlando.  Over time, we'll transition to once-a-month updates.

While we're on the topic, let me address update frequency in general.  If we extend it, the thinking goes, it's because something is wrong, and if we shorten it, it's also because something is wrong.  But the frequency isn't an indicator of stability or "newness" and never has been.  In the roughly five full years the prior Version 4 (Athena) has been out, we've delivered nearly 150 updates to it.  That's a pace of one about every 10 days.  Frequent updates are just how we keep our products up to date and deliver constant improvements in small chunks, whether new or old.  Every three or four weeks for Aurora is a very "measured" pace compared to that, and strikes the best balance between constant change and stagnation. 

For those interested, I can send you a pre-release version of the scheduled May 12^th files.  If you’d like to find out more and use the pre-release version on your machine, e-mail me at debug@alamode.com.

On the second issue of e-mail scheduling, there will be a message from Dave this Friday, May 5^th.   It will be the last in the series of narrative format messages you’ve seen lately.  Those worked well for the task at hand – direction, information, and getting clear feedback direct to Dave – but now your needs are different, and our communications need to adapt along with your needs.

So, we’ll be moving on to more structured communication, still giving you as much information as you can handle, but “on demand”.  We’ll be sending targeted short “status” e-mails, directed independently at either Aurora or Athena users. Those messages will point you to a comprehensive Aurora deployment status website for detailed information.  

It's not a sales website.  It's designed for existing customers to be able to see what’s been done and what’s still coming (and when it will be out), download pre-release versions, submit suggestions, check out upcoming features and issues, give us feedback on items through concise surveys, see common questions and answers, and so on.   We’ll typically be updating it daily, so information is even more fresh than in e-mails, and more segmented so you can instantly get to only those parts near and dear to your heart.  And any time you want to talk to Dave directly, the website will have his feedback e-mail address prominently displayed.  In other words, the communication method is changing, but not our responsiveness.
 

To summarize:

• The next update will be out May 12th, but you can get it early by e-mailing me
• We'll be sticking with updates every three to four weeks from now on
• Dave’s last planned narrative e-mail will be out this Friday, May 5th
• After that, messages will be in status update format and point to the Aurora deployment website

I hope you've found this useful, and thanks as always for your support and patronage.