Maxprog @ Blogger

The iCash development was projected in the late eighties but actually began in the early nineties. The very first version was released by the end of 1991. At the time, it was built to run on Microsoft Windows 3.1 and IBM OS/2. It was coded using the Pascal language. The development of the application continued up to the release of version 2.0 on May 1995. The application wasn't known as iCash but as 'Peggy Première'. Peggy because of the Muppet Show character and the analogy with a piggy bank. And 'Première' refers to the shooting of the first scene of a movie (it means 'First' in french). Peggy Première was supposed to be the best Personal Finance software at that time. Well at least in Spain, where I was leaving. The software was only available in Spanish, not even in french my mother tongue nor English. There were no international sales projected. I spent a decade selling Peggy Première, sending 3'5 floppy disks by mail with cash on delivery as t...

Regularly I get asked about the maxprog store , specially about how to buy without creating an account. By default we use the Paypal checkout system in order to process cards. There is a wrong assumption that Paypal requires the buyer to open an account in order to make a payment. That's not true at all! Opening a Paypal account is completely optional however, in my opinion, it is better to get a Paypal account and use it as often as posible. Paypal is accepted almost everywhere on the internet and it is much better and secure to share your card data with only one processor, pure logic don't you think? The internet is a quite hostil place where gangs of angry delinquents will do everything to steal others money. The less you share your data the best! As I wrote above, Paypal handles our store checkout by default. This is because we trust Paypal, it is actually the payment processor service we have been using successfully for years to sell and to get paid for our products world...

Last week I talked about the Apple Stores and not only what I think about them but what they really are, everything but stores selling computers. Today was the last straw! Apple has made there new iMac Pro available for orders thru the internet with prices starting at $6’000 and up to $15’000 for full equipped configs. Uh? Really? Sorry all but I am flipping out. What can that be possible? An iMac for $5’500! Wow, I hope you will become an Apple VIP member with such a price. I have been using Macs for 3 decades, they have always been somewhat pricy, but I believe it's gone beyond the limits, Apple is completely out of control. Oh yes, maybe the processor and the graphic card are expensive, in such case I would expect a very different type of computer, something modular, not a all-in-one computer like the iMac. In case of a failure of the screen or the graphic card you need to rush to an Apple Service and pray they will attend you right away. My nearest Apple Service i...

Marc Zeedar 2006 interview for the xDev Magazine Tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? Despite my name sounds English I was born and grew up in France. Actually my great grandfather was american so my parents decided to name me after him. Perhaps it was premonitory as nowadays most of my customers are american. I left France when I finished studying electronic engineering and moved to Spain where I reside since then. How did you get interested in computers and programming? My first contact with programming was when I was 12. A math teacher were giving free programming classes at lunch time. I enrolled and later found out I was the youngest of the classroom. We were Using Texas Instruments calculators, the TI-30 if I remember well. That was in 1979/1980. Later I purchased a Casio calculator and made a lot more programming. A few years later I went to Phoenix for holidays. I saw a ZX-81 for the first time. Once back home I bought one a...

A few days ago I went to an Apple Store. I spent quite a lot of time without the opportunity to do so but you know what? I got out in less that a minute. Apple Stores are no longer computer stores, they mostly sell phones, luxury watches and iPads. I only saw a couple of notebooks and 3 desktop computers on a solitary table far away from the entrance. I found out Apple has no interest in computers anymore, well, I actually checked it out. Remember, Apple removed the word 'Computer' from its name. Since Apple has no real interest in computers anymore I just wonder why they don't license their system so anybody with a PC could run macOS. Apple computers are expensive PCs after all, closed expensive boxes to say the true. It is really demotivating to see how Apple is dedicating 100% of its resources to things that has nothing to do with its primary business. Believe me I love iPhones, they are great but despite they carry a processor, they are not Laptops nor desktop comput...

As you may know MaxBulk Mailer is one of the products we develop and market. It is a Bulk Email Software (and emailmerge tool actually) for both Macintosh and Windows that allows anyone to send out customized offers, press releases, price lists or any kind of text or HTML message to a list of subscribers, friends or customers. Basically you can create, manage and send your own powerful, personalized marketing message to small to medium lists. The good thing is that MaxBulk Mailer is a software tool that you purchase once, no need to pay on a per-email basis to submission services. You know that Email Marketing is spreading around the whole world because of its high effectiveness, speed and low cost. If you want to introduce and sell your product or service, the best way is to use e-mail to contact your targeted customer. We created MaxBulk Mailer with that in mind. Email Marketing Email marketing is indeed one of the bes...