Ham Radio Deluxe Newsletter for 24-June 2018

Ham Radio Deluxe - Update

I wanted to take a few minutes to let folks know what our plan is for the next 90 days.

Next Release of Ham Radio Deluxe

We have a number of customer-requested changes that we'll likely get out within the next couple weeks. That release is likely in early July.

Software License Server

Two developers and I will then turn our focus to the replacement of our current software license server. This is the infrastructure that generates software activation keys for new customers or Software Maintenance and Support renewals for existing customers.

The current software license server was built from scratch many years ago. While it's served us well enough to get us this far, it no longer has the capacity to serve us in the future. We're moving to a commercial product called Soraco Quick License Manager Pro.

This change will be published in the 6.5 release of Ham Radio Deluxe before summer's end. Soraco, based in Montreal, has been in-business since 1994. Their product is world class. Soraco will host and manage the server that Ham Radio Deluxe versions 6.5 and beyond will use to validate its software license keys.

Other Development

Meanwhile, I've got one developer working on the Rotor application, one developer working on the Satellite Tracking application, and one developer working on QSL label printing. We'll continue making simultaneous progress in these areas.

Following the release that puts the new license server into production, we'll do the Visual Studio upgrade. Then we'll move into a world of "continuous development". As a team, I'd like us to make sure that any developer can work independently in their own branch of code and can produce a build. This will increase the speed with which we can release software. This will better enable us to get bigger features into the product.

Status on Development Backlog

The beta testers and I are going through items in the backlog to determine whether or not they have been fixed, but not documented. We've seen that many of the items reported can no longer be replicated and may have been resolved without being tested. So I'm having over 100 existing items retested and we'll posted them as closed in the release notes so the customers who reported them can find them.

That's our plan for the next 90 days folks! That'll take us through the remainder of Summer 2018.

Next Hamfest

August 18-19 - Huntsville Hamfest, Huntsville, AL

We may make a decision to attend another one soon also!

73 de Mike, WA9PIE