releasing software is like the first day of high school
Today marks a personal milestone for me: it's the first day that a piece of Microsoft software that I've sweated over has been released (albeit in beta form). Remote Desktop Connection v2 beta is now available for download. I just posted something to Mac Mojo about it: Come and get it! RDC for Mac v2 beta. In that post, I talk about some of my UX work on RDC and some of the other work we've done on it.
I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous about the release of the RDC v2 beta. I feel a bit like it's my first day of high school. Is everyone looking at me? Is the back of my skirt tucked into my underwear? How can everyone not notice the massive pimple right on the end of my nose, making me look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Will anyone like me?
RDC v2 is a beta, and like every gangly teenager, it does have some pimples. I bet that I'm going to spend the next few days hitting refresh on the MS Connect website for RDC every spare moment I can find to see what kind of bugs and suggestions that you guys submit There's the various Mac news websites as well, I'll be watching the comments threads anxiously!
You know, there's something pretty cool about using software that you know is going to be used by millions of people. And if the RDC v2 beta feels like the first day of high school, what's the release of Office:Mac 2008 going to be like?
Comments
Anonymous
July 31, 2007
I just want to say that I've been using the RDC beta a good portion of today. And it rocks! Thanks so much for getting me a usable way to sit on my MBP and access my Vista desktop.Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Actually, it was your socks that were tucked into the back of your underwear. Wow, is THAT awkward. But enough about sock wedgies, let's talk about RDC2. After reading yesterday that RDC2 was coming out this week, I've been quite anxious to try it out, since I use RDC on a daily basis to connect up to my monitor-less PC at work. One day later, I'm trying out the beta. From what I've tested so far, it has fixed my two largest bugs I saw in RDC1, plus the Preference window has organized its capabilities in a better fashion. I love the feature to be able to share my Mac drives on the PC (I had to go back to RDC1 to realize I could do it with RDC1 as well). My biggest gripe with RDC2 is that the main interface looks too dark. I'm thinking that the main window shouldn't have such a dark grey appearance. Either lighten the grey background, or just keep the traditional Aqua-grey appearance to the window. It also looks like the entire application was rehauled from the ground up. This looks like that my favorite Microsoft application is only going to get better. Good job.Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Chad - Yes, it's a complete re-write, to take advantage of RDPv6. And that problem with people not knowing about the features of RDCv1 is one of the reasons that we re-did the whole thing. :)Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Was RDC2 written as more of a Cocoa-based project? There is something about certain Carbon-based applications that look a little odd (aliased fonts are one indicator).Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Whooohooo! Just downloaded it, I didn't know about the file transfers either. Cannot seem to dynamically resize my windows thou... but I use this a lot at work so let's see how we go! You guy's are still tight lipped about Mac Office then...(!)Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Congrats on the release! I went through the same sort of nervousness for a release today too...here's hoping both releases do great. :)Anonymous
July 31, 2007
RDC 2 is such a massive improvement over v1, I am just sad that it doesn't work on the current developer builds of Leopard - just like Messenger :(Anonymous
July 31, 2007
Thanks! I spent part of day sitting remotely on terminal server with our IS, so that's good, that you have new version, without old bugs (num lock is working in login window! you can connect after disconecting without quiting app!) and i expect few new one :). But - i read somewhere, that new RDC have tabs for more conections - this is some misunderstanding? I'm usualy connected on 2-3 servers, so have it in ONE app would be great. Anyway, thanks :).Anonymous
August 01, 2007
Chad - Yes, RDC v2 is Cocoa. Since we rebuilt it from the ground up, it was a great opportunity for us to build a Cocoa app. Michael - Just to remind you, if you're using Leopard, you're under a pretty strict NDA with Apple in talking about anything to do with it (including which apps do and don't work with it in any given developer seed). I have to be careful about not breaking NDA myself, so I'll just say that we'll support 10.4 and above (which of course includes Leopard) upon the final release of RDC. If you have specific issues with RDC running under Leopard, you should report them to Apple through the usual channels, and they'll pass that feedback along to us. MaLer - To open multiple sessions, save the settings for each of your sessions. You can then launch multiple sessions by launching each of the saved sessions from the Finder.Anonymous
August 01, 2007
Any chance of bringing a more user-friendly way of accessing the saved sessions files into the app itself. Even if it's something as simple as a browser bookmark style menu ? (Though an optional floating palette with the server list would be handy too.) Aside from that, so far so good!Anonymous
August 01, 2007
Please add support for a menu item to start a new session. It's tremendously easier than having to find the session files in the Finder. (I've filed this on MS Connect as well, but the bugs keep getting closed.)Anonymous
August 02, 2007
Nadyne: i found this. Ehm, when you was speaking about "user interface improvements", i thought, that THIS feature will have some interface too. like "cmd-N" for new connection. This is rather... not friendly (i hope that's just alfa in terms of functions, so you can make changes). BTW, i've found, that this multiplesessions thing is not working for me correctly (sorry, i don't want to make Windows Live login to send a feedback - sorry). I'm using some SSH tuneling to connect from outside of company, so i'm conecting to 127.0.0.1:port. But RDC thinks that i'm still conecting just to 127.0.0.1, so when i'm saving configuration, port number is not saved and when i'm conected for example to 127.0.0.1:12345 and i would like to open settings for 127.0.0.1 (without port), nothing will happend.Anonymous
August 28, 2007
Not mentioning anything specific :) but rdc now works flawlessly for me!!!! Very happy!!!