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doubleyooexwhy

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Giving up on Google 16 years ago

Wow, that blog design is beautiful.

Anyways, I'd love to switch to DDG, but too often it tells me "No more results. Try Google.", and almost every time a subsequent search on Google provides me with many more (relevant) links for the same query.

If DDG could be configured to basically be a proxy and fetch all of its results from Google, that'd be cool.

From your home page, the link to "our products" doesn't work, it stays on the same page. So I'll never know what products you have!

I can see where that might be confusing. Thanks for pointing that out -- a separate page probably would be better.

The single-column layout looks like it's from the 90s. Just add some kind of right column, a few frames with light-colored backgrounds, and it will look much better.

Okay. To me, it looks elegant and simple, which is what I love, but I have noticed that most websites don't have just one column. I'll see if I can't come up with a better design with multiple columns. After reading some of the other comments here, I'll probably want to drastically change the content on my product page, too.

First, those who use pirated software would most likely not have paid for it in the first place.

I agree with you here.

Thanks for all of the advice, I'll definitely mull over it and see if I can't make some changes. I'll be sure to read your blog posting, too.

I'm trying. I wrote AutoScreen (http://www.16software.com/autoscreen) about a year ago, and I'm getting 2-3 sales a month -- the majority of those sales seem to come from small businesses -- with $0 in advertising (can't afford it, to be honest). I've been kept fairly busy adding new features for my users, but it's time to focus on another app, because 2-3 sales/month is definitely not enough to survive on.

For me, the hard part is coming up with something "worth" taking the time and effort to go through with. I've had some ideas -- but I want to do something unique, that has a chance to really take off. But should I target the everyday user, or should I target businesses (who are less likely to pirate, from what I read)? Should I make something that has the chance to be wildly popular among all computer users, or that is targeted towards a niche audience?

The good thing about knowing how to program, though, is it's essentially all you need (besides a good idea) in order to make a living on your own.

Of course you need some other skills, such as marketing, but it seems to me, if you've got a program that does something that people think is useful enough to pay for, you're set.

Looking forward to what you guys have to say. For what it's worth, I also posted this topic on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8f4dk/any_progr...) about a week ago.