Three products on which I have worked garnered SIA 2005 nominations.
Each year, the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation (SIAF) presents awards to “honor some of the best software available that uses the shareware model of marketing”. These are the most prestigious awards in the industry, as products are nominated and recognized for the award by other shareware professionals. A parallel set of awards, the SIAF People’s Choice Awards, are voted on by the general public (i.e., our users). All of these will be presented at the awards banquet during the Shareware Industry Conference (SIC 2005) this July in Denver.
Action Solitaire was one of four products nominated in the ‘Best Action/Arcade Game‘ category. I did all of the coding and much of the design for this product, which was first released in 2003. We released a significant update, Action Solitaire 1.1, back in April, to add 18 new games to the product (for a total of 52).
Pretty Good Solitaire was one of four products nominated in the ‘Best Non-Action Game‘ category. This is its third nomination in a row, and in previous incarnations, has won the award in 1999 and 2001. Since its last victory, I programmed the library that now does all of the card drawing and animation, including the ability to load custom card sets and backs and to resize cards. The latest version, Pretty Good Solitaire 10.2, contains 610 different types of solitaire and was released in February of this year.
SnagIt was one of three products nominated in the ‘Best Graphics Program or Utility‘ category. This nomination is a testament to the longevity of this product, developed and published by TechSmith, a local company. Although I claim little responsibility for its success, I did program version 2.1 when I worked for them briefly way back in 1992-93. The current version, SnagIt 7.2, is also a PC Magazine Editors’ Choice winner.
Click here to see the complete list of SIA nominees for 2005.
As they say, it is an honor just to be nominated. However, we would really like to win, too, so I would certainly appreciate your votes. (I still think that Pretty Good MahJongg would make an excellent People’s Choice selection.)