Trexy is off and Trailblazing!!!

It's hard to hold a trailblazer back - but finally after three years of development Trexy is going out into the world.

Trexy.com is now alive, kicking and finally trailblazing!

We all got together, opened some champagne, then we all held the 'magic wand' that pushed the button that sent Trexy out into the world!

I didn't expect to be so emotional. I felt happy, sad and grateful all at once. Happy that my idea has become a reality. Sad that I had to make so many sacrifices to make it happen. But most of all grateful for all the love and support I've received from my family and friends - thank you. Thanks to Meg and Rhiannon for their unfailing belief in me. Thanks to everyone who has helped Trexy become a reality!

Let the trailblazing begin ....

Change of Scene

Rena and I had a day out of the office yesterday. We went along to an online marketing conference here in London. We met a number of our partners and caught up with some friends that have been in the industry a while.

Surprised by all the people wearing suits at the conference! A suit at an Internet conference was a rarity a couple of years ago.

Time Flies

It is hard to believe that Rena, our marketing assistant, has been with us for 3 months! Where has the time gone?

Rena is doing a great job and we are really happy to hear that she will extend her contract with us.

Stepping Out ....

It seems we've been in a dot com bubble for the last couple of months. But this week we're getting back out into the 'real world'. The whole company (i.e., Meg, Rena, Sven and I) are off to a Search Engine 'Pub Conference' on Friday - I'm looking forward to relaxing and having a few beers. I had a great time chatting to search engine enthusiasts at the last conference and I expect there will be even more buzz this year. Meg and Rena are attending AdTech tomorrow and tonight Meg and I are off to dinner with one of our partners for a business meeting. So it's not all work and no play! ;-)

Final Fix Ups

Sven and I have had a couple of 'power days' doing final fix ups:

• Added a new welcome page for first time visitors that encourages them to blaze a trail
• Included the TrailBar image in the download process
• Changed the presentation of Trails to make them clearer, less jumbled, and easy to read
• Inserted Turbo10 sponsored links into the Trexy results
  
• Added calls-to-action for all parts of the Trexy interface so the user know what to do next
• Fixed numerous presentation, text and image bugs
  

Big Push

Here are some of the bugs that were swatted today:

• added a two step download process for the TrailBar including Meg's Terms and Conditions.
• missing country flag bug fixed
• updated company overview page to include our new company: Trexy Limited! :-)
  
• restored the random title bar picture to the blog
  
• fixed the colour on the title bar of the set preferences dialog box to 'MyTrails' blue
  
• added a page for first time visitors
• fixed the source search engine URL in the All Trails and My Trails result pages
• added a call to action at the start of a Blaze a New Trail

And there's more to come ...

Ripper Rita

It seems we've survived Rita! Here is the view across the carpark from a webcam at our ISP in Houston. The rain is still coming down but the lights are on.

Best wishes to everyone who has been caught up in the hurricane.

Baton down the Hatches

One of our ISP's is situated in the path of hurricane Rita. The hurricane will hit Texas on Saturday - fingers crossed our ISP will survive!

I wonder if we'll be still up and running on Sunday?

Gasp!

The last month has flown by. We haven't had time to lift our heads! But there's been lots of developments:

• The corporate restructuring continues apace. The business has more legal entities than living entities! ;-)
• Sparky our bespoke webserver is now leaner and meaner - better compression options means faster results
  
• The complexity of the Turbo10 cluster and Trexy cluster is now under control. Phew!
• The final and nastiest bugs are yielding under the pressure of attention
• Meg and Rena have been powering along in all aspects of business development

One more big push is required on the bug front and then we're ready ...