This morning I checked my e-mail to find two messages from soft82.com.  The first was to tell me the following:

“SoundBoard has been tested by soft82.com team against viruses, spyware, adware, trojan, backdoors and was found to be 100% clean. Our editors will recheck this software periodically to assure that it remains clean.”

They then linked me to their new product page for SoundBoard:

http://www.soft82.com/download/windows/soundboard/

In a separate e-mail, I was informed that SoundBoard “has been given 5 Stars Award by soft82.com editors” and that I should download a copy of their award image to display on my site.  Oh, but I can’t link to their copy – I have to host my own local copy.  Bandwidth cheapskates can’t even let me link to a 3.25KB image…  And even better, judging by the list of available images on their awards page, they don’t even bother with anything other than 5/5 stars.

Anyway, I looked at the page they made for SoundBoard.  They basically copy-pasted my description from my own SoundBoard page, minus a few letters (can’t have complete sentences now, can we?), and proudly announced that it’s virus-free.  They’re hosting the screenshot image themselves, but they didn’t make it, they just copied mine.

Now, if you were to click “Free Download”, you’ve already incremented their “All Time Downloads” counter, even though you haven’t chosen a mirror yet.  Even better, the only mirror they list is my own download URL -  they can’t even bother to host a copy of the shareware themselves.  It’s like a 100KB file!

Of course, that’s probably a good thing.  They linked to the URL that always points to the latest version of the shareware, so even if I release a SoundBoard update today, anyone who downloads SoundBoard through their site will get 2.3 instead of the 2.2 advertised there.

I can’t really complain.  It’s free advertising, and free advertising is, after all, free.  I just thought it was somewhat amusing.  Their site seems a little fishy to me, but as long as they’re linking directly to me for the downloads, I don’t have any problem at all with the situation.  I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’m going to put their award image on my site or not…

I’ve posted updated SoundBoard to fix a glaring bug regarding page titles not saving when the page is changed.  Anyone who has already purchased SoundBoard can upgrade to 2.2 by logging in to their Xnapid.com account and clicking the “My Software” link; SoundBoard 2.2 will show up in the list as a free upgrade.

I also wanted to thank those users who have reported bugs or offered suggestions to improve SoundBoard.  I’ll try to think of a way to reward you

I’ve finished version 2.1 of my shareware program SoundBoard.  Those of you who have already purchased SoundBoard get the update free; everyone else should download the trial version and try it out

The new features of 2.1 include the ability to rename sound buttons and the option to set a sound in “repeat” mode.  SoundBoard also now remembers volume and mute settings on a per-sound basis instead of storing them on a per-sound-position basis (also saving those settings when saving SoundBoard files).

If you purchased SoundBoard 1.2 or 2.0 but do not have a xnapid.com account, go to http://www.xnapid.com and click “Create an account” on the left.  Then, send an e-mail to soundboard@xnapid.com with your xnapid.com account name and the e-mail address with which you purchased SoundBoard, and your purchase will be added to your xnapid.com customer account.  You will then be able to download SoundBoard 2.1 from the My Software page in your xnapid.com account.

If you have any questions, comments, or feature requests, you can send an e-mail to soundboard@xnapid.com, or you can register in our forums and make a post in the SoundBoard section.

I mentioned previously that I had posted the old version of SoundBoard for download.  Well, I have actually completed the new version!  It’s pretty cool – check out the link in the menu to the left for a screenshot and a download link for the shareware version, or just click this link to download it now: http://www.xnapid.com/files/SoundBoard_Shareware_2.0.zip

The important features are these:
- Supports any sound format for which Windows Media Player has a codec
- Separate play, pause, and stop buttons for each sound
- Separate volume controls for each sound position

SoundBoard v2.0’s shareware version is restricted only in that it cannot save or load soundboard setups.

SoundBoard v2.0 requires the .NET Framework version 2.0 or greater, and Windows Media Player version 10 or greater.

If you want to purchase SoundBoard v2.0, please send an e-mail to soundboard@xnapid.com to arrange payment.  We will soon be setting up automatic payment through Amazon.com and/or Paypal, so keep your eye out for news updates.

I’ve made SoundBoard (http://www.xnapid.com/?p=soundboard) available once again.  It’s a program designed to assist with sound effects for computer-hosted internet radio shows or parties.  Go take a look!

As soon as I get some Amazon goodness set up, you’ll be able to purchase SoundBoard through Amazon’s payment service, without the need to contact me.