FadingRed

Happy Holidays from FadingRed!

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:42:00 -0600

It’s that time of year again! We’ve decked out our office with twinkle lights, a mini red tree, and we’re all planning some good ol’ quality time with family and friends. This is also a great time of year for our customers as well. Both Senuti and Koku come in extra handy this time of year and we’re always excited to be able to add some productivity to the holidays.

We love Senuti around the holidays because it makes the hassle of populating your brand new MacBook Air with all your favorite tunes a breeze. You can simply plug in any iPod, iPhone, or iPad device, hit transfer, and start listening to music, playlists, or even watching videos without the trouble of computer to computer transfer. No need to stress on Christmas morning!

Koku is especially useful during the holidays with all that shopping. We love how you can quickly see the purchases you’ve made, tag them, and then analyze your spending to see how much you’ve shelled out so far. If you’ve been using Koku for awhile now, you can even go back and see how much you spent last holiday season, to give yourself a gage for this year’s shopping spree. No stressing about how much money is in your account, it’s all right there at your fingertips!

We hope everyone enjoys this wonderful time of year. Make sure to take the time to stop and appreciate everyone in your life.

Cheers,

The FadingRed Team

Compatibility with Mac OS X Lion

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:25:25 -0500

Today Apple released OS X Lion via the Mac App Store. We are happy to announce that Koku, Senuti and iColors are all compatible with the latest version of Mac OS X Lion.

With the release of Lion, Senuti will no longer be providing support for users running OS X 10.4 as of October 20, 2011. We will continue to support users running OS X 10.4 until this date so please contact our support team if you have any questions or issues.

Koku 1.2 is released!

Sun, 01 May 2011 19:34:49 -0500

We’re excited to announce the release of Koku 1.2 today which adds several new features and enhancements. It is now possible to keep track of what happened to the cash in your wallet by creating a cash account, a new account type introduced in this release. In addition, we’ve done a major overhaul of the reporting functionality to bring you even more informative and insightful reports. The reporting updates include a new transaction view so you can reveal the transactions that make up any given report, as well as the ability to search a report’s transactions just like you can in the account view. In the distribution reports, we’ve greatly improved the way your data is organized to craft a more logical report. Each slice in the graph now represents an indivdual tag from your tagging history making the flow of money even easier to understand!

Our team has also been working hard to add new localizations to Koku. A new Spanish localization has been added in this release and Koku also currently supports German, Dutch, and Norwegian. We are excited to continue bringing Koku to more users around the world.

This release also includes several bug fixes and minor enhancements to keep things running smoothly.

We’re constantly working to improve Koku and would love to hear your thoughts! Shoot us an email to let us know how we’re doing or to share your ideas with our team!

The Mac App Store and Price Changes for 2011

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:48:48 -0600

Last week, Apple launched the Mac App Store with over 1,000 Mac apps available for sale, including our very own Koku! Koku is now available in the Mac App store for purchase at the price of $29.99 (USD) in addition to being available in the FadingRed store.

Whether you choose to purchase through the Mac App Store or through FadingRed, you will be receiving the same great product. Currently, there is no way to transfer purchases that were made through the FadingRed website to the Mac App Store, as this is not supported by Apple. Also, we continue to encourage all potential customers to try Koku for free by downloading the free trial from our website before deciding to purchase. It’s a great way to get a feel for whether the software will work for your needs.

In addition, we have made some pricing changes on the FadingRed store. Koku is now available for $29.99 through the FadingRed store (previously $32), and Senuti is now priced at $18.99 (previously $18). These changes reflect our attempt to maintain pricing consistency with the Mac App store and to avoid confusion for our customers.

Happy New Year!

Koku 1.1.3 Release

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:43:29 -0600

We are very happy to announce that on Monday we released Koku 1.1.3. This new version has implemented our users most requested feature - the ability to edit multiple transactions at once!

You may now also tab through transactions with ease. A crash was fixed while syncing multiple accounts and a bug was fixed while tabbing through fields while in the checking account.

There are also updates to the German and Norwegian localizations. Be sure to update to Koku 1.1.3 today!

Koku 1.1 Release

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:36:00 -0600

We are very excited today to announce our release of Koku 1.1, the first major update to our personal finance management application! Koku 1.1 includes considerable enhancements to the user interface, several new features, and an even simpler organization based on user feedback!

For example, this new release introduces a tag manager view which allows for a quick and easy review of all transactions associated with a given tag. The tag manager also has the ability to create, edit, and remove tags from the system all in one place!

The account view has also been completely re-designed to provide for even more efficient data entry, and includes the addition of a notes field on transactions. Throughout the application, helpful hints and links to online support pages have been added to assist you in learning the various new features with ease.

Another great feature of Koku 1.1 is that additional options have been added to the account view layout, providing you with the ability to customize the way you want to see your transactions displayed. Organization of accounts and reports is now even easier in version 1.1 thanks to the addition of folders for grouping items in the source list.

Finally, you’ll never have to worry about losing your library! You can now enable automatic backups to occur on a daily or weekly basis. This functionality is easily personalized through your Backup Preferences.

Koku is still available as a free trial for use of one checking, savings, or credit/debit account and does not expire. A license may be purchased at our store to manage multiple accounts (Koku requires Mac OS X version 10.6 or later).

As a final exciting update, FadingRed plans to submit Koku 1.1 to the new Mac App Store!!

Check out the release notes to see a full list of the new, amazing features! http://www.fadingred.com/koku/releases/

Race for the Cure

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:36:00 -0500

On Saturday September 25th, 2010, FadingRed participated in the Susan G. Komen Chicagoland Race for the Cure Against Breast Cancer. It was so amazing to see how many people had signed up for such a great and meaningful event!

Here’s a picture of all of us before the race began.

Koku Version 1.0.5 Release

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:04:04 -0500

This version fixes several key issues including:

Added basic applescript support
Fixed a bug with QIF importing
Fixed issue with backslashes at the end of tag names
Fixed a rare crash when editing tags
Fixed the QIF information link

Last Day for Koku Introductory Price 8/31/10

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:23:24 -0500

Tomorrow (8/31) is the last day to get Koku for the introductory price of $25! Take advantage of this great deal while it lasts! Starting September 1st, 2010 the regular purchasing price will be $32.

You can purchase Koku for $25 at https://www.fadingred.com/store/

50% Off For Students At iApps4Students

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:58:00 -0500

iApps4Students is having a Back to School SALE! From August 15th - September 1st 2010, Students can get BOTH Senuti and Koku for 50% off their normal price!!

Check out iApps4Students and see all the discounts you can rack up!

Introductory Koku Price ends 8/31

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:54:00 -0500

** LIMITED TIME OFFER ENDING **

GET KOKU FOR THE INTRODUCTORY PRICE OF $25 UNTIL AUGUST 31, 2010!!

You will want to take advantage because starting September 1st, 2010

the regular purchasing price will be $32.

You can purchase Koku for $25 at our store.

Introducing Koku!

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:39:39 -0500

We are proud to announce the release of our first stable version of Koku, version 1.0. Koku is a personal finance manager that’s actually fun to use! It includes a lot of exciting features like Direct Connect to automatically download account transactions, Smart Tagging to add multiple tags to each transaction, and custom, interactive reporting tools to help you analyze your spending and income habits.

For more information, visit the Koku page.

A free trial may be downloaded to track your first checking, savings, or credit card account, and does not expire. To use Koku with multiple accounts, you must purchase a license for $25 from our store.

Stay tuned, as more exciting features are in store!

You can also stay up to date by following Koku on Twitter!

Koku Beta Version 3 Released

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:51:00 -0600

This version fixes several key issues including:

Crashes for i386 users
Crashes for Cashbox users importing multiple accounts
Issues with check number importing

New year, New website, New product!

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:41:38 -0600

Not only has our website received a serious update in 2010, but we are excited to announce our newest product, Koku, for financial management. Some of our users may be wondering what happened to Cashbox. In order to provide a better product for financial management, we halted the Cashbox product, rounded up all our user feedback, and started a complete re-write of the application. This effort took us in the direction of an exciting new application with greatly enhanced capabilities for managing your money. Although we have officially ended the Cashbox project, we expect you will find that Koku has greatly improved on the ideas of that project, without losing its simplicity. As we look forward, there are many enhancements yet to come for Koku and some exciting features in the works.

If you are interested, we invite you to download the free trial and let us know what you think.

Senuti Compatibility for Updates to Mac OS X, iPhone, and iPod

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:23:00 -0500

Here at FadingRed we work hard to stay up to date with the latest changes to Apple hardware and software in order to maintain support for Senuti users on all versions of Mac OS X from 10.4 to Snow Leopard, as well as all for software updates to iPhone and iPod models.

However, as a third party developer for Mac we are not privy to major changes to Apple products until after they are released to the public. Therefore, any new technologies requiring changes to Senuti in order to stay compatible are not always instantly realized. Nor can our team guarantee that all future technologies will work with the latest version of our software.

We appreciate our users’ understanding as we may occasionally require time to work out new changes in order to stay compatible with the ever-changing technologies of the Mac community.

Senuti Beta Release

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:46:54 -0500

On July 1st, we released a new beta version (1.1b1) of Senuti which incorporates support for Apple’s recent iPhone OS 3.0 software update. We invite all users with iPhones or iPod Touch devices running the iPhone OS 3.0 to test out this version.

Significant changes have been made to improve the functionality of Senuti and to support this new software. Our team has worked very hard to ensure that users could continue using Senuti with their updated devices. Once again, thank you to our users, for your understanding and patience.

An Explanation of Senuti Version Numbers

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:30:26 -0500

Yesterday we released a new beta version of Senuti (1.1b1). We decided to take this opportunity to standardize our version numbering system. The next stable release of Senuti will be called version 1.1. We’ve skipped ahead a little from our previous version numbers. To help explain why, below is a little history on Senuti.

Senuti was originally introduced in 2004. We chose to label the version of Senuti 0.10 since there were still some quirks to work out. By the time Senuti reached version 0.29, however, it was a stable, widely used product.

Shortly after this, the entire application was re-engineered. The extensive work put into the next release called for a jump in the version number to 0.50. This release introduced a new user interface and numerous enhancements. This may have been more accurately called our 1.0 release.

People tend to associate version numbers with product maturity, and at version 0.50 Senuti was a very mature product. One of our goals at FadingRed is to avoid confusing situations for our customers. A version number lower than 1.0 could be stable or in testing, and there’s no good way of knowing which is the case. We want people to know that Senuti is a stable product.

Why not call this new version 1.0? Version 1.0 is usually associated with an initial release of a product. Since this isn’t the initial release of Senuti, we’ve decided to call it 1.1. We hope you enjoy!

iPhone Software Update 3.0

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:20:11 -0500

The latest software update for the iPhone 3.0 was released by Apple yesterday revealing significant changes to the proprietary architecture of the iPhone. This will require a temporary lapse in support for this update by Senuti as our team works out the changes to better handle music transfer for the iPhone 3.0 and beyond. Current Senuti users wishing to use their iPhone with Senuti in the interim must refrain from updating to 3.0. An announcement, along with a new release will be made when these changes have been successfully incorporated into Senuti. Thank you for your patience!

Senuti Changes

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:56:01 -0500

There have been two major changes to Senuti recently — a change in price and a change of license. In the interest of openness, we have provided an explanation of these changes below.

The change in price

It was a very difficult decision to no longer distribute Senuti for free. A lot of time and thought was put into this decision. Creating and distributing free software has been an overall positive experience. We did so with Senuti for four years, and the generosity of those users who chose to donate was helpful and encouraging.

There is an immense amount of work required to properly support a product like Senuti. Maintaining the software while also replying to a high volume of emails (with personalized, detailed responses) is a challenge that requires full time attention to properly support. Finding time to also develop and improve the product then becomes an even greater challenge.

It is difficult to provide services and products to people for free. There’s a lot that goes into creating successful products. Mostly, it’s the time commitment from the various people who make the product possible. Outside of that, infrastructure costs (hardware, hosting, etc) have a large impact. A source of revenue is required to support such a project; a donation based model is not a viable solution in this case. Many people are generous and willing to donate, but as we have seen, the majority of people don’t tend to pay for things if they don’t have to.

During 2008, we experimented with mixing a donation model and a fixed-price model. The new model was explained clearly and honestly on our website — our goal was to keep Senuti free for as long as possible, and the more people who purchased a license, the longer we would be able to do so. Included in this information was a statement that, at some point, Senuti may no longer be free. Also, individuals who purchased licenses during that time will receive free updates for life.

Currently we are offering a trial period and what we consider to be a fair price to use the software without restrictions. There was some confusion in regards to the streamlined update process that is built into Senuti. Initially we provided notification of the change in revenue model via the release notes which are displayed during the update process. However, those users who did not review the release notes were not aware that the updated version would limit their use. Our team acknowledges that we made the mistake of allowing streamlined updates from the older versions to the new, fixed-price versions. This has since been rectified. Our release notes are also available online. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

We appreciate your understanding and thank you for your continued support of Senuti.

The change of license

This is for the developers and the curious.

In transitioning to a fixed-price model for Senuti, we have also changed the licensing. We have done so in full compliance with the GPL, the previous license under which Senuti was released. We are no longer using any code licensed under the GPL in Senuti. The small portion of GPL licensed code that was used in previous versions of Senuti has been removed.

During the time that Senuti was released under the GPL, there were no code contributions from outside FadingRed with the exception of one half-line patch. This patch was submitted in an early version of Senuti and was removed during a major re-factoring of the application (prior to and independent of our license change). The code base for Senuti has been written entirely by FadingRed, and we reserve the legal rights to change the license according to our needs at any time.

We are fully aware of the terms of open-source licenses, having distributed code under one such license and would never attempt to violate the terms set forth by any license. FadingRed has always ensured that the licensing choices of copyright holders are honored and will continue to do so.

Again, your understanding is appreciated.

Store Issues

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:56:34 -0600

We currently are experiencing minor issues with our store. There may be a slightly greater delay in license information being sent to customers.

The problem has to do with our payment processor, PayPal. Yesterday, February 11th, they stopped sending IPN notifications at around 11:53 PM CST. Though there is no guarantee that PayPal will send IPN notifications immediately, this has never been an issue for us in the past. We’ve modified the way our store works to account for this while the issue continues tonight (and in case it ever happens again in the future).

Also, just as a note, when trying to log in to PayPal, I’m getting a system error. I imagine the issues will get resolve rather quickly, but is anyone else experiencing these issues?

Update 2:21 AM: All appears to be working as normal again.