August 20, 2010
Scott Adams Gets It

Nice post by Scott Adams (of Dilbert) on the benefits of having fewer options and less features.  We’re big believers in this idea.

10:45am  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/983246313/scott-adams-gets-it
August 19, 2010
MediaMonkey

We’ve just put MediaMonkey live on Ninite.  Check it out, and keep sending in app requests.

8:08am  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/977469010/mediamonkey
July 16, 2010
TeamViewer + Custom Pages

It’s gotten a ton of requests and I’m happy to say that TeamViewer is now on Ninite.  Go get it!

Also, similar to our earlier collaboration with Lifehacker, we recently launched a page of app picks by MakeUseOf.  Their writeup is here.

We really like these stripped-down app selections targeted at different types of users.  Even though we try to keep the Ninite front page selection small, it can be overwhelming sometimes.

If you’ve got a selection of apps to share with a big group of people, please get in touch with us.  We’d love to work with you.

8:40am  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/819769255/teamviewer-custom-pages
June 18, 2010
SumatraPDF added to Ninite

We just put SumatraPDF live on the Ninite homepage and Ninite One.  It’s been available on our Lifehacker Pack page, but we’ve gotten so many requests for it that it’s earned a spot out front too.  It’s a great lightweight PDF reader.

1:37pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/712551399/sumatrapdf-added-to-ninite
June 15, 2010
Truecrypt is now on Ninite

We just added Truecrypt to the lineup.  Go grab it from Ninite if you’ve got some data to protect.

4:52pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/702564249/truecrypt-is-now-on-ninite
June 1, 2010
Ninite is distributing the 2010 Lifehacker Pack

Lots of great app choices in there.  Check it out, or go straight to the download page.

2:58pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/654429396/ninite-is-distributing-the-2010-lifehacker-pack
(Notes: 1)
  
May 31, 2010
As May comes to a close we’ve got a few big Ninite updates. First off, we’re incredibly pleased to announce that since our launch last fall Ninite has installed 10 million apps on PCs all around the world. We’re also releasing a new product today called Ninite One. It’s a version of Ninite that lets users choose apps to install without visiting our website. It’s for PC technicians to keep on their USB sticks and it streamlines their workflow even more than using our site. It’s free for all Ninite Pro subscribers and available at http://ninite.com/one Finally, with more of our Pro subscribers using Ninite One we’re excited to make Ninite.com work better for day-to-day consumer downloads. If you don’t count phones, downloading software hasn’t changed in 15 years. If anything it’s gotten worse with aggressive and deceptive toolbar offers. We want to get people skipping download.com and using Ninite to install apps fast without worrying about toolbars or repeatedly clicking Next. That might not sound like a big deal if you haven’t used Ninite yet, but the time savings really add up. Last Friday Ninite did over 75 days of install work, and that’s a lower bound on time saved since our automation works way faster than human speed.

As May comes to a close we’ve got a few big Ninite updates.

First off, we’re incredibly pleased to announce that since our launch last fall Ninite has installed 10 million apps on PCs all around the world.

We’re also releasing a new product today called Ninite One. It’s a version of Ninite that lets users choose apps to install without visiting our website. It’s for PC technicians to keep on their USB sticks and it streamlines their workflow even more than using our site. It’s free for all Ninite Pro subscribers and available at http://ninite.com/one

Finally, with more of our Pro subscribers using Ninite One we’re excited to make Ninite.com work better for day-to-day consumer downloads.

If you don’t count phones, downloading software hasn’t changed in 15 years. If anything it’s gotten worse with aggressive and deceptive toolbar offers. We want to get people skipping download.com and using Ninite to install apps fast without worrying about toolbars or repeatedly clicking Next.

That might not sound like a big deal if you haven’t used Ninite yet, but the time savings really add up. Last Friday Ninite did over 75 days of install work, and that’s a lower bound on time saved since our automation works way faster than human speed.

5:32pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/651531831/as-may-comes-to-a-close-weve-got-a-few-big-ninite
May 21, 2010
How Ninite was named by a computer program

Naming is easy.  I like to pick something that suggests the concept and has a good sound to it.  Our product was initially Volery.  The internal name for the web code is dancecard.  You get the idea.

The problem is the flat .com namespace.  Context disappears.  In the real world apple can refer to a fruit, a computer company, a record label, and lots of other things.  Online there can be only one.

Search helps, but to most people a website lives at name.com, maybe with a www in front.  Our stats seem to reflect this: 60% direct traffic, only 20% search.  17% of those searches are ninite.com or www.ninite.com.

We were actually set to launch at getvolery.com until Paul Graham brought us to our senses.  I do believe the web should tolerate name sharing better, and 37signals does fine with decorated domains like basecamphq.com, but I bet that’s just one of many exceptional things about that company.  Much of our early press actually thought the product was named Get Volery instead of Volery.  The name.com idea is deeply ingrained, even in technically-adept bloggers.

So the problem morphs from finding a name to finding a .com.  Unfortunately squatters have snapped up most of the good, bad, and even terrible .com domains.

Instant Domain Search is OK for searching by hand, but we’re an automation company.  Naturally, we wrote a program to generate nonsense words that have the .com available.  N-grams from the dictionary made terrible names, but simply combining three-letter prefixes and suffixes worked well.

We’re called Ninite because that was the best looking output.  It also explains my pronunciation of NIN-ite since it’s a prefix and a suffix.  Most of our users seem to have settled on NI-nite, which is also fine since it can be spelled correctly either way.

A surprising discovery from this name search was that there seems to be a certain name-iness to some words.  We found a number of people and towns with the name Volery.  We’ve heard from people with the surname Ninite.  Even the runner-up from our naming program, Refria, shares its name with people and towns.  If it sounds halfway decent, it seems a name is already in use somewhere on Earth.

If you’re interested, the code is here: namer.py

It’s public domain, so have fun.  The dictionary file path is set for OS X, you may need to change it on other systems.  I have no idea if this violates WHOIS terms of service.  Be polite and don’t run it all day long.

3:46pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program
(Notes: 6)
  
May 12, 2010
While we keep our app selection curated to just the best, our page was getting pretty tall to make people scroll to the bottom to get their Ninite installer.  Now with any browser better than IE6 a convenient Get Installer button will appear in the lower right as soon as any apps are selected. Ninite is first and foremost a tool for getting stuff done and we’re excited about anything that removes tedium.  In our testing over the past few days we’ve found that the new button increases installer creation by 3%.  We were losing a fair number of users on that long scroll down to the bottom. We’re also excited that this feature makes it more natural to get single apps from Ninite. Many people think of Ninite as a tool for installing lots of apps when they first set up a new PC.  Ninite is great for that, but we also want to save people from the terrible more day-to-day experience of getting single apps from download.com, FileHippo, or SourceForge. Nobody wants to get lost in complicated hierarchies, see blaring ads, click through pointless installers, or get pitched (perhaps tricked) by worthless toolbars.  Ninite just lets you get your software and get on with your life. Check it out.

While we keep our app selection curated to just the best, our page was getting pretty tall to make people scroll to the bottom to get their Ninite installer.  Now with any browser better than IE6 a convenient Get Installer button will appear in the lower right as soon as any apps are selected.

Ninite is first and foremost a tool for getting stuff done and we’re excited about anything that removes tedium.  In our testing over the past few days we’ve found that the new button increases installer creation by 3%.  We were losing a fair number of users on that long scroll down to the bottom.

We’re also excited that this feature makes it more natural to get single apps from Ninite.

Many people think of Ninite as a tool for installing lots of apps when they first set up a new PC.  Ninite is great for that, but we also want to save people from the terrible more day-to-day experience of getting single apps from download.com, FileHippo, or SourceForge.

Nobody wants to get lost in complicated hierarchies, see blaring ads, click through pointless installers, or get pitched (perhaps tricked) by worthless toolbars.  Ninite just lets you get your software and get on with your life.

Check it out.

1:40pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/593241338/while-we-keep-our-app-selection-curated-to-just
(Notes: 3)
  
May 11, 2010
If you don’t know what a proxy is, this isn’t important. But if you do: Ninite now supports proxy authentication.  As always, make sure your proxy configuration is set up in Internet Explorer since Ninite uses the same settings.

If you don’t know what a proxy is, this isn’t important.

But if you do:

Ninite now supports proxy authentication.  As always, make sure your proxy configuration is set up in Internet Explorer since Ninite uses the same settings.

1:29pm  |   URL: http://blog.ninite.com/post/590349343/if-you-dont-know-what-a-proxy-is-this-isnt