I was chatting with a fellow Mac and iPhone Developer yesterday and we were talking about taxes. I was telling him that one nice feature in the tax code is that business expenses aren’t taxed. Now it is silly to just spend your hard earned money on random stuff just to save on taxes. You …

A question came up in the Mac small business list and I’ve seen it asked several times over the years. I’ve had this question myself: do you have to charge sales tax for downloaded software like WebnoteHappy? The short answer: it depends. From what I’ve read (and I’m no tax attorney either but I try …

About two years ago, my family and I put up a bird feeder so we could watch birds in our backyard. At first we had no birds. Zip. Nada. We hoped and prayed and did a little marketing by putting seeds all around it on the ground with aluminum foil. Birds are attracted by aluminum …

One of the things that’s a reality is that business is risky. But one of the ways to reduce that risk is to form an LLC, a Limited Liability Company. Yes, that’s right – it basically means Reduce Your Risk Company. It is especially helpful if you have any type of assets. That is why …

I just released WebnoteHappy Lite 1.0 this week and what is interesting is that, at least for me, the post-release activity is more exhausting than the programming aspect. I still haven’t put up my listing on VersionTracker because I’ve been answering a lot of emails and checking out the coverage WebnoteHappy Lite has gotten. I’m …

The WebnoteHappy Lite 1.0 release is starting to feel… official. WebnoteHappy Lite on HyperJeff’s OS X Apps. Ease of adding: really easy, but that’s because I know Jeff personally and sent him an IM. :) WebnoteHappy Lite on MacUpdate. Ease of adding: Pretty easy actually. Wasn’t quite sure what to put in some areas, like …

I finally released WebnoteHappy Lite 1.0! It’s been a long, hard road but it’s been worth it. Please check it out and tell me what you think. Now I get to do marketing, which is probably my weakest point right now. But I’ve found its good to work on your weaknesses. :) I guess I’ll …

Gus – who I met at WWDC last year – has a great post on his blog titled How to Become an Independent Programmer in just 1068 days where he explains how he’s become a full-time Mac Indie gradually over the past few years. I think it is great that the Mac community supports independent …

Or more generally, Dave Taylor, Mac / UNIX / Web Guru, asks How quickly should companies respond to customer email?. I’ve gotten quite a bit of email in the past several days and I’m currently trying to answer within 24 hours. This will probably get longer over time. However, I just got an email right …

You might have noticed that this blog is hosted on happyapps.com. So what is that? What is Happy Apps? I’ve been thinking about writing a manifesto, but maybe this impromptu chat session with my buddy Shep will explain it better: 1:13:57 AM louielouie: so you think i should have a big manifesto or just a …