Picturelicious, Paypal and Getting Rich

As of today, Picturelicious – the PHP Script that drives lowbird.com – is now for sale. This is the first time I’m really trying to sell some of my stuff as software, so let’s see how this works out.

Packaging up something for a public release always means work, lots and lots of work. Asaph was no different and I was not even selling it. This time I had to be even more thorough. $700 is a lot of money, so I made sure I’d have a proper readme, all configuration variables are documented, the code is cleaned up and the script is really worth what you’re paying for.

I implemented a Paypal button to receive payments for Picturelicious; it really made me wish for an App Store. I do have the feeling that I will complain a lot about the App Store once I try to sell Yuckfu for the iPhone, but for now, Paypal sucks. It’s unbelievably complicated for the vendor and the customer. It tries to please everyone, but ultimately only confuses with too many options. Luckily, the software I’m selling only appeals to people who probably know how to use Paypal. But let’s not blame Paypal; let’s blame the W3C or whoever was to lazy to work out how the 402 HTTP status could be put to use.