Soshiku Blog

The Soshiku app is now 50% off until July 23rd

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:53:00 -0700

The Soshiku app for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi is now 50% off - just $1 - in the App Catalog until July ~~9th~~ 23rd. But don’t thank us, thank Palm! They’ve made all the apps in the App Catalog half-off (while reimbursing the developers for full price) so now would be your chance to get all the apps you want while supporting the developers for their hard work. Have a great weekend!

Edit: Palm just extended the sale to July 23rd!

Soshiku has a new toll-free support number

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:12:16 -0700

Hey there, we just redesigned our contact page. Take a look! And do you know what else is new? We have a new support phone number! If you have any kind of questions or concerns, just call us at 1 (877) 395-1151 to speak to a live person (me, of course ;)) or you can leave a message and I’ll gladly call you back.

Customer support is very important to me, as I want all of you to be happy with everything Soshiku has to offer.

A big shout out to Twilio, the service I used to setup the help line in about a half of an hour! Be sure to check them out if you have an interest in cloud-based telephony.

You can always email us at support@soshiku.com as well. And we love mail! Feel free to send us mail to 2606 2nd Ave, Suite 103 Seattle, WA 98121.

Top 25 Free & Freemium Web Apps for College Students

Wed, 12 May 2010 22:26:31 -0700

Top 25 Free & Freemium Web Apps for College Students:

Thanks to Nurse E.D.U. for including Soshiku as number 7!

Soshiku has been featured on Chompie!

Sat, 08 May 2010 14:53:12 -0700

A big thank you to the people at Chompie.com for featuring Soshiku on their site. In their words, “Chompie actively updates a collection of the most useful new websites, applications, products and services on the internet.” Glad to know Soshiku fits their criteria!

Soshiku on Chompie

Are you a Pro user? Take our survey!

Fri, 07 May 2010 16:12:05 -0700

If you are a Pro user, you’ll see a message (shown above) with a link to a survey the next time you log in. This survey will help us know what you like and dislike about Pro, and what we can do to make it even more useful to you. Thanks so much!

Feature update: discussion email notifications

Wed, 05 May 2010 19:52:23 -0700

Last year in August we added a new feature that let you receive email updates when new messages were posted on certain assignments, but you had to click a checkbox for every assignment you wanted updates for.

With the launch of our newest feature (sharing assignments with partners), we’ve decided to merge the two features and make it more automated. Instead of having to explicitly mark which discussions you want updates for, you will now automatically receive email updates (given you have your email set in your profile) on assignments that have been shared with you.

For example, if Mark shares an assignment with Katie, they will both receive email updates when someone adds a message to the discussion (Mark too, since he’s the owner of the assignment).

We decided to do this not only because it “slims down” Soshiku and makes it easier to use without compromise of features, but also because you most likely would want to receive important email updates for an assignment that has been shared with you.

A help article has been added regarding this change.

How to get SMS notifications if you're not in the United States

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:47:00 -0700

I get plenty of emails from people in other countries asking if there is some way they can use the text message notification feature of Soshiku. I frown every time I have to say “sorry, you’re out of luck” since the text messaging service we use does not support carriers outside of the US at this time.

There is a workaround, however, but only if you don’t plan on having notifications sent to your email. You also have to be with a carrier that supports email gateways. An email gateway is an email address that, when an email is sent it, acts like a text message and it gets immediately sent to your phone. For example, if you use Bell in Canada, your email gateway address would be [your number]@txt.bell.ca. If I send an email to that address saying “hi! :)”, it would get sent to your phone as a text message.

To see if your carrier supports email gateways, go to this page and look up your carrier name. Replace the “n” with your number. When you have your address, go to your profile in Soshiku and type the address in the email field, like so:

Now whenever you add an assignment, just check the “email notification” box and the notifications will get sent to your phone as a text message!

Soshiku 1.1 for Palm Pre and Pixi now available (and in other countries, too!)

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:30:00 -0700

Soshiku 1.1 for the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi has just been approved in the App Catalog! This update includes:

The ability to create recurring assignments (available to Pro users)
Amount of incomplete tasks are shown next to assignment names
A check mark is shown next to completed assignments
A recurring symbol is shown next to recurring assignments
The ability to edit and delete tasks (tap task to edit, swipe task off the screen to delete)
Redesigned assignment page (shown above)
Redesigned create and edit assignment forms
Redesigned profile page
Minor tweaks and bug fixes

The Soshiku app is also now available for Palm owners in Canada ($1.99 CAD), Ireland (€1.92), and the United Kingdom (£1.44)!

These changes have been pushed to our Github repo. If you’re a webOS SDK developer (or a JavaScript developer wanting to learn the SDK), we’d love you to peruse over the code and change/add/delete anything you want. Fork to your heart’s content!

New in Soshiku: Share Assignments with Partners (for realz this time)

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:06:52 -0700

We just released a big new feature: sharing assignments with partners. Yes, your partners have always been able to access, add tasks, and attach files to your assignments, but how would they get to them? Either you had to send them the link or they had to go to your profile and look in your activity feed for the assignment.

Not anymore! Now, whenever you add or edit an assignment, you have the option to share it with selected partners.

Then, when your partner(s) log in to their Soshiku account, your assignment is shown on their homepage as if it were their own. Here’s an example:

You can tell “Project” is not really this user’s assignment, since it says “from Patrick” (the user who created the assignment) next to it.

It is now easier than ever to access and collaborate on your partners’ assignments!

Where are the privacy options?

As you could probably tell, the privacy options have been replaced by the sharing options. We believe the privacy options were slightly flawed, since the very nature of assignments aren’t really meant to be “public” or “private.” Yes, public assignments were accessible by anyone, but no one (except partners) could add tasks or attach files, and they would have to have the specific ID of the assignment to get to it anyway. Also, we don’t think any homework will be so top secret that they should be marked as private. In the end, we believed the privacy options might have been confusing to most people. We like to think of this as a big upgrade to the privacy options.

We have also created a new help article for this feature.

Add recurring assignments via SMS, email, and quick-add

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:13:04 -0700

Pro users are now able to add recurring assignments via text messaging, email, and quick-add. We’ve added both an “every” and “recurring” keyword to make the assignment recurring, however they vary slightly. For example,

Journal entry in english due every tuesday

Sets the due date to next tuesday and makes it recur. But if you have a recurring assignment which is due at a later date, add “recurring” to the end of your query, like so:

Journal entry in english due apr 18 recurring

The help page has been updated to include this information.

Soshiku 1.0.1 for webOS now available

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:34:00 -0800

Soshiku 1.0.1 is now available in the App Catalog for the Palm Pre and Pixi. This update includes:

A “sign up” button on the login screen for new users
The enter key submits the login form
When viewing an assignment, only incomplete tasks are fetched instead of all tasks (speeds up loading time)
When viewing an assignment, tasks that are assigned to other people now have the check box disabled and text under the task that says “Assigned to [person’s name]”
Profile pictures on discussions and on “My Profile” are asthetically improved
A specific reason is given when an error occurs instead of a generic error message (if applicable).

These changes have also been pushed to our Github repo.

Soshiku Pro - not bad for an 18-year old

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:24:04 -0800

The awesome Christopher Dawson over at ZDNet Education, who has written about Soshiku back in 2008, has just shared his thoughts about Soshiku Pro. He writes:

While this is all well and good, many of the students who could benefit the most often can’t afford the $5/month. If Soshiku were to explore licensing deals with schools, however, then districts could provide the service to their students for free and enable chat and collaboration among classmates.

After expressing my glee and thanking him about his article, I posted my response in the comments:

I completely agree with your points about students and pricing (which I hope the low price helps with, cheap enough for most students yet still supports my expenses). I would love for Soshiku to team up with schools and become the norm in progressive classrooms. I dream that will be our “next big move” (I wrote about that briefly in a blog post titled “The Future”: http://is.gd/a6vZ2). I just need to figure out how to execute something that big. ;)

You can read the full article at http://education.zdnet.com/?p=3709

Introducing Soshiku Pro!

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:25:00 -0800

We’re excited to announce that we’ve just launched Soshiku Pro. Soshiku Pro is a new subscription-based paid plan which comes with some really cool new features. Here’s what you get if you upgrade to Soshiku Pro:

Unlimited Everything — With the free plan, you can only have 10 courses, 20 assignments, 20 tasks, and 10 attachments.* Once you run out of space, you have to delete them in order to make room for more. But as a Pro user you don’t have to worry about how much of anything you add. Keep unlimited amounts of everything for as long as you want.

* per assignment

Realtime Discussions — With the Pro plan, you and your partners are able to chat in realtime; your partners’ messages show up instantly as soon as they hit “Send”. No hitting refresh! You can pop out the discussion window so you can browse other parts of Soshiku, or even other websites while chatting.

Recurring Assignments — Now you can add assignments that are due every week! No need changing the due date every week; on your specified week-day, Soshiku automatically updates the due date to a week ahead for you.

Quick-Add — Have a lot of assignments to add and don’t want to wait for pages to load each time you add them? Just invoke the Quick-Add window, which lets you add assignments the same way you add them via email or text messaging which uses natural language parsing.

Fast Complete — When you need to mark an assignment as completed, you need to click several links and wait for pages to load. Not with Pro! You don’t have to go to each assignment’s page; just check the box next to the assignment’s name. Your assignment is instantly marked as completed and there’s no page to load.

And No Ads!

Get a 7 day free trial when you upgrade today! Soshiku Pro is only $5 per month. Compare the Basic and the Pro plans at http://soshiku.com/plans.

Soshiku now available for the Palm Pre

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:47:31 -0800

Soshiku is now available for the Palm Pre & Palm Pixi! Here are the features:

Manage your courses and assignments
Edit notes
Add and check off tasks
View attachments
Share messages with your partners
Receive email and/or SMS notifications

The Soshiku app syncs with your account on Soshiku.com. Find it for just $1.99 on the App Catalog.

Soshiku for webOS source now on Github

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:33:00 -0800

Hey webOS developers! Want to help us test out the Soshiku app on a device and send feedback before we submit it to the app catalog? The source is now on Github.

The Future

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:55:32 -0800

Since there hasn’t been any exciting or big news in these past months, it might seem like the development of Soshiku has been stagnant. Today I decided that Nonatomic should be more transparent, so I’d like to share with all of you what’s happening, why there hasn’t been significant updates, and the roadmap for everything I want to do in the future.

These are listed in the order of what I want to do first to last.

Launch Soshiku Pro — These past few months I’ve been paying attention to our most requested features and have been working on Soshiku Pro, a $5/mo plan that includes most of these features. Soshiku Pro is ready to go, but the reason it hasn’t been launched is because I’m still waiting to obtain a merchant account, which is a special type of bank account that is needed to accept payments from credit cards. I won’t go into much detail, but I’ve had a very hard time getting a merchant account since I just turned eighteen and have no credit. Ideally, I’d like to launch Soshiku Pro in February.
Release a Palm Pre and Pixi app — I’m very enthusiastic about Palm’s new platform, webOS, as well as developing for it. I’ve been working on the Soshiku app for a little while and I really like what it has become so far. The reason a webOS app is being released before an iPhone app is because the webOS SDK uses technologies that are familiar to me, while the iPhone SDK requires time to learn and understand. The app is going to be open source and be posted on Github so other people can contribute. Expect the app to be released sometime in February.
Release an iPhone app — I’ve been slowly learning the iPhone SDK for a while, but after the Palm Pre app is released, I’m going to work on the iPhone app full force. The iPhone app is also going to be open source.
Release an API — Developers, developers, developers! Those two Soshiku apps need something to interface with the Soshiku website, so I created an API for internal-use for now. Though after the apps have been released, I’m going to work on and refine the API and release it to the public for everyone who wishes to develop with it. I also plan on creating a page on Soshiku that showcases third-party apps. I can’t wait to see what developers will come up with!
Soshiku for schools? — I’m mulling over the idea of Soshiku for schools and teachers. Imagine being able to see the assignments and exams your teachers have added, even keep up to date on school news. Obviously this will be a big addition, and I hope that Soshiku can someday change education for the better.

So this is everything I have in mind for Soshiku in the future. I feel like 2010 is going to be a great year not only for Nonatomic, but for all of you!

Excellent walk-through of Soshiku by eduTecher!

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:36:15 -0800

Excellent walk-through of Soshiku by eduTecher!

Add assignments to courses with long names more easily via SMS

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:24:18 -0800

An anonymous user on our UserVoice site came up with a good point:

It’s great that I have a course called “Historical Challenges of the Roman Catholic Church”. But it’s a total pain in the rear to text!

Well I’m glad to announce that we’ve made it easier to add assignments to courses with lengthy names when using SMS. Now, Soshiku first looks for courses with the exact name and if none are found, courses are searched with partial matches of your text.

So if you have a course with the name above, you can just say “hist”, “chal”, or even “roman c”. (With the final SMS being “essay in roman c due today”, for example).

And like always, if no courses are found, a new one is automatically created for you.

New redesign, new business name

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:42:00 -0700

Soshiku’s company has a new name!

We’ve changed our name from Definitialize to Nonatomic. Actually, Definitialize was not an official business since it has never been registered as one. The name was a placeholder until we could think of a better name for our official business. We didn’t like Definitialize too much, so we went with Nonatomic. And good news: Nonatomic has been registered as an LLC in Washington state! This is a big step forward so we can execute our big plans in the near future. ;)

Now, about the redesign. It’s been a little over a year after the launch of Soshiku in September 2008 and we figured Soshiku was in store for a slicker, newer interface. Not only have we updated the look of Soshiku, we’ve also made some changes that we think enhances the user experience.

Smaller logo and header

Gives you more room to focus on your content.

New “Jump to” bar

Now on every page is a “jump to” bar that lists all of your courses. This lets you instantly go to any of your courses from any page. Speaking of courses…

New course layout

We thought the courses page were a bit lacking, so we’ve updated them to look just like your home page with the calendar and all, except only showing the assignments and tasks belonging to that course.

New overall look

Out with the boring, light blue look and in with the more sleek, softer look of the menu bars. We hope you continue to enjoy using Soshiku!

Preview the new Soshiku redesign

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:21:00 -0700

We’ve been hard at work with giving Soshiku a much-needed facelift. We are planning on making it live sometime this week, while in the meantime making sure there are no bugs we have to squash. If you’d like to preview the new design right now, just visit http://s.soshiku.com. You can log in and use it just like the regular Soshiku site, except be aware that the profile pictures do not work (this will be fixed when it goes live). Have fun and let us know what you think!