A couple of months ago, Keith Alperin of Helium Foot Software had a good idea: gather a few small independent Mac developers together to sponsor Daring Fireball for a week. He asked for other indies who were interested in participating. I am a DF member and daily reader, and have a great deal of respect for John Gruber, so I jumped at this. It's a great opportunity for me to further support Daring Fireball, and of course leverage its popularity to introduce more people to my products.

We have set up a special site, Mac Indie Deals, as a portal to the four participating developers: Dejal (me), Decimus Software, Xeric Design, and Helium Foot Software. We are each offering special discounts off our products for this week only, using the coupon "DF08".

So, welcome Daring Fireball readers! Check out the Dejal Products page for a summary of the Mac software available from Dejal. Feel free to download and try any or all, and use the "DF08" coupon to get great discounts... but be quick!

If you're not a Daring Fireball reader yet, I highly recommend it. John covers all sorts of Mac-related topics, with insightful commentary on the issues of the day. A must-read.

The Easter mEgg Hunt begins today. This is a promotion organized by Houdah Software, which could perhaps be described as a cross between MacSanta and MacHeist: a seasonal-themed promotion that presents a challenge to get the discounts.

The challenge is pretty easy: you simply visit the site of a participating company and hunt through their pages for a small easter egg. When you find it, you click it to get a coupon code good for software discounts at other participants. You can then keep hunting for more eggs to get discounts for other products.

We are pleased to participate in this promotion. There are many other great products available from other companies... but exactly how many is a surprise!

Enjoy the hunt!

Valentine's Day is coming up this week. If you plan to send flowers to your sweetheart, you can do so via FTD.com, save 10% on your flower delivery order, and get a free Household license for Dejal Narrator, the fun speech synthesis app to read stories in multiple voices!

Simply visit the Dejal TrialPay store and choose FTD Flowers, or Grower Flowers, or one of the many other options available there if you prefer, and you'll not only get quality flowers delivered by a popular delivery company, you'll get Narrator at no extra cost — a $24 value!

How TrialPay works:

To take advantage of this deal, click this button to begin:

Please help me evaluate this by contacting me if you have any thoughts on TrialPay — whether you choose to use it or not.

If you're a developer and want to find out how TrialPay can help you, you can find out more information on the TrialPay merchant site.

I have added a new payment option to the Dejal Store: TrialPay.

This is an interesting concept. Instead of directly buying one of my products, you try or buy one of the many products offered via the TrialPay service, and get my product for free as part of the bargain. They have many products available, including ones you'd likely buy anyway, such as eBay, Blockbuster, Stamps.com, and hundreds of others.

In fact, with Valentine's Day coming up, now's a perfect time to use FTD.com for flowers and get Narrator as a free bonus!

How TrialPay works:

Initially I am only offering a Household license for Narrator via TrialPay. Based on my experience with how well it works, and feedback from my customers, I may extend it to all of my products. But for now, you can get Narrator for any number of people in your home for free — a $24 value!

To take advantage of this deal, click this button to begin:

Please help me evaluate this by contacting me if you have any thoughts on TrialPay - whether you choose to use it or not.

If you're a developer and want to find out how TrialPay can help you, you can find out more information on the TrialPay merchant site.

Happy holidays everyone!

I will continue to be available for sales and support queries over the holiday period, though responses may be a little slower than usual.

Remember, the MacSanta discounts are still available till the end of 2007... and even though the Extended Deals participants are supposed to offer 10% off, I'm offering the same great discounts as on my featured day for the rest of the year -- several more than 20%.

Visit the Dejal Store and enter the MACSANTA07TEN coupon (that link will automatically apply it) to take advantage of these special deals. But hurry -- they are only available till the end of 2007!

Thanks again to Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba for organizing the promotion.

Best wishes to everyone; have safe and pleasant holidays. Special thanks to my valued customers. 2007 has been a great year for Dejal, with the ever-increasing popularity of my products, and I'm looking forward to the many improvements planned for 2008.

Thanks to everyone who purchased on my featured MacSanta day. It was a great success.

But it's not too late! This year MacSanta has an Extended Deals page where participating developers are offering 10% off for the rest of the month, using the coupon code MACSANTA07TEN.

I am rebelling against that a little, though: I'm offering the same great discounts as on the featured day for the rest of the year -- in fact many are more than 20%.

Visit the Dejal Store and enter the MACSANTA07TEN coupon (that link will automatically apply it) to take advantage of these special deals. But hurry -- they are only available till the end of 2007!

Thanks again to Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba for organizing the promotion.

MacSanta is back with more big savings! For the month of December, many independent Mac software developers are offering great deals on their products, via the MacSanta site.

Each day, a few developers will be featured, with 20% off their products using the special coupon code MACSANTA07. You can still save 10% from developers from previous days via the Extended Deals page and the coupon code MACSANTA07TEN.

Dejal will be featured on the main page on Tuesday. The MACSANTA07 coupon is now active at the Dejal Store.

Thanks to Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba for organizing the promotion again this year.

Here in the US it's Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, which is traditionally followed by "Black Friday", a day of big discounts at retail outlets.

In keeping with that tradition, I'd like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and offer my own discounts. Until the end of the weekend, you can get big discounts of all of my products via the Dejal Store - no coupon or special code needed.

Save up to $50 on a Simon license, and similar large discounts on the other products. Hurry, this offer expires on 2007-11-25!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the 16th anniversary of founding my company. 16 years ago today, on September 20, 1991, I started Dejal, with an aim to produce high quality Mac software. Actually, the exact date could be argued: I had used the Dejal name informally for years before that, as a kind of nickname for myself, and the company grew organically over time, with things like getting a commercial bank account and registering the name at different times during the growth. But September 20th was when historic evidence points to me having started treating my programming hobby as a business.

I had produced a bunch of freeware products beforehand, but my first shareware product was called SndPlayer, a Classic Mac app to play a bunch of sounds easily. It was started on October 24, 1991, and first released on February 24, 1992. It's still available on my site (now freeware), too.

Thanks to everyone who's purchased products or offered congratulations this week. You've still got a couple of days to take advantage of the anniversary specials:

Buy now with the anniversary discounts!

Be quick — these specials expire on Sunday, September 23, 2007.

I first started selling Mac software under the Dejal name in September 1991... which makes this Thursday the 16th anniversary of the founding of the company. Wow... it's certainly been a while!

As a celebration of this event, I'm offering discounts on all of my products from today till the end of the week. No special codes or coupons required, but you need to use the online store, not the in-app purchasing tool, to take advantage of these low prices.

Buy now with the anniversary discounts!

Be quick — these specials expire on Sunday, September 23, 2007.