We now have a staging server for Mailroom setup, which has already helped us catch at least 4 bugs before they ever saw the light of day.

They were relatively minor and somewhat obscure, but… having that server setup allowed the entire SproutIt team to hammer on development code and iron out most of the remaining wrinkles.

If you run a web business and don’t have a staging server yet, after recent experiences I would have to highly recommend acquiring one.

A hosted VDS (or VPS), which is basically like a segmented time-share arrangement on a much larger dedicated server, allows you to have root and full control over your OS.

These can be had for anywhere from $69 / mo. down to $29 / mo., depending on how much CPU, memory, etc. that you’ll need.

I generally wouldn’t recommend them for production usage for a large-scale application, but they work well for a staging server or place to run your personal blog.

You generally only run into problems with them, I’ve found, when someone else on your box is really hogging the CPU. (or, you’re the one hogging the CPU and they kick you off!)

The Joel Test for Web Apps

If you are a fan of Joel Spolsky’s writings on coding and the business of software development, you are no doubt familiar with his Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code.

Some of the commandments like ‘Daily Builds’ are not as applicable to webapps.

IMHO, having a staging server, where you have a daily or even hourly process that automagically updates the server with the latest development code, and is accessible by your team to be tested and hammered on from anywhere, is the closest thing to a daily build you’ll get for a webapp.

Hosting solutions plug: We’ve had great luck with OCS Solutions and AVLUX. They are especially well-suited for shops running Rails / Subversion / Lighttpd.

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If you run, or work for, a “hosted software company” (thanks Jason), you may want to check out our new Web2 Page. Here we lay out the benefits of Mailroom, our email management system, for people in the “Web 2.0” sector.

This sector is as diverse as the people who’ve created it. But if you live online and produce products that live there with you, you’re probably going to find that Mailroom has a lot to offer.

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[This is the first in a series of guest blogs from friends who are also building excellent web apps for small businesses. Today’s post is from Jonathan and Matthew from StikiPad. Read their full post for a great introduction to wikis and how it can work for your business!]

Hi! We’re Jonathan and Matthew, two young guys from small towns in rural areas who have used the Internet in our daily lives since before we were in high school. In fact, we met online, worked together online and built 95% of our first product online, all using a handy tool called a wiki. And a wiki is what we built – called StikiPad.

Every business keeps records – customer contacts, order history, support logs, inventory, you name it. If you’ve ever had the task of building a database to manage these records, you know what a headache it can be.

Very soon our friends a Smallthought will launch DabbleDB, a web-based database, that will change all that.

I’ve been playing with Dabble for a few months now and I have to say that I’m really impressed by it. Dabble has all the things we look for in a business web app. It works great in teams, its easy to get started (signup takes 5 minutes), and its affordable.

What impressed me most about Dabble, though, is how fast you can create new databases. Most database apps, like FileMaker or Access, require a lot of setup before you can start really using them with your data. First you design your fields, then your views, then your logic. It can take days.

With Dabble, it’s much simpler. You simply add new fields as you need them. Dabble will take care of ensuring they are the the format and linked together properly. Adding views on your data is just as simple. One click to add a field here, another click to add a field there and you are done.

I was able to setup a new contact database for Sproutit, for example, in about 15 minutes. FileMaker or Access would have taken a few hours at least.

Like all other database products, Dabble is easiest to use once you’ve seen someone else use it too. Thankfully, Smallthought has posted a great demo movie of Dabble to give you a taste of what it can do.

If you want to keep better records for your business, but you aren’t ready to invest a few days trying to setup a database, then let Dabble do it for you. We have here at Sproutit and we love it.

Check out the dabble demo and signup for their launch announcement list

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Sproutit builds web apps for small business. Our new service Mailroom can do wonders for your sales and support email.

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Why? Because yesterday we upgraded some infrastructure behind Mailroom and it took us that long to make sure everything was working just right.

This is the reason why you should use web-based software to run your business whenever possible. Now its our job to pull long nights to keep your technology running, not yours.

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