By Edhy Rijo - 9/22/2009
Hi guys,
After some conversations with Brian Hass from Kinetic Jump Software, LLC, they agreed to offer the SF community a 15% discount on their AppLife Update product for 30 days starting today Sep 22nd, 2009.
I started using AppLife Update during the weekend and was amazed on how easy it is to integrate with my SF project, after reviewing their Simple Quick Start document and samples I was able to implement it in its simplest way in my SF project in less than 5 minutes.
For more info about this topic check this SF thread
To get your discount use the promotion code STRATAFRAME here
P.S.
Brian, also has offered to help any SF developer with direct support for any kind of implementation with AppLife Update.
Here is his contact info:
Brian Haas
Tech Support
Kinetic Jump Software, LLC
(612) 486-9653
skype: kineticjump_techsupport
techsupport@kineticjump.com
www.kineticjump.com
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By Russell Scott Brown - 9/22/2009
Thanks!
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By Greg McGuffey - 9/23/2009
I talked with Brian today about how AppLife could be used as a replacement for ClickOnce. AppLife is designed to facilitate updating and not initial deployment, which is a big deal to me. I really need a process as simple as ClickOnce to cut down on installation support. The prognoses is good 
I have yet to test this out and it might be a while until I do, but I thought I'd post in case there are some wondering the same thing. Kinetic Jump Software seems to be on the high end of customer support. I spent two hours on the phone with Brian Haas, which included in depth and frank discussion of the product and included an extended GotoMeeting session were he built several examples to demonstrate several features features related to replacing ClickOnce. Here's what I learned related to ClickOnce replacement.
1. Easy to implement an automatic update. I.e. no UI. The app opens, and if it finds an update, is downloads it and install it, restarting the app when done. You will need a licensed version though. The limited version doesn't support the necessary method calls.
2. Super configurable, including the ability to have updaters for various parts of the app. I.e. the app could be using one updater, perhaps the app uses a local SqlExpress database, which could be done with another updater and maybe you have some reference files that could use yet another updater. Very nice.
3. They use a public/private key to ensure that the updater isn't spoofed into installing a malicious update. However, unlike ClickOnce that uses a bloody certificate that will expire on you, causing untold grief until you figure out the tool to use to reset the expiration date, it is just a key.
4. Unlike ClickOnce, there are mechanisms that can be used to control who can even access the update. I have to play around with these, but there appear to be at least to methods (three if you count their support for proxy servers).
5. The idea that fit best with my needs related to initial deployment would be to have a launcher app. This would be a very small app that could easily be installed directly from a web page and then launched (need to figure out how that would work). It would then download the actual application and start it. There are some issues to resolve (er...I need to figure out how that could be done), but it seems doable.
I'm currently working on another project (a web project using SF), but when I get back to my main WinForm App, I'll take another look at it. If any of you try this out, please post...I hate reinventing the wheel (my last attempt was decidedly out of round).
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