My attempts to recover the data from my crashed hard drive have not gone well. After a week and a half and a couple of tries, I finally found a data recovery company that has said they can recover the data. Unfortunately the cost is high: $2125 US (see the recovery report). This is definitely a setback for the development of SquawkBox. There were some backups but they were ultimately not sufficient to not have this incident affect the timing of the release.
If the data could be recovered, the alpha could go out straightaway and testing could commence while the remaining items in the program are completed. But the high cost of this puts me in a bit of a quandry.
It is with some hesitation that I have decided to pass the proverbial hat in an attempt to help with this situation. I know there are many of you that are anxious to see SB3 released. I am too. SquawkBox will always be 100% free software to anyone that wants to use it, and it is developed in my volunteer time.
If you feel you can help in anyway, PayPal donations for the purpose of offsetting this cost will be humbly and gratefully accepted. You can send the donations to joel@deyoung.net. If you are unable to use PayPal, please contact me directly to make alternate arrangements.
Thank you.