
Show HN: Restaurant POS system built completely on iOS - refulgentis
Hi guys,
I've spent the last 18 months building a restaurant POS app that can run completely and reliably on iOS. Along the way, we've really pushed the devices to their limits and have something special that doesn't rely on the cloud for service, doesn't copy old and crappy "100 buttons on a screen" POS interfaces, and is still just as efficient and much more usable. Combining Bonjour (Apple's implementation of zeroconf) with the excellent Cocoa APIs also made it a relatively magical experience - you can literally watch on an iPad as a waiter takes an order on a iPod connected to the iPad.<p>This is my first time as an entrepreneur, and we're trying to bootstrap out of Buffalo, NY. I'd love to hear any advice you have on marketing to a relatively hard to reach segment such as restaurants, and any feedback you have on the app itself. The app is available for free (trial version that doesn't allow adding menu items or allow complete printing of checks to receipt printers) at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ambur/id408723017?mt=8&#38;ls=1 , and our website is http://www.refulgentsoftware.com<p>Thanks for your time!
======
christopherslee
The app looks good, but from the video I think, wow it would take me a long
time to put in an order.

I was a bartender at a downtown Chicago restaurant using Aloha for more than a
year. Aloha is not pretty, but it's really fast. I don't want to scroll, or
click into menus and tabs to then go find an order. Just put my tables in
front of me as soon as I'm logged in.

Trying to give constructive criticism here, so please don't take this the
wrong way. Speed is everything. I almost feel like I can login to Aloha (all I
have to do is type my server #), and then enter in an order for a table before
I've even finished finding my name and typing in the password into your
"server selection dial". Passwords are really not that important at the server
level. What I am going to do, go change someone else's check?

Speed. Think raw speed. How FEW clicks can I get from login to item entry.
It's not about how logically organized it is. I don't want a magical
experience, I want a flawless and fast experience, so that I can get back to
the 500 things I have to do to service my customers.

My 2 cents.

~~~
refulgentis
This is true...one of the UI things that keeps me up at night is how to
optimize that login screen. Passwords are actually important to me because of
that, and I'm not sure servers IDs are really a great idea, they just seem
insecure to me (the restaurant I worked at constantly was broken because
servers would figure out the manager ones) and introduce a whole host of
validation issues that would be frustrating to deal with in this distributed
system.

We'll have to look at speed a bit more - at the restaurants we've tested at,
my experience once it was just pure frustration for a server at first, but
after 3 or 4 shifts they settled back down into normal speed for order entry,
and it ended up being a win overall because the discoverability of stuff was
faster. That being said, I know we definitely have room to improve.

Thanks for your feedback, it's nice to hear from someone else who worked at a
restaurant, especially one that was busy and relied on the speed of its POS
more than one in Buffalo may have.

~~~
pbreit
If you're going to ask for feedback, you should take it! Here's a professional
explaining that you don't have to worry so much about the login. A 2-4 digit
code will do. Password-protect the manager login if you want, but not the
servers'. This should not be keeping you up at night.

What should be keeping you up at night is the ordering experience. This is
where users are going to spend 99% of their time. It needs to be flawless and
ultra-refined for speed and accuracy. The cascading screens and tiny "Done"
buttons are not going to cut it for heavy use.

Finally, you are going to need to be careful about getting feedback during a
15 minute demo. There is a grand canyon of difference between using a POS all
day every day versus once for 15 minutes.

~~~
christopherslee
Sorry, didn't see these replies. But I just wanted to add, that at our busy
bar, the manager's IDs were passworded. Actually, I assume they were
passworded. I do not that for certain functions, the managers had a mechanism
to go in a delete items or change price/add discounts etc. I'm not sure of
what scenario you could commonly avoid by passwording the server ID. Maybe
messing around with other server's checks happens at other restaurants (but
then I assume they have a slew of other problems.)

We did however have situations where I would need to enter alternate server
IDs for different things. What comes to mind is that we had an ID for bar
comps so that we could keep track of inventory.

Perhaps discoverability makes sense in certain restaurant scenarios. At our
sushi restaurant/bar, I don't know that I ever had to "discover" something?

------
ihumanable
Some constructive criticism. The video does a really poor job selling this.
Here are a few things I've learned from building software over the years.

No matter what the end user says, they do not care about fine-grained
permissions. Not that they don't care about your system having them, they just
have no interest setting them up or ever changing them. The way us software
engineers think about things and the way management thinks about things are
just too different. "I just want Mary to be able to see the f*$%ing orders!"
It's really too much to go, "Ok, well Mary is part of the Server's group, so
you go into Servers Group Permissions, then look at this list of vaguely
worded categories and find the one you want, then click into that and get half
a million switches, then find the action verb that we've assigned to viewing
orders then click it on. Oh yea, this also gave Carlos and Mike the ability to
see orders because they are in the Server's Group. Oh you didn't want that?
Ok, well make a new group called Super Servers and then put Mary in that
gr....."

At this point management has slipped quietly into a coma.

Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy it
will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what you
will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you are
able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

And then make a third video about the nitty-gritty technical details of Role-
Permission systems and launch that into the sun, no one wants to see that ;)

I think it could be a really compelling product but right now the video
doesn't seem to be addressing any audience (other than maybe other developers
writing POS software).

Personal Note: For some reason the line, "Refulgent is very proud that Ambur
saves all the information pertaining to all closed orders, just as if they
were open." irks me to the very core of my being. Whoa, you did the most
logical thing to do by keeping historical records, this is nothing to be proud
of. Be proud of the truly innovative parts of this product, not the silly
things that are obvious for your software to do.

I wish you the best of luck, just throwing in my $0.02 and trying to share
some wisdom I've learned the hard way.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy
it will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what
you will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you
are able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

Yes.

I'd really want to see it in action at a table to see that the drill-down
method of entering orders is going to work fast enough - there's a reason that
current systems have the "million buttons" interface and I don't think it is
solely that POS designers can't make good interfaces.

As an improvement I'd add in something like a margin/upsell reminder system.
The server would have someone to know high-margin items from the menu list and
have key upsells highlight when a dish is chosen ... "do you want fries with
that!".

------
flyosity
I'd highly suggest paying a professional user interface designer to take a
look at every screen of your app and offer suggestions and/or redesigned
mockups. It looks like you're using nearly all stock UIKit widgets (default
buttons, default tableviews, default split view controller, etc.) and the
problem is that this type of app needs to be head and shoulders above the POS
apps that waiters and restaurant works are used to which are mostly just grids
of buttons. You've traded grids of buttons with rows of buttons instead of
attacking the usability and user experience head on with a gorgeous, custom
interface that totally blows away what's already out there.

This type of app will live and die by demos that you give restaurant owners.
It needs to blow people away at first glance, especially waiters. Because you
used all stock UIKit elements, at first glance it looks like it could be
anything. I really think it needs an amazing interface to stand out from the
crowd and blow people away.

Edit: I'd also suggest going to some local restaurants & bars and talking to
people there who'd be using this app. Get their information and tell them
you'll pay them $50 for 30 minutes of their time whenever they're free. Meet
up with them and ask them their gripes about current POS systems, record this
audio conversation (with their consent). Have them talk about the top things
that they hate and the top things they wished it would do. Ask about what they
spend the majority of their time on when using POS systems and which parts of
the system fail the most often or are most frequently misinterpreted by the
cooks or other waiters. Now you've got a firsthand account of what your
competitors suck at that you can focus efforts on.

~~~
refulgentis
You're absolutely correct – unfortunately, living in Buffalo means there's a
dearth of local talent and bootstrapping means we really don't have the means.

To be honest I took out more custom UI than ended up making it in because the
people we tested with who were new to iOS _really_ took quickly to the
standard components and had a harder time with custom stuff. That being said,
I'm hardly a real designer, so there's a distinct possibility my custom UI was
just, well, not too good. :P

Thanks for your feedback. I'm familiar with your work and you saying this
automatically means I'm probably going to dedicate the next week or so combing
over my UI and trying to make it better.

~~~
flyosity
I'd definitely suggest not caring about where your UI designer is located.
It's hard enough to find decent UI people without forcing them to live in
Western NY. Some of the best UI people I know live in Europe, Mexico, New
Zealand, etc. If you're down for contracting with someone remotely, I'd take a
look at Dribbble to find some styles of work you really like and then give
those designers a shout. It could really make a huge difference. Good luck!

------
jcnnghm
You should move the video to the home page. It took me a while to find it. You
may consider having a professional voice actor narrate the video, it's not as
expensive as you might imagine, and the results can really take it to the next
level. You may also want to get another domain, something like amburapp.com.
Any chance of integrating with Square? Manual credit card entry could be a
challenge.

You should also consider offering packages with all the hardware the
restauranteur would need.

~~~
refulgentis
True, we'll have to see where we can fit it.

You're right on the domain thing too.

Square is great for what it is, but there rates are way, way, too high for
restaurants and their app doesn't allow for 3rd party callbacks. I don't think
they have much interest in "real" business to be honest with you, I've tried
to get in touch with them on multiple occasions for at least information on
them integrating a callback scheme, but I haven't heard a word back. They're
busy doing bigger and better things though, god bless 'em.

We actually do have integrated credit card processing (kind of). There's an
app called Credit Card Terminal that lets us pass charges to it and then calls
back to us with the charge amount and type when it's done processing.

------
tnorthcutt
For what it's worth, I really quickly became annoyed with the seemingly
glacial transition pace of the image slider on your homescreen.

~~~
refulgentis
Aye, I do too at times :P needs to delve into the Javascript there and fix it
up

------
wtvanhest
By programming in iOS you are requiring companies to purchase expensive mac
products to run your POS rather than inexpensive PC products.

You need to go to as many restaurants in person as possible and be able to
explain why your product is worth "trying" at the risk of a night of business.
The key to understanding your customer is that they need to train all their
servers and cooks on the new system and risk a huge single night loss of sales
in the event of an error.

This is big business and for large restaurants could be $20K in a single
night.

What is the big feature that your product has, that current systems don't
have?

 __*ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT: I would consider not offering it for free since the
"cost" is not the product. The cost in your case is the potential loss a
restaurant could take on a crashing system (and the cost and lost sales
relating to server training). I would try charging MORE than current POS
systems as your sticker price.

Pricing is a signal and you need to signal high quality to sell this risk to
businesses.

A few quick things that are important to restaurants: 1) Margins (they are
really low, anything to improve them is good). 2) Servers are unreliable and
turnover is high (anything to help speed up training is a plus, but probably a
minor one) 3) Risk (a single night of lost sales may bankrupt a restaurant.
You are asking for big commitment.) 4) Costs (upfront costs are harder to
swallow because cash flow is always important. Decide whether it is worth
figuring out a way to subsidize the equipment and software and get paid back
later maybe).

Additional advice: Work in a restaurant as a server, then as a cook. Knowing
the business is very important for selling to it.

~~~
refulgentis
Re: expensive products. Micros charges about $3000 for a terminal, we're
charging $1500 for the first one ($999 for our app + $500 iPad) and $500 (per
iPad) apiece after. Not to mention the iPod is really just as good for servers
taking orders.

Big features? Price, wireless connectivity, commodity hardware. I can't lie
and pretend we're as rock solid as Micros, and I'd like to charge a fair
price. $999 is low in my opinion, but not that low.

Thank you for your feedback!

~~~
wtvanhest
1) Price is never, ever, ever, ever a feature. Price is determined by the
features (it is the other side of the equation).

2) I haven't done market research, but are you telling me no other POS has
wireless?

3) Who will provide iPods? How many will be lost or broken, this seems to add
additional expense.

4) As a potential pivot, could you enable your system to run in restaurants
with no servers, just food runners and have patrons order the food themselves?
There is competition here as well, but it is less entrenched and probably
easier to displace.

~~~
refulgentis
1) Fair, but to a restaurant owner who is staring at Micros package X that is
$15K for a basic two terminal + a few printers set up, we look pretty darn
good. 2) Not reasonably priced. I know Micros does, but their handhelds are
propietary hardware that costs in multiples of iPod touches. Their terminals
are, again, in multiples of iPads. 3) Up to the restaurant. They don't get
broken, them 'walking off' is an issue, but a management issue. If you have 3
at 5 PM, you better have 3 at 10 PM or your staff has to answer. 4) Certainly,
but I'm not a big fan of that because it compounds issue #3 dramatically and
I'm not sure any restaurant would want to do that. Also, it would require a
dramatic 'prettying up' of the UI to make it more lively.

------
tbgvi
My startup is in point-of-sale as well (retail, not hospitality). I'm curious
as to why you chose to go with iOS? I'm not saying it's a good or bad choice,
but it definitely is the current fad in the POS market. I'm focused on the
lower end and small businesses, so I try to work with hardware they already
have. How receptive are people to using iPods and iPads, cost wise?

Another question is.. what happens if a server spills a drink on it? :)

Now for an answer instead of another question. For marketing I would focus on
finding a scalable sales method that is as self-serve as possible (small biz
owners will always want to talk no matter how hard you try though). It's easy
and tempting to go 'door to door' and sell one at a time, but economically it
doesn't make sense. That's one place iOS helps, distribution through the app
store. But you'll eventually need to find people who are generally looking for
POS, not just specifically an iPad POS.

Anyways, good luck it looks interesting!

~~~
danudey
One of the benefits of iOS devices is their ubiquity. What if a server spills
a drink on the cash register? Then your register is fried and you have to wait
for a replacement from the vendor. If someone spills a drink on an iPod Touch,
though, you can run down the street to the Apple Store (or other vendor) and
drop $300 on a new one (which you can return if you get the other one
working).

The fact that the whole ecosystem (app store, iTunes, backups, etc.) is
designed for consumers means that it's easy for anyone to deal with. It would
be trivial to teach all your management and supervisors how to reset, restore,
etc. an iPod Touch in the case of hardware problems, rather than having to log
a support ticket with some company somewhere when the PoS hardware is being
problematic.

~~~
tbgvi
Most restaurant/bar specific POS systems are water resistant for exactly that
reason. I'm sure it that's happened though, that's why it's "water resistant"
and not "water proof".

So lets say it happens to your iPad POS and you run down to the Apple store to
get a new one. What happens to your data? Is it stored on the device, or is
the backend hosted somewhere? How do you get your old data into your new iPad?

Another thing I just thought of... lets say there's a horrible bug that's
causing some big problem. Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple,
which then needs to get approved by them?

All that being said, there's risks with any POS system since it's pretty much
mission critical. When I launched my company and did a Show HN, some people
thought it was a bad idea (it's web-based). There's a lot of what ifs you can
bring up that all sound terrible to a business owner. I'm sure a lot of people
will go with iPad POS systems, I'm just wondering if there's a good reason to
or if it's just the cool thing to do.

~~~
chopsueyar
_Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple, which then needs to get
approved by them?_

That is the showstopper.

"Sorry, we fixed the bug, but Apple hasn't approved it yet. We'll keep you
posted."

------
Killah911
This is a really cool idea! How many restaurants do you have signed up? The
proof is in the pudding, so the more restaurants that use this, the more
likely it is for your to work our any bugs/process issues etc and for your
company and product to just take over a huge chunk of marketshare. I know a
lot of people who are building or talking about building similar products, so
congrats on being early to the party! Also, best of luck!

~~~
refulgentis
x, where x is less than 10. To be honest, it looks like it's going to be a
_lot_ of hard work to get people signed up and interested.

It's a tough marketing problem: how do you get to people who haven't already
invested in another solution down this road, even if our solution is much
cheaper we're still talking in the thousands to switch over from someone who
already charged them tens of thousands. The answer is to find people who
haven't, which means finding restaurants that have not opened yet. Not easy
work.

~~~
Killah911
Great! You have a base to refine your product till it's the cat's meow.
There's nothing like word of mouth, better yet, references from businesses
who've actually used your product and absolutely love it! You marketing effort
should just be the product, but also real verifiable applications of your
product. Put together a little marketing video where the existing businesses
vouch for your product. <br> I agree with what #pbreit said as well. Once you
have 30-40 mom and pop stores using your devices, not only will you be more
confident about what your sell, your potential customers will be too. See if
you can target small but high traffic businesses, even if it's lunch truck or
a no name pizza joint at a Campus near you. </br> You've got a great idea,
simple and potentially very effective. Iron out the kinks before other
competitors get to market. Once again, best of luck!

------
abuzzooz
First of all, congrats. I'm sure it wasn't easy getting to this stage.

Now, there are lots of good comments that others have made already. I think
the most important ones are the issues with the speed of taking orders and the
suggestion to talk to local restaurants and bars for input.

My two cents are related to the video. It looks too amateurish. The camera is
not 100% steady (use a tripod, or set the camera on a table), the narration is
not very fluid (practice, practice, practice) and it's too technical. The
video should target your audience and highlight the advantage of using your
system. Show a waiter taking orders, and the kitchen receiving them instantly.
Show how a fast and easy it is to print receipts and how a manager can help
resolve customer issues/complaints. How would you convince a restaurant owner
to ditch the multi-thousand $$ POS system that he/she has, and invest in
yours?

Also your FAQ page seems to be outdated and missing a few links.

Good luck!

~~~
refulgentis
We'll have to look at speed, it's something I'm concerned about because we
don't have a huge sample size. I know the restaurants we tested at got up to
speed after each server had worked 3-4 shifts, but I'm 100% sure it could be
better in several areas.

Reshooting the video is probably the first priority after fixing mistakes on
the site, thanks to your comments and a couple others. Thanks for the
feedback, hearing things like that from someone really makes it clear what
work we have to do and how we have to do.

------
getsat
From the FAQ:

> Is there a demo video of Ambur? > Yes! Please click here to see a real demo
> of Ambur.

There's no link anywhere near this text.

~~~
refulgentis
Noted, thank you. Peer review of a website has the unique ability to make you
feel like a blind idiot. :P

------
dhughes
The biggest thing with a POS system is support.

Where I work (not my dept.) we were locked in a five year contract with a
company based 5 times zones and 5,000km away.

Adding new printers, configuring printers, connected by cheap off-the-shelf
switches and routers, too many people with admin access and employee turn-
around losing the people who knew the system.

Add to that old and usually proprietary hardware that tends to get damaged
faster in an environment with a lot of food and liquids (restaurant/bar).

Add to that restaurant people tend not to be technology oriented.

I can't see my workplace buying a bunch of iPad or iPod Touch devices just to
use a brand new system. I know the staff would love it. If you had an
iPad/serving tray that would be interesting too.

The perfect system would run on old existing hardware, be bullet proof, very
intuitive, cheap and with lots of support every day at all hours.

~~~
refulgentis
Most terminals cost ~$3000, while the first terminal for us is $1500 - $500
for the iPad, $1000 for the app. After that, new terminals are just $500 since
you bought the app already.

Secondly, adding printers is one of our best pieces of functionality - it's
just entering an IP address, a name, a type of printer, and assigning it to a
menu item group.

I'm not sure old hardware is the answer. It's underpowered, weak, running on
odd platforms. iOS was designed for touch and to be rugged from the ground up,
and provides a consistent platform that is essentially commoditized and is
growing every day.

------
andos
When I visit your website I can't find out:

\- What the app looks like -- there's a lot of talk about how beautiful,
simple and well designed it is, but not a single screenshot;

\- If it accept payments;

\- Whether it is a complete solution. Will I need a server? If not, what's
"Ambur in a box"?

\- A 1-2-3 storyboard of setting up, making an order, paying the bill;

\- Whether it will work with my cash drawer, or my receipt printer, or my
credit card machine, (or any drawer or printer or machine);

\- What happens if my iPad (I'm the manager) breaks/is stolen/is low on
batteries?

\- Can my clients place orders using their own iOS devices?

And important stuff is hidden by the wall of text. For instance:

\- Your app needs _no configuration_ when adding more terminals;

\- Updates are free for life;

Lastly, a benchmark: <http://checkoutapp.com/>

~~~
refulgentis
Thank you, this is stuff we definitely have to focus on, we're planning on
moving stuff and adding stuff based on the feedback we received here in the
next couple days.

------
tealtan
Really impressive work! I'd suggest for your demo video, instead of showing
all your features in action, to instead talk through a typical scenario
(someone taking an order, closing the order, etc) and showing what it's like
to use the app.

~~~
refulgentis
Thanks for your feedback - we'll definitely take that approach with the next
set of videos we'll shoot.

------
swalkergibson
This looks very interesting. Quick question, as far as I can tell, one of the
iOS devices has to function as the database server. Is this reliable? If so,
that is extremely exciting...

~~~
refulgentis
Yes, and yes! Core Data + Bonjour + KVO are absolutely magical, it's a truly
distributed system, you always can see whats going on accurately.

------
chopsueyar
Do you have restaurant experience (server/owner/manager)?

~~~
refulgentis
Server, four long years. My cofounder is an owner.

~~~
chopsueyar
You will be very successful! You have something here.

------
glhaynes
You have (at least one) misspelling on your page: "unbelieveably" should be
"unbelievably". Just jumped out at me (maybe since it's italicized!) so I
thought I'd report it.

Also, though this one's just my opinion: "point of sales system" seems awkward
to me compared to "point of sale system" and I note from a couple of Google
searches that the latter seems to be used a lot more often.

Anyway, good luck!

~~~
refulgentis
Thank you! Getting more eyeballs on the site has had the effect of mostly
making me feel like I'm illiterate and blind. :P

Good call on point of sale, I had never thought about the distinction before.

------
ojilles
From the FAQ:

"Is there a demo video of Ambur? Yes! Please click here to see a real demo of
Ambur."

However, nothing is hyperlinked.

Same here:

"Ambur will be available for free shortly in the App Store. You can also
download the software from any iOS device by launching the the App Store and
searching for "Ambur"."

I would actually just link to the app (there is chance someone is viewing that
page on an iPad after all).

~~~
refulgentis
Doh! Thanks, I don't know how we missed both of these.

------
_delirium
This discussion from about a year ago might be relevant:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1382566>

(Not endorsing or dis-endorsing anything in it, but a possible point of
reference to see if anything's changed.)

~~~
refulgentis
Aye, actually I ran into that a year ago and took a bit from it, thanks for
bringing it up again, I forgot about it.

The main caveat is, the article assumes that servers would be carrying around
iPads - we've found iPod touches are more than sufficient and iPads acting as
centralized hubs like a traditional POS work well.

------
naz
Looks interesting. I especially like the idea of using Bonjour. There is a
missing closing tag on the "click here" anchor tag on the Get a Quote page

~~~
refulgentis
The magic of the app (from an engineering perspective) is really Core Data +
KVO + Bonjour. Sometimes it feels more bubblegum and sticks than anything, but
it _really_ is magical after all the kinks were worked out.

I wish I could open source the framework, but at this point it would be an
engineering effort to tease out the code and it's also giving away a lot of
secret sauce.

------
iworkforthem
easy to click: <http://www.refulgentsoftware.com>

------
jbseek
This is a space that does require some disruption.

Good job.

------
pitdesi
Its really tough to market to restauranteurs because there are tons of scammy
companies out there...

My company helps SMB's find the best credit card processor, so in theory
Restaurants would be great customers because they are often getting screwed.
In reality, we don't convert restaurants well at all.

I've been to trade shows like the NRA (Nat'l restaurant association), Pizza
Expo, etc, and a new trend is well-funded companies offering a "free" POS
system. It's free because they include the merchant account, and they KILL you
on the fees. Almost all of the POS vendors are partnered with
<http://www.mercurypay.com/> which is a very expensive solution with hidden
fees/upcharges etc.

Restauranteurs become lured in with the free POS and are locked into a shitty
payment processor. I think being on iOS is a strength though - maybe there are
ways you can focus and optimize your ranking on the app store? Participate in
blogs/forums whenever you can.

We've had some luck getting in publications (QSR, Food News Today, etc), which
has been very useful in getting the word out. You should try to get in QSR.

Drop me a line if you want to talk further.

~~~
refulgentis
Huh, fascinating, my involvement in the restaurant business has been limited
to mostly waiting and somewhat being aware of what was going on in the back
end with processors, but I've only worked at one restaurant so my experience
was limited. I had no idea they were gouging that much, we're actually looking
into using iDynamo ( [http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader-
authent...](http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader-
authenticators/iDynamo.asp) ) in our app, which would make it dirt easy to
just pick the best payment processor and run with it. I'll have to drop you a
line when we're done with that, probably in the next four weeks.

Thanks for your feedback, and the information about publications, it's been
hard for me to figure out what publications exist and which ones exactly
matter.

