In the great software development tradition of asking Joe Public to help out for free, I’m asking anybody who might be interested to check out a modest app I’ve developed. Mainly created to learn about C# and .NET deployment, History Tester 1.0 is available from www.download.com–I know I’ve gone ahead and given it a full-blown release number despite product testing consisting of me trying to crash the program for about two weeks, but it seems to work for most development houses. The app’s been designed (and I quote) “to help history students, particularly those studying for the Irish Leaving Certificate, to test and improve their knowledge of Irish and European history from the mid-nineteenth century to 1970s.”Sounds gripping, eh? Although the zip file you need to download is a very reasonable 271 KB, you will need to have Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 Redistributable Package installed to run the thing. This weighs in at a rather obese 23.6 MB so if you’ve got a 56 K modem you might want to think about how desperately you want to brush up on your European or Irish history. On the plus side, after you’ve installed the .NET Framework you’ll be able to launch any app created in C# or VB.NET (until Microsoft upgrades the Framework).If you can stomach the installation process and manage to launch and interact with the program, I’d be interested in your comments. If the project is half-successful, I might fill in some obvious gaps with 2.0 (nothing after the decimal point in my release schedule!)