A free iTunes controller for OS X, customizable with HTML CSS and Javascript. Beautiful and simple.
Mac desktop application unifies Twitter, Flickr and feed subscriptions (among other services like Facebook and Digg). It has some very annoying quirks, but overall it’s a useful combination of three services I use regularly.
Via Kyle Baxter.
Say what you will about President-elect Barack Obama, but if there is one leader to leverage the greatest information network in history to serve democracy, he’s that leader.
I recommend reading the page regarding Obama’s agenda for technology. You can even submit your own ideas from the web.
Bonafide
November 4 2008I’m very pleased to announce advertising is available for Cameron.io. I’ve joined Fusion Ads, a high-quality, invite-only ad network with ten other great websites like my friends Shawnblanc.net and Nobody Wants A Stylus.
Fusion Ads displays one simple, tasteful, advertisement on each page, comprised of a small image and a line of text. Fusion Ads is headed by Michael Mistretta, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him this past month creating the layout and logo for Fusion.
I’ve always hoped Cameron.io would eventually sustain itself, and thanks to Fusion Ads, I can devote more time here.
Thank each and every one of you for reading and visiting Cameron.io to make this a reality.
Matt Legend Gemmell presents every single — and I mean every — UI detail of his iPhone application Favorites. Simply wonderful.
October 28 2008Anyone who’s tried to use most cross-compiling UI libraries knows that eventually what you end up with is an app that’s ugly and unruly on both platforms. At least with Cocotron, you end up with a beautiful Mac app, and hey, Windows apps are kind of ugly anyway so there’s no loss there.
Glen Aspeslagh on Cocotron, an open-source project to easily port Mac applications to Windows. So true.
Macbook and Pro
October 17 2008I got a chance to see the latest notebook line from Apple last night, and I’m very impressed. Personally, I’ve always been a desktop kind of person; I prefer larger screens and power over portability. But I’m certain my next computer will be an Apple notebook. I’m incredibly impressed with the solid case and build quality of both Apple’s new MacBooks.
But that’s not the biggest impression I had.
For the first time, there’s no clear distinguishing feature1 between the MacBook and MacBook Pro. There’s no consumer model. The MacBook is high-end, and the MacBook Pro is simply more so. Sharing the same name is no longer awkward or misleading. The new MacBook is exactly what its name suggests: less pro.
Also, the white plastic MacBook model was on display next to the new aluminum model and it looked like crap in comparison.
-
Except maybe Firewire. ↩
A web pilot written by John August, starring Ze Frank and others. A few studios are reviewing it, considering continuing the pilot into a web series, but until then, you can preview two minutes of the pilot.
Update: John August has posted the script (in PDF) with character bios. I’ve read two pages, and I already love it.
SimplePost
October 2 2008
Ever since I got Aaron Hillegass’ excellent Cocoa book for Christmas, I’ve been dabbling in Cocoa programming, following short tutorials online, desperately attempting to grasp the Objective-C language from my basic knowledge of PHP and Javascript.
The past few weeks, I’ve spent almost all my time furiously dedicated to learning Cocoa. Words cannot express how empowered programming makes me feel. I believe there is no more impressive technological task than to bend a computer to your explicit will, and I greatly respect those who have the ability to make it happen.
After completing chapter four of Hillegass’ book, he presented a challenge: create a character counter on your own. It was very rewarding to finally make an application without following a tutorial or copying code. I managed to meet and exceed Hillegass’ challenge with a live character counter. I thought, why not take this a step further? A live character counter is a feature of Twitter clients. I’ll make one. A couple hours later, I posted to Twitter with my own application.
A few technical notes: this is really shoddy work created by a complete amateur in one night. The Twitter posting is all handled by the excellent MGTwitterEngine by Matt Gemmell, and it’s a shame it’s included with such an awful application. There’s a rudimentary preferences window, however, it does not store your password in the OS X Keychain; it’s stored as plaintext in the com.cameronhunt.simplepost preference file.
I do not recommend using CHSimplePost at all for regular use, and I only offer it to share what I have learned. Please only download if you know what you’re doing. And if you have any feedback for me, like what I did wrong, please email me@cameron.io. It comes with no warranty and no license (although the included MGTwitterEngine has it’s own license separate from CHSimplePost).
Version history:
- 0.1 — 10/2/2008
- First version
- Bad Cocoa style and practice
- Live character counter
- Crashes often on Send
- Possible memory leak(s)
- Badly implemented password storage
The complete history of the website Muxtape, the ensuing legal problems, dealings with major labels and the RIAA, and Justin Ouellette’s decision to relaunch the service exclusively for bands.
An upcoming text editor from the company who created CSSEdit, which I use, and love, on a weekly basis.
Feed Move
September 18 2008Earlier this month, I started using Mint to track my feed subscribers (specifically the Bird Feeder pepper). Previously, I was using FeedBurner. I came to the realization it didn’t make sense to use an outside service when I could track subscribers on my own. Not to mention I’m very picky about my URLs: cameron.io/feed is much cleaner than feeds.feedburner/cameron_I/O.
First off, Mint is less consistent day-to-day than FeedBurner. For Cameron.io, subscriber numbers vary anywhere from 300 to 1,300. The count is consistently higher on days which I post to Cameron.io. John Gruber, whom I inquired about tracking feeds on Daring Fireball, mentioned his subscriber number varies day-to-day as well. If I had to guess, FeedBurner averages subscriber each day, while Mint displays the unique IP hits for each day. However, Mint’s weekly averages are very close to what FeedBurner reported each day.
Moving was easy. FeedBurner provides a 30-day redirection service, which will redirect your feed for 16 days to the original URL, after which it will display one item “Feed has moved” with the original URL, and finally, it will return a 404 error after 30 days. Simply select a feed, and click “Delete Feed …” it will give you the option to use the redirection service:
Overall, I’m happy with the switch. FeedBurner is cumbersome for what I need, and now all my statistics are contained in one Mint installation.
This does not bode well. Apple is now consistently rejecting applications based on completely subjective terms. As the author points out, Apple has accepted calculator, weather, and others which duplicate default applications.
The iPhone 2.1 update is out today, one of the new features is an automatic secure deletion of the whole phone after 10 incorrect passcode attempts. Although beware:
[…] perhaps better to not enable it if you have young children.
No word about the push notification system Apple announced to ship in September. It was not included in the list of changes.
Microsoft’s ‘Jerry and Bill’ Advertisements
September 11 2008Recently the second advertisement from Microsoft’s latest campaign debuted.
Like the first installment, Microsoft has largely tip-toed around the topic of Windows and Microsoft. They’ve created quite a stir from the odd rambling pointlessness of the advertisements’ message, and if you believe the adage “any publicity is good publicity”, Microsoft and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky have undoubtably succeeded.
However, the general reaction to these ads is tainted by their contrast to Apple’s recent campaigns with Chiat/Day. Microsoft made the mistake of qualifying these ads as a “response” to Apple’s. Whatever the subject, they will inevitably be compared to the famous Get A Mac commercials.
And what a stark comparison it is.
Excluding their visually rich iPod ads, Apple’s commercials focus strongly on product; their Get A Mac campaign humorously illustrates the differences between Windows PCs and Macs, while the iPhone is advertised by simply showing the device’s innovative interface.
The ‘Jerry and Bill’ advertisements, so far, only mention product in vague terms, usually resulting in a very stale routine of Seinfeld asking Gates about a “goldfish with a website” or edible computers. It’s a vague, poorly executed, and confusing tie-in to Windows.
When the first ‘Jerry and Bill’ advertisement made it’s debut, it was quirky and fun. It was presented as an introduction to the odd couple. The second advertisement overstays the welcome, clocking in at almost five minutes. It depicts Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates as out-of-touch elitists who invade a family’s home to “connect with real people”.
I’ve heard some people suggest the campaign is a tribute to the popular Seinfeld TV series, which was famously “about nothing”. That would be a great idea. If not for the Get A Mac campaign.
Consumers have been viewing Get A Mac for over two years; they are familiar with Apple’s spin: Macs are easy to use, stable, friendly, yet powerful. The silence on Microsoft’s part is practically an admission of guilt.
Sadly, the ‘Jerry and Bill’ commercials have little to communicate.