Odds and Ends for Jan 16
Most of the Cocoa-related items now live on their own site, but there are few worth mentioning here. The rest is Mac stuff which is unrelated to programming and other random fun things.- The AquaticPrime framework helps you handle software registration securely. Generates, validates, and so on. Excellent.
- LRFilterBar implements Mail/GarageBand style item filtering.
- Daniel Jalkut just released FlexTime 1.2, now with support for sending Routines to iTunes. Read the blog entry for more. Very clever. Makes the app even more useful.
- Onlife is an interesting application which tracks your computer usage habits and graphs them. See how much time you're "investing" at YouTube.
- Want a 128k Mac on a USB key drive? Mini vMac has you covered.
- Dashalytics is a Google Analytics widget, and CharacterPal is incredibly useful for finding symbols quickly.
- The new "Sabotage" Get a Mac ad is one of my top three favorites.
- I love this Zune ad.
- I don't remember where I heard about this, but BluePhoneElite 2 allows you to use your Mac to handle voice calls and text messages with a Bluetooth phone.
- TeXMLMate is an XML/HTML plug-in for TextMate with some really interesting functionality.
- Deusty Designs has released a Maestro beta, which makes sharing music over the network nice and easy. Deusty has been doing some Cocoa blogging too.
- VoodooPad just turned four.
- SimpleViewer is a simple, free Flash-based photo gallery app.
- A pic of the Apple campus from a perspective you don't often see. Flickr comments and all.
- Anyone remember Captain N?
Jesper posted a summary of characters in Super Smash Bros Melee, including the following line:
I am reasonably proficient in Luigi, Captain Falcon and Jigglypuff.
I suggest he add it to his resume in place of Objective-C, Cocoa and PHP. His response: "Oh it's, there." Practical Luigi, followed by Visual Quickstart Guide to Captain Falcon and Agile Web Development with Jigglypuff. You heard it here first.
Odds and Ends for Jan 16
Posted Jan 16, 2007 — 11 comments below
Posted Jan 16, 2007 — 11 comments below
Jesper — Jan 16, 07 3285
Carl — Jan 16, 07 3287
I myself am partial to Ness and the Ice Climbers.
David — Jan 16, 07 3289
The Apple ads... I dunno. I may be getting old (ok, there's no maybe about it) but I'm also tired of slick ad companies selling gadgets to young people based on body image.
PC: used by slightly overweight geek frumps who spend saturday nights living it up on XBL. The bad cholesterol of geeks.
Mac: used by strategically slim, cool urbanities with just the right amount of geek chic to let other geeks know that it's really ok to be a geek (as long as you have money).
Yeah, I know it's just marketing, and I know marketing has sucked ever since the snake pimped some yummy fruit but, do we have to celebrate this sort of smarm, just because it's paid for an authorised by the Mothership?
Anyway...
re Aquatic Prime. Anyone care to evangelize one way or the other for this versus Sparkle?
Richard Neal — Jan 16, 07 3293
Scott Stevenson — Jan 16, 07 3294
I just think it's a fun thirty second ad. If you don't like what's on TV, turn it off. :)
re Aquatic Prime. Anyone care to evangelize one way or the other for this versus Sparkle?
Sparkle is for self-updating. AcquaticPrime is for registration serial numbers.
David — Jan 16, 07 3295
I just think it's a fun thirty second ad. If you don't like what's on TV, turn it off. :)
The all or nothing approach, eh? Seems a bit ... black and white. If we applied such a critiquing technique to the subjects you bring up daily, there wouldn't be much of a discussion, mmm? ;)
Apple's ads are just as deserving of criticism as Microsoft's, or anyone elses for that matter.
Scott Stevenson — Jan 16, 07 3296
I have more thoughts on it, you said "do we have to celebrate this sort of smarm, just because it's paid for an authorised by the Mothership?" That doesn't really seem like a question to me as much as a statement. I prefer the discussion here focus on the positive as much as possible, so if it's not apparent how to do that, I try to make some sort of short comment.
I think your concern is really more about the television environment than anything specific to Apple, so it probably makes more sense to discuss somewhere else. In fact, if you go to Apple's site, pictures of humans are actually fairly rare. Most of the iPod ads are essentially anonymous.
I really appreciate having you here, and sharing your thoughts, but I think you'll find I tend to spend more time engaging in positive discussions.
Bill Coleman — Jan 17, 07 3298
Captain Falcon was my original pick, although I'll agree he's fairly weak in some ways.
My eldest daughter is very proficient with Kirby, who is perhaps the most multi-dimensional character of the game.
I've never figured out Mr. Game & Watch. He's weird.
As for Roy and Marth, they are really strong characters. I'm curious what it is they say (in Japanese) when they've one a melee match.
Jesper — Jan 17, 07 3299
That Kirby's long-range attack (up+B landing) is particularly weak doesn't help either. Jigglypuff (B), Luigi (left/right+B) and Captain Falcon (down+B) all can make a reasonable comeback after being knocked out far enough and do some damage doing so.
Blain — Jan 18, 07 3317
Samus is still my strongest character, followed by Roy or Link. Maybe it's cheap, but I'm a big fan of the charged shot/slash. Does this mean the possibility that there'll be a Gamecube set up at Cocoaheads, so we can do some quick melees as well? If so, I'm so there.
Scott Stevenson — Jan 18, 07 3328
Oh, don't tempt me. Actually, maybe that's the trick. I'll go get a Wii, bring it down to Apple, and the people that show up on time get to play on the big screen. It's brilliant.
Only half-kidding.