O’Reilly: “I’ll be facilitating open and frank discussions about sales percentages, servers, coding styles, tools, Web sites, mirrors, sales engines, installers, registrations, support, press releases, marketing, database back-ends, localization. I’ll even come up with a checklist for your first release. Just about everything you’ll need to consider before shipping your product will be discussed right here.”
Jesse James Garrett on human-friendly URLs: “The advent of content management systems has been a boon in many ways, but the readability of URLs is not one of them.” Of course, it’s important to point out that some CMSes do allow one to use human-readable URLs. In fact, I’d be willing to state Brent’s Law of CMS URLs: the more expensive the CMS, the crappier the URLs.
It’s a PHP-based iCal file parser that “displays iCal files in a nice logical, clean manner with day, week, and month navigation. It supports 8 languages.”
Nicholas Riley’s F-Script Anywhere “lets you embed a F-Script interpreter in any Cocoa application. You can use F-Script like a debugger, so you can examine your application’s objects in a richer environment than GDB or Project Builder permits.”
Late Night Software has released a beta of a free scripting addition that “allows AppleScript to apply XSLT transformations to XML data and to use XPath expressions to extract information from XML data. XSLT Tools also allows you to extend the XSLT processor using AppleScript functions.”
Late Night Software has released XML Tools 2.5, their free AppleScript scripting addition.
Nicholas Riley: “ICeCoffEE lets you Command-click on URLs in Cocoa applications to launch them. It is modeled after ICeTEe, for classic Mac OS, which provided the same functionality in many Macintosh applications by patching TextEdit.”
ExtremeTech on the history of the BSDs: “What is BSD? If you ask a typical computer ‘expert,’ he or she is likely to reply (incorrectly!) that it is ‘an operating system.’ The correct answer, however, is more complex than that. BSD is—among other things—a culture, a philosophy, and a growing collection of software, most (though not all) of which is available for free and with source code.”
This new early-access release of the awesomely cool Spring includes Jaguar support.
A new, non-beta release of NetNewsWire Lite has been posted. Changes since 1.0 include crashing bug fixes, opening URLs in the background in the browser, remembering the pane sizes and positions, and keyboard navigation enhancements.
Apple: “Now you can keep your calendar and contact information synchronized up to the minute between your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone, iPod, Palm OS device or multiple Macs.”
A List Apart: “I find that most pages on the web contain a menu of links in a navigation area. These are often marked up as a string of links, often in separate DIVs or paragraphs. Structurally, however, they are a list of links, and should be marked up as such.”
MacMegasite: “FinkCommander provides a convenient graphical front end for the Mac OS X package manager, fink, which makes it easier to install, update, and maintain open source packages on your system.”
InfoWorld: “The new Bluecurve interface, based on Gnome 2.0, features themes, scroll bars and menus, and several new graphical enhancements and icons. The new version also contains a number of updated applications including the Open Office productivity suite, beefed up Evolution e-mail client, and the Mozilla browser 1.0.1.”
Bill Humphries reports that Apache 2.0 (and other server components) are available for OS X.
O’Reilly: “The browser is dead. It’s a two-dimensional piece of software that is slowing the evolution of the Web... [but] contrary to what some people lead you to believe, browsers will be around for a while longer. The purpose of this article is to introduce you to the concept of customizing, or creating, your own browser using the wonderful toolkit that is Mozilla.”
This final candidate release adds smarter scrolling when arrowing through the headlines pane. A few sites were added to the Sites Drawer.
ZDNet Australia poses an interesting question. Paul Everitt: “My favorite trend is the revenge of the DIYers (do-it-yourself techies). Every time we (the proprietary CMS vendor Everitt once worked for) did a bid, the staff that wrote the existing mod_perl or PHP system was our greatest internal champions. With the tough economic climate, there is sentiment to grow what works, rather than dropping a $1.2 million bomb.”
Fredrik Lundh: “This effbot.org project aims to build an RSS-based newsreader (aka ‘aggregator’) with a graphical user interface front-end, similar to applications like Headline Viewer and Brent Simmons’ NetNewsWire. The reader will based on standard Python cross-platform tools.”
BBC: “Websense, a San Diego-based firm which provides software to monitor web habits at work, has found that news sites are proving the real internet addiction for employees.”
O’Reilly interviews Dan Wood: “I had run across some small utilities that did web ‘scraping’ (extracting and reformatting useful data from HTML pages) such as monitoring eBay auctions and collecting headlines of SlashDot.org. I decided that the world needed a handy container application for these kinds of utilities, and from there the individual tool ideas started coming left and right.”
This release fixes a crashing bug when parsing RSS feeds. More changes are listed on the change notes page.
It’s a site by Kim Kohen “for those interested in automating Mac OS X.”
Studio Log: “There are many alternatives to the Script Editor that has been a staple of AppleScript development since the beginning. But, many scripters still use the venerable Script Editor despite its many limitations. Following are ten tips that come from my time in using the program in creating scripts of various types.”
OSOpinion: “Clearly, the Linux bandwagon is gathering speed—Sun has said it anticipates a 30 percent annual growth rate—but where is it going?”
OSNews.com: “Understanding LindowsOS has been a challenge for many and the reason is simple: most of us are Linux people viewing LindowsOS as a Linux distribution. It’s much easier to appreciate the product when you approach it from a different viewpoint. LindowsOS is not made for Linux people, although they may like it, it’s made for Windows converts.”
MacCentral: “Internet Explorer 5.2.2 is the latest version available for Mac OS X. As with Internet Explorer 5.1.6, the update resolves a security vulnerability associated with the validation of digital certificate chains.”
This new beta has two often-requested changes: it remembers the size and position of the split views, and you can tell it (via the General prefs panel) to have URLs open in the background in your browser. (That second feature works only in Jaguar, unfortunately.)
MacWorld: “Tabbed browsing mode makes its first appearance in this release allowing for multiple windows to be opened within the Opera browser.” Me, I use tabbed browsing with Chimera. I love tabbed browsing. It’s the best thing to happen to browsers since support for graphics.
The Open Web Application Security Project has a guide with a bunch of notes on security.
O’Reilly: “You can’t create a SOAP web service with AppleScript, but you can have it act as a SOAP web client and use Perl to create the service.”
NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.1b1 has been posted along with documentation on the clipboard formats NetNewsWire exports. Sample code is provided for both Carbon and Cocoa.
Byte.com: “UNIX is for servers, Windows is for desktops. Right? No, wrong. Turns out nowadays you don’t need to use that ugly W word to have a decent desktop and office environment. Enter Mac OS X.”
Unsanity.org: “You cannot write code if you’re not focused and dedicated. You can write code if you’re distracted, and that code may even work, but it will not be beautiful.”
Aaron Swartz: “RDF/XML got you down? Tired of having to go through contortions to deal with data? Want to write Python and be standards-compatible at the same time? Need a module to implement the psuedo-code you had on your slides? TRAMP may or may not be the answer to these problems!”
MacCentral: “The BDRuleEngine Framework builds on the power of the Cocoa framework by providing a rule system for software developers to use when constructing applications.”
O’Reilly: “Jaguar has made significant improvements to aspects of Mac OS X. These features make setting up a home Web server easier and more powerful than ever, and I’ll touch on some of them while digging deeper into the homemade Dot-Mac project.”
Wired: “A few weeks ago, Web designer Patrick Crowley got one of those simple but brilliant ideas that makes you wonder why no one thought of it before. Crowley set up a website called iCalshare.com, a clearinghouse for sharing calendars created with Apple’s new iCal calendaring program, which allows people to publish calendars online.”
CodeSearch is an OS X open-source code search engine by Michael McCracken of Blapp fame.
MacCentral: “According to information provided with the update Security Update 2002-09-20 updates the Terminal application, which is pre-installed with Mac OS X.”
This release finds more applications, including those in your user applications folder. It uses an icon in the menubar instead of the word Apps. The Configure window allows you to choose an alternate icon.
Sun: “The officially supported platforms for Sun ONE Studio are simply those on which the IDE has been extensively tested by Sun’s Quality Assurance teams. The IDE, however, can run successfully on a much wider range of platforms; indeed, it will probably run anywhere that a Java 2 JDK version 1.3 or later is available. One such platform is the popular Apple Macintosh OS X (version 10.1 or later).”
From my personal weblog, an explanation of why I develop for Macintosh rather than Windows: “One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that, when it comes to user interface, this is the big leagues, this is the show.”
I just learned about this site from my referers list. From the home page: “Welcome... to our essential MacOS X software guide!”
Bill Bumgarner: “Rumors abound that Apple is working on iBrowse—a web browser based on the Chimera engine. Maybe, maybe not. However, the market is certainly rife for someone to create a real and working browser on the platform.”
This release probably is the 1.0 release (after changing the version number). Changes are a minor sorting bug fix and the addition of some sites to the Sites Drawer.
MacNETv2 reports that Apple has released OS X 10.2.1. (And iTunes 3.0.1, by the way.)
A possibly crazy explanation of my current thinking regarding building sites for products like NetNewsWire.
...says Michael McCracken. “It’s like OS X is just a great big tube of glue waiting for you to throw things together.”
Version 1.7 of MacCVSClient, a GUI client for CVS servers, now runs on Mac OS X.
This page details the current plan for the for-pay version of NetNewsWire. It’s a rough plan only at this time—it will surely change between now and when the for-pay version ships. But it should give you a general idea of what to expect.
Answer questions such as “how do I unsort?” and “how do I open URLs in the background?”
IBM developerWorks presents a two-part article on “solving practical real-life problems in medium- to large-scale applications.”
Mac OS X Hints: “Set up for cvspserver is even easier in OS 10.2 using xinetd.”
This final candidate release fixes some bugs and adds a ton of sites to the sites drawer. Check out the change notes. So now we’re looking for deal-stopper bugs. Are there any bugs important enough that they must be fixed before 1.0 ships? (Remember that of course 1.0 is not the end of the road but the beginning.)
InfoWorld: “Company executives have hinted at a Sun Linux desktop distribution that combines existing software from the open-source community, such as the GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) desktop interface, the Mozilla Web browser and the desktop office productivity software package OpenOffice.”
Nicholas Riley on Jaguar’s Terminal.app: “Jaguar’s Terminal app offers significant improvements in user interface, capability and stability... [but] Terminal is still incredibly slow performing certain operations.”
TidBITS: “You first need a Web site where people can learn about your product, download it, and purchase it. While a complete discussion of what makes an effective Web site is beyond the scope of this article, there are some guiding principles to keep in mind.”
The Unsanity folks—the people behind the various “haxies” for OS X—now have a weblog. It’s cool when software companies have weblogs. They all should.
kuro5hin.org: “Hello and welcome to Monsterpiece Theatre. I Alistair Cookie. As you know, many site use HTTP Cookie for keep track of browser session. Today we are seeing how HTTP Cookie work.”
Technical Note TN2058: “This Note is directed at application developers who want to allow their Mac OS X Carbon applications to use the Font Panel as a way for users to specify font family, typeface, and size settings for text.”
Technical Note TN2059: “This technote describes some problems that can occur when using mutable collection classes (arrays, dictionaries, and sets) in multithreaded Cocoa applications, and describes some approaches to solving these problems, including several implementations.”
Lots of good tips here, from useful utilities to Unix customization.
It’s a library for using Ruby with with Cocoa objects. (Via Archipelago.)
Linux Journal: “It is a surprising fact that anyone studying GNUstep or the Cocoa Framework will notice they are nearly identical to the NEXTSTEP APIs that were defined ten years ago. A decade is an eternity in the software industry. If the framework (and its programming language—Objective C) came through untouched these past ten years, there must be something special about it.”
MacCentral: “The new update contains both bug fixes and a compatibility update so that all components will now work with Jaguar. The update is recommended for all users of XFree86 on Darwin/Mac OS X and is available now.”
Straw is a desktop news aggregator for the GNOME environment. Looks cool. (Via Aaron Swartz.)
Andy writes, “RSS is one of those Really Cool Things that’s Just Starting To Go Big. It’s slick and it’s fairly sophisticated: your website can essentially ‘syndicate’ parts of its content to millions of client apps. That’s a ridiculous amount of cool.”
Apple Internet Developer: “To show off the connection between an AppleScript and a Perl server, I created a simple task to keep the mechanics to a minimum: fetching headlines from a news site.”
TidBITS: “If you can offer a better, faster, and/or cheaper solution to a problem, you have a good chance of being successful—but you must be able to prove it.”
Two main changes: it’s now a background app (no dock icon); a bug was fixed where it was missing some apps (usually Adobe apps).
This new release fixes a memory leak and a few other bugs and glitches. Here are the change notes.
Changes include easier setup, expanded Admin website, new Manila features, and more.
iDevGames interviews Andrew Stone of Stone Design: “HyperCard was the precursor to the Internet—the idea that mere mortals could make cool software was very appealing. Now that Apple has Interface Builder and provides the entire IDE for making Cocoa applications, perhaps we’ll see several replacement applications.”
This article shows how to make a simple XML-RPC call from a Cocoa app using the new WebServicesCore framework.
It’s an open source (BSD license) application launcher, easy to use and easy to configure.
Fink Project: “A test version of the 10.2 updater for Fink is now available.”
Apple’s docs explain how to write Folder Actions scripts.
TidBITS: “Karelia Software has released Watson 1.5.5, its utility for easily gathering information from the Web that offers more features than Apple’s otherwise-similar Sherlock 3.”
Rael Dornfest: “There’s oodles of new functionality in this release, including: categories, shared weblog spaces, flavours (read: templates or views), and more.”
RandomMaccess: “Apple’s newly released iCal is the most beautiful calendaring program I have ever seen. It’s a shame it sucks.”
O’Reilly: “In its quest to make Unix more ‘Mac like,’ Apple decided that it would be best to allow users, at least administrative users, to be able to move files in and out of the root directory with impunity... This clashes heavily with Sendmail's built-in paranoia.”
Salon: “Netscape won't dislodge Internet Explorer from its hegemony over browser space. But its open-source sibling is aiming at even bigger game: Windows.”
Apple: “iCal is an elegant personal calendar application that helps you manage your life and your time better than ever before. iCal lets you keep track of your appointments and events with multiple calendars featuring at-a-glance views of upcoming activities by day, week or month.”
This new release adds a Save All menu item, new toolbar commands, and improved HTML generation.
According to its website, “The focus in Chimera 0.5 has been on stability and bug fixing, with some new features and performance work thrown in.”
Daniel Steinberg on porting Java apps to OS X: “Apple takes care of porting the look and feel of your favorite widgets and provides you with runtime properties to customize and fine-tune the appearance and placement. But what about the small things.”
Blapp by Michael McCracken is an OS X desktop app for editing Blosxom weblogs. It works with NetNewsWire and other HTML sources via drag-and-drop. Totally cool. (Michael is also the author of BibDesk, a BibTeX bibliography manager for OS X.)
Jeffrey Zeldman: “Though their owners and managers may not know it yet, 99.9% of all websites are obsolete. These sites may look and work all right in mainstream, desktop browsers whose names end in the numbers 4 or 5. But outside these fault-tolerant environments, the symptoms of disease and decay have already started to appear.”
Apple provides an Aqua Icon Kit which contains templates and so on for making icons.
Mark Nottingham’s tutorial “explains the features and benefits of a Web format called RSS, and gives a brief technical overview of it.”
Fredrik Lundh is leading a project which “aims to build an RSS-based newsreader (aka ‘aggregator’) with a graphical user interface front-end, similar to applications like Headline Viewer and Brent Simmons’ NetNewsWire.” Right on.
Abracode’s contextual menus development framework was updated yesterday, though change notes are not readily apparent on their website.
The freeware AppleScript script editor now runs under Jaguar.
This release fixes crashing bugs and several UI glitches. See the change notes page for more info.
It’s a basic tutorial with sample code that shows how to do simple syntax coloring—it colors everything in a string between < and > characters. (It colors all HTML and XML tags, in other words.)