hohle.net has been quiet lately... too quiet...

I can attribute that to three things:

First: School is in session and their is no end to work. I'm taking a graphics class (always time consuming and programming/math/processor intensive) at ASU and an Operating Systems class online through ASU.

Second: Between school and work, I've been trying to juggle even more programming projects. From Cocoa to PHP to Ruby and back again, I've been keeping myself steeped in code and having fun with all of it.

Finally: I've been moonlighting on a new blog... That's right. I've been writing for a different audience. Based on comments that people (including my wife!) had no idea what I was talking about, I have decided to primarily move technical posts over to Macsploitation.

Subscribe to the feed if you're interested in reading Mac and Mac Development related entries, but I'll warn you: it's going to get nerdy!

In other news, I've joined twitter (Kortney is rolling her eyes), so if you're have an account, drop me a tweet.

In episode 10 of The Talk Show, John Gruber hits the nail on the head, but this time it isn't apple related. He's getting caught up on Lost and has gotten to the second season and has the same reaction I had... not as good as the first season.

Speaking of John Gruber, he posted an link to D/Objective-C bindings on the Linked List today. I was introduced to D several months ago by a friend and was always interested in implementing something written in it but didn't really have a itch that Ruby or Objective-C couldn't scratch. Now it seems like I can have my cake and eat it too because Michel Fortin has released D/Objective-C bindings. Looks excellent: this means you can write Mac apps in D with full access to the libraries and APIs you'd typically be required to use Objective-C to access.

For those not in the know, D is an language similar to C which adds a full object oriented framework, C++/Java/C#-esque syntax, closures, namespaces, and garbage collection among other things. One of the best parts of the language is that it compiles down into a binary object which can be called by C libraries. D could potentially replace Objective-C as the Ruby of the compiled-language world.

There are two kinds of people in the world:

1. People who like their Mac.
2. People who haven't used one.

Mark Cuban uses a phrase I've been telling people who haven't "switched" for years: once you go Mac, you never look back.

Kortney and I had a school packed weekend: she had to go to class on Saturday and I worked on a project and ingested a few episodes of Distributed Operating Systems with Partha Dasgupta. We've had Akeelah and the Bee sitting in its Netflix envelope for several days, but decided to pass it up for a few more episodes of Alias (we're on season two).

Saturday afternoon I started an experiment in cooking which concluded in pretty good — but not great — boneless ribs. They had a nice flavor, but it was too subtle, and required some spicing up on the plate.

We ran several errands, including some before church on Sunday. We've started attending a new church, which we're both excited about. Then something profound happened. As we were walking into church, Kortney drew a pointed finger across my chest. I followed the imaginary line from the tip of her extended index finger to an icon which I would normally point out to her: an Apple sticker.

This single, subtle action touched me in ways I can only try to enumerate. It showed me Kortney takes a genuine interest in my interests, even when they are beyond trite and trivial. It showed me how she'll go out of her way to put a smile on my face. It showed me that she'll lend an ear to my dissertations about the qualities of this or that, and despite her lack of interest, will listen attentively, and build me up in ways I don't deserve (I'm hardly qualified to wax intellectual about most of the topics I choose to step on a soap box about).

Not only did that simple gesture express all of those things, it also revealed something else: she's drank the Kool-Aid. :P

It's been too long since I've seen Predator.

Paul Graham knocks one out of the park with Holding a Program in One's Head.

I've been trying to explain several of Graham's eight suggetsions to Kortney almost since we've been married. Not being a master of the English language, however, I've failed at each attempt. I've never chosen the words Graham uses, after reading each point, my gut jumped, as if saying, "YES! That's what I've been trying to express for years!"

By the end, I was almost cheering. You'll never guess what I've been spending the last two weeks-worth of nights at home doing...

Yesterday I posted an app called Perrier. Today I feel I have the unfortunate responsibility to rename that app. Perrier will now be known as Spangle.

Why the change? It is well known that Perrier is a popular brand of sparkling water. That trademark has been owned by Nestle since the early 90s. It covers several types of beverages, apparel, and various marketing promotions. To my knowledge, it does not cover software (at least, not filed with the USPTO).

On the other hand, Nestle could choose to sue me, and I wouldn't be able to make it to a hearing without going broke. Nestle has not filed a complaint nor contacted me regarding the name, but I'd rather play it safe. I don't think I can afford to put my family at risk over the name of some unfinished software.

I feel like I'm in good company. Apple had to change Rendezvous to Bonjour in 2005. Quinn isn't allowed to mention Tetris.

So Perrier is Spangle. I apologize to the 200 or so people who downloaded Perrier. I'll be able to push a name update out over the appcast, but unfortunately, it won't get rid of your old Perrier app.

Last week a post by Chris Hanson gave me the bright idea to bunker down and write a Mac app from start to finish.

The basic premise is this: several apps now use Sparkle to manage updates. Sparkle makes it incredibly easy to notify users when an update is available. As Chris points out, and I agree, the workflow is all wrong. If I start Vienna and an update is available, I'll get prompted to install the update and restart the program. Now I'm spending my time updating Vienna, when I really just wanted to see if Kortney posted something new.

Chances are likely you have more then one Sparkle-enabled app floating around your Applications folder - if you've bought a Mac recently, you probably at least have Comic Life, which is Sparkle-enabled. Do you really want to open each of those applications and figure out if anything new is available?

That's where PerrierSpangle comes in. PerrierSpangle finds all of your Sparkle-enabled apps, queries them for updates, and presents you with a list of updates which you can choose and install.

"But Jon, I already have AppFresh. Why would I need PerrierSpangle?" you might be thinking. AppFresh relies on the socially driven iUseThis for its version information. While iUseThis is a great site, I would imagine that the application author knows best about their updates. Perrier goes straight to the source, uses the application's built in method for updating, retrieves the update the same way the app would if it was updating itself, and verifies the download's integrity (if specified by the app author). It turns out AppFresh will give preference to Sparkle information if available. Does that invalidate Perrier's usefulness? Of course not! It remains a simple, small footprint app.

If you have a chance (and are OCD about keeping your apps up to date), give PerrierSpangle a try, and don't forget to tell me what you think.

Update: Perrier has been renamed to Spangle.

Some more BeOS links:

• Tales of a BeOS Refugee

  I discovered BeOS and fell in love. Here, for the first time, I found a truly fast and efficient OS, designed from a clean slate to meet the needs of the future of computing, incorporating a raft of modern technologies and design concepts, and which also had a Unix command-line.

• Why BeOS Lost

  BeOS had technically brilliant underpinnings that allowed the user to do amazingly useless things like play eight QuickTime video streams at once and search their hard drive files in a very intelligent way. It was not very good at printing or Web surfing, and it did not enable the user to accomplish anything new.

It may have not done anything new, but it did the old things so well that they seemed new. There's still nothing like it, but Mac OS X keeps getting closer.

A recent Ask Slashdot has brought up a bunch of BeOS nostalgia.

To BeOS users, BeOS is kind of like Bill Brasky: no matter how outlandish the claims, other BeOS users know they're true.