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software
LaunchBar 4 beta 1
Apr 2nd
ObjectiveDevelopment must be feeling the pressure from Quicksilver: they just released a first beta of upcoming version 4 of LaunchBar. It seems to catch up on what Quicksilver offers but I have yet to look at the details. From the very quick test that I did, Quicksilver still seems one step ahead when it comes to associating actions to found items (very cool). However, LaunchBar now allows you to run scripts and pass parameters to them. It also comes with search engine support built-in.
It’s going to be interesting to see where both products go from here. Despite all the good karma that LaunchBar accumulated over the years for being such an innovative product for so long, I am afraid that Quicksilver will eventually take over its user base. After all, you can difficulty beat the price: it’s free compared to LaunchBar’s $19.95. Moreover, Quicksilver is scheduled to become open-source. This will score it major brownie points and will probably attract a developer community ensuring continued development and fresh ideas infusion. That is, unless LaunchBar once more revolutionizes the way we deal with OS X!
Quicksilver Screenshots
Mar 28th
I decided to post some screenshots (please forgive the formatting, will do better when I have more time to tweak the stylesheet) of Quicksilver in action to go along with Dan’s tutorial:
Quicksilver now has a new version and a manual created by Birthday Girl bsag (via Tao of Mac, via spool).
Browsing iTunes library, iPod-style by invoking Quicksilver and then typing “browse”.
This is how the interface looks after pressing right arrow on the keyboard.
Genre was selected in the previous screen by pressing right arrow again, now about to choose an artist!
This is how browsing music looks like when the Quicksilver interface is set as “Menu”. The previous screenshots were in “Bezel” mode.
Open a file with an app in the “Menu” mode.
Opening an app in “Bezel” mode.
Quicksilver menu.
Liquid metal
Mar 27th
Like everyone and their brother (that last one was the deciding factor), I have given Quicksilver a look… Pretty good so far but I need to play with it some more to decide which I like better: LaunchBar, Quicksilver or Butler. Both Quicksilver and Butler are free (Butler is donationware) and apparently Quicksilver will be open-sourced at some point which is a BIG advantage and makes it an early favorite.
After reading Dan Dickinson’s nice tutorial and having lived with Quicksilver all day long, I have to admit that it won me over. This app is very cool! I have experienced some slow downs once in a while and the app crashed once but apart from that, I’m really happy with it.
LaunchBar has long been the reference, it’s nice to see some competition since it will most certainly foster innovation. I have high hopes the same thing will happen between NetNewsWire and Shrook.
Related (not by much, granted), I am also reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.
7 Seconds from the album The Guide (Wommat) by Youssou N’Dour
Safari trick
Mar 27th
Just discovered that today: drag and drop a link from an app that supports link dragging to an empty spot of the Safari tab bar: the link will open in a new tab! Neat.
Hand The Phone (Appleseed Version) from the album Appleseed Original Soundtrack by Carl Craig vs. Adult
Joy of CPAN on OS X
Mar 18th
So I was trying to install the XML::DOM Perl module from CPAN using MCPAN on OS X (don’t even ask!).
Seems like this post got mangled during the conversion from MovableType to WordPress. The gist of it was that I was making fun of the XML::DOM test suite which was reporting way more errors than tests run for an outrageous failure percentage. Obviously, the error messages were less than helpful but it turned out as persisten.info explains that you need to install Expat before attempting to install XML::DOM
I found a cached version of the post on Yahoo!. Here it is:
So I was trying to install the XML::DOM Perl module from CPAN using MCPAN on OS X (don’t even ask!). The results:
Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- t/build_dom.t 2 512 2 3 150.00% 1-2 t/dom_astress.t 2 512 4 7 175.00% 1-4 t/dom_attr.t 2 512 23 45 195.65% 1-23 t/dom_cdata.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_documenttype.t 2 512 1 1 100.00% 1 t/dom_encode.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_example.t 2 512 5 9 180.00% 1-5 t/dom_extent.t 2 512 1 1 100.00% 1 t/dom_jp_astress.t 2 512 4 7 175.00% 1-4 t/dom_jp_attr.t 2 512 23 45 195.65% 1-23 t/dom_jp_cdata.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_jp_example.t 2 512 5 9 180.00% 1-5 t/dom_jp_minus.t 2 512 2 3 150.00% 1-2 t/dom_jp_modify.t 2 512 16 31 193.75% 1-16 t/dom_jp_print.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_minus.t 2 512 2 3 150.00% 1-2 t/dom_modify.t 2 512 16 31 193.75% 1-16 t/dom_noexpand.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_print.t 2 512 3 5 166.67% 1-3 t/dom_template.t 2 512 2 3 150.00% 1-2 t/dom_text.t 2 512 5 9 180.00% 1-5 Failed 21/21 test scripts, 0.00% okay. 129/129 subtests failed, 0.00% okay. make: *** [test_dynamic] Error 2 /usr/bin/make test -- NOT OKOH REALLY? The tests are NOT OK? I’d say as much when you try to run 23 tests and fail 45 times for 195.65% of failure!!
The laugh was welcome at the time… especially because I found the article mentionned above not long after running into that little test problem…
Spoken Interface
Mar 16th
Really interesting stuff: not only will it help users but it will also help developers make their interface more accessible by providing them with an easy way to check the accessibility of their applications.
I remember having said more interesting stuff here but MoveableType shitty comment erasing interface resulted in the text of this post being replaced by the text of the comment I was trying to erase. This post has thus been re-created from memory.
Affrus
Mar 15th
First let me just put it out there: what’s in a name?
Affrus is a Perl IDE for OS X. Since I was assigned some Perl work today (my first “development” assignment in a long while), I decided to take it for a spin. I have to admit that I am not a heavy Perl user even though I can write scripts when I need to. Thus, I might not be the best qualified person to review this application.
That said, I found it pretty useful especially to help me refresh my Perl knowledge: debugging is really useful as is fast evaluation of expressions. The editor has some quirks (selection does not behave like common OS X apps) so it takes some time to get used to it.
I have used it only for a limited amount of time but I can already see its usefulness. All in all, it would be a product I would definitely consider buying if I was a heavier Perl user. However, I don’t use Perl often enough right now to justify paying $99 for it…
Violent from the album Danse Macabre by The Faint.
Delicious
Mar 15th
I created an account on del.icio.us but I still haven’t decided how to use it. I have been toying with the idea for a while and I finally did it today. I think that playing with the REST API will be most interesting.
Cars pass in cold blood by The Faint on Indie Pop rocks!
I hate I.E.
Mar 11th
I have spent several hours trying to fix a CSS layout so that the site I was working on would look good on the different browsers. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t make my layout work in I.E. (that’s Mac I.E. 5.2.2) regardless of what I was doing. Turned out that it seemed to have cached the stylesheet in such a way that reloading (even using the “press shift while reloading” trick) didn’t flush it. Restarting was the only option! Once I figured this out, fixing the stylesheet was really easy. <sigh>
