[NSBlog date:@"9 July 2007"].comments = 0;

“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?” - Steve Jobs, during the Macintosh skunk works project. We all know about the MacUpdate bundle. Now, Macheist are taking back what is theirs. They have added Browseback, Exces, exclusive betas and MORE to the bundle if you buy through this link! More extra apps to be announced.

read more | digg story

And yeah, you read right! Exces’ in it, along with 12 other cool apps and 2 betas!

Exces 1.1.2

[NSBlog date:@"9 July 2007"].comments = 0;

Update time: Exces 1.1.2 is out!

This is a minor revision which fixes a small bug and updates the About window (which also had a bug).

LangSwitch

[NSBlog date:@"8 July 2007"].comments = 14;

LangSwitch, or how to test your app’s localization.

One of the things I hate about Cocoa is its localization system. The first time you look at it, it looks really great. I mean, compared to REALBasic, or Java, or even Qt… at least it has one. But, you see, the problem is that sometimes it creates more problem than it solves.Let me explain: say you’re creating an amazing Cocoa app. You develop it in english until you get to a Release Candidate. Now’s the time to localize it… right, you do the job (it’s never pleasant to localize nibs). Ahh, okay done… You release your app!

It’s the “next big thing” and you become rich (or not). With all this fame you get wonderful feedback and even get it localized in 15 different languages. Wow, now’s the time for a 1.1. With all the feedback you’ve got you’ve decided to make a few big UI changes. The thing is, not only do you need to modify your english nib(s), but you also need to make the same changes to every other language’s nibs!!! Alright, since you’ve got no choice, you do it. The thing is: there is a high probability you will make a mistake without noticing (it happened to me once). What then happens is you ship with a faulty localizations, you get lots of weird complain email in Japanese, and… you’re screwed!

The only boring and time-consuming solution is to thoroughly test the new UI in every localization before releasing. This is especially time-consuming as you have to change the language settings in System Preferences every time you want to change the localization.
Also, another downside of this is that it changes your whole computer (well, just your session, but whatever…). I personally don’t really like to use a computer in Chinese…

That’s where LangSwitch comes in… It gives you a simple GUI way to switch the localization for only the app you’re testing. It displays only the localizations avaiable for your app. Here’s an easy way to test your different localizations without the hassle.

Oh, and did I forget to mention… It’s Free!

Update: Excellent LangSwitch review!

Download LangSwitch 1.0.1

Exces 1.1 is out!

[NSBlog date:@"11 January 2007"].comments = 2;

After months of hard work, Exces 1.1 is finally out!

The press release:

SeoSoft releases Exces 1.1

6 January 2007 — SeoSoft today announced the release of version 1.1 of Exces, its popular file encryption software.

What is Exces?

Exces is a tool that lets the users create password-protected vaults.
The ease of use and the attractive interface are Exces’ key features.
Each vault is protected using the same encryption algorithm Apple uses for FileVault - AES 128 - and can currently contain up to 10Gb of data. We are, however, trying to increase this capacity for the next release.
Exces features a password assistant, to help choose strong passwords. It is an exact replica of the password assistant used in Mac OS X’s Keychain Access utility.

Exces is shareware. It is available from the SeoSoft web site (See link at bottom of page) for $14.95 USD.

System Requirements: Any Apple Macintosh or other computer running Mac OS X 10.4.3 up to 10.4.8.

What Other People Have Said About Exces

“I’ve always needed a place to keep my work invoices and logs out of the way of prying eyes and fingers. Exces has fulfilled that need. I can open the Vault file, and there are my files, As easy to access as having them straight in the Finder.” - Malcolm Jarvis

Availability

Exces 1.1 is available now, and may be downloaded through our Web site at .

Contact Information:
Kenneth Ballenegger
SeoSoft Support
Press Contact
World Wide Web

 — -

This is totally unrelated, but important to note. I might be a bit unresponsive these days. While I will always respond to support emails within 24h, I cannot guarantee to respond to anything else this quickly. My only computer’s hard drive just died and I’m left with no backup but my Code’s. As you can imagine this is a difficult situation, and I hope you’ll forgive me for my unavailability.

Yet another summary on MacHeist

[NSBlog date:@"20 December 2006"].comments = 0;

If you read these lines, then you probably already know something has been going on in the mac community. I am, of course, talking about MacHeist.

Well-know bloggers and developers have been going on and on and on and on and on and on about how this sucks. Most have some points, but are completely out of proportion and full of hate (or is it jealousy?).

Now, let’s examine the situation objectively. MacHeist have been selling a software bundle worth more than $300 for 50$. 25% of the profit goes to charity. Participating developers get a flat fee and MH gets most of the money.

There are five groups of people involved in this: The MacHeist team, the buyers, charity, participating developers and non-participating developers.

  1. MacHeist. Wow! they get an estimated $400k – win
  2. Buyers. They get more than 300$ worth of software for less than 50$ – win
  3. Charity. They get $200k they would never have gotten otherwise – win
  4. Participating developers. They get an estimated $10k to $30k PLUS they spread the word and expose their products to tens of thousands of potential customers they would never have been able to reach otherwise. Basically it’s like getting paid for advertising you own products – win
  5. Non-participating developers. The last group are the developers who (like me) either were not offered the opportunity to become involved in MacHeist or who turned it down. Yet those developers still benefit from MacHeist. This event brought huge amounts of attention to mac shareware. Lots of people realized what shareware has to offer and started buying shareware – win

Right, everyone wins. I don’t see the problem. What the heck is everyone complaining about??? MacHeist team get the biggest share of the profit… so what? They did their job, and did it well.

As a message to anyone that thinks Phill is just a nerd kid that sits back in front of his computer, does nothing and enjoys getting rich; You, try and do the same. Good luck, you will need it.

A few other interesting takes on the matter:

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