I was listening to Gruber's podcast the other day, and they mentioned the blue screen that appears for Leopard users after an upgrade. They attributed this to a bit of software that might have been installed (can't remember what the name is) which can get itself installed so that it can be used by another programme, like the Logitec mouse software. Not sure if anyone knows what I'm talking about, but if anyone's got any links or whatever regarding this could you please drop by and tell me what the deal is, because it's really annoying to have to wait 10 minutes sometimes for the system to get itself going again. I don't have a Logitec mouse (although that's another post for another time) so that's not the problem.
Nothing new to add to the general conversation of redesigned website to be honest just that this is what has been going on with my thought process lately (ok from yesterday). I've been sitting on a redesign for the 'Kode for many months now. It's been going on for so long that it's kind of embarrassing to talk about. So much so that I kept flitting back and forth between designs last year in an attempt to get my act together.
However what I've gone and done now is gone back to the design I'm most proud of, from both a functional point of view but also from a code base. It's a solid and relatively light code base which I'm pretty happy with. There are somethings that I know I can do better with however I don't have the energy to start from scratch and don't want to dive into someone else's code really, especially as I want to be able to tweak this to suit my own needs completely.
So I'm going to be tweaking and adding something new to this site every day. Some of the tweaks may be pretty drastic to be honest, while others will be less than obvious. I'll bring the copy in my static pages up to speed. I'll sort out some links that are dead. I'll start to sort out my categories properly and generally bring the design in an evolutionary method to where I want it to be.
I'm through with these drastic redesigns, maybe a slow burn approach will present me with something that I find more enjoyable to use, as my enthusiasm for writing is directly linked to the look of my site. So if you're reading this on your feed reader, you might want to check the site from time to time to try and spot the differences.
It's not a question of getting everything right the first time out, it's a question of slowly evolving and adding and tweaking in a methodical and periodic fashion.
In a word, RUBBISH. The newest MacHeist is up and running and basically it's a really poor showing this time around. See the last time was an AMAZING collection of applications that included Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. This time around you have some of the same applications and a few random new ones as well, but NO killer application.
Don't get me wrong I REALLY rate Awaken, use it every day, I really like Coversutra, use that every day (tried using Cha-Ching but couldn't really get to grips with it at all); crucially all three of these applications were in the previous MacHeist that was held not 3 months ago. What is the application in that bundle that would make you excited? Seriously? It's not there. Unless they start adding some good stuff, there is no way that this Heist will be as good as the previous one and for good reason. Who exactly are they trying to get on board on this?
On a personal note, there is really no application out there that I want, apart from maybe a better FTP application (there are a couple of good ones knocking about but I've not decided which one i should go for) and a better torrent client (transmission is doing exactly what I want and the development is constant so hopefully there'll get some basic UI issues sorted out and add being able to search and add torrents from within the application itself and I won't need a new torrent client either).
FontStruct is a website that lets you create fonts using an EXCELLENT flash interface right from within the website. You don't have to start from scratch as it's even possible to clone another font that has already been created and modify it to your needs. What I love about all of this is the option to actually control EVERYTHING about an particular project straight away, down to the font. Having created a font years ago, I know how difficult it is to keep your house in order. The interface on FontStruct keeps things organised for you to actually put more effort into the creative process. Now the issue of course is that it might not seem as flexible of being able to come up with any font design you can, but honestly I think for the average hobbyist that might not be an issue really. If you really get into it, then I guess you can start learning how to do it from scratch...although having said that, I have NO IDEA what the standard tool for font creation is nowadays? Font Constructor looks pretty cool. Also there is a pretty extensive list about the different programmes available (even talks about FontStruct).
Elsewhere.brokenkode.com (powered by Asaph) is a an images dumping ground for things that inspire me and has been up and running for a week or so. I'll hopefully get around to skinning this as well, but I've got to say that Dominic really did a good job on this little application and can't wait to see future iterations.