Rocket Plumes

infiniteNIL News Blog

2007-01-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

I've created a new blog on the infiniteNIL site specifically for infiniteNIL News. So for news about infiniteNIL and its products, go to http://www.infinitenil.com/blog. If you have subscribed to the Atom feed of this blog you will now need to subscribe to the feed of the new blog. This blog will continue as well, but I will only write about things not related to infiniteNIL.

On a technical note, the new blog uses WordPress. I've wanted to add categories to my blog for a long time and the new Blogger beta supported that but not for a blog with FTP publishing which I used. WordPress gives me what I want and more control. I will be switching this blog over to WordPress as well.

Downtime

2007-01-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that the infinitenil.com website has been done for a few days. I didn't notice it till tonight. I've been working on having an infiniteNIL specific blog and I messed things up. Sorry about that.

Developer Preview of RubyCocoa 0.90

2006-12-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is good news. Follow the link above to find out about the changes happening to RubyCocoa. It has jumped from 0.50 to 0.90 and the changes are good. And with RubyCocoa being included in Leopard and with Apple giving it support, RubyCocoa is on its way up.

MacSanta

2006-12-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

As a Christmas present to all, infiniteNIL is participating in the MacSanta promotion. So now's your chance to get PackRat at 20% off as well as PhoneWord. Just enter the coupon MACSANTA when you purchase. Merry Christmas!

Basecamp Client: Any Interest?

2006-12-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm considering developing a client for Basecamp similar to PackRat. If you'd be interested in such a product, let me know. I'd also like to know what you think it should do and what features it should have. I think this product has even more potential than PackRat and I'd love to get some feedback.

Freddy Adu is coming to Salt Lake

2006-12-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

Freddy Adu, the teenage soccer star of the MSL, has been traded from D.C. United to my local team, Real Salt Lake. This is great news. Freddy hasn't received much playing time in D.C., but of the little time he has had, he has shown flashes of brilliance. In Salt Lake, I'm sure he'll receive all the playing time he wants and we'll see him grow into a true superstar. I know I'll be going to some Real Salt Lake games next year.

PackRat 0.94: Now with reminders

2006-12-01T11:40:00.001-07:00

I just released PackRat 0.94. The big thing for this release is
editing reminders. Now you can add, delete, and edit your reminders.
A lot of people have been waiting for this and I hope you like it.

At this point in PackRat existence, you can now view and edit all
your Backpack data, with the exception of your Backpack calendars. We
are very near a 1.0 release. All that remains is to polish up some
things.

Going forward I want PackRat to take full advantage of the the Mac
platform. This means things like Spotlight support, Applescript
support, Address Book and iCal integration, iPod syncing, and
whatever else makes sense. I love the Mac and want to take full
advantage of the platform. That is why PackRat is Mac only.

I also want to add things that Backpack doesn't do right now. Things
like searching and deleting all completed list items and anything
else you and I can think of to make it more fun and easier to use.

I've also decided that releases past 1.0 will continue to be free
updates. The price of PackRat is meant to reflect its potential to
take advantage of the Mac platform and it hasn't done that yet. Until
I think it has, updates will continue to be free. If you haven't
purchased a license yet, I encourage you do so and support me in this
endeavor. You will get your money's worth and if enough of you do, I
will have more time to make PackRat better and in less time.
Eventually, I will be able to write other applications that you and
others will enjoy.

Enjoy editing your reminders offline.

PackRat Screencast

2006-11-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

I just found a great little screencast that somebody did for PackRat. It's a little out of date but still good. It's great to see people doing things like this and finding PackRat useful. Check it out here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

PackRat 0.93 - Automatic Uploading

2006-11-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've just released PackRat 0.93. The big new thing is automatic uploads. Whenever you make a change, PackRat will automatically upload the change to Backpack, as long as you are connected to the internet. If you are not connected, it will wait till you are connected and then upload them.

I really like how it works and I don't need to manually sync anymore. Of course, I always use PackRat. If you sometimes enter your data directly on Backpack, then you will have to sync to download the data to PackRat. I'll address this in a later release.

I also put back some shortcuts for viewing reminders and synchronizing and fixed a few bugs. For a detailed list, see the release notes in the help.

Enjoy!

PackRat 0.92

2006-10-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

I've just released version 0.92. This one fixes some annoying bugs
that have been found and I felt it was important to get some fixes
out to them as soon as possible. So, no, automatic syncing isn't in
this one. However, I have made some work on it and it should be in
the next one. I have added one feature though, and that is automatic
update checking. PackRat will now check for a new version at startup
and tell you about it if there is one.

As for bug fixes, if you've had problem with PackRat crashing when
you try to copy or paste then you should get this version. I also
fixed a few bugs with syncing after reordering a list. A bug fix that
I'm happy to release and that has been bothering some of you for
quite some time is now here. If you've had problems with typing in
your username and API key in the preferences window and it not saving
and not syncing then you need this fix.

Download it and give it a try.

PackRat and Modems

2006-10-20T12:34:00.000-06:00

I'd like to know if any PackRat users are using plain old dial up with a modem to sync their data. If so, drop me a line. One user has said that PackRat hangs when he does this but works fine on a high speed connection. I don't have access to a modem at this point but did try it with a bluetooth modem and it worked fine. So, if you're having success the "old fashioned way", please let me know. Or if you're having problems with that, let me know too. Thanks.

PackRat: Now with List Reordering

2006-10-13T10:12:00.000-06:00

I just released PackRat v0.91. It adds a feature that a lot of you have been asking for: List reording.

When you want to reorder your lists just press cmd-R or select Reorder Lists from the Action button or the Edit menu.

PackRat 0.901 and On

2006-10-06T16:36:00.000-06:00

I made a small release last night that fixed a few bugs. The main change is that now SSL is tried first when syncing. This was to provide extra security because Backpack would let some requests go through without SSL even when SSL was turned on.

The next release will feature something many users have been waiting for: List reordering. I'm currently testing it and putting on the finishing touches. If you'd like to beta test it, then just let me know.

Next on the list is automatic syncing. Manual syncing is bugging me and I'm sure it's bugging you. If you have any ideas about auto syncing or things you'd like to see, then please send me an email.

PackRat 0.9

2006-09-06T13:57:00.000-06:00

I've just released PackRat v0.9. This one is just some bug fixes that have been bugging you. The big one is a bug that caused PackRat to have connection problems when you changed your Backpack password. So, if you've been having problems with this, download the new version. Other fixes are: resizing the tags browser no longer causes a crash, you can create notes without titles, and the Edit Page sheet is now resizable and its initial size is larger so you can see more of your page body.

My Hero

2006-09-03T23:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday and this morning has been pretty emotional for me. You see, yesterday was the last tournament, last match, and last day of the tennis career of Andre Agassi, my hero.

Andre Agassi has been a shining example to all of us, how we can become a better person, no matter what our standing in life. Andre has probably had it all most of his life. He could have just sit back and cruised the rest of his life and had fun. Yet, he chose to become a better tennis player, a better person, and make the world a better place. He has shown us that life is not about the wins or the trophies. It's about the journey you take, the decisions you make, and the work and time that you put in that enable you to earn those wins, those trophies. And it is about making the choice that life is about more than just you and your personal wins. It's about the worlds' wins. Its about making the world better, not just yourself.

We have seen the last of Andre Agassi on a tennis court, but we have not seen the last of Andre Agassi. His true greatness has just begun. He will continue to be my favorite tennis player, my role model, and my hero.

micro ISV Incubation

2006-08-27T16:06:00.000-06:00

I've had this idea for a while now and it come up again the other day. I think we need some kind of investment in micro ISVs to help incubate them. My idea is to have an investor agree to pay a micro ISV a fixed amount of money each month. This would be a minimum amount that would cover the developer's monthly expenses. This way the developer could be freed up to pursue their idea full time without doing such things as contracting out their services to make money. As it stands now, I work 4 days a week to make money to live on and dedicate one day a week to work on my products. This is a loss for me right now and it doesn't yet pay for itself, but it will eventually. I have lots of other ideas I'd like to work on and I'd like to devote more time to my current project. I can't do it. Imagine if their was an investor or some kind of union or association of micro ISVs that would provide this funding. Obviously there would have to be a limit on the total funds or the length of time funds are provided. And there would have to be some kind of return on investment for investors. If the details could be ironed out and some kind of system like this put in place, I think a lot more micro ISV could be started and be successful and eventually become full software companies.

Maria Sharapova Nike Commerical

2006-08-24T08:03:00.000-06:00

I just bet Maria loves this commercial. I know I do. I love the McEnroe brothers singing "I feel pretty". Wouldn't it be great to see them in a booth together announcing a game.

Why You Need PackRat

2006-08-23T11:32:00.000-06:00

Even the big guy's web apps go down. Nobody can guarantee 100% availability of your data.

PackRat 0.88: Create and Delete Pages

2006-08-20T18:10:00.000-06:00

I just released a new version of PackRat. This one adds the ability to create and delete pages. Create pages with the New Page command under the Backpack menu or the Action toolbar button, or the + button at the bottom of the page list. Delete pages with the delete this page link on a page or by pressing the delete or backspace key, or by pressing the - button at the bottom of the page list.

I've also added an Activity Viewer for help in tracking down those Backpack commnication problems and there are a few bug fixes. For more details check out the release notes in PackRat Help.

We're getting close to full editing. All I need to do is add the ability to reorder your lists and add support for editing reminders.

PackRat 0.87: Links

2006-08-04T09:28:00.000-06:00

I finally got a new release out. I've been having too much fun on the weekends playing tennis and baseball and hanging out with friends.

Anyway, the main event of this release is the addition of link editing. Now there is a New Link command on the action menu and the Backpack menu for creating a link on a new page. There's an Add link link on a page with existing links. And of course, you can delete links and links are included in synchronization. A nice touch is that you can drag a page in the page list to another page to create a link. There's a few bug fixes as well. Check the release notes for the details.

Agenda Redux

2006-07-02T16:03:00.000-06:00

I've been involved in another project for awhile and I wanted to tell you about it. The project is Agenda Redux. Basically, we are creating a new version of Lotus Agenda for the web. My friend Sonjaya Tandon started up the project and ask me to be a part of it. Recreating something like Agenda is something I've wanted to do for awhile, so I had to be a part of it. Sonjaya used to work on Agenda when he worked for Lotus and we worked together in Park City. Plus, we're doing it in Ruby on Rails, so that's bonus. I invite you to google Lotus Agenda and find out what it's about. No personal information manager since has been able to do what Agenda could do. People still use it and go to great lengths to get an old text based UI application running under Windows, Linux, OS X, you name it. That's how good it is. Check it out and follow the Agenda Redux project. We're still in the early stages, but things are moving along nicely.

Superman Returns

2006-07-02T15:55:00.000-06:00

I saw Superman Returns this weekend. It was very good and I'd call it one of the most fun movies I've seen in awhile. It was awesome to see Superman do his thing with the latest special effects. Also, it's refreshing to see a movie where the hero is a true hero. There are no shades of grey with Superman. He tries to do the right thing all the time and behave in respectful, polite manner. Call it corny, or whatever, but I found it refreshing. I like my heroes to be ideal. Especially Superman.

PackRat 0.86: Tags

2006-07-02T15:52:00.000-06:00

I just released PackRat 0.86. This version adds tag editing. You can now add tags to your pages and edit them offline, and they will be sent up to Backpack when you sync. The full release notes are now accessed via the Help command.

PackRat 0.851

2006-06-19T09:07:00.000-06:00

Well, I released the new images feature a little too soon. Turns out I was displaying the full image rather than a thumbnail image from the Backpack site. This was really slowing things down for pages with lots of images. So here's another release to fix this issue and a few others. Here's the info:

Bug Fixes

- Wasn't using thumbnails to display images. This really slowed things down.
- image descriptions now support markup
- Pages wouldn't display if the note titles were empty

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when dragging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Backpack API Bug: Problems syncing pages with unicode characters, HTML/XML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache
- image thumbnails are not cached in images section

PackRat 0.85

2006-06-18T10:09:00.000-06:00

PackRat 0.85 has been released. Some good bug fixes in this one. If you've had problems uploading your changes to Backpack, there's a good chance this release will fix that. Another hilight is that you can now see your files and attachments on a page. You have to be online to access, but you can see what's there. Here's the info:

New Features

- Now displays a page's files. You must be online to access them
- Now displays a page's images. You must be online to access them.

Bug Fixes

- List and note titles were not converting markup to HTML
- Tables now have borders in the page body
- Wasn't escaping XML characters on page before uploading to Backpack. This was causing sync errors, often reported as a can't login error.
- Now will handle uploading changes to a page that has been deleted in Backpack
- No longer hangs when you sync and the selected page no longer exists
- Backpack API Bug: Setting page body or note body to empty results in body being
set to --- !ruby/hash:HashWithIndifferentAccess {}. Implemented workaround

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when draging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Backpack API Bug: Problems syncing pages with "bad" characters, HTML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache

PackRat mention in the Grantonian

2006-06-16T13:04:00.000-06:00

A high school news web site has a review of software for students who want to get organized. They mention PackRat along with Yojimbo and VoodooPad. Both are excellent applications and its great to be mentioned with them. Check out the review here.

Baseball Card Software

2006-06-09T23:02:00.000-06:00

I recently decided to get my baseball card collection in order. I did a quick search for software on the Mac and didn't really see anything I liked. Anybody have any software they'd recommend? How many of you would like to see a nice Baseball card collection application for the Mac? Maybe I'll write one. Something like Delicious Library only for Card collecting.

PackRat 0.84 Build 220

2006-06-04T13:27:00.000-06:00

I've just released PackRat 0.84. Mostly bug fixes, but now you can create notes and lists on a new page. You couldn't do that before. You were stuck doing it in Backpack. Here's the info:

New Features

_ New menu commands to add lists and notes. This also allows adding the first list and note to a page.
_ New Action toolbar button. Pulls up menu of common actions. So far there is new list and new note.

Bug Fixes

- UTF-8 characters such as British pound, etc. would cause Edit links to not appear
- The title field on the note and page sheet wasn't always selected when the sheet is first displayed.
- If you entered two new notes the first note would take on the text of the second note

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when draging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Problems syncing pages with "bad" characters, HTML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache
- Backpack API Bug: Setting page body or note body to empty results in body being set to --- !ruby/hash:HashWithIndifferentAccess {}. Workaround is to blank out the body using Backpack.

PackRat 0.83: Edit Pages

2006-05-29T10:37:00.000-06:00

I've released a new version of PackRat. Version 0.83, build 206. Here's the info:

New Features

_ Delete emails
_ Better reporting of uploading errors
_ Edit the page title and body
_ Rename a page by double clicking on it the list of pages

Bug Fixes

_ Now removes reminders that no longer exist when syncing
_ Pressing return in the title field of the note sheet didn't close the dialog
_ Sync error if you created a new list then added a new item to the list

Known Bugs

_ Tags browser causes crash when draging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
_ Help needs finishing
_ Problems syncing pages with "bad" characters, HTML tags, or quotes in titles
_ Images are not loaded if not in cache

Working Vacation

2006-05-22T08:32:00.000-06:00

I spent last week in Colorado visiting my parents. The drive out and the drive back took away two days that I usually have to work on PackRat. I did get a little work done on PackRat, but I'm not ready to release anything. Maybe next weekend.

I went to a Rockies game and saw my Dodgers beat the Rockies 3-2, thanks to a game winning hit by Nomar Garciaparra. And tonight is the series finale of Alias. Should be good. I think we actually met Milo Rambaldi last week.

Alias is so back!

2006-05-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Too bad it's down to its last two episodes. This last episodes constraint has got the writers back in shape. I always loved season one where Sydney was a double agent. It's is rarely portrayed and it creates so much drama and tension. When SD-6 was destroyed, that all went away. Well, now it's back for the last few episodes. Sydney is going under cover again and if you thought being a double agent was complicated, try this. Sydney is pretending to be Anna Espinosa who was pretending to be Sydney. It's awesome baby!

Edit your Notes! PackRat 0.82

2006-05-07T20:06:00.000-06:00

PackRat 0.82 (build 195) has been released. Here's the info:

New Features

You can now add, edit, and delete notes

Bug Fixes

Wasn't properly displaying alert when you need to update the PackRat database.

Scroll bars no longer scroll to top of page after making an edit.

Released! PackRat 0.8. Editing has begun

2006-04-29T10:55:00.000-06:00

I just released PackRat v0.8 (build 187). The much awaited editing functionality has started to arrive. Here's the info:

New Features

View->Home command and Home toolbar item

Now downloads information about images and files (but doesn't display them yet)

Lists are now editable. Add new items and new lists. edit them, delete them. Then sync with Backpack and your changes are uploaded

Inline images (not attached images) are now displayed, but only if they are in your cache.

Bug Fixes

Backpack doesn't properly escape list titles and PackRat now does a better job at reporting these sync errors due to quotes and html tags in titles

The Close Window command is back.

I found another sync problem when SSL is turned on. If you've been having problems syncing that I haven't been able to help you with, I think this fixed might have done the trick.

Known Bugs

Tags browser can crash PackRat when dragging sizer

Help needs finishing

Still problems when syncing pages with "bad" characters, and HTML tags or quotes in titles

Inline images are not displayed properly if not in cache

PackRat Update

2006-04-25T18:00:00.000-06:00

I'm really close to a release. I was hoping to get one out last weekend, but the weather was nice and I was having too much fun. I just need to do a little more testing and then I'll release it. You can't edit everything yet, but you can edit your lists. I've decided to release editing features as I go. I'm not excited about the UI, but I can tweak that later. The important thing is to get the editing functionality into your hands, because you need it.

How much for a Cocoa developer?

2006-04-25T17:55:00.000-06:00

I've been doing Cocoa development on OS X for about the last 3 years in Salt Lake. There doesn't seem to be a lot of Cocoa development going on in Utah. If you know of some, I'd love to hear about it. I'd also like to know what hourly rate Cocoa developers are making. I make most of my income doing Cocoa contract work and I sometimes feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick here in Utah. It's great to work in Cocoa and I enjoy my client's project but it would be nice to make something comparable to what I could make doing boring Java work. So, if you know what Cocoa developers are making, let me know. And if you need some Cocoa work done, let me know. Ruby on Rails work as well.

One Week To Go

2006-04-11T18:40:00.000-06:00

As most of my friends know, Alias is my favorite show. It hasn't been great the last few years but I still get a kick out of it. The first episode in ages is coming out next week and I'm getting excited. Nothing excites me more on TV than seeing an Alias promo or the start of another episode. Hopefully, the writers have done their job and Alias will have a proper finish to its run. I will always remember Season 1 as simply my favorite show ever.

Sydney! Run!

and wait for me :)

PackRat Update

2006-04-11T18:34:00.000-06:00

More progress on editing. Now you can edit items and delete them. Don't quite like the UI for this though. So, I still need to improve that. I made some improvements to the code that should make writing the rest of the editing code a lot better.

I still want to make sure the database format is complete going forward as well. This isn't necessarily critical as you can easily just delete your local database and then sync to do a database conversion. However, you could lose local edits that you've made if you don't first upload them to Backpack before deleting your local database.

I'd really like to get some feedback here. Would you rather see me release PackRat with editing features as I go along or would you rather see me get everything done first before you see a new release?

Blog of Note?

2006-04-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

For some reason Blogger listed me on their Blog of Note list after my West Wing post. It's the first time I've ever mentioned the West Wing on my blog. Is that why my blog is of note? What about the PackRat posts? If somebody from Blogger knows what the deal is, I'm curious.

The West Wing Election Tonight

2006-04-02T14:20:00.000-06:00

The West Wing is one of my favorite shows and is in its last season. I'm really enjoying it. Tonight is the election night on the show. I predict Santos will win. I'm also looking forward to seeing Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe's character) again. The West Wing lost a little when he went away. I don't know if he is on tonight, but he will be in some upcoming episode.

PackRat Progress

2006-04-02T14:13:00.000-06:00

No release this week, but I'm making progress on editing. So far you can check/uncheck list items and create new ones. I'm currently working on a good interface for editing and deleting list items. Uploading these changes works as well, but I want to work with it myself to make sure I get the bugs, minimize database changes going forward, etc. It's going fairly slowly, but remember I only have the weekends to work on this and it's fairly involved. If you'd like to see it done faster, just buy a license. The more income I get from PackRat licenses, then the less time I need to spend making money from other sources. I'd much rather spend my time on PackRat.

PackRat 0.7 (build 164)

2006-03-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

I just released a new version of PackRat today. It adds the following new features:

- A new application icon
- Your home page and the reminders page are now at the top of the page list
- There is now a Reminders toolbar item
- There is now a Backpack toolbar item
- Added View->Reminders command
- The content of the emails on a page can now be viewed in a window
- A page's email address is now displayed

and fixes these bugs:

- Better handling and reporting of errors during sync.
- Completed list items are now displayed in the correct order
- URLs on a page are now turned into links, just like Backpack does

Overall, mostly some more polish. My next step is to start work on editing. This could be tricky, so you may not get a release next week, or even the week after that. But, I'm excited about starting it, and looking forward to using it, as I know you are too.

Behringer V-Amp2 for Sale

2006-03-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to raise some money, so I'm selling off some stuff. First on the block is a Behringer electric guitar amp. For the specs on this, click here. I'm asking $100. It's a great amp for the money and it barely used. If you're interested, send me an email.

New release of PackRat (v0.60, build 153)

2006-03-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've posted a new release of PackRat (0.60, build 153). The one new feature I added is that PackRat is now a Universal application! The other changes are bug fixes to syncing. Notes, emails, links, and tags that have been deleted in Backpack are not deleted locally when you sync.

I had to update the data file format so you'll have to delete it and resync with Backpack, but PackRat tells you what you need to do.

RubyCocoa Presentation for BYU RUG

2006-03-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

We interrupt the current "All PackRat All The Time" theme for this blog for an announcement. This Wednesday (March 8th), I'll be driving down to Provo to give my Ruby Cocoa presentation to the BYU Ruby Users Group. I'll probably have some repeat visitors from URUG, but it will interesting to meet some more Ruby people interested in Cocoa.

For some reason, the folks down in Provo seem to be a little more interested in non mainstream technologies like Ruby, NeXT (in its day) and hence Cocoa, etc. I wonder why that is? As a University of Utah alumni, that bothers me a bit. Are the Utes turning out Java, .NET lemmings? The answer is probably another post, but you can look at Alan Kay and his talk entitled "Are Computer Science and Software Engineering Oxymorons?". He gave this talk at the University of Utah last month and I found it quite interesting.

PackRat 0.53

2006-03-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

I've posted a new release of PackRat (0.53, build 139). This one is a
bug fix release. Some of you were having problems with syncing. Those
problem should be gone now. Here's a list of fixes:

- Sync was failing when the page body had illegal UTF-8 characters

- Sync was failing with the message 'emailAddress is a required
value' or 'multiple validation errors'. This was caused by the
Backpack API returning links to pages that no longer exist.

- Sync was failing when the XML response from the Backpack API
contained HTML that was unescaped causing an XML parse
error. Now we tidy up the XML before we try to parse it.

- List and list items are now all displayed and in order. Completed
list items are displayed but out of order

There are some more bug fixes coming, but these were the big ones
that were getting in people's ways. If you've been having problems,
download the new version. it should solve your problems.

PackRat in TUAW

2006-02-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

PackRat is mentioned in The Unoffical Apple Weblog

PackRat in Backpack Weblog

2006-02-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

The latest entry in the Backpack weblog is about PackRat! Thanks Jason.

New release of PackRat (v0.50, build 128M)

2006-02-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded a new version of PackRat. With this version (0.50), you can now see and navigate your tags. I also fixed a bug that sometimes show the reminders out of order.

You can now see all your data and navigate your pages via links and tags. Now comes a little more polish and some bug fixes and then I'll start adding the ability to edit some of your data while your offline.

If you find a new bug and are helpfull in providing me with information that helps me fix it, I just might very well give you a free license.

New Release of PackRat (v0.40, build 116)

2006-02-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded a new version of PackRat. With this version (0.40), you can now see your reminders. I also fixed a bug that broke syncing with accounts that have SSL enabled. So now all of you with SSL can start using PackRat.

The only thing left before you can view everything is to add support for tags. You can already see the tags for a page, but I will be adding support for seeing all the pages with a certain tag and navigating your tags.

New Release of PackRat (v0.3, build 110)

2006-02-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded a new version of PackRat. This version (0.3) adds the following new features:

- Each page now has a Notes section
- Each page now has an Emails section
- You must now have a license to view all your pages. Without a license you can
   see your home page, the reminders page, and the first 4 pages.

Also the following bugs were fixed:

- PackRat wouldn't accept your license key
- Dates from Backpack were interpreted in local time zone instead of GMT.
   You'll need to delete your data file (~/Library/Application
    Support/PackRat/PackRatData) before syncing to see the correct dates.
- No longer displays Lists section if no items
- Fix bug in checking to see if you have the latest version
- Fixed bug where clicking on links open web page in PackRat rather than
   the default browser

At this point you can see all your data except your Reminders. So we're nearing a 1.0 release, hence the requirement now for a license. Download it and let me know what you think.

PackRat is Staring to Sell

2006-02-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

PackRat is starting to sell! I'm only a one person shop so I can't afford to work on it full time. By purchasing a license you help fund it's development and motivate me to keep improving it. I really want to make this a product that everybody will find very useful. Then, hopefully, enough of you will find it worth purchasing and I will be able to work on PackRat full time to bring it to its fullest potential. Thanks to all of you who have bought PackRat and showed their support.

New release of PackRat (build 90)

2006-02-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded a new version of PackRat. This version adds the following:

The Links section and the links can be used to navigate your pages.

Pages look very similar to how they look on Backpack

The Reminders Page no longer looks like a normal page

Overall, I've made some architectural changes that will make it easier for me to go forward and add some features I'm planning.

Download and check it out. Your lists and links are fully operational (remember though, that everything is view only. No editing will be supported till a much later version).

New version of ICal module

2006-01-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

While preparing for my URUG presentation tonight, I found that my ICal Ruby module now longer worked under Tiger. I found the that the location of the files had changed and that the .ics files had changed into XML. So I've corrected this and put a new link up in the Developers section of the infiniteNIL website. The old version is still available as well.

RubyCocoa for URUG

2006-01-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm giving a presentation on RubyCocoa at URUG tonight. Basically it's the same presentation I gave at O'Reilly's Mac Dev 2003 conference, but brought up to date. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Ruby guys think about Cocoa. I think they'll find it exciting.

I'll be giving the same presentation at the BYU Ruby group in February.

PackRat and the Deafening Silence

2006-01-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought I would hear from somebody after my PackRat announcement. I see that the announcement has been seen in the Backpack forums but no one has replied to it, or sent me an email or, joined the discussion group. I guess everybody is underwhelmed. I realize it is not finished but it does show promise and I believe many of you have been asking for an offline backpack. What's the deal? Are you all using something besides Mac OS X? Would you like to see a Windows or Linux version? I'd love to hear what you think and what you'd like to see. And if you'd like to see something sooner than later, that would be interesting and useful too.

My work continues...

PackRat and Knapsack

2006-01-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to talk about PackRat and Knapsack, which is Ben Stiglitz's project that is similar to PackRat. In the past, if I saw someone release a project that I was working on, I might have dropped it, but I now have a different opinion. Having two products in the backpack market simply reinforces that there is a market for an offline Backpack and having more than one choice is good for that market and good for the customers. It's not may the best product win, but that both Ben and I win, and ultimately, you, the customer win. So Ben, I hope you're not too miffed or disappointed in my announcement and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Introducing PackRat

2006-01-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

I've released my second app and it's called PackRat. You can find out more about it here.

For those of you tuning in to this blog from the Backpack forums, I wanted to say a few things. Normally, I would completely finish an app before releasing it. Ben Stiglitz provided one stimulus to release it earlier and I'll say more about that in another post. But mostly I've been reading a lot and thinking about how companies relate to their customers. I've worked for large companies and I've been a customer of large companies. Generally I don't like either one. I've read the Cluetrain Manifesto and opinions of other independent developers and I've come to agree with them. So, I've decided that with PackRat it would be better to have a "conversation" with my customers and to release PackRat now, so you can actually use it (because you need it now) and together we can create an application that you will want. At the same time we're open with each other and build trust with each other.

I hope you find PackRat beneficial and I look forward to our "conversations".

Bill Gates: He's not bad

2005-12-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw a news piece on Mr. Gates that really gave me some admiration for him. They were naming him and his wife people of the year for giving away more money faster than anyone ever has. He has given away almost 1/3 of his wealth and if I'm not mistaken, has plans to give it all away. He's having a tremendous impact in third world countries and in funding scientific research. It brought a tear to my eye. Much as I dislike Microsoft and love Apple, Bill Gates is doing quite a wonderful thing. He's an extremely wealthy man, but his corporation is even more wealthy. Most large corporations are. Just imagine if Mr. Gates and other CEOs made it a priority for their companies to give back a little. Say just 10% of their profits. Imagine the positive change that would make in the world. It would be awesome.

PhoneWord is Getting Some Publicity

2005-12-12T11:56:00.001-07:00

It looks like PhoneWord is finally getting some publicity. The Unofficial Apple Weblog just posted an entry about it. Hurray!

Firefox Uses Less Memory Than Safari

2005-12-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

I read Jamis Buck's post on Returning to FireFox and decided to give it a try myself. I'm liking it. It's seems faster and most importantly for me it doesn't seem to be a memory hog like Safari. Safari seems to have a bad memory leak. I tend to leave my browser open all the time and with Safari my memory just keeps filling up and as soon as I quit, lots of memory is freed up. Firefox seems to be nice and steady.

Carrot Pecan Pie

2005-11-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here's my mom's recipe for a great pie. I would much rather have it than pumpkin pie.

2 cups cooked pureed carrots
2 beaten eggs
1- 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (1-1/4 cups)
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
Dash salt
1 unbaked pie shell (9")
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
1 cup pecans

Cook carrots and puree, cool.
In large bowl combine eggs, condensed milk, spice, and salt.
Add carrots, mix well.
Turn into pastry shell.
In small bowl combine brown sugar and butter/margarine.
Stir in pecans.
Sprinkle evenly over pie.
Bake 375 degrees for about 60 min. or till knife inserted in center comes out clean.

PhoneWord Address Book Plug-in Movie

2005-10-19T17:52:00.000-06:00

The demo movie is up and working without the demo watermark. I tried the demo version of Snapz Pro X 2.0.2 and it worked great so I bought a license and posted the movie tonight. It looks great. Movie captures like this are an awesome way to show features and demo software on the web. I think Ruby on Rails started the trend and I think it's here to stay.

PhoneWord 1.3

2005-10-16T13:07:00.000-06:00

Friday, I released PhoneWord 1.3. People have already bought some copies, which is cool, because I haven't even advertised it yet. Maybe people really like the new Address Book plug-in, which really is a nice feature. You'll notice that there is a demo movie link which is supposed to show a movie of the plug-in in action, but I can't get it to work. Anybody, know how to get TextDrive to serve up a movie properly? Maybe, I'll have to break down and buy a license to Snapz Pro X. First, I'll try the demo version.

New Host

2005-06-26T09:08:00.000-06:00

Just finished moving rodschmidt.com to its new host, TextDrive. I've heard good things about TextDrive and they have great Ruby support. I'm also moving infinitenil.com to them. This will allow me to add some rails apps to my site. So now you can get to my blog by just going to www.rodschmidt.com. The old rodschmidt.com can be reached by clicking on the Pre December 2004 link in the archives section on the right.

Inaugural URUG meeting

2005-05-26T10:27:00.000-06:00

Last night we had the inaugural URUG meeting at Ben Galbraith's house. Jamis Buck of 37signals fame is the founder and we had a good discussion about various aspects of Ruby and what we want to do with the group. Between Jamis and Ben, the group has some great connections, so hopefully we can get some great speakers like Ben has been able to do for UJUG. I will probably be giving a presentation on RubyCocoa at some point.

Who is Michael Vaughn?

2005-05-26T09:18:00.000-06:00

Alias struck again with one of its patented season ending cliff hangers. This one could be the most interesting if the writers do a good job. I would like to see Alias go back to its roots with showing conflict between Sydney's social life and secret life. Maybe, with Jennifer Garner supposedly pregnant (No!), the writers will be forced to do some better writing.

NCIS: Nooooooo!

2005-05-24T21:29:00.000-06:00

I really enjoy NCIS but I don't watch every show. I've been watching Sex & the City on TBS because I never got to see it on HBO. And I hadn't read any articles about the show's season finale. So with Sex and the City over, I was able to watch the show. I didn't even know it was the finale. I started watching the show because of the lovely Sasha Alexander who plays Agent Todd. Then I grew to enjoy the dynamic between her character and Agent Dinozzo. So, it was with total shock and sadness that I experienced the final seconds of the finale. Those bastards! And I'm not talking about the terrorists. I'm talking about the genius at CBS who decided to kill off one of the most enjoyable (not to mention beautiful) characters on TV. Not only that, but they've now ended one of the most fun relationships on TV. And like me there are probably a lot of men out there who are no longer going to watch. We'll move onto the next thing Sasha Alexander is in.

24: The best show on television

2005-05-24T08:05:00.000-06:00

I saw the season finale for 24 last night. I am continually amazed at how the writers have kept the intensity of that show going for a whole season, let alone 4. Every episode is intense and has you on the edge of your seat. If only Alias could have done the same thing. Most shows fall off, but 24 has been consistently good.

Backpack

2005-05-03T08:49:00.000-06:00

37signals released Backpack today, which is their personal information manager web app. It looks pretty good. You should definitely check it out if you're looking for something to help you get organized. Not only that, it is written in the amazing Ruby on Rails. I wish it had some of the features of the old Lotus Agenda, but maybe that's a good thing ;)

Jamis Buck works for 37signals and is one of the developers on Backpack. He lives down in Provo and is starting a new Utah Ruby User's Group, which I'm excited about. The first meeting should be this month, somewhere in south Salt Lake, which I'm very happy about. Finally, some cutting edge technology in Salt Lake. Now, we need to get a Cocoa developers group going.

TimeLog

2005-01-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

I finally found an app to keep track of my time. Up to this point I've been using an AppleWorks spreadsheet, believe it or not. I bought iWork and that inspired me to get rid of the spreadsheet so I wouldn't have to use AppleWorks anymore (wish iWork had a spreadsheet, don't you?).

The app I found is TimeLog. It appears to be written in RealBasic, but that didn't deter me. That app looks good enough that I can overlook that. It appears that a Cocoa version is in the works anyway.

It's received a lot of praise and I would have to agree. It's pretty good. Check it out if you need a timesheet app.

Safin Wins!

2005-01-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching a great match today. Roger Federer vs. Marat Safin in the Austrailan Open semi-final. It went the distance with both players having match points. Roger had 1 and Marat had 7. In the end Safin pulled it out 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (8-6), 9-7.

Safin is quickly becoming my favorite player on the tour. Except of course, for Andre Agassi.

New Phone - Motorola V551

2004-12-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I got a new phone yesterday, the Motorola V551. It's a Bluetooth phone as well as a camera and video phone. I'm looking forward to using the Bluetooth features, such as a wireless headset, and using Bluetooth software on my Mac that will make it do things like pause iTunes when I get a call, make my iChat status Away when I leave, and other cool things.

Apple Store in SLC!

2004-12-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

This from ifo AppleStore :

Apple's job listings page has confirmed Salt Lake City as a new store location, along with the first look at four other cities: San Antonio (Tex.), Grand Rapids (Mich.), Nashville (Tenn.) and Houston (Tex.). The official store numbers now top out at 132, with 16 store numbers as yet unrevealed.

Finally! If you haven't been in an Apple store you don't know what you're missing. I've been in Apple stores in Dallas and Cupertino and they are very nice. And the Genius Bar is great. Can't wait till it opens.

Farewell Mia

2004-12-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

I enjoy watching soccer and I especially enjoy watching the U.S. National teams, the men and the women. Women's soccer is the only other women's sport besides tennis that I enjoy watching.

Last night was the farewell match for Mia Hamm, the Pele of women's soccer. She has scored more goals than anyone, even among men. In her time, the U.S. Women's team reigned supreme, winning two gold medals and two World Cups. She has been a great role model for many around the world. It is sad to see her go.

Watching the women's team is a lot of fun because they play together so well. I play soccer as well and my team can't put together more than two passes at a time before losing the ball. A great team is always better than a bunch of great players. Mia is a great player as well as a great teammate. She didn't score any goals last night, but she had two assists and is practically always involved in someway when the U.S. scores. Joy Fawcett and Julie Foudy are also retiring. They as well as Brandy Chastain and Kristin Lilly all played a part in the 1999 World Cup victory in Los Angeles over China. They made us all proud.

Where I've Been

2004-12-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything since the 2003 OS X conference, so some of you (I really should say none of you, since I doubt anybody is reading this) may be wondering what I've been up to. Well, shortly after the conference, I was laid off from my full-time gig and went directly into full-time freelancing via infiniteNIL. I hooked up with a local Macintosh software company and have been working the past year on new version of one of their flagship products, which we just recently released. It was complete rewrite, using the Cocoa API. I've quite enjoyed it and Cocoa (and the Mac OS X platform in general) is wonderful to work with.

I'd go into more detail about the company and product, but they don't want our relationship known as they prefer the outside world to believe they developed the product themselves. That is unfortunate, but I can understand their reasoning. I might have felt that way myself at one point, but now I'm starting to believe the more everybody shares, the more everybody gets. I'm quite proud of this product, though, as its my first shrink wrap product where I played a major role (if not the major role) in its development. And it runs on the OS X, a platform I believe in and strongly support.

I'm continuing to work on this product and other products for this company as well as some of my own personal products that I have in the works or in my mind. One product I will mention, which is the closest to being an actual product, is tentativly called Serendipity. It's still only barely functional, but once I finish it, I hope people will find it entertaining and maybe even useful once in a while. All I'll say is that its purpose is to bring people together.

The Old and the New

2004-12-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't written anything in my old blog (www.rodschmidt.com) for quite some time. Too much of a hassle to use CityDesk since I've switched to Mac OS X. Plus blogger has all the stuff a typical blog needs. So if you want to read about my sabbatical, or my 2003 Mac OS X conference stuff see the old site. Otherwise, this is where I'll be from now on.