ConjureBunny Blog

AppleDisplayScaleFactor and Lion

2011-12-27T23:51:00.000-08:00

(I did this digging around on Darren Abate's behalf, because I didn't know Apple had left this little feature in there until he told me it was gone!)

Apple used to have this cool feature secretly stashed in the Quartz Debug developer tool that let you shrink the screen down. And then any large screen app could easily be run even on a tiny screen. Why? Because that's what Apple was trying to promote at the time--test your apps with icons and art for different resolution screens. High density displays were coming, Apple told us (in 2006). Be ready, they said.

1024x1024 icons. Use PDFs for icons, not PNGs, etc. Cool stuff!

But for those of us with laptops, the Quartz Debug tool that let you change the display resolution also let you scale the resolution *down*, so you could see more on your tiny laptop screen. The ability to actually see what our larger-screened Mac usin' brethren were seeing was a godsend!

Unfortunately, Apple removed this capability way back in Leopard, I think, from Quartz Debug. It only scaled up from that version on.

What I didn't know until today was that they left this feature exposed through the 'defaults' system.

So if you still have Snow Leopard, you can open your Terminal and type this...

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor 0.8

... and any apps you open from that point forward will display smaller. The menu will be smaller, the UI smaller, everything. It's really cool. Here's Safari at 80% resolution. See the tiny window controls? Compare that to the controls of the Terminal window, which I typed the command in before launching Safari. And yes, that's Conjure running in the background.

80% res == 120% Kewl.

Unfortunately again, in Lion, they removed that as well--those High Density screens must be right around the corner. So there's no currently known way to scale the screens down.

The good news is that the capability to scale *up* is still in Quartz Debug. Apple even refers to it in their developer docs...

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/HiDPIOverview/HiDPIConcepts/HiDPIConcepts.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40003409-CH3-SW4

SO... if it's there at all, I'm pretty sure it still works both ways, they just didn't want to make it simple. The big question is, how do we access it, and can it somehow still scale down?

Macbook users like me want to know!

-Chilton

9/11 Memorial and the First Responder Conspiracy

2011-08-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

There's a nasty rumor going around that the first responders won't be part of the 9/11 10th anniversary memorial.

And it's true. But it's really not a big deal.

Here's why.

First, the memorial ceremony is for the families of those who died on 9/11. Not those who survived, and not those who helped. The simple reason is space.

The entire 9/11 memorial area is roughly 8 acres.
Of that 8 acres, about 4 acres does not include a structure, hole, or monument of some sort.
Of that 4 acres, about 1 square acre is taken up by memorial trees and their bases.

So there are about 3 usable acres of space on the 9/11 memorial grounds.

One acre is 4840 square yards.

Three acres is 14,520 square yards.

A single person takes up one square yard when standing, including room to shuffle nervously, which is what people do when they're packed in like that.

1,609 people lost a spouse or partner.
3,051 children lost a parent.

So only 4,660 people would be there for the memorial, right?

4,660

But of those who died, let's say there's one parent of each who would want to be there as well.

That's 2,819 more people, for a total of 7,479.

7,479

Keep in mind this is for just these people to be there. We're already over half capacity, and standing room only.

7,479 invites
7,041 spectators

That's where we are before we include the first responders.

In the 17 minutes before the second plane hit, over 1,000 NYC first responders were called to duty. If each of those brought one person, we're looking at roughly 2000 more people. So now we're at...

9,479 invites
5,041 spectators

I don't know how many were there in the hour or two after the second plane. But the number of registered first responders who showed up from out of town in the first 24 hours of 9/11 exceeded 3,000.

If each of those brought a person, well, we wouldn't have room for them.

15,479 invites
-959 spectators

Okay, back up. Let's get rid of those 'late' first responders. Just with the 'first' first responders, we'd have room for about 5 thousand people there who weren't part of the ceremony.

Again though, standing room only. Surely, that's enough though, right? If we exclude first responders who showed up after the second plane, we can do this...

9,479 invites
5,041 spectators

In the first day the memorial tickets were for sale online, over 24,000 people tried to buy them.

We could easily fit everyone there, if we stack them on top of each other, like a giant Jenga puzzle.

Otherwise, maybe we should have more than one ceremony. And as I understand it, that's the plan.

CryEngine vs. Unity3D

2011-08-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

As hinted over a year ago, of today, CryEngine is now free for non-commercial use. That's fantastic! CryEngine is used in at least 30 commercial games, and most of them look gorgeous. Here are a things to consider if you're looking at this new engine.

Even orphans look happy!

Awesome engine with a proven track record and a name that will get gamers interested in your title. Even the CryEngine demos are beautiful, so if you say your title is based on it, you'll get some bonus play with the gamer community, even before your game ships.

The CryEngine mod community is very active, and this translates into having a solid development platform. Its designers already knew the kinds of things people wanted to build with it. So if hearing that the engine is free excites you, you're the type of person they built this free kit for.

There are a few 'gotchas', of course.UDK and Unity3D are already free for non-commercial use. But unlike the other guys, the CryEngine team hasn't disclosed how much the commercial license will cost.

Also, like UDK, the free CryEngine environment is PC only at this time.
Unity3D can (with a single click) deploy to iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android, Wii, Mac, PC, and Web, and they provide help getting it onto the XBox and PS3 (I have no personal experience with this, so I can't say how extensive that help is).

And UDK can deploy to portable platforms as well...

I assume that if you pony up the dough, the CryEngine guys will let you deploy to other platforms as well. Time will tell. And frankly, if their development environment remains PC only, and their target platforms are only PC, XBox 360 and PS3, that will still be enough for most people.

That said, the Unity3D game engine isn't some doltish slacker. And keep in mind that their engine already runs on iPhones, computers, web browsers, and console game platforms...

How will it affect me personally? Well, let's look at the kinds of stuff I get to work on.

Shot Simulator

It would be fantastic for the Shot Simulator, but since it doesn't deploy to the iPhone, iPad, or Android, that would be a problem. Maybe in the future?

+Poker

I'm honestly not sure if it would be a good match for the VTI Games like +Poker, since all of them are card games. Despite that they use real physics, objects, and rely on Unity's rendering engine, I've never seen a CryEngine based casino game. But who knows.

Project Griffon

It would be *ideal* for Project Griffon (which will be re-released in a few weeks). Griffon is a third-person mech combat / shooter. The lighting and visual effects of CryEngine will be fantastic. But I do all of my development on Macs, so I'd have to use CryEngine's kit by running Windows 7 on my Mac. That's a tall order. So far, UDK doesn't exist on the Mac, which was a show stopper for me. So I'll have to think about it.

I'll be looking into the CryEngine in more detail in the near future. Until then, I can say it honestly looks impressive. And it will be really nice to have them officially in the arena. But Unity's going to be extremely hard for them to compete with. With so many great resources, it's a great time to be a game developer.

How To Rescue Dead Laptop Data With An External Drive

2011-07-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

This falls in the general use category, I think. Over the last few weeks (months?) my MacBook Pro has been falling apart. And then a few days ago, it died. Smoke poured out and everything. I suspected that the hard drive was okay though. So I took it out, and removed the side mounting torx screws. But that does me no good without a way to retrieve the data. So I dressed up, went to Walmart, and found an older model Seagate GoFlex in the giant discount electronics bin next to the discount meats.

After only a few minutes of tinkering, I'd fully rescued all of the data from my old drive. Here's what I did, and you can, too!

First, get out some tools.

You really only need a pocket knife, but the Leatherman Crunch looks so cool. And I put a screwdriver in there because using a screwdriver instead of a pocket knife will lead to not stripping as many screws.

Use the pocketknife to gently part the lid from the plastic. It's held in by glue, and all you need to do is wiggle it a bit on each edge to get it apart.

Or, if you're like me, pry that sucker open like it was filled with Raspberry Jelly!

Alright, see that cable that you just accidentally unplugged? (Unplug it if you didn't)

Remember that. you'll plug it back in later. That takes power from the USB connection and lights up that emblem on the front of the case.

Now use your pocket knife to pry the rear side out.

It's not hard. It's held in by friction on those little rubber nubs on the side of the drive. If you flip it upside down and shake it, it will fall out. Note that shaking anything computer related is not really advisable. Just pry it out, slacker.

Remove the black nubs from the screws. They just fall off, usually. They'll roll under stuff and hide if you're not careful. You'll want them later, when you put all this back in the shell. So put them somewhere so you'll be able to put them back on, in a few minutes.

Then use a screwdriver to remove the screws holding the drive in the metal shell.

Now remove the metal tape from the sides of the drive, then remove the drive from the shell.

It just slides up and out, with the connector port poking through the shell.

And as a final step, remove the connector from the front of the built-in drive.

Now plug that connector that onto the old drive from your laptop, and follow these steps in reverse, to put your old drive in the portable drive's case.

When you're done, you'll have your old files safely stored in a portable external drive case!

Conjure Runs in Lion

2011-06-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

I have official, visual confirmation that Conjure runs in Lion with no problems.

So there.

AeroConjure

2011-06-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not selling out. But I've been asked a few times if that's really the Aero interface used for the help screen in Conjure. And the short answer is no, Aero is not an interface option on the Mac. But it's fairly easy to implement in an app.

That said, I do like the idea behind Aero. As humans, we are used to our eyes 'focusing' on things we're interested in. So this is definitely an interesting user interface concept.

I can see this being more useful for modal dialogs than other things, but I might add it as a feature for the Conjure desktop in 'focus' mode.

Was News Corporation's giant sign actually hacked?

2011-06-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I love a good act of public defiance. And I'm not a huge fan of Fox News. But I don't think this video is legit.

Here's how I used Conjure to come to this conclusion...

First, I looked for reference points and lines in the video that could be compared. It wasn't easy, since you only get about half a second of video zoomed in at the same distance as the final text is zoomed. But that's enough.

Next, I resized, rotated, and changed the alpha on the second image to match the points of reference on the first image...

Third, I looked for any dead giveaways.

There are. With all of the reference points lined up, the replacement text is slightly larger than the original text. That could be the result of replacing one font with another one, or just showing it at a slightly larger zoom level. The visual distortion on the screen between when it's normally running, and when it's 'hacked', is pretty considerable, and suggests this is just a giant LCD screen. But most screen hacks like this only aim to replace the text itself, not the font, and they usually don't change the font size either.

So it looks a little fake, to me.

Speed up XCode with one click.

2011-06-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

There's one simple little thing you can do in XCode that will dramatically speed up your builds. Most experienced developers know this, because once you do it, it changes build times, especially for small projects and tests, dramatically. So you might know this. I think I knew about it a few times, but I keep forgetting to turn it on. So this blog entry is as much a reminder to myself, as it is an attempt to help anyone else who might've forgotten it.

Build time without magic powers activated: 16 seconds.
Build time with magic powers activated: 1 second.

See that? That 16 seconds may not sound like much to most people, but when you're trying to solve some specific problem, and you're in the middle of a build/debug/repeat cycle, that 16 seconds gets real damned old, real damned fast.

Alright, here's the magic...
Precompile Prefix Header

Yeah, it's that simple.

Mac Viruses and Other Stupid Hoaxes

2011-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this to clear up a bit of confusion and panic over the Mac 'virus' scene. The latest trojan (not a virus) is loosely referred to as 'MacDefender', and masquerades as a Mac anti-virus app. This is not the end of the world. It's not even the beginning of the end.

But first, a little background info...

Viruses
A Virus is a piece of software that spreads by making a copy of itself, when it's placed on a new computer. Usually they have some ulterior motive. Some viruses send out spam. Some viruses delete your files. Some do nothing at all. The distinction here is that a virus has to make copies of itself (self-replication) in order to spread.

Your computer gets 'infected', usually without you knowing it, by having a virus installed on your machine usually without any human intervention. And yes, there were Mac viruses, long ago.

Trojan
A trojan is a piece of software that spreads by acting like it's harmless, then doing something bad once it's installed and running on your computer. Trojans usually require human intervention. And Trojans usually do something bad, like look for credit card info and send it to the trojan's author, or install adware on your computer. Trojans don't usually self-replicate. They are usually one-trick ponies.

MacDefender requires that the user downloads and installs the MacDefender program, even walking it through the installation process. In some variations, the download occurs immediately when you visit a particular page. But the trick here is that at all times, you'll be faced with this window, at some point.

And when you are, just go to the File menu and *quit* the installer.

How Apple Can Stop This Madness Immediately
(and how you can, too)

There's a setting in Safari, that automatically opens files that the browser thinks are 'safe'. Like some types of installers, apparently. If you use Safari, open the Preferences window and turn this off.

Problem solved in one step.

This isn't the first time Mac users have been faced with crap like this. There was the QuickTime Autoplay virus back in the olden days, which was similarly stupid. When Apple finally turned off that feature, the last of the true 'Mac viruses' died off.

Why aren't there more Mac viruses? No one actually knows. The OS has security holes, but Apple patches them fairly quickly. And security 'experts' are quick to jump on every single security hole and announce to the world that the sky is falling. That's just how security experts behave, though. So far, the sky's still up there. So they were all wrong.

Maybe it's the small market share! No, there were Mac viruses in the olden days, when there were far fewer Macs in the market, and they had a much smaller market share. Many virus authors write them for fame. Imagine the fame associated with being the first author of a real Mac virus! Well, it's been about a decade now, since OSX started shipping with every new Mac. You'd think they'd have figured it out in 10 years, if it was possible.

To be honest, I've never heard a good explanation for why there aren't more Mac viruses.

So what did Apple do? They posted this tidbit, about how to remove MacDefender if you have it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650

Then, in a software update, they included a thing in the operating system that allows the user's machine to get daily updates for malware 'signatures', without requiring a full system update. As a result, if your software is up to date, you'll see this instead, if you download MacDefender, or any of its variants...

Apple has responded to this particular one in a bizarre fashion. Rather than just seal off the vector (by turning that auto-open feature off by default in the software update), they added this, so they can selectively choose which files are 'safe' and which ones aren't. And Apple can update this as often as they want, so your Mac is constantly up to date.

This presents an interesting challenge to the hacker community. Apple can afford to pay a guy to change a few names in a file every day. Can the guy(s?) who wrote MacDefender afford to change their app often and enough to no longer be caught by Apple's detector, all the while finding new domains on the web to post the updated MacDefender trojan to?

Time will tell, I suppose. If Apple gets frustrated, they can always slam the door shut. But that's what I expected them to do. They don't have to play the cat and mouse game. So why do this? It almost seems like the cat is toying with this mouse.

Post-Rapture Clothes Donation

2011-05-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Some people believe tomorrow will be the start of the Rapture. I'm not going to question them.

But if it does happen, or even if it doesn't, there will still be problems in our world. The Salvation Army consistently does good things for people the rest of the world would rather forget about.

(These guys)

They could really use your used clothes.

(image stolen from Jack Bennet II's Facebook page)

So if you're planning on not being here after tomorrow, or if you are, but want to contribute in some meaningful way to the world around you, please pick out one set of clothes tomorrow, May 21 2011, and donate them to the Salvation Army. Think of it as a Post-Rapture gift, for those unfortunate souls who have been living, and who will likely continue to live, in hell on Earth.

You can find the nearest Salvation Army truck by going here, and entering a zip code in the search box. SATruck.org

Clickjack Viruses and You

2011-05-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

If you're here, it's probably because you ran into a 'clickjack' virus on Facebook, which 'liked' some page for you, without you knowing it.

This happens because virus authors have found a way to exploit a flaw in web browsers, which they can use to tell Facebook that you liked something, when you really didn't.

First, you should know that viruses are not created by nature. They don't evolve. They're created by virus programmers, who usually do it for kicks. Sometimes, they do it for money, or to sell ad space. Think of it as free advertising for them.

You see, when you 'like' something, that tells your friends about it. It's word of mouth advertising, which is frankly the best kind of advertising.

A clickjack virus is one that fakes a 'click' somewhere that you didn't actually click. Usually on a 'like' button. It's not Facebook's fault, as far as they know, you really did click on the 'like' button.

In the last year, clickjack viruses have been rewritten hundreds of times, and they're becoming increasingly advanced. Today, we have clickjack viruses that use a JavaScript trick to simulate a click 'for you', just by going to a web page. Isn't that nice of them?

If you saw this picture and video on your friend's Facebook wall, and you clicked on it to see what it was, you'd be taken to a page with a video on it. It might have some additional stuff on it, like a Facebook looking page with links to polls of some sort. It probably looked like this...

In the second or two it takes that page to load, Facebook has been told you 'like' about three different pages. And yeah, it told all your friends about it.

Removal

If you do get one of these, at least for now, your personal data has not been snaked. It's just faking a click to get a free 'like'. To prevent your friends from falling for this though, you should remove the links to all of this as quickly as possible. To do that, click in the Profile tab in Facebook, then look for any 'likes' that you didn't click. Look for any suspicious videos you didn't post a link to. Then move the mouse over them, and you'll see a tiny 'x' to the right. Click that, and remove it by either clicking the Remove option, or the 'Report as Spam' option. Both will get rid of it.

Prevention

Anti-virus software does not protect you here, since the virus is not a traditional computer virus. And using a Mac won't protect you. It's more like a clever webpage than a 'real' virus.

The only real prevention at this time, unfortunately, is to just not click on these links to begin with. So think before you click. If your friend is a college professor, and they post a link to "OMG LOOK @ WUT THIS GIRL N HER DOG DIDD!!?!", there's probably a clickjack virus waiting for you on the other side of that click.

And don't be embarrassed by falling for it. If you fell for it, that means the other person fell for it first!

Also, the video they link to usually doesn't exist. Sorry about that.

Conjure Design Principles: Consistency and Colors

2011-05-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Conjure Design Principle #1 Consistency Makes Things Easy

Part 1 of a continuing column on design principles behind Conjure's unique interface.

Colors and Color picking in Conjure 4.5

A new feature in Conjure 4.5 is the Colors window. I know, big deal, it's a window with colors in it. But more thought goes into this kind of thing than most people realize. In this case, there were some design decisions made that I hope everyone likes. One of the constant goals of Conjure is to keep things as simple as possible, without compromising power.

A recurring theme among beta testers' reports is that it's hard to set the color of things, or know where to go to set the color of things.

Der Problemo...

There are too many settings in the info window as it is. So to set the color of something, you have to select it, open the info window, scan it until you find the item that most closely describes the thing you want to change, then change it. For colors, this means clicking a button that opens another window (the Cocoa Color picker). That's a lot of steps, for something you probably do often. And that last set of steps, where you have to figure out where to set it, hurts the rest of the UI design as well, since every object has different attributes (stroke, fill, text) that *can* have different color settings.

There are four different color settings you can choose there. Four. Five, if you include changing from a gradient to a color. Well, let's see what the other guys do. After all, we're after consistency here, right?

Photoshop

Photoshop is probably the most used product among the digital artists who use Conjure. So when I'm faced with a 'how should this work' question, I usually include it in the list of other apps' behaviors I should study.

In this case though, they suffer from a similar problem. There are several ways to set the color for any object or property. Even though I've been using it since it shipped with a crappy scanner in the late 80's, I still forget where to find things in its UI. So having travelled to this land, I have decided to leave it, for greener pastures...

iWeb

Something a lot of people don't know about iWeb and me is that Conjure originally had a spinoff clone, called Landscape. Landscape was my plan for a web page creation tool. I actually named early prototypes 'iWebb", which I thought was a hilarious play on words. Until iWeb came out, featuring 90% of the ideas I thought were original, in iWebb. Oh well. But occasionally I think of adding something to Conjure, only to find it's already in iWeb (like line elevation angles), and it makes me wonder what the hell Apple thinks iWeb actually does. Seriously? Why would someone need to know the elevation of a line in a web page builder? Anyway, they usually have good ideas, and since their target audience is basically the same as Conjure's (for different reasons), I at least try to be consistent.

Unfortunately in this case, iWeb is consistent with my *mistake*, and does not present an acceptable solution. See, they crammed everything into one central 'info' window. The biggest difference is that their window doesn't actually change based on the context, as Conjure's does. They expect you to click the tab to change it. Well that's a few steps back from where I am now. So, no thanks.

The solution, as I see it, is to have a centralized 'colors' window. And that's it. No other objects should mention colors at all. That way, the user always knows where to go to set the color. For anything. Color options that don't make sense for the current selection would be inactive. Simple as that.

A single Colors window would move all of this color related stuff to one place. That would also help on the programming side, because it's one less set of controls I constantly have to remember to update. And while I'm at it, I can axe the text label color control (which no one notices anyway), and the redundant "Line Settings" text.

Now, I'm not a fan of the standard MacOS color pickers. At some point, Conjure will likely have its own color picker for that reason. When I get around to that, having to do that for only one object sounds a lot better than setting it up to work in a dozen different areas.

When the next beta of Conjure 4.5 goes out, it will have the unified color window in it. Please let me know what you think! And if you want to be a member of the beta team, send an email to me at conjurebunny@gmail.com, and let me know!

-Chilton

The Mac App Store vs. MacUpdate: FIGHT!

2011-04-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

A recurring theme on the MacUpdate site is "if you're on the Mac App Store, I won't buy your software."

And most developers are okay with that, because the recurring theme among developers is : "fuck you, MacUpdate, you had your chance."

I'm sorry if that's offensive to MacUpdate's users, but that's reality. The fact is, a single day of promotion on Apple's now defunct 'downloads' page would yield 20x the sales as the same day on MacUpdate. And it looks like Mac App Store developers are experiencing the same thing. Additionally, most of the complaints that developers had about MacUpdate went (and continue to go) unanswered.

Angry Conjure Bunny is Not Amused

Some history...
MacUpdate (and VersionTracker before it) were started years ago. Actually, I gave both companies free ads when they were starting up on my DevHQ.com site. (VersionTracker has since been absorbed by CNET's Download.com site and is largely ignored by Mac developers). Since Mac developers weren't able to get their software in stores ("who buys Mac software? No one"), we had to find more creative ways to get the word out to Mac users about our software. So by the time the PC world started to catch on, most Mac users were already used to buying Mac software online. Sites like MacUpdate helped make that a reality. Today, we have Apple's official Mac App Store, which combines services like MacUpdate and the tedious accounting side of things.

Since its inception, MacUpdate has been a tremendous help for a lot of developers, but it is very user-oriented. Developers who post there are often treated with great suspicion, and it's not uncommon to see a user really go off on an indie developer over a minor issue. Lately, MacUpdate has been ignoring developers' problems, and now its users are suffering for it.

As both a developer AND a user of both stores, I think I know why. So this is both an explanation of the problems they face, and an explanation of what both could do to help everyone. I still have high hopes for MacUpdate, but probably because I gravitate towards the underdog. That strategy doesn't usually work out for me, unfortunately.

Apple's Mac App Store Gooddish:
Incredible exposure. Since they push this to every Mac user, developers are seeing the massive sales numbers they saw from leveraging the Downloads page on Apple's site (which was previously linked to from the Apple menu of every Mac). Also, Apple lets you report abusive criticisms comments, something MacUpdate seems to have done away with.

Apple's Mac App Store Baddish:
Apple takes a 30% share of your profits, plus you don't get paid for almost (or over) a month. Plus, they don't let you distribute a 'demo' version, so the end user can't legitimately try an app before they buy it.

That's not exactly a bad thing though. It means the reviews for the app are from people who at least plunked money down for it. Shills for your competitors can't poison your well by leaving horrible reviews, as they often do on MacUpdate. Angry personal vendettas aren't taken out as easily if there's a price tag. Both have hit Conjure a number of times in the past, with non-paying customers angry that they couldn't find legitimate crack keys on the Internet, or they didn't like it when I refused to give them a free copy. I used to watch both MacUpdate and our YouTube channel for this, and I'd catch people doing this fairly often. They'd give Conjure a 1 star review and claim it destroyed everything on their computer. Or it would crash. Or it installed spyware. None of that was true. Also, on MacUpdate, my competitors would routinely post critical reviews, or link to their apps on my page. Not cool. Quite dickish, actually.

From talking to other developers, I don't have to worry about any of that with the Mac App Store. The price tag alone seems to dissuade users from doing this. And since the credit card you buy an app with is linked to your personal name, it's harder to fake an online persona. That's good for everyone. Unfortunately, they don't let you respond to criticism on the Mac App Store, without posting a review as well. It makes us look like we're just ignorant corporate pigs, hoping a gullible public will be suckered into buying our crap, while we ignore their cries for help. The reality is that most of us actually sit and watch reviews like they were the Royal Wedding (this is a contextual reference, and will make no sense a month from now).

MacUpdate gooddish:
Anyone can sell there, via the Mac App Store or their own system. That's good for developers like me, who want to be paid *soon* for sales, not in 1-2 months. That's also good for end users, because I can offer demo versions. Also, I can respond to criticism there, though the layout for responses is somewhat odd. I hear they're working on that, though. Hey, at least I can respond.

MacUpdate baddish:
As I said, negative reviews really hurt sales. One angry asshole can sink a year's worth of work, by making stuff up. And the MacUpdate crew seems to particularly side with the *users* instead of the developers. In fact, they'll post updates to your apps without your consent, unless you notify them in advance not to do it. So if you updated the download link for the app late on Thursday night, in preparation for a launch on Friday morning, Friday morning you'll find your app announcement stuck deep down the list on yesterday's news. Also, they appear to have done away with the ability to report abuse, while Apple added that feature.

So here's my simple suggestions for both:
Apple: You would do well to let developers offer in-app unlocking, similar to how in-app purchases work on the iPhone app store. Then the ability to offer demo versions would be allowed.

Also, you need to create a way for the developer to provide responses to users, without having to post a review of their own (with stars). The current system makes us look like idiots. I know you don't want to host a 'forum' for every developer, but that's just part of what you're doing by letting people post they way they do now. Only that you're not letting the developers respond. It's a one-way forum. Not cool.

MacUpdate: You need to be more friendly towards developers. I'd say over 70% of the conversations I've had with your staff have been negative, or at least confrontational. That's not good. You need to put your foot down on obvious collusion, and let people report negative comments again. Additionally, you should let developers have a little more control over the announcements. You're not the only game in town anymore, so stop trying to boss developers around, and work with us.

----------------------

Right now I'm weighing my options on the new version of Conjure. I might release a 4.3 version, based on the current codebase with a lot of the 4.5 features built in. In order to get into the App store, I need to shelf several of those features, since they violate the TOS agreement for Mac App Store sales. But with MacUpdate's less friendly atmosphere towards developers, plus the absolute difference in sales figures, they're pushing me towards a Mac App Store-only release.

I want to believe MacUpdate will step up to the challenge of the Mac App Store, and be a real competitor. Let me put this another way. See that 30 percent cut that the Mac App Store takes? I'd be paying that to you, if I could *justify* it. If your environment was more friendly to developers, and if you let us promote our software better.

MacUpdate, as it stands, even if your offering was absolutely free, it would still cost too much. Do you even know what you're doing? Have you ever even used a Macintosh computer before?

Oh, did that sound too harsh? That was an excerpt from a 'review' I received on your site, which sat there for two weeks, until I convinced the author to take it down. That was after several emails to your support staff. If you want to know why you're getting your ass kicked by the Mac App Store, and why developers don't seem to care about you, maybe that kind of behavior has something to do with it.

Lies, Damned lies, and Weather predictions

2011-04-26T14:15:00.001-07:00

I noticed last week that we were supposed to get rain *every day*. It never showed up. So yesterday, I started keeping screenshots of it.

Here's the Weather.com predictions for the last two days. I'm not saying they're just making stuff up, but I'm curious--how accurate do you need to be, to be considered 'good'?

(For the record, no rain here yet...)

iPhone app that lies about where you've been

2011-04-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

So there's this guy who wrote an app that scrubs your iPhone backups and looks for bits about where it's been. Then he made a website about it, and made a big deal out of how this is a security problem, and that Apple is secretly keeping tabs on you or something.

Of course, it's mostly bullshit. But that's how you make a name for yourself in the 'security' field. It's just like a 'real' magic show. You tell the audience what to think, you show off some parlor trick that makes it look like you were right, then lie to the audience about what they just saw.

As a general rule, any time someone comes out of the blue with a 'HOOJ SEKURITEE HOLEZ!!' or something like that, it's to get attention. It's usually not something serious.

But let's look at the claims. He says his app will retrieve detailed information about where you've been, thanks to data stored in the backups of your iPhone. Then he has some movies that 'prove' it.

Unfortunately, he's making a number of assumptions that aren't quite accurate about the state and location of the user's files. That might explain why his app doesn't work on *ANY MAC I OWN*.

That said, it has worked on a number of my friends' Macs, so at least that claim is valid sometimes. There are still a few hurdles that make this a less than serious problem.

A Fully Compromised System

First, it relies on the backups of your iPhone. Do you know what it takes to get to the backup files for your iPhone? Full, unhindered access to your personal files, on your Mac.

The files this app uses are in a section of the Mac's file system that is effectively hidden from every user on a Mac except the owner of the files themselves. That has to be the same user who backed up the iPhone. In other words, had this app worked on my system, it would only work if the user had fully compromised the security on my Mac to begin with.

Plaintext Backups

Also, as stated on his page, if you're using encrypted backups, this isn't an issue at all. He's just trawling the backed-up files and looking for data. If you're not worried about someone gaining full access to your emails, address book, passwords, etc., but you are somehow worried about people finding out where you've been *after* they have all that other info, you should know that you can encrypt your backup files. Every time you plug in your iPhone, it will (normally) open iTunes. There's an option there. It's a checkbox that says, "Encrypt your backups" or something equally hard to figure out. Click it. Problem solved in one step.

Apple Is Not Collecting Anything, You Are

He says "Why is Apple collecting this information?" as if Apple is collecting the information. A backup of every document on your iPhone is a *backup*, it's not magical fairy wishes. It contains copies of the data. Apple isn't collecting it, your computer is collecting it. That's what a backup is. If someone were to steal the backup of my personal files, well, I'd wish them luck getting some of those images out of their head. But whether or not they knew where my iPhone had been would be the least of my worries. I have a hard drive that sits next to my computer, most of the time. I have backups of all kinds of things on there, including emails. I'd be more afraid of that kind of info getting into enemy hands, than my physical location.

Your other apps have to work

Okay, they're backups of files. But why back up this particular info? Well, it turns out that other apps on your iPhone rely on the GPS data, too. For example, if you've used the Maps app to chart your location through the mountains, you can still use that info while you're on the mountain, out of GPS range. It will just show your last location on the mountain. Why? Because it has to use some location. iPhone apps don't stay in memory all the time, so if you didn't launch your Maps app recently, it wouldn't know what your last location was, unless the iPhone was storing it. See how that works?

I'm working with a friend on an app that uses GPS locations also. We're kinda relying on it being able to tell us where we were last time it knew, every time the app runs. We don't store this information, because we know the iPhone is going to give it to us on demand, and that it will at least try to be accurate. In order for this type of app to work, the iPhone absolutely has to store the data somewhere.

Never Take Photos

Besides, all iPhone photos are geo tagged by default. So if they can just get ahold of your photos, that's enough to tell a lot about where you were. And why go to this much trouble? Do you use Foursquare? Do you use Facebook? Those also track (and publicly display) where you've been.

But most annoying to me, as a 100% total Mac Fanboi, is the fact that his shitty app doesn't fracking work on any of my Macs. He's clearly unfamiliar with the awesome that is the Macintosh User Experience™. He's wasted several minutes of my time today with an app that doesn't work, and he's talkin' trash about my favorite platform.

It is interesting, at least to me, that I can get a series of locations I've been from the iPhone. But the list is not complete, or accurate, unfortunately. This is an interesting side effect of how Apple's iPhone collects GPS data, but it is by no means a serious security issue, or even a reliable source of information.

-Chilton

New Beta version of Conjure 4.1.3 is live! New Modbook and Tablet Mac features!

2010-09-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Well that took long enough. A year, minus 1 week, to be exact.

The latest beta version of Conjure is live. If you're a registered 'Ninja Bunny', be expecting an email today with all the details.

This version adds a toolbar, and new ModBook and Tablet features, and fixes the way Conjure saves its database so you don't lose data during power outages, etc.

I still don't have all the fancy new things in there planned for 4.2, but this interim release should go out as a public product on Monday.

Apple gives nod to Newton in latest iPad commercial

2010-05-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

Arn of MacRumors fame noticed that the latest ad from Apple seems eerily familiar. Apple remade one of their better Newton commercials for the iPad.

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/12/apple-gives-a-nod-to-newton-with-new-what-is-ipad-ad/

-Chilton

Conjure and Space

2009-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

Hi!

I just wrapped up a major simulator demo for Frassanito and Associates. Conjure was used extensively to bring this to the point it's at now. In the coming days, I'll post some videos showing awesome behind the scenes action, and how Conjure made this possible in short order.

http://www.frassanito.com/RoverSIM/

-Chilton

(And that next Conjure beta is on the way as well)

2009-09-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

Everything is nearly right in the world again...

(good news for us Tablet Mac believers)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/apple-rehires-newton-and-nike-marketing-whiz/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits

Wednesday is the Monday I meant to have on Tuesday

2009-09-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

The new site is up. Fixing the help file, then it's all live!

-Chilton

Just window dressings?

2009-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hi!

The new website and new videos are taking awhile to get online. The new version of Conjure (4.1) is done, I'm just not going to release it until I finish the website and the new videos. There's a lot of new stuff in 4.1, and there's a lot that just makes more sense if you can see it in use.

Since I've slacked off during the launch of Conjure too many times in the past, I want to see if I can get it right this time. If I launch it now, Tuesday at 5:20PM, it will be picked up by exactly none of the major Mac news sites.

It's like cleaning a headlight on your car. Once you clean it, the rest of your hood looks dirty by comparison. So you clean the hood. Pretty soon you end up having to wash the whole car! Well, that's how fixing the Conjure website is. I have a new site, new look, and it's fantastic. So now I need to redo some of the videos to match. Then I need to fix my help files to redirect to the new videos as well, because they're coming out looking really good.

So Wednesday will be the Monday I meant to have today.

-Chilton

Find Out

2009-09-11T15:09:00.001-07:00

Hi!

Over the weekend, I'm putting the finishing touches on 4.1. This feature is really close to being done now. What does it mean? Well, email me and I'll put you on the beta list for the weekend!

You'll need a MacBook or MacBook Pro, or a Mac with a USB or Firewire webcam.

http://www.conjurebunny.com/FindOut.mov

(and remember: 4.1 is a free upgrade for all 4.0 users!)

-Chilton

When is a private API okay to use?

2009-09-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

So far, I've been hesitant to even touch the private APIs for Mac OS X. But another Mac developer pointed out that as of today, I have a ton of outstanding (developer related) Mac OS X bugs that Apple hasn't fixed, some dating back to 2005. So the likelihood that Apple is about to *change* some of these super-awesome under the hood APIs, when there are still things broken that haven't been addressed since 2005, is slim to none.

So Conjure 4.1 will probably use some private APIs. If Apple changes them, I will gladly release a fixed version after that.

Follow Me To Bunny Land

2009-08-31T21:44:00.001-07:00

Every so often, I accidentally create something that ends up being a ginormous time suck. This is one of those things.

Follow this Link To BunnyLand to see what I mean...

-Chilton

Three Cool Things

2009-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

These are three cool features suggested by our users. We put them in, and it turns out they're indispensable. These let you focus on only one app at a time, hide desktop objects when Conjure is in the background, and sink Conjure to the desktop level.

You can watch it on YouTube now, or you can watch it on Blogger via the movie below...

-Chilton

Conjure 4.0.8: Special Edition for Teachers

2009-08-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Conjure 4.0.8 for Teachers is live!

Special Offer:

http://www.conjurebunny.com/Teachers.html

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tOHHkTzShs

Forums:

http://forums.conjurebunny.com/

Thanks!

-Chilton

Conjure 4.0.8 for Teachers Redux

2009-08-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Alright, it took forever to get the YouTube video online, so officially, this kicks off on the 18th. That's tomorrow.

http://www.conjurebunny.com/ConjureBunny/Teachers.html

-Chilton

Conjure 4.0.8 for Teachers

2009-08-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

I'm still testing the major update (4.1), which includes AWESOME support for Spaces. I think everyone will love it. It's the first time that I can ever recall actually being able to tolerate Spaces for more than a few minutes. The best part is, it now also handles multiple monitors in a way that I don't think anyone has ever done before. Two giant birds, one... bunny? Anyway, it's on the way. But, 4.0.8 will make it out the gate first. Why? Because it has some features that a few friends of mine (teachers) have asked for, and they need it NOW. So it's going out today.

Speaking of which, I'll be starting a half off promo for teachers and educators tomorrow. I'm working on a video that shows how you'd use it, as well. More news on that to follow...

-Chilton

Using Clusters To Think More Betterrer

2009-08-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I just posted a new video showing how to use Conjure to create mental maps, and how to use Clusters to help organize your thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/conjurebunny

Enjoy!

-Chilton

Conjure 4.0.7 is Done!

2009-08-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I finished the major bug hunt release. This effectively squashes all known bugs in Conjure 4.

Here's the list of things that are new or different:

Added shiny new Help system!

The Leopard PPC G5 crash bug that happened when the help system loaded was fixed in the process.

Double-click text box will deselect prior selections.
Clusters now 'float to the top' when objects above them (in the stacking order) are added to them.
Lines now collapse in Clusters. It's not as nice as I'd like it to be yet, but at least it does it now.
Fix for duplication bug. Duplicating an image with option+drag could create a corrupted object under some circumstances. These are all fixed now.
Copying and Pasting some types of objects that were created in Conjure could corrupt other objects, under some circumstances. These are all fixed now.
Added support for bundle folder types, like Pages' documents. These should launch properly now on double-click.
Fixed Duplication of Link bug, where objects duplicated by option+dragging a link could cause bad links. In this version and going forward, links cannot be duplicated.
Inspector is now hidden when entering the overview mode. Before, it would stay open, allowing you to change data you couldn't see.
All file extensions are now hidden. Who needs 'em anyway? They're still visible in the info window.

Thanks to everyone who sent in bugs!

-Chilton

Why is Cluster an object, and not an action?

2009-08-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

I was asked today why there's a Cluster object in Conjure, and not just a 'Cluster' or 'Group' command.

So here's my question for you.

Do people actually think in nouns or verbs?

Way back in the olden days of the computing world, there were actually debates about this kind of thing.

See, the computer software developers wanted to make something that would mirror the normal human way of thinking, because that would lead to 'intuitiveness'. Right? Well, we all thought so back then.

Although I'm sure it did spill over into the real world, this debate didn't happen in person, it was done by software releases. The Unix folk, and their PC (commandline) brethren, were all of the opinion that software 'does a thing', and that it does this 'on things'.

The renegade Mac platform (and a few others, mind you) had 'things' that you 'did things to'.

So the PC world would have CHDIR command (change directory), followed by the directory to change to.

On the Mac, you'd click on a folder object, and go to the file menu, then select 'open'. Or double-click the folder.

In Conjure, I'm trying to stick to this noun based approach.

Objects are the most important thing, then you do something with them.

That's why it was important to me to have a 'cluster' object, and not just a 'cluster' command.

Hope that answers that.

-Chilton

Conjure for Writers

2009-08-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I've been asked how Conjure helps me write. So I posted a video showing how I used Conjure to write the previous blog entry. Enjoy!

-Chilton

Why a Tablet Mac will Absolutely, Positively, Succeed.

2009-08-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Apple's Tablet Mac is a brilliant product, and will absolutely succeed, almost regardless of how it's implemented. Bold statement? Nope. I can prove it...

Every person's view of the world is shaped by the things they do every day. If you write every day, it's hard to imagine a world where a tablet makes sense. Your own occupation will likely color what you think other people do with their time. Many bloggers and especially many in the mainstream media are writers. Naturally, they would think this would fail. Because they might not use it.

When the iPod came out, a number of us artsy folk didn't think it would do well AT ALL. We were WRONG. Because to us, music is just not that important. So obviously, the iPod would fail, because who would spend that much on a musical device? Again, we didn't understand the target demographic.

So let's look at a few of the occupations or interests of different people out there, and how they would be affected by a Tablet Mac. After all, it's difficult to understand the target demographic when you're not the target demographic.

Let's start with the easy ones. People who will not use a Tablet Mac.

Hardcore Gamers

What can I say? Gamers will always prefer a joystick over a touch tablet interface. That's not to say there won't be a plethora of games for a Tablet Mac. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to make a first person shooter on a tablet. Why? Well, when you get frustrated and throw your controller on the ground, that'll cost you more than an extra (virtual) life.

Programmers

Programmers, like writers, tend to be text oriented people. Well, some of them at least. But the growing number of fans of Quartz Composer show that there are people out there who prefer graphically oriented software design software products over their textually oriented parents.

Nevertheless, if programmers see a new platform emerge, they'll embrace it. This is going to happen at some point for the visually oriented demographic.

Writers

Writers will probably NOT use a Tablet Mac, at least not for writing. Certainly not as much as someone would whose field requires that they create something other than text.

But text is the domain of the writer. Much more so than the domain of the artist.

While writers do create art, it is so as much visually oriented as it is conceptually oriented. That is, the user has to see what is on the screen, digest it, and decide based on its worth based on what they see, to decide if it's good.

Paragraphs become paintings, scribbles, and such. The thing is, the keyboard is a better avenue for this than the finger or a stylus on its own.

The only parallel to typing found in the 'real world' is writing with a pen or pencil, and that becomes horribly inefficient when you can type much faster.

But that's what writers think the tablet will mean. A return to the cramped hands of yesteryear, or that artsy people will dictate how they have to type.

Every person's view of the world is shaped by the things they do every day. If you write every day, it's hard to imagine a world where a tablet makes sense.

But to many people, a Tablet Mac WOULD make sense.

So here's a list of People who will use a Tablet Mac

Artists will absolutely love a tablet Mac. This is because most of them are visually oriented people. The keyboard and mouse is a crappy replacement for a real brush. That's why things like the Cintiq exist. But we'll call this the no-brainer crowd, and not just because people think we're flighty. No, it's because almost every artist I know of would KILL for a Tablet Mac.

Teachers

Well here's an easy one. The thing is, the software will conform to the platforms. How many teachers would LOVE to be able to use a touch sensitive screen instead of an entire computer? Ever watch a teacher try to fiddle with the disconnect of keyboard->display->overhead? Well, apps like Conjure are designed to help with that, but they can only do so much. In this case, I suspect teachers, especially those that routinely use an overhead to explain things, would find it far easier to use a Tablet than a keyboard based system, because of the shorter disconnect.

Coaches

Every coach I know either has or wants a tablet computer of some sort. Why? Because you can't type when you're out on the damned field. For some reason, despite that millions of Americans watch football, basketball, and baseball games every year, we seem to forget that there's a HUGE number of people out there who actually PLAY those games. And their coaches can take advantage of new playbook software like AnimatedPlaybook to help with the coaching. A Tablet Mac would be PERFECT for this crowd.

One more thing here. What part of a school (at least in the US) tends to have the most money? Sports.

Students

If your teacher uses a Tablet Mac, you're going to be inclined to, as well. Especially if it has a camera, and especially if your teacher will share their class notes with you. I used to print out my class notes and take them with me, so I wouldn't have to sit and look at them on my PowerBook. Yes, that dates me. So does your mom. But the problem I had with my PowerBook was that it just wasn't comfortable for READING. It was great when I had to do DATA ENTRY. But not for actually processing things that were already done.

When you're studying, that keyboard just gets in the way. A Tablet Mac would solve this easily.

Musicians

Now, musicians are one target demographic that so far have been left far out of the loop. Keyboards don't talk to them. Nor do iPods. But a touch sensitive screen would let you do things like create a type of virtual piano keyboard unseen in modern times.

Look at the number of unique iPhone musical instruments! Who knows what opportunities are out there, on Tablet computers, for musicians?

Scientists

For the most part, you'd think that scientists were primarily text oriented people. That's generally true, for publishing papers. But it's not true for the rest of what they do. If you've ever been in a modern science lab, the computer, with its keyboard, often creates a roadblock. It's hard to type when you have thick rubber gloves on. Granted, it would be hard to use a Tablet computer based on capacitance as well, but maybe pressure sensitive tablet wouldn't be such a bad idea here.

The thing is, the computer is often off on its own, sitting in some unobtrusive part of the room. Why? because it takes up a lot of space. A Tablet computer would take up only as much space as the screen, which would make it a perfect companion for most science equipment.

Sci-Fi junkies

Duh. No one uses a keyboard in the future. Haven't you ever seen a movie?

Casual Gamers

The iPod and iPhone have revealed a massive untapped market. There are people out there who find an actual game platform, like a Nintendo DS or PSP to be awkward for the types of games they like to play. These often tend to be visually oriented people. And kids. Don't forget the kids. They love this stuff. The casual game market for a Tablet Mac would be unbelievable.

Business People

Yes, business people will use a Tablet Mac. Why? Because with the exception of accounting software, most software tailored to businesses these days rely heavily on the visual aspects of computing. Go take a look at some of the chart apps on SalesForce. It's unreal. Well, a tablet interface would beat the snot out of a screen+keyboard+trackpad any day, for wiring up things in those apps.

And business people bring me to another point...

People who have to fly

I just flew back from Cleveland. Granted, I'm a big guy, but I had to prop my MacBook Pro up in a 'V' shape, so I could drape my hands over the side. Then I had to hunch over it and view my screen at a fairly sharp angle. My MacBook Pro is sexy, but I couldn't help but feel like I was trying to see down her shirt.

If I'd had a Tablet Mac, I could have easily fit the whole screen and everything on that stupid plastic flappy seat table thing. I would have been perfectly happy to grumble occasionally over having to type on a touch sensitive screen, rather than a real one, if it meant I could at least have some comfortable part of my body.

Target Demographics

I'm getting to my point now. Just hang around a few paragraphs more.

See, the target demographics for Mac users are (I hate this term) the 'creatives'. They're the artists, the musicians, people who are visually oriented to begin with. To many of them, the keyboard is already a hindrance.

Well, that's exactly the target demographic the Tablet Mac would appeal to.

The Average Person

So. Where does the 'average person' fit in here? Well, again we come back to my original premise. The concept of the 'average person' is often reflected by who you are. And most writers, or at least most of the people who have been saying the Tablet Mac will fail, are writers. Where do they fit in? The people who will not be using a Tablet Mac. Or at least until they have to write something on an airplane.

Conjure 4

2009-08-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Conjure 4 is launched.

So why did I go from Conjure 3.0.1 to Conjure 4? Isn't that cheating?

No. Here's why.

Conjure 3 was based on some underlying technologies that frankly weren't designed to do the rather mundane things I thought it could. Core Animation is great at moving objects around a screen, but it kills editable text, and renders the OSX spell checker useless. It appears my bugs related to this are unlikely to be fixed in Leopard or Snow Leopard, so I have instead gone back to the 2.0 codebase, and added everything in 3.0 (and more!) to that. In the process, I redesigned the core engine to be more expandable and scalable going forward.

As a result, we have a substantially better version now. Far more stable. I think you'll like it. But it's an almost complete rewrite, so we bumped the version number. However, I also feel like my existing users didn't get the experience I wanted in 3.0, so I'm again extending the free upgrade path for all 3.x users. So if you have 3.x, just re-enter your serial number, and it should work just fine. And the same goes for MUPromo users, even though I think earlier I said it would be a paid upgrade. No charge.

That said, it creates a new database file for 4.0, so your existing 2.0 and 3.0 versions will continue to operate properly. Sometime in the future I'll add a feature to use existing databases, but that's not in this version.

So Enjoy!

-Chilton

Conjure 4

2009-08-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

Hey hey. Didn't think I'd ever get around to saying this...

Thursday, August 6th, 2009, Conjure 4 will be unveiled.

I'm extending the free upgrade offer to all existing 3.x users, mainly because I'm really, really sorry for how Conjure 3 was released. Basically, there are a few minor bugs in Core Animation that Apple has chosen not to fix at this time, or for Snow Leopard. That's why text fields are inherently screwed up in Conjure 3.

Additionally, I'm spinning Clothesline and the Audio note taker off into their own products, so I removed them from the Clothesline arsenal. They didn't really make sense there, as no one used the audio note taker for what it was intended, and Clothesline would be a better as a separate app, in something like a Finder replacement.

But going forward, it will be really, really easy to update Conjure 4 now, so I think this will be an exciting year. I'm going to be updating it in tiny updates rather than huge rewrites, like versions 2-3 and 3-4.

Alright, off to tinker with the forums, and to make sure the launch goes smoothly!

-Chilton

This kind of change adds up to whole dollars

2008-03-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

I have reached critical mass. I have enough users now that I think I know what type of people, doing what type of things, really get something from Conjure. And that gives me great clarity.

Here's what I mean...

Lots of people don't need Conjure.

Lots of people probably need it, but wouldn't use it.

Some people download Conjure, find it distasteful, and leave. That's okay with me. I don't want these people as customers. Frankly, I'd prefer it if these people were my competitor's customers.

Some people try Conjure, find it intriguing, but find that it generally is not as good as what they came up with, and send me pictures of what they came up with. I like these people well enough, and I do take all suggestions to heart, it's just that they tend to show me pictures of something *I* wouldn't use.

Then there are a few people who buy it. They saw it, looked past the (various) website(s), past the explanation, past the movies, and saw into the soul of the machine. Something was there. It connected with them. These are the people I made Conjure for, and they're the ones I'll be building it for, going forward.

I could try to make this change the world. I could spend years analyzing and reanalyzing my users' habits, non-users' habits, and general Conjure concepts. But I think I'd come up empty. What I want to do with it is very different than what it is now, and after talking to some of my most ardent supporters, I think it's time to change things up a bit more.

So version 2.5 will no longer refer to Conjure as an alternate Desktop environment. And I really don't want to call it a personal organizer, or a project manager. I don't know what to call it yet, but I think these concepts suck.

There's a better explanation out there.

-Chilton

2008-03-13T11:13:00.002-07:00

This is an awesome insight into how big companies like Apple pull off their awesome design. From a presentation at SXSW...

I want a pony!

-Chilton

Neat idea. Now go over there with it.

2008-03-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

There are few phrases that frighten me more than, "I'm an idea person...".

Really? An idea person? Well hell, I gotta hang around your type more often! Do tell, what idea do you have for me today? Oh, it's only part of the idea? Not so much an idea as it is a vague description? That's okay, I'm sure the details don't matter.

The thing is, it's all details. That's the trick. All those high level concepts add up to zilch pretty quick.

I did a little research on People on the Desktop. Know what I found? It turns out, people have tried this before! A LOT of people! And they all categorically failed. Oh, but the press was so impressed. They went on and on about how this or that was a game changer. Everything was about to change, and you'd never use your computer the same way again. Your desktop was about to change, and you'd never figure out how things would work again. Your friends would change, and you just wouldn't recognize them anymore.

Well it turns out, they came up with more of the same. As you can probably see from the videos (and just using the app), I am trying to mix things up a little. So I have a few new concepts I'll be throwing into Conjure pretty soon. Feel free to let me know your thoughts...

1) Minions - Many years ago, a screenshot of Copland made me so excited, I actually wrote a piece of software to try to mimic it, knowing very well that at any moment, OS8 would ship, and make my little app useless. Of course, Copland never shipped, and it turned out I had *read that article wrong*. Meanwhile, my implementation sucked. And after I wrote it, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how it should have worked. I think I have that figured out now. Or rather, now-ish. So I'll be adding 'Minions' to Conjure in a big way.

2) Super-Get-Info-Boxen - Why is it so hard to get a full path to a file in Leopard? And what if I want to copy the modified date of a file? Well, Conjure's about to get a 'Super' info window, complete with a giant text field of info about the file. One where you can copy everything you normally can't copy, straight out of the window. It's gonna be sweet.

3) Classrooms - We have teh interwebs. We have powerful computers. We have powerful search engines. So why is it that every time I want to learn something, I have to hit twenty pages on a search engine, comb through every result, and slowly (and manually) piece together notes on the topic? Conjure will introduce a new concept, the 'Classroom'. You tell it what you want to learn, and it does all the research for you. Then, it compacts the research into a single web page, and sticks that right on the page for you, along with all the links to relevant other material, including any applications and other miscellaneous files you might need.

4) Intelligence, Newton-style - If you haven't used a Newton, you need to. I highly recommend the 2100. Now, the Newton had a lot of things I'm not going to touch. But one of them is simply brilliant, and that's the little Newton symbol. Click it while some text is highlighted, and the Newton does something. Cool stuff. So yeah, something like that is going in there.

5) Return to iPod Island - Early versions of Conjure could store their notes internally, making the app entirely self-contained. The problem with this was that my users kept wiping all their data out by 'upgrading' to new versions, and overwriting the old one with the new one. Ouch. But it was a good idea. So I've got some new thoughts on how to do that, and we'll see how it works.

6) Super-Enhanced PDF support. Hey, why not? Why not let the user read PDFs like a book, with flippy-pages? It's not rocket science. Sure, it may be eye-candy, but it's tasty, and frankly makes some sense.

7) Web pages as objects, not just links. Again, why not? Why not be able to change a URL directly into an actual viewable, scrollable, resizable web view, right on the desktop? And yeah, I know Active Desktop already did this, and that you can slice up a web page and put it directly in Dashboard. But why not put it on your desktop instead? That way, it's there when you need it, per project.

People on the Desktop

2008-03-05T17:21:00.000-08:00

Conjure supports People now, something I've wanted for a long time. But now that it's in there, I have to decide how it should work going forward. Right now, a person is a link to an entry in your Address Book. And, it's a 'thing that does something'. If you double-click it, it will launch your email client and create a new email addressed to that person. It's not much, but it's a start, and that's farther along than any of the major OS vendors. But I plan to add Skype and iChat / Adium support soon. So if your contact has an iChat name, and you double-click their head in Conjure, what should that do? What if they have a website? What if they have *two* websites? What if they're listed in iChat, ICQ, Gmail, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Dot Mac, Skype, AND they have six email addresses? Well... now that smarmy bastard does a heck of a lot. So what should Conjure do?

Here's a brief overview of the issues I face on this. Your input is obviously welcome.

Bruce Tognazzini, founder of the Human Interface Group at Apple, has this to say on his site...

"People should also be first-class objects in a modern interface. I should be able to drag a document onto an icon-sized photo of a colleague and have it automatically sent to the default address. (Of course, I could option drag a document to it to reveal all addresses, or I could just double click it to do the same.)"

Obviously, I agree. But this is about all I've seen with regard to this concept, so a lot of the design of this metaphor in Conjure is happening as a result of emails from helpful users, and my own mad thinking. On a modern computer, there are at least four basic metaphors. I know these are obvious to you, but bear with me for a minute...

1) Application (aka Program) - When you double-click this, it always behaves in a similar manner. Its contents can change, but its overall structure and design remains consistent. Also, it's not 'yours' in that they never really change too much, as a result of using them. Applications are what you use to create and alter your stuff.

2) Documents (aka Files) - When you double-click this, it behaves exactly the same way it did when you did that last time. If you drag it to a different program, its behavior is largely unpredictable. For example, if I drag a JPEG to a web browser icon, it will likely show that picture. If I drag it to a file compression app, its on-screen behavior will be very different. It's a 'thing' you use by dragging around. Also, it's YOUR thing, and you can change it, very radically, via programs.

3) Containers (aka folders, volumes, drives, etc.) - When you double-click this, it shows its contents. That's all. It's very unlikely you're expecting any other behavior. You can drag both applications and documents onto a container, but ultimately that doesn't change the contents. Most of the time, you don't drag containers onto programs, though you can obviously drag containers onto other containers.

4) Links (aka Aliases) - When you double-click this, it launches the original thing, whatever that is. If you drag a file onto it, it will pass the file along to the original. A link itself does not contain its own contents.

Should People be Applications, Documents, Containers, or Links? Or something more?

I can say with some certainty that a Person is a thing that you should be able to double-click on. And I think it should be on the same level as an Application, in that it could be a drag destination for a document. But it won't alter a document dragged onto it, nor really do anything to the document other than reroute it. Furthermore, it should not represent any form of storage by itself, but should be able to act as a conduit through which documents could travel. So a Person is kinda like a 'smart alias' in that regard. It should also contain its own contents. A Person could contain birthdays, names of friends, addresses, phone numbers, and lots of other kinds of information. So it's like a document in that regard. And to be honest, if you double-click it, it should either have a default behavior, or provide you with a list of potential behaviors. And that's kinda like an application.

Drag Behavior

If you drag a file onto a person, you probably want to give it to them somehow. There are a lot of ways to give someone a document. Do you want to email it, ftp, Skype, iChat peer-to-peer, or something else? We'll probably look at the services that person has listed as accessible, and decide on that person's capabilities there. And since you might not be interested in all of those capabilities all of the time, we'll give you some method for turning on or off different features. A 'Person' might then have multiple views, or a single larger view that contains multiple drop destinations, for the different capabilities. But if we did this, a single person could get cumbersome, from a visual standpoint.

So if you drag a file onto a person, it will then give you a popup menu of the possible actions you can take with it, along with an icon for each. For example, it might show Email, Adium, and Skype options if that user has those capabilities.

Double-Click and Default behaviors

As stated before, a person should probably have a default behavior, which should be settable via its Get Info window. Double-clicking them would invoke that behavior. And when you drag things onto them, that behavior would be listed as the pre-chosen, first option. In fact, I might go so far as to allow you to turn off all behaviors except one, if you want. Visually, I imagine Conjure should also brand the icon with a much smaller icon indicating what action you wish to take, or a question mark if there is no capabilities associated with the user. This way, you could have three links to the same person, each with different behaviors. For example, if your assistant artist has an FTP site, an email account, and an iChat account, and you want to send him something, you could have three different links to him on one page, each behaving differently to dragged files.

And if they're online, and iChat is the default behavior for them, we might even brand the icon with their iChat status.

But what if you drag one contact onto another contact? And what if you drag a person onto a program?

I am curious, as always, what you think. And please feel free elaborate ;-)