Introducing QuickPost Beta 2

Exactly 5 months in the making, I'd like to introduce the second beta of QuickPost for Mac. Beta 2 is one incredible update due to the fact that almost none of the code from the first beta is present in this one, thats right it was built from the ground up. Finished 2 days ago, it's been in private testing while I finish the new website which I'm extremely proud about so go check it out to get the full details on this new release.

New Stuff

• Offline Post Storage
• Multiple Blog and User accounts
• More powerful and stable visual editor
• Source code editing
• URL Shortening
• Tweeting new posts
• Search and add maps and videos to entries

Improved

• Higher control of web images
• Powerful hyperlink creator for websites and mail-to links
• Smoother posting
• Text formatting
• Interface

These are just to name a few, head to the website to check out the release notes and download the latest beta. It works with Mac OS X 10.5+ and Google Blogger. Support for wordpress and more coming soon, here's proof.

Please download, if you like, love or hate something about the app, use the built in feedback (In the QuickPost menu) to let me know :). Or just post a comment here. Just remember that this is a beta app so the features, interface, icons and finish are not final and will change over time.

Latest Chromium Screenshots

Chromium is the open source project behind the Google Chrome project. For a couple months now you have been able to download nightly builds of the native mac version which is awesome for fans of the windows app. While these are early builds of the browser they show great maturity and stability, even though most of the preference options don't actually work. Many of the main features work including tab dragging (including to new windows) and incognito mode. It's far from complete and suitable for real world use but it's definitely on the way so we should be seeing a Google Chrome beta for Mac soon. 

I love this browser, the fact that the dock icon doesn't even bounce is great indication of the performance during startup and that address bar, just brilliant! When using my current browser Camino, 90% of the time I open a new tab to search so with Chromium I don't have to tab to the search field, I just begin typing. The interface is just stunning, which is not easy on a mac. It's very hard for designers to create interfaces that use different kinds of controls and make it look like it belongs in leopard but  reckon they have succeeded with this one. This is something the ugliest browser on the planet could really spend time doing. Check out the screen shot of how the leopard chrome works with the browser interface. 

Something that could be interesting? Maybe the feature by the same name in Safari 4 is actually a webkit project?

So go check out the latest nightly builds and test, if you find an issue or the browser crashes, make sure you can repeat the steps and submit a bug report. Check out the screenshot of the full app below.

End of an era

I'd like to take this time to talk about a period of my life that has now come to an end, Digilife. In early 2006 I walked into Perth's best Apple store ready for my first day of work experience as a year 10 student. Starting out in the admin, it quickly became clear to my supervisor that the workshop gained most of my attention and on the third day I became their first and only student to work on an Apple product. That Apple product was a 17 inch Powerbook G4, at the time it was their flagship notebook so you will understand that I was more than nervous. 

All through year 11 and 12 I worked as an Apple technician for Digilife through workplace learning and as a part time job, it was amazing. I can proudly say I have worked on every non-vintage mac produced, and my favourite being the 17 inch MacBook Pro due to ease of access with the case. Though the new unibody macbook's are beautiful inside and out, they are a little fiddly and the connectors are a nightmare. 

All through my time at Digilife I worked with another Alex, Jason and Christolph. Unfortunately both Jason and Christolph moved onto different things and I give my best wishes to them. 2009 was the first year of my teenage life where I didn't have to turn up for school, though Tafe is pretty close, and working at Digilife was now my part-time job. That was until a couple of weeks ago. Tough economic times had forced us to close our retail store in the Perth mall, leaving just the flagship store and service centre in osbourne park. Unfortunately the sales team was not able to sell enough products so on the 9th of April, Digilife closed it's doors for good. 

After spending over three years working with the same team that we call a family, it was incredibly difficult to face the fact that we would never return to work together again. Sure some of us may end up working in the same company but not as a team and thats a real shame. Some of the team were angry with the owners Chris and Anne for loosing heir jobs but I'm the complete opposite. Yeah it sucks that I lost my job but if it wasn't for Anne and Chris giving me a chance as a young boy to prove myself to becoming part of the technical team, I would not be the kind of person I am today. I'm so so very proud of what I built in the past four years, relationships, memories and skills. So while I miss everything we have done, I raise my glass to this family and wish them all the very best. Thankyou guys, for accepting me into your lives and hearts, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with you all. I hope the future is fruitful for you and that you make your dreams happen. Peace.

New QuickPost website - Beta signup

I finally got around to making a decent looking website for QuickPost. This version is basically a teaser/signup page for the beta that will be released around the end of May. You get to see the new app icon and a little bit of the new editor, with this beta now feature complete, the next couple weeks will be spent tying up loose ends and testing. Just pop your name and email into the register section and you will be notified of any updates and get early access to the beta. Hope you like it!

Check it out and sign up!

QuickPost Status

So after I a two week break at home I return to the big city to continue work on my blog editor, QuickPost so I thought i'd provide a little update of where I'm at. Offline editing, account storage, multiple blogs, twitter & tr.im support and a new Editor. "What else is there to do"? you ask, well I want to take a second to talk about the new editor. 

Its really neat and powerful, providing full rich text editing, images, videos and maps. It was rebuilt soon after the first beta was released as it was found to not handle large amounts of text very well but the new editor requires more code to do the... editing. Which is all fine and well but when it comes to showing the source code, it all comes to a screeching halt. So in other words, it's not very efficient and stable when working with the HTML source code. But I'm making small steps to building a better editor with the help of some famous developers, hopefully in only a little while I should have a beta out for you guys. The beta will be google only but wordpress has been tested to work but requires more time to implement it into the app properly. 

I wrote and published this using QuickPost Beta 2 as proof of the progress I'm making. If you want to join the beta team, just drop a comment on this post until I have the new signup page finished. So much to do! 

cheers guys!

Awesome iPhone Ad

A friend of mine gave me this link to a parody by Saturday Night Live of the iPhone commercials Apple did with real people on the street. It's awesome, funny and pretty creative so I share it here today. Though I do not condone meth or punching cops, it's still a funny watch, check it out below. 

Microsoft Analytics

Since the release of my website and not long after the conception of the blog I have been using the Microsoft adCenter Analytics Beta for tracking the page traffic. My choice for using this system over Google is that it actually works and pretty neatly at that. Unfortunately about a week ago I was notified that as of the last day of this year, the service will be discontinued, which is a real shame. This blog will continue using the service to the end but the new company website will have to use a new service. Maybe I should give Google another go, recommend any other analytics services? Thanks for all the page tracking data, it was very helpful!

iPhone OS 3.0...Wow

I woke up this morning to a whole bunch of new information regarding the iPhone OS upgrade from the Apple media event and wow. Over a thousand new API's for developers including the much delayed Push Notification System, in-app purchasing, live content streaming and access to hardware to name a few. For consumers they finally get cut, copy & paste and in true Apple fashion, it works brilliantly in almost every app! I'm not going to copy what has been said on the likes of TUAW and Engadget but as of now every request I wanted for the OS has been met. This includes MMS support in the form of a new messaging app, the ability to search your music not to mention everything else, increased Bluetooth support and landscape keyboards for Mail and SMS!!!!!. They also laid to rest a few common talking points including background apps and why the Push System was delayed though the App Store Approval process got the typical/standard/boring/not helpful response from the iPhone team.

1000 new API's, that is truly incredible for any platform. They applications demonstrated at the event were very cool, putting the in-app purchasing and notifications to good use. So when the update appears in iTunes for free ($10 iTouch) sometime in June, expect some amazing applications to go with it. Obviously there is long way to go and it will be interesting to see what gets added and what gets dropped.

Accepted by Twitter

QuickPost just became more connected, starting today it's recognized on the twitter website. Check out on the screenshot above "2 minutes ago from QuickPost", how awesome right? QuickPost takes advantage of twitter in a pretty neat way and along with the tr.im service, makes it easier than ever to use. Beta 2 is on the home stretch, all that is left to do is tidy the interface and current features and finish off implementing the tr.im api. Stay tuned!

First Chrome for Mac screenshots

Mike Pinkerton (former Mozilla) has been working with Google on the mac version of the worlds quickest browser, Chrome. He has released screenshots of the first web page loaded by the app, indicating that they have the multi-process system working. This is something I'm really looking forward to as Chrome is my default windows browser, it will be real nice to use it on my main platform, Mac OS X. 

Here is a screenshot of what a 'crashed' tab looks like, I love the little icon,

WALL-E & Steve Jobs

Wall-E is one beautiful movie, both graphically and emotionally, something that could only be produced by a company like Pixar. After the pixar computer was developed at Lucasfilm, Steve Jobs purchased it and turned it into a viable company (have I heard this before?) before it was purchased by Disney. That purchase makes Steve Jobs the single biggest share holder of the Disney company, now with that out of the way here is the actual reason of the post: Upon purchasing the DVD for Wall-E I found two little easter eggs on the main screen (The B&L logo and the compass), clicking the compass opens the screen you see above. This provides the overview for the short title clip that was used in the pitch for Wall-E to John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. I love the last bit "Steve Jobs' un-enthusiastic response was: "I don't like the title."" After  20 minute demo and that was all he could say...he is a salesman, pitch is everything. Wall-E is ripe with Apple goodness from the 'Mac Chime' that plays when he boots up, the iPod he keeps and EVE being designed by John Ive, the worlds finest industrial designer. Johny Ive is responsible for the design of the iMac that saved Apple (and every mac that followed), the iPod, iPhone and more recently the worlds most advanced notebook, the MacBook. Just thought I would share this little 'Steve Jobs Moment' for you all. :) Want to see it for yourself, click the compass. Screenshot below.

Leopard Intro Movie Found

I have finally found the absolutely stunning intro movie that comes with leopard, viewed when setting up a new machine or fresh install of the OS. While browsing the example Quartz projects included with Xcode I found the file path of the mysterious video and I'm going to tell you how to get it. Disclaimer: This file is deep within system critical files, do not move, delete or rename anything inside. I accept no responsibility if you screw up :). Maybe you should make a backup if you are not sure. Lets begin shall we?

To begin, locate the 'System' folder on your boot drive and follow this path: System > Library > CoreServices. Inside of this folder you will find an app called 'Setup Assitant', right click it and select 'Show Package Contents' as indicated below.

In the new finder window that opens up navigate: Contents > Resources and locate a file callled 'TransitionSection.bundle', right click it and select 'Show Package Contents".

In the new window that opens navigate: Contents > Resources and you will see the intro.mov video file which you can copy to a more convenient location(Make sure not to remove it when copying). If you want the snazzy song that goes with it, the file intro-sound.mp3 will complete the experience.

Amazon Kindle 2 ...wow

Amazon has just released some photos and launch details of their new Kindle, an ebook that uses and electronic paper display. A neat little feature is that it has access to the Amazon Wispernet via Sprint EVDO. My current Tafe course is based around designing and building electronic hardware, something I have always been fascinated about, with companies like Apple building devices and computers into incredibly thin enclosures. The kindle 2 as demonstrated below is an incredibly thin and sexy peice of hardware. From the creamy front to the aluminium back, design cues from a certain device have been used to their full extent. Great stuff Amazon, keep it up.