Cool

Best Crash Report Ever

Andy Kim — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:32:42 -0800

I was chatting with a developer friend about crash reports and as one thing led to another, after a quick Gmail search, I ended up showing him this one particular crash report I got sometime last year:

A flash of lightning could be seen through the north-facing window, the squak of the dark night's crow taunted me from a distance as I just reloaded the library in Tangerine. Shortly after a masked butcher, knife and all, broke through my thrice-locked front door barking threats of murder, Tangerine! unexpectedly quit. As a father feels when he loses his son, I felt an overwhelming sadness until I was warmly greeted by Apple's "YOUR PROGRAM CRASHED, BROTHA!!" window suggesting I relaunch Tangerine. That's what brings me here, composing this message to you. I have personally attached the Crash Long Contents for your reviewal. I can only hope, pray, that you will use it to correct the wrong that I have experienced. Now I must bid you adieu.

I cringe whenever I get a crash report, but if they were all like this, I wouldn't mind so much.

It's from a Mr. Eric L. Pheterson. I hope he doesn't mind my publishing it here. Oh, and the bug was fixed a long time ago.

Together

Andy Kim — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:15:19 -0800

My friend Steve Harris over at Reinvented Software has just released Together 2.0. It's a data organizer that does with files what iTunes does with songs. You can group, tag, rate, preview, encrypt/decrypt, and even edit files in some cases without leaving the application. It also has an automatically hiding shelf that you can quickly drop files to and add quick notes through.

This might sound a lot like Yojimbo, but Keep It Together—the previous name of Together—actually precedes Yojimbo by about two years. The just released version 2.0 takes it up a notch or two beyond Yojimbo, in my opinion.

Check out Steve's announcement post and the application itself.

DISCLAIMER: I helped with the development of this application, albeit a teeny bit.

Gmail IMAP

Andy Kim — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:31:13 -0700

Google is selectively rolling out IMAP for Gmail. One of my accounts was lucky to get it and I'm testing it now. I have written to Google begging for this many times and I've even signed online petitions. So yeah, I'm really excited about this.

Until now, my email setup consisted of Gmail for domains and my own IMAP server that I setup Gmail to forward all mail to. Then I setup Mail.app to read mail from my IMAP server but to send using Google's SMTP server. I did all that so that I could read mail using Mail.app in multiple computers, multiple OS installations, as well as the iPhone while still having it all archived in Gmail.

I'm so glad that I can do away with this fugly work around.

It's great seeing the folders I create in Mail.app show up on Gmail's web interface and vice versa. This means that Gmail's web interface is now 10 times more useful to me. I may actually even use it.

Christmas came early for me this year.

On a separate topic, work on my new application is progressing nicely. It's still too far away from release to say anything more, but things are looking pretty sweet.

Starting up the Hype Machine

Andy Kim — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:21:44 -0700

Gus Mueller of Flying Meat Software:

For fun, I recently interviewed a fellow Pacific Northwest developer who's company is about to ship a shiny new OS X app on Monday, which has been in stealth mode for a number of months.

Jump to Starting up the Hype Machine

MarsEdit 2.0 Is Out

Andy Kim — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:58:15 -0700

MarsEdit 2.0 just came out. It's the blogging client that was recently acquired by the Mac celebrity blogger Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software from Brent Simmons—another Mac veteran. It looks like Daniel put a lot of work into this thing, so check it out.

And guess what? I'm posting this from ME2! Gosh, I love that new software smell.

Too Much Information...

Andy Kim — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:27:40 -0700

It's an interesting design, but this thing is not coming anywhere near my waist.

[via information aesthetics]

Rodrigo y Gabriela

Andy Kim — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 11:43:45 -0700

I was recently introduced to a band and have been telling everyone I know about them because I'm so blown away by their music.

I'll just let their work speak for itself:

Even though their field is completely separate from mine, I can't stop being inspired. Damn it! I want my software to be that good. Minimal yet passionate.

Online Software Store Tutorial

Andy Kim — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:22:20 -0700

Here's a nice detailed tutorial on how to go about making your own online web store. The solution will involve php rather than rails, but some of the advice will apply to the Potion Store as well.

Jump to "Processing Your Own Online Payments - A Brief Tutorial [Part 1]"

FlyGesture Goes Free

Andy Kim — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:23:03 -0700

FlyGesture by Flying Meat has just become freeware. Not only is it free now, but Gus refunded everyone who bought it in the last 60 days. What a classy guy.

As a happy user of VoodooPad, I strongly encourage you to check it out too while you are there.

iPhone Video Tour

Andy Kim — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:41:10 -0700

I haven't had any real interest in getting an iPhone, but after watching the iPhone Guided Tour, I am pretty much sold. The amount of polish that went into this thing is just amazing. The animation effects are done in good taste and result in a certain fluidity that is mesmerizing (am I too much of a UI geek?). I did worry a little that Core Animation will make a lot of developers put in unnecessary and cheesy animation effects into their apps, but now I can at least hope that they will follow the example set by iPhone; I know I will be. I mean, I can almost forgive Apple for not having the secret feature in Leopard now.

My self-imposed rule about not buying first generation hardware (Apple or otherwise, even cars) will have to be broken this time.

As a developer and user interface designer—after having watched the video 2 times—what impressed me the most were the new gestures revealed to us for the first time:

Flick right to delete

Instead of having to get into the edit mode just to delete an email, you can flick to the right with your finger on a row to reveal the delete button for the row. It's not something that's immediately obvious or discoverable, but it is ingenious nonetheless and analogous to dragging icons off the dock. It turns a 3 tap process into a "flick and tap". Yes, saving a tap is very important. I can see this being or becoming the standard delete gesture in the iPhone.

Tap with two fingers to zoom out

I only saw this in the Google Maps section, but I hope that it's used everywhere. It's better than the double tap for two reasons: 1) there is no confusion about zooming-in or zomming-out: The two finger tap will always zoom-out and 2) you save a tap. I'm wondering if there is a three finger tap that will zoom out two levels at once.

Now, the thing that I care about the most is whether I can accept these gestures in my own web application. The flick gesture might be possible with some pain, but I doubt that the two finger tap will be.

Apple, if you are reading, give us the SDK!