Monthly Archives: February 2007

MarsEdit 1.1.3

Red Sweater Blog: “How am I going to reward users for their enthusiasm? By releasing updates. With fixes. And features. And stuff. It’s been four days since the acquisition, and I’m happy to announce the immediate availability of MarsEdit 1.1.3, a free update for all registered users.”

It’s amazing that something this simple can build so much goodwill and confidence so quickly. A lesson for all software developers: under commit, over deliver

Please go the speed limit

To all drivers:

Please try to drive the speed limit. Don’t drive 30 miles an hour when the speed limit is 40. Others behind you may be trying to get somewhere quickly and count on traffic moving along at the prescribed speed.

In other words, hang up your phone, quit gawking (“Look Martha, there’s the Steak and Ale!”) and drive like you have a brain.

Gas-O-Haul

Cool Tools: “This disposable fiberboard container folds flat and has a bladder that can hold a gallon of gas (about 14″ by 6″ by 2″).”

Cool! I need to get a couple of these for our cars. You never know when you need something like this.

Red Sweater Acquires MarsEdit

Red Sweater Blog: “You read that right, no need to run for another cup of coffee. MarsEdit, the kick-ass, intuitive web-publishing powerhouse which I’ve been using to write entries here since I started blogging almost two years ago, is now part of the Red Sweater family of products. What an exciting day!”

I’m a daily user of MarsEdit, NetNewsWire and WordPress. Looks like I’m getting a really early Christmas present.

Gabriel is Here!

JakeSavin.com: “Gabriel arrived at 5:30PM PST today! Cindy and I are very tired, and very happy. And I’m so proud of Cindy. Don’t ever underestimate this woman: She’s one strong, determined and courageous person. I’m so proud!”

Click through for a pic of the proud father and son. Congrats, Jake!

Pining for a new UserTalk environment

I used to work with a great scripting language and runtime called [Frontier](http://frontierkernel.org) (and it’s cousin [Radio](http://radio.userland.com) and after leaving it behind, I miss it. It was cross-platform, simple in it’s method of execution and was self-contained with the app handling the database, threads, scheduling and the language interpreter.

I can’t use it anymore because of bad history and memories, but mostly because the product has died on the vine. A group of intelligent and dedicated people maintain what’s left–commercially as UserLand Software ([Manila](http://manila.userland.com) and [Radio](http://radio.userland.com)) and an open-source [Frontier kernel](http://frontierkernel.org) project.

I want a new implementation of the UserTalk environment, written from scratch and cross-platform. I want the database, the language interpreter, and the scheduler. The outliner would be an option. I don’t want any code from the old software to prevent the new users suffering the mistakes and legacy of the past.

Can it be done?

I think so. It would be simple to write some code to perform the action of single verb, so maybe the first place to start is generate a library of verbs. What language to use? What about the user interface? What can be used that will work for Windows and Macs too?