ThinkMac SoftwareThinkMac in 2010
Hello all, my apologies once again for the lack of updates on here. We’re into March now and I’ve still not said what’s going on with ThinkMac this year! So lets go:
iKana 2 (Mac)
Is nearly complete now, it would have been ready sooner but I decided to shake things up a bit and add Leitner style spaced repetition training for both kana and now vocabulary too! The vocabulary trainer is designed to teach you around 700 words which fall in the general remit of JLPT 4/5. A number of vocab sets will be predefined and you’ll be able to make your own practice set. Should be out before the end of March.
iKana Nōto (iPad)
iKana touch remixed for the iPad! This is still in the early planning and design phase so it won’t be ready for awhile yet. Ideally I’d like to have an iPad to test it on too before I release it which means we’re talking late May or June as likely release time. Nōto (ノート) is the Japanese word for notebook by the way.
InstantGallery 2 (Mac)
It’s not dead! I know it’s been on the horizon for years and that it keeps getting put on the back burner but it’s still in active development and it will be ready sooner rather than later. I don’t dare put a date on it though as I’ve promised and missed dates on it too many times already. IG2 has undergone a lot of redesigning over the past year to make it easier and more flexible to use.
On the horizon
Other things due in the not too distant future are an update to iKanji + iKanji touch. A full set of JLPT 2 stroke animations will be included finally. iKana touch 2 will sync with iKana 2 on the Mac. Later in the year I hope to get spaced repetition into iKanji on the Mac to make it possible to sync progress and practice sets between the iPhone and desktop versions. If iKana Nōto does well there will likely be an iKanji Nōto too.
Right that’s all the updates for now, I’ll blog more about iKana 2 when it’s closer to release.
ThinkMac on Twitter
There’s now an official ThinkMac Twitter stream for you to follow!
Well picture this – NewsLife 1.5
Christmas has come early for NewsLife users, version 1.5 is now available for download! The big new feature in this update is the Picture Tile mode which you can see in the above screenshot. NewsLife already looks for any images that appear in article summaries and displays a little thumbnail – but wouldn’t it be awesome if you could browse a feed purely by those images? Well now you can, version 1.5 lets you browse a feed purely by thumbnails. If a feed doesn’t contain an image for a given article NewsLife simply swaps in the headline on a cheerfully coloured tile so you still know what else is there.
I think this injects a bit of fun into what can otherwise be a bit of a mundane experience, I hope you enjoy it too! You can of course still browse using the standard list view – there is a little toggle button at the bottom of the window to quickly switch modes as well as menu and keyboard shortcuts.
Also new is a feature that was planned for 1.0 but which never made the cut – you can now filter feeds by author. This is handy if you read a feed where there are multiple contributors, just click the author link at the bottom of the article summary to see everything else published by that person. Where an email or personal website link is provided you can access that too.
Note: You may need to clear and redownload the articles for a feed for the author to be displayed on articles downloaded under earlier versions of NewsLife. Look for the option under the Feeds menu.
iKanji 1.3.1 fix released
I’ve just released a quick fix for iKanji 1.3 that addresses a problem using the test modules under Snow Leopard (only a blank window would open when choosing a test). Click the ‘Check for Updates…’ option from iKanji’s main menu to download and install it. Apologies for not spotting this sooner!
iKana 2 sneak peek
Sorry it’s been a little while since I last blogged, since then iKanji 1.3 and iKanji touch 1.2 have been released. At the moment I’m bust working on two projects – InstantGallery 2 and iKana 2. I want to get iKana 2 ready for the ‘back to school’ season so it’s slated for a September release.
iKana 2 features all the cool features from iKana touch; namely stroke animations, speech samples and the practice set mechanism. In addition the user interface has been spruced up significantly and improved. The vocabulary selection will also be greatly enhanced. Here’s a little preview of the updated flash card window:
Shareware I can’t live without
Posted on August 31, 2009 by Rory Prior
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There are a number of essential freeware and shareware apps I use all the time for both fun and business. I thought it would be a nice shout out to a lot of the other cool Mac devs out there to write a little about all of them.
Adium
As much as I like iChat I have a number of friends who use other networks. Adium has long been the best multi-network chat client. It’s running on my Mac almost continually.
AppViz
I used to curse iTunes Connect daily for it’s miserable interface before this wonderful application came and saved me from it. This app lets me monitor my App Store sales with ease without having to mess with CSV files. Apple should license this app for all iPhone devs and garner some goodwill.
Feeder
I use Feeder to maintain ThinkMac’s various Sparkle appcasts and news RSS feed. It’s got lots of nice little thoughtful features that make getting feeds published that bit easier.
Lineform
I’ve been a bit annoyed by the lack of development of Lineform and the persistent bugs that have remained unsquahsed, however it’s still the most user friendly and best designed vector graphics app I’ve found. Many ThinkMac icons have been made with this tool including iKana and iKanji’s icon.
Update: Since this piece was originally written Lineform’s developer has been purchased by Ngmoco, an iPhone game developer. This likely spells the end of Lineform’s development so I can’t really recommend it any more. The current version of Lineform (1.5.3) still doesn’t work properly on Snow Leopard after various betas and updates.
MarsEdit
I have to admit I’m rather new to MarsEdit but it’s proving to be a very capable tool and will hopefully ensure that I keep this blog a bit more up-to-date!
Perian
It’s easy to forget about Perian with it being something I don’t directly interact with. But every time I’m able to load to a movie from the comfort of QuickTime Player that isn’t a standard QuickTime file I’m thankful for this plugin.
TextWrangler
This wonderful text editor is perfect for peering into all manner of text based files and provides a clean and uncluttered interface for hammering out HTML and CSS. One of these days I’ll have to stump up the cash for BBEdit, its big brother.
The Hit List
I’ve been beta testing The Hit List for months now and I’ve found it an essential tool for organising my projects and life in general. I’ve found it great for organising holiday itineraries. I’m really looking forward to the iPhone counterpart, I think I’ll use it even more then.
Transmit
I’ve been using this FTP app for years to keep the ThinkMac website up and running. It’s always been a pleasure to use, and it’s never given me any trouble.
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Well that’s the lot, I hope I’ve helped you discover some cool new apps you might not have tried before!