Here comes Santa Claus
Posted by Paul Haddad Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:43:00 GMT
Is Anyone getting Heisted?
Posted by Paul Haddad Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:44:00 GMT
Opinions on the heist abound. So why not add my own? Before I start I was never asked to be a part of this, given one of the organizers is a direct competitor I wouldn’t expect to be.
It does strike me that if the devs are getting a fixed cut of sales, then they are getting a rather small cut of the profits. Obviously no one made them join this promo, but I do wonder if any of them are regretting this? If the numbers I’ve seen around are real ($5-15k/dev) then each app sold for < $1 each. Support costs for some of these apps are bound to be over $1/copy. It’s one thing to sell 1-2k copies at a loss, 16k is something else all together. The entire thing reminds me of Walmart and Vlasic. Success can kill.
Another interesting aspect of this promo is calling it the “Week of the Independent Mac Developer”. Clearly this is not the case, it might be the Week of the Mac Consumer or the Week of the Mac Site (did you see how many ads there were?) or maybe the Week of the Creative Promo. But in the end who cares what they call it, its just marketing spin. They can call it the Week of the Purple People Eaters, it doesn’t really affect anyone
So did anyone get Heisted? I don’t think anyone will know for a while. Its certainly a positive for the promoters, its a positive for most consumers, for the charities and same for all the sites getting ad money from it. For the developers its somewhat an unknown. My guess is it’ll be a mixed bag and I hope some of the guys share their experience a few months down the line.
I’ll be gathering up stats on my Mac App a Day experiment over the next few months for all those interested.
Screencast Ahoy!
Posted by Paul Haddad Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:38:00 GMT
So after much tweaking, re-recording and re-re-re-recording the first PTHPasteboard Screencast is done. I wouldn’t say its good, but its an OK first effort. Took forever to get the video/audio settings just right but overall I’m happy with the results.
I don’t think too many people have noticed the Custom Filter Window feature, so if nothing else this is good to show that off. Feedback is as always welcomed.
Will anyone ever make a decent Mac Keyboard?
Posted by Paul Haddad Sun, 03 Dec 2006 23:24:00 GMT
I love loud clicky keyboards, I just can’t seem to find a decent one. For the longest time I’ve used a Northgate OmniKey keyboard, these things are/were built like tanks and had a real nice satisfying click. Unfortunately they are Windows specific and don’t have niceties such as volume keys or built in USB ports. After one too many coke spills my Northgate started acting up. Fortunately this was around the same time the Matias Tactile Pro and Kensington StudioBoard came out.
Due to a miscommunication with my wife I ended up getting both of these as Christmas presents. Both of them have the nice Macish features that I want and decent looks. The Kensington one definitely felt better, though I’m not sure I could explain why. Unfortunately both feel pretty cheap as far as the plastics used and overall weight of the keyboard. Turns out that both are built pretty badly as neither lasted longer then about a year.
The StudioBoard again was my favorite, unfortunately one of the cheap little plastic legs broke on it. I contacted Kensington Customer Service to get a replacement and they sent me a junky $10 Keyboard in a Box as a replacement. After contacting them again I was told they didn’t make those keyboards anymore and that the junky keyboard they sent me was their replacement. So much for a company standing behind their product. Fortunately I was able to just stick a USB-PS/2 converter underneath the keyboard as a replacement leg. This worked fairly well until this keyboard started acting up as well.
A few months ago I started using the TactilePro. It just never felt right (key pressure wise) and it only worked for a few months before it started developing its own annoying problems. For some reason the Shift and Control key only seem to register being held down about 1/2 the time. This makes the keyboard pretty useless. I’d probably send it in for service, but I don’t really care for the keyboard anyways.
So now I’m back to the original Northgate. The Up Arrow key doesn’t work and neither do half the numeric keypad keys. But overall I can live with up arrow not working (Control-P is your best friend in these situations).
I think I’m going to try to grab a Customizer 104 from PCKeyboard.com, not pretty and no hub or volume keys, but it is cheap and I believe I can get them to do a decent layout (with Command/Alt keys).
