December 2010
1 post
Moved
This blog has moved to a new location: http://bluecrowbar.com/blog/
If you want to subscribe, the new feed URL is http://bluecrowbar.com/blog/feed.atom.
November 2010
1 post
1 tag
AppControls 1.2
In AppControls version 1.2, the minimum size for designs is reduced from 12 to 8 pixels. This means that it can now easily be used to create sliders or progress indicators.
At the same time, the maximum height is increased from 200 to 480 pixels. This will allow you to create backgrounds with custom gradients for iPhone apps.
Click here to download the update
October 2010
1 post
1 tag
There's a Pepper for That
“Would you like us to collect some statistics of your website traffic?” said Google Analytics.
“Sure,” I answered. “What kind of data can you give me?”
“We can generate tons of data. Would you like to see charts or do you prefer tables?”
“Can I have both?”
“Of course, no problem. We’ll throw so much data your...
September 2010
2 posts
Impression 2.0 Survey Results
A few days ago, I’ve set up a small survey for recent Impression customers to help me get an idea of how they would like to use Impression 2.0, the next major release of the watermark plug-in for iPhoto and Aperture that I’ve started working on.
The survey only had one question: “Impression currently stores the watermarked photos within iPhoto or Aperture. What’s your...
Sneak Peek: New Color Controls in Impression 1.2
Here’s a preview of the new color controls in Impression 1.2 for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
August 2010
2 posts
1 tag
iOS statistics
One of the downsides of having a universal app in the App Store is that it’s difficult to know what percentage of users use it on an iPhone or on an iPad. That is, without having the app phone home, something that I’m not doing in Impression. The app’s About window contains a link to impressionapp.com though, so to get an idea of what devices the users are running the app on, I...
AppControls 1.1
AppControls can now automatically render high-resolution images for use with the iPhone 4 Retina display. It will automatically add “@2x” to the end of the filename.
Original image - zoomed to 200%:
High-res “@2x” image for iPhone 4:
Besides this new feature, the 1.1 release improves the accuracy of the cropping and the positioning of the text. It also fixes a...
July 2010
2 posts
Obj-C-Comment
Obj-C-Comment is a simple Service that you can use with the Xcode 4 Preview to comment or un-comment large chunks of code. To install: unzip the file and put it in ~/Library/Services/. You’ll then find it in the Xcode 4 Services menu if you’ve selected some code. You can change a flag in the Automator workflow if you prefer block comments instead of line comments.
My perl scripting...
TwitExport
TwitExport 2 is the successor to iPhoto2Twitter and Aperture2Twitter. These two plug-ins were released in the first half of 2009. So, with a few thousand users and about a year’s worth of reputation-building, why would I want to change the name? Well, I didn’t want to, but I had to. In November 2009, Twitter published new Guidelines for Use of the Twitter Trademark. This is in the...
March 2010
1 post
Aperture 3 Export Bug
UPDATE: This problem is fixed in Aperture 3.0.2.
There is a bug in Aperture 3 that affects Aperture2Twitter and many other 3rd party Export plug-ins. Impression for Aperture still works fine because that’s an Edit plug-in.
This is the problem: Aperture 3 seems to completely ignore the export format that is selected in the plug-in window. Instead, the photo is exported using the last...
February 2010
3 posts
Aperture 3 + Plug-ins
Today, Apple has released Aperture 3. If you use the Aperture2Twitter or Impression plug-ins, the first thing you’ll notice is that, when you open the plug-in, Aperture tells you that it is 32-bit and that the application needs to restart in 32-bit mode to use it. I’m working on moving both plugins to 64-bit and aim to release updates later this week.
My initial testing reveals that...
git + FileMerge
Very often, before I commit something in git, I take a quick look at the changes that I’ve made in my source code by comparing the file to the previous version. This helps to prevent mistakes, but most of all it helps me come up with a good description of my changes to use as the commit message. The Developer folder has a great application for doing that: FileMerge. It’s located in...
Macworld Expo 2010
Even though Blue Crowbar won’t be present at this year’s Macworld Expo, I’ve decided to do something special for the occasion. During Macworld 2010, Impression, our most popular product, will be offered at a 20% discount. In doing this I’ll be joining some other Indie Mac shops whose products you can find out about by clicking on the Macworld logo below. That link will...
December 2009
1 post
The Print
Almost all of the tools in digital photo editing software mimic techniques that photographers use when manually printing photos in their darkroom. Dodging and burning are good examples. Dodging is used to make areas of a photo lighter. Burning is the opposite, it makes areas of the photo darker. These things were not invented by Adobe. In traditional photo printing, these effects are created by...
October 2009
1 post
Impression 1.1
Impression 1.1 for iPhoto and for Aperture is out. It adds three new features that are often requested by customers.
Resize — For quality-reasons, the scaling only goes one way: down. The watermark can now be made smaller than the original source. Scaling up small watermarks would drastically decrease their quality. One way to handle this one-way scaling would be to create your watermark files...
September 2009
3 posts
Documentation for Impression
I have (finally!) written some documentation for the Impression plugins.
Impression for iPhoto — Impression for Aperture
Let me know if anything is missing.
Things: Task Management for a Solo Developer
I’ve been using Things from Cultured Code for about two weeks now. The initial idea was to find a piece of software to store whatever I was now mostly using little pieces of paper for. Until recently, my ‘system’ for remembering tasks and ideas consisted of writing them down on Post-it notes, both the widget kind and the real paper kind, using the To Do features in iCal and Mail,...
Impression for Aperture
Soon after the release of Impression for iPhoto, I started getting several emails from people who asked me about a similar plugin for Aperture. Aperture already has a watermark feature, so why would anyone want to use a plugin for that? I’ve released Impression for Aperture today, which means that I’ve found several reasons. These are the most important ones.
Aperture’s...
August 2009
1 post
Impression Design Process
Design 1 - The Start
Impression, my recently released watermark plugin for iPhoto, is heavily based on the iPhoto2Twitter plugin. I used the iPhoto2Twitter Xcode-project as the starting point for the new project, which initially went by the name of Watermarker. Large parts of the code could be reused, e.g. the license key validation, software update notifications, some of the watermark code (the...