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A Mystery: Why Can't We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.

Spotted outside a beer distributor in Harborcreek…

Beer: Still Cheaper Then a Dictionary. Or a brain.

I posted a quickie snapshot of the Analyzr website last night to the Facebook group and it drew some positive comments.

It's heavily inspired by Apple's site, but has its own flavor as well. I won't finish it before this weekend, but it'll be ready well in advance of the product launch in early February.

Analyzr is on track and looking really good. Our beta testers have beat on the thing and not found much wrong, and the praise has been universal. Most of the things they've said would be nice (but not necessary) are already things we have planned for the 1.0 or 1.x releases, so… we're cautiously optimistic.

It's interesting to me that this Drobo post from late 2008 is still getting hits. But, then again, the information is pretty good and still relevant, so in that regard not surprising at all.

The point of this post? Just to point that out and to say that my Drobo continues to hum along just fine and dandy, and that I'm considering replacing the four drives in it now (500 GB drives) with some 2 TB Western Digital green drives - $99 before rebate and $79 after seems like a good deal.

Then again, there's no pressing need, and the longer you wait the cheaper storage gets…

I bought a copy of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck based on the recommendation of a friend. I'm also reading a PDF called The Talent Myth.

The former talks about how people tend to be either of a "Fixed Mindset" or a "Growth Mindset." The author posits that you can change from one to the other, but she offers an interesting experiment.

Some little kids were given some easy puzzles. When they completed them, they were asked if they wanted to try a harder puzzle or complete the same puzzle again.

The "Fixed Mindset" kids kept playing with the easy puzzles. The "Growth Mindset" kids acted like the person was stupid for asking if they'd like to play with a puzzle they'd already solved, and many made comments about how they loved the challenge or wanted to know what the puzzles were called so their parents could buy them for them when they ran out.

This coincides a bit with The Talent Code. Kids were praised for either "working hard" or for "being smart," and the kids who were praised for working hard kept working hard, while the "smart" kids simply avoided anything where they might fail at appearing smart.

I'm looking forward to reading this book.

I know at least four people who are waiting on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros to be announced and released.

They're not in a rush - they just don't want to buy a computer and have it replaced by a better computer at the same or even a lower price a week or two later… so the old adage about "if you always wait, you'll never buy" doesn't really apply to them.

I've checked their life cycle. The MacBook is over 240 days old when the average is 195 and the MacBook Pro is at nearly 280 when the average is 208.

My last post on this was November 14.

It's somewhat more relevant to me now because we'll be shipping Analyzr soon and Pros will be switching to Macs. I would hope they aren't put in the same position of feeling screwed by a better, cheaper replacement a week after buying.

Since this post - the comments on which were tremendously helpful, both public and private, so thank you to those who helped - Dave and I have narrowed down the ideas we like for Analyzr's demo mode.

Regardless of the option we choose, we'll have a watermark across the screen. It's fairly annoying, and looks like this:

We may adjust the opacity somewhat - I might have gone a bit light with this version (25%) but not by much.

At any rate, the watermark is the first line of defense, and for the Pro version of our software, the best if a pro is considering buying it. We also have to be careful not to harm sales of our Home version by potential Home customers saying "the watermark isn't too bad, so I'll just use the Pro demo."

So, we're currently at these three options (there's a poll in the extended entry). Note: in the case of 1 and 3, these options "reset" when you re-launch the application.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 472); »

I've spent a few hours now banging my head against my desk and I'm no closer to figuring this out than I was at the beginning of the day.

FastSpring's documentation (both versions) is horrible, but it's not outdone by AquaticPrime's documentation.

FastSpring can run a version of AquaticPrime on its developer site. Unfortunately, I doubt it can do two things which I'd like to do:

1. I'd like to encode the AquaticPrime license file as a data stream and link to it in the email with analyzr://<bytestream> so that users can click on it to apply the license to their application. I've heard that several email apps don't handle the AquaticPrime license files very well.
2. I want to include Name, Email, # Licenses, Version, Created, Expires (for expiring licenses), and a specific randomly generated string in the file.

I'm fairly certain that I can't do those on the FastSpring-operated AquaticPrime. Which means I'll have to do HTTP Post, which means I'll have to figure out all of this stuff on my own.

And this is where the incredibly weak documentation walks up to you and delivers a swift kick to the groin.

Anyone who has done either of these things before care to lend a hand? Share some tips?

I probably knew about Internet ((Email, basically.))-to-cell-phone spam before this article from David Pogue - or maybe I read it in 2008 - but after getting my second text message spam in about seven weeks ((No, they're not really flooding in, but this is how much it annoys me.)), I did some research.

On AT&T, http://mymessages.wireless.att.com/ will do it for you. One note though - your regular AT&T Wireless login information won't work here. Create a new account (I set mine to the same password).

Then change this setting:

You can also set up your alias, which I've done should I ever need to subscribe to text messages for flights or something.

In a few weeks, Analyzr will ship. It will come in two versions, eventually priced at $49.95 (Home) and $495 (Pro).

As I see it, there are roughly four options for handling "demo" versions of an application like this. I hope to get some insight from some other Cocoa/Mac developers and even users as far as what's feasible, reasonable, etc.

This is not a post about registration codes, but about enforcing the "demo mode." We're happy with our registration code and aren't looking to tweak that.

If you'd like to talk to me confidentially, send me an email or an IM. If you can say something publicly, please feel free to use the comments.

1. Time-Limited per Version - The application runs fully unlocked for x days (5, 7, 15, 30, whatever), x launches, or a combination of both. If a new version is released, the time period starts over, allowing users to check back with the app to see if it meets their needs down the road.
2. Time-Limited per Launch - The application runs for a set length of time, often measured in minutes, before quitting and/or becoming severely crippled.
3. Feature Limited - Not every feature works or is fully functioning. These features "unlock" when you register.
4. Trial Code Registration - A trial license gives the user x days to try the software. The software thus has two registration states: registered with a trial license or registered with a purchased license.

There are others (like making a separate downloadable file that's only capable of being a demo), but they're too silly to discuss here ((Assuming I've thought of all of them.)).

Additionally, Analyzr employs a watermark for un-registered copies, so any sort of demo limitations we'd add would be in addition to the "hey, there's a watermark on the screen."

Let's explore each of these options in more detail…

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Over the course of a four days I received two copyright notices regarding some of the videos on my YouTube page.

One was a message telling me that if I did not respond and consider removing a few videos, they may file copyright claims against them. I responded, pointing out that I believe the videos could be considered fair use. I've not heard back, and in the meantime I removed the videos from public consumption so that I can evaluate them under the strictest sense of "fair use."

The second was a series of three messages informing me that three of my videos had been removed entirely due to a copyright claim. I also believed these videos to be "fair use" as I reviewed the 90-minute video from which these short clips came.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 385); »

http://thenounproject.com/

Symbols in the public domain, many of which could be used in software projects.

They're all monotone black, but that's how you want 'em. They're also all .svg files, which may not be how you want 'em, but tough. 😉

When I was a kid I loved challenging myself with the Marilyn vos Savant columns. They often ran 2/3 of a page or more and contained some challenging questions.

The Marilyn vos Savant of 2010 (and now 2011) appears to cater to… well, morons or something, because I haven't read a column in months - and I may be generous in not saying a more truthful "years" - that contained anything like what she used to write.

Why the decline? It's disappointing. Are we getting that much dumber that the tripe she publishes now qualifies as an example of "intelligence"?

I haven't seen anyone point this out yet - since Mac OS X 10.6.6 double-clicking an unknown file now presents this dialog box to the user:

Hmmmmmmm.