What's it all about, Alfie?

Well, that didn't take long - already Acorn 2.0.1 has shipped with a non-trivial list of fixes and features:

• Now showing a message when Acorn can't open up an unsupported RAW file, instead of a blank black canvas.
• "New Image From iSight" now puts a name on the layer created in the new image.
• Option-clicking the visibility button in the layers list, will hide all the layers except the one you clicked on. Option-clicking it again will restore the previous visibility settings.
• No longer collecting crash reports that are older than 2 weeks old.
• Bug fix for images that are sometimes flipping when calling a filter.
• Holding down option and command when using the arrow keys to nudge a selection now commits the selection before moving it. Hold down the shift key to move by 10 px instead of 1.

and while I've been really busy with this app extension and haven't had a chance to work with Acorn much, it's nice to see Gus putting in the work to make it even better. Very nice.

Well... I knew this wasn't a one-day job... in fact, it's liable to take a few more, but today was one of those days I didn't want to talk to anyone - I just wanted to get through these changes and get something out. It's maddening when someone wants to talk to you in this mode. I know they don't realize it, but this is like ripping off a band-aid - just do it and then it's done.

Yeah, today has been a day when I've been barely able to keep my head above water, and had to spend a ton of time working on the feature set expansion for this unruly app that I inherited. It should belong on the Daily WTF but if I sent it in, I'm afraid that I'd be giving myself away and that's no good. So I dove deep into the code and hammered on it as hard as I could for the day.

Today the Flying Meat crew released Acorn 2.0 for Snow Leopard (10.6). Once again, it's very interesting that Acorn is 10.6-only, and that it's a 64-bit app with impressive speed improvements due to the 64-bit build:

Acorn 2 is 64 bit.

And yes, there are performance improvements with it. Running the Gaussian Blur filter is now 15% faster in 64 bit. Opening JPEG files is 20% faster than 32 bit (measured by scripting operations via JSTalk of course). Is Acorn the first 64 bit image editor for the Mac?

I got it, and the upgrade cost is only $20 from Acorn 1.x, which is very reasonable, considering. I really do love the quality in the indie Mac developer community.

The guys working on Growl have delivered a new beta: 1.2b3 and in an interesting twist, you need to run the 1.2b3 uninstaller before installing 1.2b3. Clearly, there was something missing in the previous uninstaller, and the new one was necessary to "clear the decks" for the new beta. Fair enough, it's done and we're on the latest beta.

Gus at FlyingMeat is really working on VoodooPad these days, and has released version 4.2.2 with a pretty simple set of release notes:

VoodooPad 4.2.2 September 11th, 2009

• Fixed a problem where the web server wasn't working properly in VoodooPad.
• Fixed a bug where pages would remain listed in the tags list, even after they were deleted.
• When you search for something in VP, it now puts the search term on the search pasteboard, so cmd-g works to "find again" in your search results.
• When doing a Web Export via AppleScript, VoodooPad now closes the export window after it's finished writing all files.

It's great to see software being worked on, and I'm sure a good bit of it is related to Snow Leopard, as it's always fun to work with new features in the OS and tools.

Today I started the laborious process of adding more than a dozen new calculated fields to this somewhat shaky web app that I've inherited. It's working, and that's the best and worst of it, really. If it weren't working, given all the improvements that I've made to the system, then there would be a greater push to replace it with something that's really much better. But it's running. Yet it's barely running, and that means that working on it is exceptionally uncomfortable.

But it's something I have to do, and so today I started the multi-day process of adding more calculated values to the system. It's going to take a few days to get it all done, but as long as I'm slow and methodical about the additions, I'll be able to do this pass nearly error-free, which is going to make it a lot easier.

Not fun, but no one asked me if it was going to be fun.

Well... I didn't think they'd do it this quickly, but DrawIt has released 3.9 which is for Snow Leopard only. Seems there's something to it as the update notes say:

IMPORTANT: This version only works well with 10.6 Snow Leopard. If you are still on Leopard, do not upgrade to version 3.9.

DrawIt 3.9 brings several improvements to DrawIt in stability, memory usage and speed, but it only works on Snow Leopard.

I'm glad to see it. The upgrade cost was under $50 for everyone, and that's cheap by any standards. So it's nice to see developers take advantage of new features. There's nothing wrong with being a version behind on some boxes, but moving forward is nice too.

Today I spent the time getting all the new portfolio groupings into my web app prior to the second big push for the additional calculated values that will nearly complete the set of calculated risk values deliverable by the legacy risk engine. I wanted to get these groups in and stable and delivered to UAT before this so that it's one less "moving part" in the codebase.

It wasn't that bad, and I also added in a few alerts for Jeff so that the risk managers and portfolio managers can get these alerts as needed. The data is still a little rough, and it's possible to get a few false alarms due to the problems in the legacy risk engine, but it's the best we have at this point, and we need to get this in front of the users to force an increase in the quality of the data driving it.

So it's been a good day and I know I'm not going to look forward to the next few as it's the adding of the calculated values to the old app. Yeah... it's not a lot of fun. But I have to do it.

I just got a tweet that the last of the Rogue Amoeba apps of mine is now Snow Leopard compatible:

Audio Hijack Pro 2.9.3 brings full Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) compatibility, including updates to the Instant Hijack and System Audio (Soundflower) extras, as well as several important bug fixes.

So I had to get it! Fantastic.