phillryu
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Dine-o-Matic 2 will be released tomorrow
Phill Ryu did us a solid and dropped a quick note about an early preview of Dine-o-Matic 2 from Iconfactory. Just install the widget, punch in the names and numbers of your favorite restaurants, and a meal decision is only one click away. New in this version is categorization of the different places, more restaurant information, price filtering, and Google maps integration. I don't know if the original version had this, but the satisfying coin click and the neon buzzing are nice touches.No more arguing about what to eat, or passive-aggressive "I don't care, whatever you're in the mood for is fine" back-and-forth. It is kind of a bummer that you have to type everything in (would be nice to integrate it with Grubhub or some other site like that) but considering that I only order from maybe five or six different places anyway, it's easy enough to punch them all in and have them ready to go when I'm up for some random ordering. If you're the type that orders out almost as much as you eat in (guilty as charged), Dine-O-Matic is worth checking out.Thanks, Phill!
MacThemes 2 public voting has begun
Phill Ryu writes in to tell us that public voting has begun for the latest MacThemes contest (in which three of the themes will be chosen to win $1000 in software and become available for ShapeShifter). There are tons of entries (55, to be exact), and they all look pretty darn good in my civilian opinion.Overall, the public is being pretty discriminating-- the highest score I can find is 3.5 out of 5. Standouts so far are Pluto, AOR, California, and Plexis, but voting just started, and it's supposed to go through next Wednesday, so I'd expect things to change between now and then.If you're bored, head over to MacThemes and pass out a few ratings for the cause. I guess the public rating will count for half of the final score (with judges accounting for another part of the score), so every vote counts. We should see the winners sometime after the 15th.
MacHeist 2 hype begins with email and forum leaks
Like Mac software? Like stunts designed to promote and sell it? Then guess what, buddy-- you're in luck. It seems MacHeist 2 is just around the corner. Last year's ARG / bargain / Mac software love fest is coming around again, it seems, and while details are slim at the moment, odds are there'll be more very soon.The main site still says nothing, but over on the forums, things are starting to get interesting. First, head honcho Phill Ryu hints at something that might be a "Web 2.0" "Game thingy where you win stuff," and then shared a bunch of little pictoral hints about something called "groupthinkheist."Then, a tipster, who we'll keep anonymous, sent us word that an email had been sent announcing MacHeist 2 and sending everyone to... um... something. I couldn't get it to do anything now (you probably had to type in a code), but previously there was action going on there. That action was accompanied by more forums board talk, but apparently that talk was silenced. And all we're really left with is hype for something we knew was coming anyway.So are you all excited for MacHeist to come around again this year? I only watched from the sidelines last year, and it's really just a way to sell software (and not a very profitable way for devs, either). But it is a creative way, and I have to admit it sounds fun. What do you think?Update: Phill himself tells us this "event" is completely unrelated to MacHeist (so it definitely hasn't started yet), but that MacHeist 2 is coming later this year.Update2: If you're interested, lots more information about what's happening is showing up on this wiki.
Who Is Hubert?
Strange things have been afoot in the Mac shareware community over the past few days; manifested by the cute-as-a-button icon you see to the right popping up on multiple different sites. All we know about this cute lil' guy so far is that his name is Hubert.Oh, and he doesn't want us to talk about him.It's probably safe to say that Hubert is the brainchild of Mac Marketing guru Phill Ryu, and developer Austin Sarner of Disco and AppZapper fame is probably involved as well. If I had to hazard a based on what information we have, I'd say Austin is working on a new application, and a fun one at that. Maybe the OS X equivalent of BonziBUDDY? At this point, we can't do much more than speculate, but perhaps you readers will do some digging and find some info that I might have missed. Good luck!UPDATE: Changed the link in the middle of the post because apparently it now links to a porn site. Gotta love the internet. Link now goes to something a little more apropos.
Adium's icon designer on its past, present and future
You might not know who Adam Betts is, but you've probably seen, or at least heard of, some of his work which includes the icon of a pretty famous Mac OS X chat client: Adium. The animated, quacking duck icon has made a bit of a name for itself, and Phill Ryu (of MacThemes and Widget Machine fame) decided to sit down with Adam Betts and quack ecstatic about the icon's past, present and future. Check it out for Adam's take on everything from Apple's icon guidelines (believe it or not, they have them) to whether Adiumy the Duck will get his own MySpace profile.[via diggdot.us]
