Red Sweater
Latest
Network-related crashes in Mountain Lion pinned on proxy settings
Mountain Lion may have a bug that's affecting users who have the Auto Proxy Discovery and Automatic Proxy Configuration networking features turned on, says Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater. According to Jalkut, apps, like his own MarsEdit, throw an error involving the CoreSchedulingSet or EmptyCoreSchedulingSet C++ objects when trying to connect to some network resources. Working with the folks from Agile Bits, Jalkut traced the problem to the Auto Proxy Discovery and Automatic Proxy Configuration settings in the Network preference pane. Under most circumstances, these options would not be turned on; the exception is in large institutional or corporate networks where specifically required by the network configuration. If these options are selected in the Network settings, then you may experience this crashing problem with apps that rely on Apple's networking libraries. These apps include, but are not limited to, MarsEdit, Tweetbot and Safari. Jalkut recommends that Mountain Lion users turn off the Auto Proxy Discovery and Automatic Proxy Configuration features until Apple issues a fix. You can read more about the networking issue and instructions on how to fix the problem on Jalkut's Red Sweater blog.
MarsEdit 3 adds rich text editing, enhanced media browsing
In the "send an email, post a blog entry" fun and fast-paced world of tomorrow, services like Tumblr and Posterous make it exceedingly simple to prepare and post to your blog; meanwhile, Twitter, Facebook and AOL Lifestream push past the article metaphor to 140-character status snippets. Delightful as they all may be, sometimes it's nice to have a well-rounded Mac app that supports more reflective and considerate writing for your online outlets -- not to mention one that saves your drafts in case your browser picks that particular moment to crash. For a lot of bloggers, including many TUAW veterans, Red Sweater's MarsEdit (US$39.95) is that app. It allows you to write, edit and schedule posts offline at leisure, with full preview capability so you know what you're getting when you hit the Publish button. It will happily upload your images and files alongside your posts, and it works with scores of popular and obscure blog back-end systems (WordPress, TypePad, Tumblr, Squarespace, etc.). If you prefer to edit elsewhere but still want the uploading savvy MarsEdit delivers, it plays nicely (via the ODBEditor scritping suite) with other text editors like SubEthaEdit and TextMate. MarsEdit has just hit version 3.0. At long last, WYSIWIG rich text editing is included, alongside the traditional HTML/text edit window that has cheered experts but may have intimidated novices. Other new features include better syntax highlighting in HTML, support for WordPress static pages, media browsing from iPhoto/Aperture/Lightroom libraries, and more. You can download a 30-day trial of MarsEdit and see for yourself if it works the way you do. Upgrades for previous owners are free if you bought MarsEdit in 2010, and $14.95 for all earlier purchasers.
Live chat tomorrow: Application Development for the (mythical) Apple Tablet
From a developer's point of view, what do these rumors mean? Is it enough to assume that App Store products will "just work" out of the box on a new device class? Will adherence to Apple's resolution independence design principles allow well-built iPhone applications to adapt to new window sizes? Or are there greater concerns of memory, processor, and the overall user experience that need to be taken into account? On Friday, TUAW will chat with Craig Hockenberry and Daniel Jalkut. Hockenberry is the senior software engineer for the Iconfactory, a software and design house that ships both Macintosh and iPhone products. Jalkut, formerly of Apple, is the founder of Red Sweater Software (aka the "MarsEdit" people). Both Hockenberry and Jalkut bring multi-platform Apple development expertise to the table for our discussion of possible hardware directions and how developers can proactively prepare their place in a new market. Please join us at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern for this live chat. There's a reminder widget in the continuation of this post. Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0
Inside view of the iPhone Tech Talks from Daniel Jalkut
The following is a guest post from developer Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater. Daniel recently attended an Apple iPhone Tech Talk, and came away inspired. He's also been gracious enough to share his experience on TUAW. Apple's Technology Evangelists have spent the last 3 months touring the USA, Europe and Asia with advice on how to best take advantage of the iPhone's technologies. According to Daniel, it's a fantastic event. --Ed. Apple's iPhone tech talks are incredible. The format consists of instructional presentations akin to what developers would find at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). But while WWDC lasts an entire week, tech talks are limited to a single day of sessions which Apple takes on the road, presenting in hotel conference rooms around the world. On December 1, I attended the New York City tech talk, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The event attracted developers from all over the northeast of the United States (and beyond), because the number of cities Apple takes the tour to is pretty limited. Many folks traveling to New York City end up paying quite a bit for travel and lodging expenses, but that is greatly offset by another impressive aspect of the talks: they are completely free. Developers have to sign up early and then hope for acceptance, but if you're admitted, the entire thing is paid for including lunch, snacks and a wine reception at the end of the day. Very classy, Apple.
MarsEdit 2.1.3 helps keep drafts in WP and Blogger
Daniel Jalkut posts that TUAW's favorite blogging app, MarsEdit, has hit version 2.1.3. Mainly a bug fix update, the biggest change is that drafts in WordPress and Blogger are now better handled -- their "draft" status is apparently better preserved.Additionally, a few markup elements, specifically "#tags#" and "#askurl#" have been tweaked to work better, and there is also improved handling of URLs in localhost-based blogs.MarsEdit is available, as always, for $29.95 from Red Sweater, or free for a 30-day trial period.
Crossword solving software that has reached version 1.0.7, eight letters one space
Daniel Jalkut over at Red Sweater has updated his crossword-solving application, Black Ink (formerly MacXword), to version 1.0.7. This definitely seems like a niche piece of software (not because only a few people do crosswords-- almost everyone does), but because I don't know anyone who wants a piece of software to help them get puzzles done.Still, I'm betting that the people who enjoy Black Ink really, really enjoy it. Apparently the program even downloads puzzles "on the go," so if you're not already a crossword fan, maybe it'll turn you into one. The new version adds a menu item for zooming in or out of puzzles, a few interface tweaks, and "correctly-solved detection for puzzles with multi-character answers." I never knew those existed, but there you go.Black Ink is available for $24.95 over on Red Sweater's site.
MarsEdit 2.0
I've been blogging for a little over seven years now (I am as shocked as you are, believe me. You would think after all this time I would be better at this!) and many things have changed. Used to be the only way you could write a post for your blog was in a browser window. You would fire up Blogger (or Diaryland, as the case may be) and plunk your entry into a very simple form (no categories, no trackbacks, no Markdown. It was a simpler time, my friends), hit a button and there it would be for all the world to see. That is as long as your browser didn't crash, which tends to happen at the most inopportune times.Luckily, those dark days are over and we have fantastic apps like MarsEdit to compose our posts in. Oddly enough, MarsEdit 2 was just released by Red Sweater Software (wacky, huh?). Version 2.0 ushers in a completely revamped user interface that follows the UI trends of a mature OS X (the number of floating palettes are sharply down, and the use of drawers is non-existent). This version also brings integration with Flickr, which was one of my biggest requests (thanks, Daniel!). Printing has also been added, because sometimes your posts are so good they should be on paper.MarsEdit 2 costs $29.95, though if you bought a copy on or after July 1, 2007 the upgrade is free, while it'll cost us long time MarEditers $9.95 to get the snazzy new features. MarsEdit 2 requires OS X 10.4 and there is a free 30 day trial available.
WWDC Lost Episode: Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Software
Click To Play Digging through the archives we came upon the lost tape of WWDC: an interview with Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software. Red Sweater sells MarsEdit and Black Ink, among other apps. Daniel was kind enough to talk WWDC, iPhone and show us around Black Ink, a very nice crossword app.NOTE: Sorry about the interlacing issues!
