MarsEdit
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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.
MacTech 2010: Daniel Jalkut on the Mac App Store and more
Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software (creator developer of MarsEdit, a TUAW favorite app for blogging) gave a talk at MacTech 2010 this morning about unit testing Mac apps, and while his developer talk was mostly over our heads, he did kindly allow us to corner him afterwards to chat about the state of Mac development and what he expects out of Apple's upcoming Mac App Store. Like most of the developers we've met up with at the conference this week, Jalkut is hesitant but optimistic about the way the Mac App Store will work. His most recent issue is with so-called "land grabbers" on the App Store -- some developers are already grabbing up names (since submissions just started recently), and Jalkut is worried that Apple regulations means he won't be able to call his upcoming iPhone app by the same name as his widely used Mac app. "Which, as you can imagine," he told me, "is kind of a challenge and a problem."
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.
Help cure diabetes, win great Mac software
Developer Jim Whimpey is riding a bike to cure diabetes, and he's asking for your help (and promising a chance at some great Mac software). For every $10 you donate to his upcoming ride in southern Australia, he'll throw your name in a raffle to win one of two big Mac software bundles, both worth almost $190 each and both including Things, MarsEdit, Tweetie, and Wii Transfer. Any one of those apps is worth the donation, not to mention that your money will go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, one of the biggest organizations around committed to fighting type 1 diabetes.You get a raffle entry for every $10 you donate, so put in $20 and you'll get two entries, and so on. He's asking for all the donations by September 14th, so you've got about two weeks to get over there and put some money in. Great cause and great way to pick up some sweet new apps for your brand new Snow Leopard install to run.
Mars Edit 2.3 adds Tumblr support
MarsEdit has long been one of my Mac apps and save my writings for TUAW and Download Squad, it's what I use for almost all of my online publishing. For almost two years, I've been embroiled in a love/hate relationship with Tumblr. I love the idea of the service, but until recently, the simplicity it offers has come at the expense of features I really, really need. This week, I've come one-step closer to making Tumblr a bigger part of my digital life, because MarsEdit now supports Tumblr blogs!MarsEdit 2.3, which was released on Tuesday now supports Tumblr, in addition to WordPress, Movable Type, LiveJournal and other blogging platforms. Daniel Jalkut, the developer of MarsEdit, announced that he was planning support for Tumblr back in December, after started working with Tumblr's Marco Arment on improving the Tumblr API.After a brief beta period, official Tumblr support is finally here, and it is good. To my knowledge, MarsEdit is the only blog client, for Mac or Windows, that supports Tumblr. Sure, there are some great iPhone (and even a BlackBerry application), but there hasn't been any support for an actual desktop client.Inevitably, some users will question why Tumblr needs client support at all. After all, isn't the whole point of Tumblr to be fast, easy and simple? Sure, but when composing longer entries or when you want to write drafts, an external client is still superior. There's nothing worse than having all of your hard work erased by a misbehaving web browser, or wanting to access a draft or an old post while on a plane or some other place without Internet access. MarsEdit 2.3 supports text, photo, quote, link and chat post templates (though you can easily use HTML to embed video and audio in a regular text post). You can also easily add tags to a post. Image posting is extremely easy, just drag an image from the web, your own library or a folder into the image button at the top of the post. If I had any real request, it would be that the "tweet this post" toggle be included as a MarsEdit option. Otherwise, my Tumblr needs have been addressed.MarsEdit 2.3 is a free upgrade for existing users and news users can snag a copy for $29.95. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5.
Red Sweater releases Black Ink 1.1.3, promises Tumblr update for MarsEdit
Daniel Jalkut over at Red Sweater Software has updated crossword puzzle software Black Ink to version 1.1.3, which adds new puzzle sources and fixes some bugs. The Little Rock Daily Record stopped publishing its crossword puzzle online, but Jalkut added crosswords from the Chicago Reader, Onion AV Club, and Chronicle of Higher Education to replace it. The update also addresses bugs with puzzle opening and printing. The update is available from Red Sweater's website, or from within the application. Also, on his blog, Jalkut mentioned forthcoming updates to MarsEdit, after working with Tumblr to improve their API. He plans to release an update, version 2.3 with Tumblr support, "as soon as possible."
My favorite Mac apps: Christina's Picks
Picking just three favorite Mac applications was harder than I thought it would be. I decided to forgo anything that was either built-in or part of a major productivity or creative suite and just focus on applications that make my Mac computing experience unique and complete. Coda Even before this week's 1.5 update, Coda had a permanent spot on my "favorite app" list. For me, when it comes to developing or maintaining a web project, Coda is just the best. Sure, TextMate (which I'm using to type this post) might be superior if you're looking for just a source-code editor. CSSEdit might be a better CSS editor, Panic's own Transmit is a more robust FTP client. Coda is still the best all-around web development app for my workflow. It lets me access all the files for a project, locally or on a server, make the changes or additions I want to make, preview how it will look in Safari (or with one click, open it in Firefox, Opera, Camino or OmniWeb) and immediately execute any changes. And now I can use it as a Subversion client too. Even better, it is a distinctly "Mac" application. Every UI detail reminds me why I love the Mac and why OS X is the best platform for software around. Aperture 2 While Lightroom 2 is really, really nice (and I prefer it for some types of retouches), Aperture 2 is simply my favorite photo editing and photo management tool. I'm not a professional photographer, I don't even have a high-end DSLR -- just a tiny 8 megapixel Nikon that fits in my purse or the back-pocket of my jeans -- but I still want my photographs to look their best. iPhoto is great, but I need more precision. Aperture 2 lets me fine-tune my images, whether from my digital camera or scanned in from some of my older SLRs, crop them, adjust noise levels and color and just generally make everything prettier. The Photo Book I made for my mom for Mother's Day this year, using Aperture 2, was amazing and brought tears and smiles to both of my parents' faces. Their reaction was worth far more than the price of the software. MarsEdit Although I can't really use it for most of my WIN blogging, MarsEdit is the tool I use to publish to any of my other sites. My personal site runs on WordPress, and while I love the software, I detest its write interface. I know plenty of people like it, I just don't like composing everything in a web form. MarsEdit's Preview mode is a great way to see how something will look before it's published, whether I use HTML or Markdown or Textile. If I need to edit an old entry, I don't have to worry about sifting through the "visual" or "code" view, inadvertently breaking something if I change a URL. Integrating media from Flickr or uploading new images is seamless. MarsEdit just makes my life easier.
MarsEdit hits 2.2
MarsEdit, the blogging client we've written about frequently in the past, has just been updated to version 2.2. MarsEdit is a favorite for many of us at TUAW (myself included) and supports a variety of publishing platforms.The newest version adds support for AtomPub, which like XML-RPC, is a protocol for connecting blog software to your blog itself. Daniel Jalkut, MarsEdit's developer, says to consider AtomPub support "introductory" -- but if you are using a custom blogging platform that uses AtomPub, you can now use MarsEdit to create content.MarsEdit 2.2 also adds customizable image markup in addition to the built-in macros for image alignment. So if you frequently like to have images aligned in a certain way, you can create your own custom macro. MarsEdit 2.2 is also significantly faster (I was pleased to see this myself, as start-up time was much quicker than the previous version). There is also now support for removing media items from the media catalog, a pull down editor for selecting the date, and improved MIME type generation for uploaded files.Mobile fans take note -- Daniel is working on an iPhone version of MarsEdit, and it will be released as soon as he is satisfied with the quality of the final product.MarsEdit requires Tiger or Leopard. The update is free for current users. You can try MarsEdit for free for 30-days or buy it for $29.99.
MarsEdit 2.1.4 available
Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software has posted MarsEdit 2.1.4. The version includes a new dock menu item for easily starting a new post, adds better Picasa support for Blogger users, and fixes some other minor issues. MarsEdit is a standalone software application that allows you to publish blog posts to a variety of sites and blog management systems. Jalkut promises that these are short-term fixes for a much larger MarsEdit 2.2 release on the way. The update is free for registered MarsEdit 2 users, and works with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
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.
Shawn Blanc on MarsEdit 2.1
Even though we can't use a tool like MarsEdit to post here at TUAW, some of us are still big fans of the program and use it when creating content for our other, more personal sites. Like Ecto, another very good tool for this type of content creation, Mars Edit allows you to compose blog entries, complete with text, links, photos or whatever, on your own computer and once finished, post them directly to your blog.Of course, we're not the only fans of MarsEdit using it to put up content around the internets. Shawn Blanc, writer, Mac guy, drummer, Tae-Qwon-Do blackbelt and enthusiastic Mars Edit user has posted a very in-depth review of the application at his site. Among the program's many virtues, Blanc praises it for having a "perfect preview" of draft content, that it functions very well as a text editor and the "blatant absence of a WYSIWYG feature" which makes him "extremely impressed with how well it serves the writer." MarsEdit 2 may not be the right choice for your blogging needs, but if you've never considered it before, this review might just make you want to give it a try. It's $29.95 for a new license, and $9.95 for an upgrade from ME1.
MarsEdit 2.1 with saving drafts to server
Daniel Jalkut announced the release of MarsEdit 2.1, the great blogging client from Red Sweater Software. The big changes involve a nice search features that allows you to easily find drafts and recent posts, a new tag editor (and support for MT tags), a better preview function as well as my favorite: the ability to save drafts to the server. Needless to say there are also a variety of other tweaks and bugfixes, etc. If you're using MarsEdit you'll want to grab the update.MarsEdit 2.1 is a free update to registered users and $29.95 to purchase. A demo is available.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
MarsEdit 2.0.2 fixes bugs
Scott's favorite blogging software has gotten another update, hot on the heels of the big 2.0 release. MarsEdit 2.0.2 patches up the big release with a few "slightly urgent" fixes involving using external editors and Evaluation mode (including a bug that caused you to be nagged a little more often than expected). There are also a few other typo and bug fixes (including a small fix to 2.0.1, which was only up for a little bit, so you didn't miss anything).The update is available over on Red Sweater's site, and if you haven't started editing on Mars yet, the full program is available for $29.95.
TUAW Best of the Week
What a week for Apple fans. After a slow Labor Day, we got a huge midweek event, new iPods, and what turned out to be the week's biggest story: the iPhone is now $399.MobileChat iPhone AIM Client DebutsStarted off the week with not one but two IM iPhone betas.MarsEdit 2.0Red Sweater's blogging client gets a new interface and Flickr integrationMass-media messup: NBC doesn't get the iTunes storeNik tells us why the peacock should leave the pricing to Apple.Ask TUAW: External Front Row, iSight mirroring, booting from an external HD, and moreYou ask, we answer, and you don't even have to pay an extra buck just to read it for 30 seconds on your iPhone.The Beatles: whateverScott doesn't care if the Beatles showed up on Wednesday or not.Metaliveblogging "The Beat Goes On" eventWhat's the next best thing to being in Moscone West? Reading our commentary about it.iTunes: Free WednesdayFeaturing Dave Matthews and The Pick Up Artist (not the same person).iPhone ringtones on the cheapGet all of the ringtones, with none of the price.Apple screwed you. So now what?The most useful thing we posted all week.Bye, bye HiFiApple's speakerbox gets an inconspicuous farewell.Found Footage: Quicksilver Google Tech talkSure, Quicksilver's creator isn't the best public speaker, but if you're interested in UI design at all, this is a must-see.Apple giving early iPhone buyers $100 creditSteve gives some back. Thanks early adopter whiners!iTunes 7.4 breaks iPhone hacksA speedbump (albeit a very, very small one) for iPhone hackers.Why did Apple drop the price?We consider the reasons behind this week's biggest surprise.
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!
MarsEdit 1.2 lands with Growl, Picasa and Vox support
Making good on his word after purchasing MarsEdit from Brent Simmons, Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software has quickly taken up development of the blogging client. Today Daniel released MarsEdit 1.2, a minor update that brings some great features like Growl support (when publishing, refreshing or uploading images and files) and Picasa upload support for Blogger.com images, as well as support for blogging to Vox, the community-focused blogging system from Six Aparts, makers of Live Journal and TypePad. For anyone who needs the power of Mac OS X while blogging, MarsEdit is a great great choice that offers a wealth of other features for a mere $24.95. A demo is of course also available from Red Sweater Software.
MarsEdit 1.1.3
Just a scant 4 days since Red Sweater Software acquired MarsEdit there is a new point release available. Now that's quick turnaround. MarsEdit 1.1.3, as you can imagine, is mostly a bug fix release but it is free to registered users and fixes the following things: Fix a bug with LiveJournal blogs that contain Unicode chars Fix the infamous "Preview Flickering Images" bug Fix a slow memory leak when text filters are applied in preview Sparkle, everyone's favorite updating engine, has been added as well. I can't wait to see what future releases have in store for us.
MarsEdit acquired by Red Sweater Software
MarsEdit is my blogging client of choice. It is simple, straightforward, and streamlined (unlike Ecto, which I also use and enjoy). Today we found out that MarsEdit, formerly of Ranchero which itself was acquired by NewsGator, has been acquired by Red Sweater Software. This is good news for all MarsEdit uses since NewsGator is much more focused on NetNewsWire, and the future of MarsEdit didn't look too clear.Check out this Q&A with Brent Simmons, creator of MarsEdit, and Daniel Jalkut, the man behind the Red Sweater, for some insights into the future of MarsEdit. Updates to MarsEdit 1.x will continue to be free for registered users, and new users can pick up a copy for $24.95.
Five blogging apps I'm thankful for
We are a thankful bunch around TUAW today, in honor of Thanksgiving here in the states. Since I spend most of my waking hours blogging I thought I would give some praise to the five applications that make blogging a breeze on the Mac. This is not meant to be a 'Top Five blogging tools post,' if you're looking for something like that, check out Glenn Wolsey's post on ProBlogger (though I have some problems with his post that I won't go into at this moment). Read on to get the skinny on the five blogging applications I am most thankful for this holiday season.
