Camtasia Studio is the ultimate screencasting tool. For those of us using a Mac, we’re stuck with Snapz Pro X. Snapz is a fine screen capture tool, to be sure… but take a look at the features you get from Camtasia, and you’ll see that there’s really no comparison. Camtasia’s number one problem is that it’s Windows-only.
I’ve seen quite a few people out there using Macs to produce screencasts. TechSmith has had a hard time justifying the effort to make a Mac version of Camtasia. But, Mac users often seem to be more willing to pony up for a good piece of software. That, and there are quite a few developers running on Macs now. Maybe the market for Camtasia on the Mac is bigger than what TechSmith thinks it may be?
If you’d like to see Camtasia for the Mac, consider sending them a feature request.
Software Business
Metadata Hootenanny is used to edit metadata (like chapters) in a QuickTime movie.
Linkage, Technology
FireBug is a Firefox extension that provides an interactive logging/debugging tool for webapps.
Linkage, Software Development
Xyzzy Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure is the funniest thing I’ve seen online in a while.
Funny, Linkage
Music Sales Are Booming on Internet
The IFPI added that the legitimate music business was gradually gaining ground on digital piracy. It said research showed that in Europe’s two biggest digital markets — Britain and Germany — more music fans are now legally downloading music than illegally file-swapping.
This kind of thing drives me batty. iTMS finally presented a music service that was reasonable to use (or, more accurately, super simple to use with restrictions that are not entirely heinous). Lo and behold, you give your customers what they want at a reasonable price and they actually buy it. People do put value on their time and using the file sharing networks is nowhere near as pleasant an experience as iTMS. I’d still like to see some “youngsters” in the music industry come up and trounce on the big boys (before they get acquired by the big boys, of course).
Music
Here’s a decent summary of a #cherrypy meeting (deFuze.org) we had yesterday in which we discussed the ability to run multiple CherryPy “apps” in the same server process and running CherryPy apps behind Paste. The short of it is that TurboGears 0.9 won’t run multiple apps in process, but somewhere between 0.9 and 1.0 we’ll either go with Ian Bicking’s CherryPaste or with CherryPy 2.2’s new tree.mount feature to allow multiple TurboGears apps to run in process. The choice between the two will be dependent on how comfortable with the mechanisms used. The CherryPaste solution is better because it brings Paste integration and looks more like what people have in mind for CherryPy 3.0. But, I want to be sure about how well it’s going to work with things we’ve got running now and different approaches to declaring multiple apps.
TurboGears
Thanks to a generous offer from Cliff Wells, I’m pleased to announce the Develix TurboGears Bug Bounty. Develix will provide a year of free hosting for the people who help close these TurboGears tickets to get 0.9 out the door quicker. We’ve had many great contributions so far, and it’s nice that Develix wants to help those who are helping the project.
Python, TurboGears
I didn’t want it to get too far into 2006 before I put my latest annual favorite songs list up. This is my third annual list. The first list had 9 songs, the second had 19 and this one has 24. I have no idea what that means. Is the music getting better? Are my standards going down? Who cares? I just know that these 24 songs provided primo enjoyment for my ears this past year.
- “Get Back” by Ludacris from Red Light District. I don’t know what it is, but certain songs in which the singer is talking tough just make me laugh. This is one of those… I have a feeling Ludacris doesn’t take himself too seriously here, because the video shows him with these crazy oversized arms.
- “Beautiful”, “Raining Again” by Moby from Hotel. Beautiful: . Raining Again:
- “Since U Been Gone”, “Addicted” by Kelly Clarkson from Breakaway. Honorable mention to “Behind The Hazel Eyes” and “Hear Me”. I listened to a lot of Kelly Clarkson this year. These were some excellent tracks. Well written, produced and performed. Some of the best pop of the decade. Since U Been Gone: . Addicted:
- “No Surprise” by Theory of a Deadman from Gasoline. A good bit of rock from people who, at least on record, hit the right notes and can even harmonize. Good lyrics, too.
- “Lonely No More”, “This Is How A Heart Breaks” by Rob Thomas from Something to Be. More great pop with a unique sound that cut through a lot of the other stuff on the air waves. Unless you were listening to “adult contemporary” stations. In which case, Rob Thomas was apparently all you got to hear this year (in between Kelly Clarkson songs, that is.) Lonely No More: . This Is How A Heart Breaks:
- “Flashdance” by Deep Dish from the Flashdance EP. Though the music gets a little repetitive (and the entire first verse is repeated again!), the music is at least interesting and the singer sings with a great swagger. The “he’s lucky he just walked on by” lyrics are clever, too.
- “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” by the Black Eyed Peas from Monkey Business. Anyone who sounds like a horse in the middle of their song is having a good time. Even releasing a single with the word “phunk” (which was replaced by “mess” for some stations) shows a group that’s out to have a good time.
- “Sugar (Gimme Some)” by Trick Daddy and a cast of thousands. More well-produced rap-pop.
- “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani from Love. Angel. Music. Baby..
- “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)” by Garbage from Beautifulgarbage. Though Garbage had a new album out in 2005, this is from their previous release, but I hadn’t heard it before 2005. I just love the sound of this song, and it’s a real shame that Beautifulgarbage was a relative failure.
- “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day from American Idiot. Last year’s “Boulevard” is easily the better song, but this is still a solid track. Honorable mention to “Holiday” as well.
- “Precious”, “Suffer Well”, “A Pain That I’m Used To”, “John The Revelator” by Depeche Mode from Playing the Angel. I’m a big Depeche Mode fan. Overall, Playing the Angel doesn’t stand up as well as Violator or Ultra for me. But, there are some standout tracks, like the lead single “Precious”. Precious: Suffer Well: A Pain That I’m Used to: John the Revelator:
- Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonna. This is easily Madonna’s best album since Ray of Light. The whole album is quite listenable, but there are still standout tracks. Hung Up: Sorry: Jump: I Love New York:
- “Gold Digger” by Kanye West with Jamie Foxx from Late Registration.
- “We Be Burning” by Sean Paul from The Trinity.
Music, Recommended
Yesterday, Apple introduce iLife ‘06, which includes the new major component iWeb. From the pretty pictures on the Apple site, iWeb looks like a nice product. It’s nicely integrated with the other parts of iLife, making it easy to publish all of the “stuff” that you collect up digitally. As an independent software developer, though, I can really feel for the guys at Karelia. Their Sandvox website tool was set to enter beta soon. They moved up the beta as soon as they heard about iWeb, but iWeb’s emergence is going to make things very tough on them, I think.
Safari’s RSS support wasn’t really a risk for Zesty News. But, Zesty News is general enough that some large company could decide to target the same features Zesty does. The safest way to be an ISV is to go after a niche. But, unless you’re really into that niche, that’s certainly not the most fun way to be an ISV.
Update: it’s worth noting that a huge difference between Sandvox and iWeb is that iWeb only publishes to .Mac and Sandvox can publish to any web hosting company. That’s a big difference.
Software Business
I’ll be presenting TurboGears tonight at the MUG meeting in Farmington Hills, Michigan. My plan is to do the live version of the “20 Minute Wiki”, newly modified for TurboGears 0.9. The 0.9 “20 Minute Wiki” is functionally equivalent to the 0.8 version, but the code is nicer.
Sorry for the late notice!
TurboGears
