Monday, October 31st, 2005

So here's an idea that I'd like to see, but I don't currently have time to experiment with.

• NetNewsWire has the ability to subscribe to local scripts, so you can create your own little special subscriptions.

<li>NetNewsWire can also be told via AppleScript to update a subscription, so in theory this little script we subscribed to can be updated not only every hour, but anytime during the day when this particular AppleScript is run.</li>

<li><a href="http://sqlite.org/">SQLite</a> is a great little database engine, with bindings for just about every language.  It's free, supports transactions, and fast.</li>

<li>A simple little shell tool could be written to read said SQLite database, and spit out the information contained in it as a RSS feed.</li>

<li>This database could be fed it's information via various scripts, applications, published SDK, or even a shell tool that would take arguments and stick em' in.  And once the data is in, the previously mentioned AppleScript could be kicked off to refresh the subscription in NetNewsWire.</li>

So what we have here is a way to publish realtime information (server issues, alarms, bing another copy of VoodooPad sold, whatever) to NetNewsWire, and not have to wait till the top of the hour to find out about it. Sort of like Growl, but in a list.

Or is there already something out there like this? Am I missing something? Am I crazy?

I can't imagine anyone paying for this type of app... but imagine the glory involved if it's super easy to install and pulled off with some style :) So who's going to work on it?

-- posted 11:31 pm

Glorified Typist, R*ch Siegel's blog. (He's the guy who founded Bare Bones Software)

-- posted 2:30 pm

I'm pretty close to releasing VoodooPad 2.5 beta 1. Some new features are a completely redesigned "Web Export" (make a blog of your vdoc), multi-alias support (so a page can have more than one alias now), Automator actions, updates to AppleScript support, and other stuff. I've also been doing some updates under to hood to make the transition to sqlite for VP3.0 easier for me.

And VoodooPad has a new localization- Japanese! VoodooPad has French and German localizations already, which I can run and sort of figure things out in the menus. However, I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at when I run VP in Japanese. Which can be interesting... Aaron Kavile and E-Wa are the guys who were kind enough to help me out for the localization, and I needed to give them a plug and an "Awesome, Thanks!" for that.

If you'd like a sneak peek at VoodooPad 2.5 right now, you can get a build from the latest builds page. Whenever I'm feeling like it I will run a script that makes VoodooPad and puts up the latest version out of the code repository. Fresh bytes! As usual, make sure you back everything up first.

Also, yesterday I opened up the Flying Meat Store. Get all your favorite FM products, and get a discount when you buy more than one. PayPal is accepted as well.

I'm still going to be keeping eSellerate around as a backup, but the ability to take paypal (and credit cards as ususal), and being charged less than a 1/4 of the processing fees eSellerate charged me was too nice to pass up. Plus, now I have my own little store to dink around with which can be fun.

-- posted 11:42 am