Author Archives: brad

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Thinking about what might have been…

John Borland: The call to arms stemmed from Microsoft’s obsession to protect the Windows operating system, which was and is the only near-universal platform on which other software developers can base their own programs. If software developers could have written their code instead for Netscape, which in turn could work with any operating system, the need to run Windows on every machine might have quickly diminished. Although the article quoted is new, the “call to arms” referenced happened in 1995.

John Gruber: But now what? Internet Explorer’s purpose was to dominate the browser market, not to generate revenue. Once it achieved dominance, many declared the browser market dead — which wasn’t a bad guess, given Microsoft’s history in other markets. But the difference with Internet Explorer is that Microsoft seems to have lost interest, and progress on the app has slowed tremendously. The reason is that unlike its for-pay software, Microsoft doesn’t have much of an interest in whether you’re using an older version of IE, or the latest release. Welcome to 2003, where Microsoft is the only browser developer stagnating, and the most visible.

Apparently, there is another Frequency out there (thanks to Ean White for pointing this out to me). I’ve contacted the other developer, and we have decided to co-exist. He was very gracious and accomodating, and I am very appreciative of that.

The other Frequency is an audio program for Mac OS X, and from what I gather, it’s excellent. Go check it out!

Okay. I promised myself I was going to take a night off from working on Frequency tonight. Instead, I got the Mac OS 9 version ready for beta testing. Anyone else interested, please let me know. It may work on Mac OS 8.5/8.6 as well. I’m not really sure. I’ll have to see if I can weasel access to a System 8 (remember Copland?) machine tomorrow.

So the OS 9 version is in the hands of beta testers. Now I’m off to polish up the Windows beta. That should be fun. 😛

Oh, yeah: If anyone knows of any Unicode/UTF-8 resources, tutorials, or whatnot, please let me know! I want to make Frequency more international-aware soon. (Dexter, are you reading this?)

Well, this is it. Tomorrow is the big day, when Frequency (at least the OS X version) is unleashed upon the world. Special thanks to Dave Mancuso, Mike Williams, Andre Garzia, Christian Crumlish, Rob Tillotson, and Michael (something) for beta testing the Mac OS X version. Next on the list is to finish up the Classic version and get it out the door, then knuckle down on the Windows version. After that, it’s off to 1.1, hopefully with all three platforms in sync. I’ve got big plans for future versions.

Another thanks to Mike for having the eyes of a hawk.

And an extra special thanks to Dave for helping with the documentation, which would have been much sparser if not for his involvement.

More info about Frequency is (finally) available here.

Oh, and the official “Powered By Frequency” web badge is finished:

What do you think?

Liberation Day: And so, sovaldi at this moment, as the Mordor shadow of Saddam Hussein, a truly evil man who, like a sociopathic murderous husband, killed everything that he could not control, lifts from the long-suffering people of Iraq, all of us, on the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, America-lovers and America-haters, Syrians and Kuwaitis and Israelis and Palestinians, owe it to our common humanity to stop, put aside — not forever — our doubts and our grief and our future fears, and for one deep moment, celebrate. Well put words by Gary Kamiya. Nice Tolkien reference, too.

Scary stuff from Kevin Sites: As we moved up on a final checkpoint, some men beckoned us to come a little bit closer. We looked at them. They didn’t look like Peshmerga. And they stopped us. And we told them that we were journalists. And they basically made us get out of the car and they told us we were American spies, started to get very angry with us, started to point their Kalashinikovs at us.

My taxes are done.

The Mac OS X release of Frequency is 99% done.

The Mac Classic release is about 90% done.

Life is good.

BBC: US tanks drove unhindered into public squares on the eastern bank of the Tigris for the first time… Wow.

Insuring your weenie: Krehling said the policy covers anything that happens to anyone or anything in a 50-foot radius of his hot dog cart, advice which includes him and his customers. Thanks for the link, Bill.