Frequency For Windows In Beta

Frequency for Windows is now in beta [gulp]. Hopefully it will go well. It’s running fairly well under Windows2000 and WindowsXP, but it still has a few rough spots. That should all be ironed out in the next week or so, though.

New features for 1.1: send feedback via email (done), new HTML rendering engine (done; thanks to Joe Strout for being a genius), edit last post (working on it). Once I get the Classic and Windows versions out, then it’s time to synch them all to the 1.1 codebase. Post editing has been the most requested feature so far, so hopefully that will generate some revenue for me. 🙂

Thus Began An Epic Struggle Between Man And Iron

Oh, my. I’m tired. So very, very tired.

I spent all day Friday and Saturday working on the bathroom with Clair. Friday we did the tile floor, which went exceptionally well. It was ceramic tile floor nirvana in many ways. Very little cutting had to be done. But, dang, I’m getting old. Two years ago, when we did the kitchen floor, I was OK. But this time, crawling around on my hands and knees for that long really made me sore and stiff. Maybe it’s psychological since I just passed 30. I don’t know.

But Saturday – oy! We replaced all the cast iron drain pipes under the bathroom with PVC. Clair and I figured his reciprocating saw would be able to take care of the old pipes, maybe a half hour job. Hour tops.

Wrong. More like three and a half hours when I stopped keeping track. The old pipes obliterated several blades on Clair’s saw, and we soon realized that our only weapon was going to be brute force.

So we broke out the standard set of plumbing tools: many hammers, an electric drill, a huge digging iron, and a car jack. Yes, that’s right: a car jack.

Thus began an epic struggle between man and iron.

I’m pleased to report that man eventually won, but it was a hard fought victory.

We emerged from the battle exhausted, stinking like sewage, mostly covered in some nasty black slime that I can’t even talk about, and many hours behind schedule.

So Jen and Grace packed up and headed to the in-laws, since we were without a toilet, shower, and bathroom sink. Basically, without a bathroom. And we only have the one.

Grace wound up staying overnight, but Jen came home. Clair and I finished the job some time after midnight. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but today is Easter and I had to be at church at 7:00 AM to lead worship at our Sunrise Service. Can’t really be late, because they can’t really start without me.

I was late. I got there at 7:10, guitar in hand. Everybody was pretty cool about it, though. I attend a wonderful church with wonderful people. Plus, we rarely start stuff on time, anyway.

And on top of all that, I’ve been staying up way too late at night working on Frequency. But the Mac OS 9 version should be out this week. Maybe Wednesday.

And now, I’m off to bed. I need to get some serious rest tonight. Grace had developed bronchitis, and I need to keep up my resistance because I don’t want it.

Keynote: Step One

Robyn Weisman: Engst explained that he believes Apple is on track to provide a substitute for Microsoft Office, and that Keynote is the first piece in this puzzle. He noted, however, that this strategy existed even before Keynote’s introduction. Apple’s “Mail” e-mail application, introduced for OS X and radically upgraded in the Jaguar update, replaced Microsoft’s Outlook Express as the default Mac e-mail client.

Hey, Mail was good enough that I switched. Mike and Dave took the plunge shortly therafter. The integration with iCal is wonderful, and it allows us to collaborate in the office much more than Entourage did.

I’m glad I switched when I did, and started using Address Book, now that the newest Safari beta uses your Address Book card for forms autofill, which is very slick. Safari also has what I consider to be the best implementation of tabbed browsing that exists.

Thinking About What Might Have Been

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.