Slashdot Mirror

http://www.delicious-monster.com/
Delicious Library.

Nah. I haven't read the article. But, I have worked for a software company that made both mac and windows software. I have also used productivity tools on both platforms for (groan) years.

One thing that struck me is that there are just some software companies that "get it." They make programs that are intuitive to use, pretty to look at and properly take advantage of the OS. The programs also play nicely in the playground.

And most importantly, once you get used to using these programs you don't know what you would do without them.

In the Mac world of software programs like TechTool Pro and Diskwarrior are two excellent examples of getting it right.They are both disk/system repair utilities. Simple to use and effective and in some cases have benefits which are not readily apparent but easy to figure out later on. In that sense they are like a lot of programs that fill the gaps in the Mac experience.

You see, most of these great programs for the Mac exists because A) Apple refused to include certain functionality to the end user; B) The best houses build good software that really seems like it just belongs on a Mac and should be included with every box sold. (Omni Software is an example of an OS X company that fits this bill; Alsoft's Diskwarrior is one that fits the bill for OS 7-X)

Often that Windows Choice for innumerous software titles is like going to an office supply store and digging through discount bins for cheap and perhaps practical items that you don't realy need after using once or twice. There's nothing wrong with that but most Windows software (3rd party) doesn't add to the Windows experience it just adds software to your computer.

... piracy. Wil runs a successful boutique-app company called Delicious Monster and is something of a geek celeb in the Mac world.

Replace "applications" with "movies" and I bet it still applies.

It is my informed impression that the large majority of the people downloading this stuff (i.e., the market) either A) can't afford it due to youth or income and therefore wouldn't have bought it anyway (i.e., it's not a lost sale), or B) don't have it available to them via normal channels.

If you like what Wil had to say about this, definitely check out the PDF of his presentation on "doing your own thing". It is pretty inspiring stuff if you are a creative geek who is tired of not doing what you'd really like to be doing.

Of course, It's 40 bucks plus a firewire camera. and not $0.3.

monster. Very nice software.

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

(Using Mozilla 1.7.2 on OS X 10.3.8 with, I see, Macromedia Flash Player 7.0 r24 in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins --> Spinning wheel with browser CPU usage at 90%.)

Agreed. Delicious Library is a fantastic application that should be able to do a wonderful job with this. Out of the box, it already has support for some of the things that a real, physical, lending library would need:

• It maintains a list of assets (books, movies, albums, video games), and will look up as much information about each asset as possible from Amazon's site
• Inputting data is fairly easy if you have an iSight camera or their Bluetooth scanner. Once the bard code has been read, everything else happens automatically.
• It automatically generates a list of borrowers from your user account's address book, and will allow you to keep track of who is borrowing which asset; likewise, you can look up what assets each borrower is currently holding, including when they borrowed it.
• Most of the interesting data exists as XML files under ~/Library/Application Support/Delicious Library, so if the application itself doesn't do what you need, you can hack the XML source to do what you want. For example, if you want to provide a web front end for people, it would be fairly easy to hack up a script that uses XSLT to translate the DL XML data into an HTML site.

Etc.

Plus, it's a young application from a young company, made by what seems to be a tight & enthusiastic team of people. I bet they'd be deliriously happy to find out that an actual library wanted to use their application -- if you contact them about what you want to do, they might even be able to get features you need into future versions of the software.

It's not open source, but it's damned good software. Give it a try and you may find that it's just what you need to get started...

Agreed. Delicious Library is a fantastic application that should be able to do a wonderful job with this. Out of the box, it already has support for some of the things that a real, physical, lending library would need:

• It maintains a list of assets (books, movies, albums, video games), and will look up as much information about each asset as possible from Amazon's site
• Inputting data is fairly easy if you have an iSight camera or their Bluetooth scanner. Once the bard code has been read, everything else happens automatically.
• It automatically generates a list of borrowers from your user account's address book, and will allow you to keep track of who is borrowing which asset; likewise, you can look up what assets each borrower is currently holding, including when they borrowed it.
• Most of the interesting data exists as XML files under ~/Library/Application Support/Delicious Library, so if the application itself doesn't do what you need, you can hack the XML source to do what you want. For example, if you want to provide a web front end for people, it would be fairly easy to hack up a script that uses XSLT to translate the DL XML data into an HTML site.

Etc.

Plus, it's a young application from a young company, made by what seems to be a tight & enthusiastic team of people. I bet they'd be deliriously happy to find out that an actual library wanted to use their application -- if you contact them about what you want to do, they might even be able to get features you need into future versions of the software.

It's not open source, but it's damned good software. Give it a try and you may find that it's just what you need to get started...

Delicious Library may suit your needs until you get large enough that you need an industrial-strength solution.

Everyone here has really done a very good job of talking about the pluses of Obj-C, Obj-C++, XCode, and so on. But nobody has yet (sorry if I missed someone on this) talked about the ease of use of Interface Builder, the GUI builder that comes along side XCode. And even more interesting for an application developer would be Cocoa Bindings.

For Application development, Cocoa bindings allows you to implement the model-view-controller paradigm without writing much, in some cases any, controller code because Apple has already done it. Check out Delicious Monster's app Delicious Library that was written largley (maybe totally, as I've also heard) using Cocoa Bindings.

Cocoa Bindings will be found in Interface Builder under the Bindings tab on the Inspector window. When you fire up a Cocoa app in XCode, you will have a NIB (NeXT Interface Builder) file, or two. Selecting and opening those files will take you where you need to go.

In Interface Builder 2.5, which is freely included in Tiger, they have enhanced Cocoa Bindings since bindings were introduced in Oct. 2003. And, if you don't like accessing bindings in the UI app Interface Builder, you can always code it in directly through the use of key-value-coding and key-value-observing.

If you're writing an app, one of the things that Cocoa Bindings does is get you head out of the code and into the Interface. I have found that, in making the interface first, I actually don't need some of the routines I thought I would need. Better yet, by not having to write and debug allot of controller code, my dev cycle time is allot shorter than it otherwise would be.

I don't program in Windows. But my Windows friends tell me that there is nothing like Cocoa Bindings on the Windows side. I think you'll like what you see.

Good luck! I think you'll have as much fun as I've had.

I would have to say that the reason I finally put in my notice is that I was just not in control of my life any longer. So many reasons sush as:

• Over abundance of newer processes (seemingly compounded daily)
• constantly changing standards
• overly strict architectures
• software pattern-of-the-hour
• squabbling over semantics regarding the correct OO approach to a design
• abstractions beyond abstraction
• elitism
• disinteressed masses who only care about getting paid and not solving a problem
• Java seemingly being the only solution to every problem

Everyday was getting more and more difficult to handle. I don't think I could fill a flat tire if sun hadn't developed a java implementation of an air pump. I started developing stress related problems from constant heartburn, headaches, insomnia and finally chest pains. So, WTF is a 32 year old with a house and fiance suppose to do? Quit, of course!

So, the first day of my time off, I decided to put my resume on Monster.com. Within the next two days I had about 9 calls. I then realized that I wasn't ready to find anything yet. So, I had to change my resume so that it can't be searched for, called the people and told them I would be available to talk after April, 1. That's about it.

I am still trying to figure out what to do next. I am pretty sure that I ever want to go back and to the corporate thing. I wouldn't mind working with a small group of people and starting something exciting and creative. Look what the guys at Delicious Monster did. I bet they are happy! I am sure there have to be some people out there willing to take a chance.

So, to sum it up, I have given up the steady work and great pay. But, my life is worth more than spending every day not liking what I am doing or being subjected to. I'll survive, and do better in the long run. I have no doubts about that.

So, anyone else out there want to try and get something going? I am really looking to tackle some OS X software development. (Of course I had to try, I have no job, remember?)

-- Acidblue

A.) It may be cheap and sexy, but it's hard to find apps for. Best Buy, for example, carries no Mac software.

This has more to do with the software retail industry being a big racket than anything else. Small players, if they can get on the shelves at all, generally don't see a cent of the profits. The costs involved in getting it on the shelves (all that packaging, shipping, etc.) can overshadow what meager returns they see.

All of the large Mac software producers I can think of also produce Windows software. Adobe, Microsoft, Blizzard, etc.

On the web, it's a different story. Some of the most interesting new Mac software available is only available online. OmniOutliner, Delicious Library, NetNewsWire, SubEthaEdit, etc. I don't think that any of these producs are really losing out not being on the shelves at BestBuy.

No offence, but your problem seems to be much more a user issue, than a computer one.

I'm a fairly recent Mac convert (who still works with x86 boxes), but the Mac has done nothing but continue to impress me with both its speed, and with it's depth (Most of the time, if you're still finding new capabilities with an app after 6 months of usage, it's indicative of a poorly designed GUI. With the Mac, there's just so damn many features/capabilities that they're often not evident to the casual user).

The file copying example you refer to could be many things, from software conflicts, to physical issues with the memory. There's just so many variables, it's not really answerable without more details (not that I'm trying to troubleshoot it... Just pointing out that your complaint can be applied just about any PC, dependant upon circumstances.). My guess is that your slow Mac may be running less than the optimal amount of memory (OSX is much more "memory hungy" than any MS OS).

I know that in my case. my Mac often copies small to medium sized files (less than 40mb) so quickly, I'll have to re-verify that the copy actually took place. And this is on a dual 2ghz Mac, with 512mb ram (which really needs to be upped to 2.5gb ASAP - Speed should increase quite a bit just getting it up to 1gb, as right now I've got a lot of disk swappin' going on).

I'm also unsure as to your Mac experience from your posting, but daily use of my Mac continues to improve my efficiency. You seem to be growing more frustrated with your Mac experience (which begs the question of why you're using it - Toss it my way if you'd like, and I'll put it good use!), whereas increased usage continually reassures me that my Mac was money well spent (and believe you me, it took me awhile to finaly take the plunge and buy me a Mac).

It's all been said before, but features which make the Mac great are many: Fast (contrary to your experiences), well thought out GUI and features, it's incredably easy to get to grips with just about any Mac program, and once you're ready, most apps offer a small ton of features which increases their value/longetivity even further.

Then of course, we have its Unix capabilities, Applescript, built in PHP, Perl, Ruby, Java, and all the dev tools one could ask for. All capable of system programming.

Then there's those programs which which make the Mac stand out so much over its competition: Delicious Monsters Library, the very impressive Platypus, and of course the "can't do without" Quicksilver.

I won't turn into a gloating "Mac Fanboy" here, but the Mac is a power users dream. Its power and efficiency continues to amaze me. I only hope that the MacMini allows "John Q. Public" to experience the joy that is OSX first-hand.

From Delicious Library FAQ: http://www.delicious-monster.com/help.php

Can I use my CueCat or other USB barcode scanner with Delicious Library?

Delicious Library should support any USB barcode scanner that sends data in the same fashion as a keyboard. The CueCat scanner does not fall into this category, but the following instructions allow you to modify the CueCat to be more compatible.

How to modify your CueCat barcode scanner (1965 USB Models): The USB models has an onboard 16 pin SMD component. This IC will have a serial number on it similar to the following sequence: K130A033 HMS91C7316 0027. Simply lift pin 5 on this device. Congratulations, your USB CueCat is now functioning as a commercial barcode scanner.

Wow, that sounds like a question they must get asked frequently. Quoting from the FAQ:

Can I use my CueCat or other USB barcode scanner with Delicious Library?

Delicious Library should support any USB barcode scanner that sends data in the same fashion as a keyboard. The CueCat scanner does not fall into this category, but the following instructions allow you to modify the CueCat to be more compatible.

How to modify your CueCat barcode scanner (1965 USB Models): The USB models has an onboard 16 pin SMD component. This IC will have a serial number on it similar to the following sequence: K130A033 HMS91C7316 0027. Simply lift pin 5 on this device. Congratulations, your USB CueCat is now functioning as a commercial barcode scanner.

Wanna send me one of your extra USB 'Cats?

The good folks at Delicious Monster have the Delicious Library where you can use your iSight or other camera to scan your DVD library barcodes for ease of use. Quite pornographic.