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August 29, 2007
How to use Family for non-genealogy type things
So lately I've been discovering that the more that I start trying to map things out, the more I get frustrated with what's out there. About a month or so ago I started trying to use Family, the software I work on, to do more than genealogy work without modifying the source.
I found that, for the most part, it really did what I needed. It was pretty simple to start adding stuff while ignoring the labels to get what I wanted. Here's a simple example I put together in under 2 minutes:
I've really been happy utilizing Family to do this too, so I'm starting to wonder if other folks would like something similar. Mapping stuff out on a white board at work to show how a network is setup and how it affects the application I support really helps there, this is the same theory. I'm thinking of modifying Family to change the labels and then working with Evan to polish it towards another target audience, and then rereleasing it as another application with a different name and with a different icon set, towards productivity minded users. Would anyone like to see something like this happen?
Posted by Chris Forsythe at 11:15 PM | Comments (2)
August 24, 2007
Barcamp Houston
Just a heads up, I'll be attending Barcamp Houston tomorrow. I don't know if I'll be there at 9 am, but I'll try to show up at a reasonable time.
Posted by Chris Forsythe at 07:35 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
Family+other stuff for sale
If you like Family, but have been shaky on buying it due to the price, take a look at this site:
We've included Family in a back to school special software bundle, but it's not limited to just students. There are some pretty cool apps on there too, I'm torn between Mori and WriteRoom personally, and Macaroni just looks useful. The others look great as well, I'm slowly getting to them all.
Anyhow, check it out.
Posted by Chris Forsythe at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2007
c4 weirdness?
I found this image the most interesting when searching for pictures on flickr for c4:
(in case it doesn't show up, it's an image of a diff (or diff-esque, haven't looked at a diff in a while) where Vinay Venkatesh is removed, Cabel Sasser switches spots with Wil Shipley, and Fake Steve Jobs moves to Sunday. Also, looks like Allan Odgaard replaced Vinay)
Assumably Vinay was removed due to this random post by Michael: http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000767.html.
I was really looking forward to watching a dvd about virtualization if c4 for this year ever hits dvd (still waiting on last year's dvd Wolf!).
But the fact that Vinay was removed, and Michael was not, seems really.. strange. Michael threatened bodily harm. From talking to Vinay, he's never even talked to Michael. So eh to all that, but it would have been fair to have uninvited both parties, rather than just one party.
I got back from going out today with the wife to visit with family, come back, and then get pointed to the c4 thread on twitter. Apparently the topics that drunkenbatman brought up were.. questionable, uncomfortable, and just not fun. I wasn't there, so I don't know about it. But I do know that when I see something like this post, this post, this post, and this post, I wonder if db will be invited back next year. Added to the lack of posts for what seems like forever, other than the really chaotic posts at the end of when he was posting, and the one about Vinay, and you really start to wonder if db is relevant within the mac community at this point. I'm not saying that I'm relevant or not relevant, but I'm also not running a panel at a cool mac conference (although I tried to do a bit about Trac last year and got bumped for Hillegass (and was happier for it)).
It's just weird. The whole thing with DB vs. Vinay was handled strangely, the return of DB is strange without him posting relevant stuff (I'm talking about things like interviews) recently, and things like that. I hope he gets back into the mood to start writing interesting posts again, I enjoyed them, and enjoyed talking to him about random things via IM, but in the end I had to spend the money on something else, and I'm enjoying that quite a bit.
Update: Apparently someone did talk about vm tech, a Shawn Morel. Here is the post by Alex Payne about it: http://www.al3x.net/2007/08/c41-vmware-fusion-internals.html
Posted by Chris Forsythe at 12:41 AM | Comments (2)
August 04, 2007
Artwork and impressions
So since forever we've depended on Adam Betts to get our icons. He's a great guy, always early with our rather random demands, and a lot of hard work on his part really shows in the artwork within Adium itself.
Love it or hate it, people really notice the duck right off the bat.
I've had one dealing with Erik Barzenski, and it wasn't a dealing it was more just asking him to get Growl support into an application he had at the time. The experience was sour from the start. Albeit in the end after much cursing it got implemented.
I'm not sure who to believe, but based on reputation and on past dealings, I'm more apt to side with Adam. The two people are completely different in the way they've reacted towards myself and others. In the mac development world you are your reputation. A lot of the work these days is done via email or instant messenger, and if the two parties cannot trust each other, then what's left?
I also have interacted with Fernando quite a bit in the #macsb irc channel, and he's also a nice guy.
It's really just a bad situation for everyone. Adam is left without being paid for his (very good) work. Erik is seen as the villian in this situation.
Erik says that Adam didn't honor his side of the agreement. Adam is seen as the villian in this part of the situation.
Fernando made the new icon, which looks considerably like Adam's new icon. The question is, who is the villian here?
Did Erik hand Fernando Adam's previous work, and say "make something similar"? Seems reasonably likely, but we weren't there. Or was the description just similar? Any amount of posting by anyone at this point won't prove for or against Erik.
However, the fact that he's posted such a long blog post about it, so publicly, seems to me like he's trying to prove a point, and also drive hits to his website. He's got a startup, and it seems like a little controversy from the beginning is a great way to drive hits and google ratings. That's a thought, Erik is a smart cookie, if a bit hard to deal with. What if he hit upon an idea early on that in order to drive lots of hits fast to his website, he could start a controversy.
Or perhaps not. I guess we'll never know. The one thing I do know is that Adam and Fernando are both great artists, and I'm left with a bad impression from Erik. It's a quandry.
Posted by Chris Forsythe at 12:01 AM | Comments (6)