I’m happy to announce that I’ve acquired Pandora from Positive Spin Media, and renamed it Skyscraper in order to reduce confusion with the music service. Skyscraper is a web scraper specializing in finding and downloading images. It can take advantage of Google Image Search to do keyword searches or simply scrape images (or other kinds of files) from a URL that you give to it. It automatically downloads the images into folders and allows you to perform some simple management. It also has a built-in slide show.
Skyscraper has a free limited trial, so there’s no reason not to give it a try. Skyscraper is free for existing Pandora customers, otherwise $29.99 for new customers.
You can read more about the acquisition in the press release.
Illuminate 1.2 is out with major changes to how the cycle windows feature works. Since cycle windows is the main feature in Illuminate, I made an effort to streamline it and make it usable in fewer keystrokes. The most noticeable change is that Cycle (All) Windows and Cycle (All) Tabs have been consolidated into one feature: Cycle Windows. Cycle Windows cycles through all the windows and tabs using just one keyboard shortcut (Option-Tab), plus they’re now grouped by application, making application switching more obvious.
In order to speed up switching between windows, sticky mode has be turned off by default so the window selection happens as soon as you let up on the modifier keys. Also, there is now a configurable delay between when the keyboard shortcut is pressed and the UI shows up. This means you can quickly switch between windows or tabs without the UI flashing up or otherwise having to wait on it.
The 1.2 includes some other features and bug fixes:
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Support for Google Chrome tabs
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Ability to exclude certain applications from the window switching list.
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You can now change the order windows appear in when switching windows: last time accessed or alphabetical.
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Improved layout in the cycle windows UI so more space is used by the window thumbnails.
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Fix for a crashing bug.
The update is free for existing customers, $9.99 for new customers, and is available from Fortunate Bear’s online store or Apple’s Mac App Store.
You can read the full press release here.
A new version of Log Leech is out today. It updates the Mac version by doing some UI clean up, improving HTML export, adding a log entry detail view, and improving performance and stability. In addition, version 1.5 introduces a universal iOS version of the app. The iOS version is quite similar to the Mac version; the main difference is instead of providing an export function, it allows you to email the logs to the address of your choice.
The 1.5 release for Mac is free for existing customers, and $9.99 for new customers. It can be found either in Fortunate Bear’s online store or Apple’s Mac App Store. The iOS version is $4.99, and can be found in the App Store.
See the press release for more information.
I’ve been meaning to write about some of the major problems that I have with the App Store, both the Mac and iOS varieties. But honestly, I don’t have a whole lot to add to what Wil Shipley and Craig Hockenberry have already said. Instead, I’ll link to the bugs I’ve written up, and encourage you to do the same.
I know there’s been a lot of pessimism about writing up Radars lately, including from yours truly. But the truth is filing bugs is the only official way Apple will listen, so the pragmatic side of me wins out. It’s not that I necessarily think filing bugs will cause a change, but it’s the only possible way of affecting changing that’s been given to me.
If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that I’ve acquired Pagehand from Ross Carter (a.k.a. Pagehand.com), and renamed it Pagesmith. Pagesmith is a unique word processor that focuses on writing and typography. You can check out the product page here for more details.
I’m particularly excited about this acquisition because Pagesmith is the first really “deep” app that I have. I can’t wait to spend some quality time with it, growing it into something even better. In addition, I really love the direction Ross started Pagesmith off in: a focus on creating beautiful documents through typography and an innovative, clutter free UI.
Anyway, you can read more about the transition in the press release. And don’t forget to give the free 30-day trial a go.
