Mr. Fridge Software Blog

Price cuts!

2012-01-07T15:10:00.000+01:00

With the start of the new year we have made several adjustments to our product pricing.
We especially wanted to bring the prices on our website on par with those in the Mac App Store. As you might know Apple takes 30% share of sales on the App Store. But for purchases on our own website we only give 9% to our reliable partner FastSpring who processes our sales (while offering much better service than Apple).
We think it is unfair to charge customers on our website 20% more just to offer equal prices as in the AppStore. So we decided to significantly drop prices on our website as following:

Papapapaya now is just $15.99 / €12.99 (-20%) on our website
($19.99 / €15.99 in the App Store)

Quokka now is just $12.99 / €9.99 (-15%) on our website
($14.99 / €11.99 in the App Store)

Tincta Pro will stay at $12.99 / €9.99 on our website
(App Store introduction price currently is $12.99, too, but will rise with the 1.1 update, so get it now!)

Walk of Fame now is $6.99 / €4.99 on our website
(not allowed in the App Store for having "nude" images)

Dragonfly now is $3.99 / €2.99 on our website
($4.99 in the App Store)

So if your New Year's pledges include learning a new language with Papapapaya or being more productive with Quokka and Tincta: your wishes have been heard ;-)

Also, once more we want to state here that we offer the same service and support to all our customers. No matter if you buy our software on our website or from the App Store, we will always be there for you and deliver updates to either version.

Blog update and google+

2012-01-02T15:01:00.001+01:00

Those of you who had subscribed our newsletter already know that we have abandoned it. It takes just too much time to create newsletters on mailchimp and we think we can much better share news and special offers via this blog, twitter and google+.
As you can see we have updated our blog design and we have connected it to google+.

especially google+ is a great service making it possible to precisely control what information you share with whom. So you can easily follow us there without having to share anything with us. Whereas we can distinguish between general (public) news and updates for beta testers.
Like before in our newsletter we will continue to offer special rebate coupons on google+ to everyone who follows us there.
Check out our profile on google+

By the way you might want to read Julius personal blog on xqrc.tumblr.com/ where he describes his progress in developing an app for the Blackberry PlayBook.

Tincta Pro

2011-11-13T12:37:00.000+01:00

Since we released the first beta versions of Tincta we received huge amounts of feedback. This has been very motivating as almost every e-mail was very positive. But of course a lot of people combined their praise with improvement suggestions an feature requests.
All requests for basic features and speed improvements found their way into the final version of Tincta 1.0 but we wanted to create a very basic Mac editor. A free editor that everyone would have on their Macs: Programmers, web designers but also moms and school kids. Because a text editor should not only be for programming – it is also to write to do lists, grocery lists, view read me files or compose e-mails when you're offline.

That is why we decided not to put all the advanced features in Tincta but instead create a separate version for professional users who actually know what regexes are and who really need split views for their daily work.
So everybody who requested features like split views, script execution, regex search and smaller icons – thank you very much for your feedback – your features are finally there in the fresh Tincta Pro.

Both versions Tincta and Tincta Pro share the same fast and reliable core but Tincta Pro expands the features set much further providing things like:

Split Views
built-in File Browser
Regex Search
search all open documents
Snippet Manager
Script execution including a customizable script library
and a lot more to come with future versions

Of course this does not mean that development on Tincta (lite) would halt. In contrary the core features and under-the-hood stuff will be further improved to make both versions even faster and even better while the feature set of Tincta Pro will grow with every update.

Tincta - the ultimate text editor

2011-07-09T15:01:00.001+02:00

After months of public beta testing, we are proud that today Tincta 1.0 is available from our website as well as from the Mac App Store.

You might wonder why we build just another text editor for Mac.
But if you look close the editors that are most popular at the moment are still based on Mac OS 7 and are no longer state of the art.
Tincta was written and designed from ground up. It's a Mac OS X native applications and has all over real Mac look and feel. We don't use any third party code or technologies (besides Mac OS X) and we keep our codebase small and clean. So we can keep Tincta fast, easy to maintain and super stable.

Tincta is a modern elegant one-window text editor that is intuitive to use on personal tasks like writing blog posts, letters or grocery lists. But it also has all functionality you need for professional web design and programming.

Tincta comes with syntax color profiles for over 70 languages and very fast and reliable coloring algorithms. Because no matter if you do websites or coding, well done syntax coloring is one of the most important features an editor must have.
Tincta's line numbering engine not only is blazingly fast but also manages line wrapping with ease and calculates every line correctly even for large files.

We know it's the little details that makes you love a text editor. So Tincta supports full drag and drop, indents selected text when you press tab, knows when an open file was changed by another application, features block selection and has an in-window live search with highlighting.

And of course Tincta has all the text editing essentials like:

vast encodings support
search and replace with highlighting
change case
show invisible characters
page guide
printing
spell checker
convert line endings
convert tabs/spaces

Papapapaya 1.4 - iPhone syncing

2011-05-31T17:51:00.001+02:00

We released Papapapaya 1.4 two weeks ago. Unfortunately it's still not available in the App Store while being reviewed by Apple.
Anyway we can't hold back any longer writing a blog post about this incredible release.

Along with Papapapaya 1.4 we also released Papapapaya for iPhone. And of course it would not make sense to have both if you could not sync them. So we integrated full Dropbox-Syncing into the Mac and the iPhone version.
Now you can create your lessons at home on the big screen and Quiz them in the bus or in your lunch break. Or you can quickly save that new word you just learned into your iPhone.
And when you come home, all your progress and new words already are there, silently synced.

This makes learning words an integral part of your daily life. And you don't have to do anything. Enter your dropbox username and password once and sycing works automatically. Your words will always be up to date on all your devices (you can even sync multiple Macs and iPhones if you're rich enough).

Try it out now:
Papapapaya for Mac can be downloaded from its website (free to try).
Papapapaya for iPhone is free and available in the App Store.

MacBundlePro Quokka Bundle

2011-04-28T13:09:00.000+02:00

MacBundlePro today started a new great OS X Bundle with 9 tools that get the most out of your Mac including our clipboard manager Quokka 2.0.

The Bundle is only $19.90 (you save $160 over regular prices) and includes the full versions of:

Quokka
Speedy Mac
WhatSize
Raskin
AppDelete
Breeze
MacTuneUp
Protect Files
Share

The offer runs two weeks until May 13th.

You find descriptions, screenshots and demo versions of all these very helpful Apps on http://macbundlepro.com

Programmers Topic: comparing UTF-8 strings in Cocoa

2011-04-23T18:08:00.000+02:00

A short hint to something that is not documented correctly by Apple:
Though all Apple OSes use UTF-8 or UTF-16 to store and process strings, you need to know that not all unicode chars are well-defined. For instance there are two possibilities to create a German Umlaut like ä, ö or ü. First there is a unicode code for each one, and second you can compose these from 'o' + the unicode code for two Umlaut-dots.

This is a problem when you compare strings that you did not create by yourself (like filenames), because NSString's isEqualToString: method compares bytewise so 'Blüte' is not nescessarily equal to 'Blüte' depending on the Umlaut-Composition. I'm sure there are lots of other characters in unicode with the same problem like french é, à, î et cetera.

Luckily the solution is quite easy:
use NSString's localizedCompare: method and check if it returns NSOrderedSame.

BOOL isEqual = ([oneFilename localizedCompare: otherFilename] == NSOrderedSame);

Mercurial - the easy way to revision your code

2011-04-03T10:20:00.004+02:00

After struggling with Xcode 4 and Git yesterday I needed a fast and easy solution. On my way through blogs, tutorials and forums I've learned that there are some other options I have.

One of them is Mercurial.

But let start at the beginning.

If you are a programmer and you're working at some small projects you may think source code version control is not necessary. You probably don't want to waste time on setting up repositories and you may feel confident that having some time machine backups are enough. Wrong.

Source code version control is not only handy for teams or bigger projects. It lets you program more freely by creating sureness that whatever you do with your code you can go back to a state where it runs, it keeps your backups and source code folders clear, you can share your code with the whole world and every commit message you write documents you thoughts.

For teams it's obvious. You can share your work and can assure only working with the newest version of the projects. And having an online backup is not that bad too.

The way to go.

After my experiences I highly recommend Mecurial. It is easy to set up new repositories, plain simple to add your code to existing ones and there are some nice user interfaces for it out there. For mac users I suggest MacHG. With that tool it is really fun to version control your code. For hosting your repositories u can use bitbucket which is very inexpensive, fast and has a clean interface.

How to.

Register at bitbucket.
Download Mecurial. It comes with an installer and needs about 8.9 MB on your harddisk.
Download MacHG. That adds about 18 MB to your used space.

For a new local repository start MacHG and hit 'Create New Repository'. If you have an online rep you can go at the menu, click 'Repository' and then 'Add Server Repository'. It couldn't be easier.

This tutorial was very short but it is really that plain simple.

So now get back to work!

Xcode 4 and Git

2011-04-03T00:59:00.003+02:00

Whoever tried to manage his source code with Xcodes svn integration knows it was not really handy. Now with Xcode 4 Apple implemented Git and they have learned nothing. Almost.

If your team consists of one person only and you don't have an online Git server it is not that bad. You can create a local repository when you create a new project and it is explained in the Xcode documentation if you want to add repositories to your existing ones. Also it is easy to checkout a online repository and create a local copy to work with. But that's all.

This is a shame, shame on you Apple.

What's the matter with integrate Git complete? Why can't you push your data again to your online rep? It isn't that hard to get this right and the status quo isn't very professional. Why do you even have to use the terminal?

I tried to get it working for some hours and all I got was crashes, spinning balls and a really bad mood. There are some tutorials on the Internet but they force you into using the terminal I don't like the terminal that much. In fact it frustrates me especially if I see the Xcode Organizer and know how nice it could be.

So what to do?

First you can wait for Apple to fix this. meh.

Or you can only work with local repositories. But when you're working in a team?

Second you can work with GitX and never look at the version control menu. I don't like that either (and it didn't work for me).

I found a better solution. It took me 5 minutes to get my repository online, I have a nice user interface and although Git isn't dead for me I can now wait till I have much more spare time to get Xcode doing what it should do without to waive having version control.

My solution is called Mercurial. Tomorrow you'll get more information which includes a small tutorial.

Breaking News - Apple buys Quokka

2011-04-01T08:30:00.001+02:00

[Update: April Fool's Day]
Quokka has for long been one of our favorite products. The ability to have 10 additional clipboards ready at your fingertips makes this the most powerful tool we offer. Yet we have always had the impression that Quokka just does not get the attention it deservers.

But today we are very pleased and proud to announce that Apple inc. has just aquired all rights to Quokka and the outstanding technology behind it. When Mac OS X Lion will be released in summer it will feature the long awaited power of 10 clipboards.

If you're a developer you can try it out now in the new Developer Preview 3 of Lion, available today only.

Papapapaya 1.3 - Now with Synonyms

2011-03-03T19:35:00.001+01:00

Papapapaya 1.3 has arrived. Besides lots of bugfixes and improvements like resizable windows we have one new and unique key feature:
Full Synonym Support

This means two things:

First you'll find a menu item "View > Show Synonyms" that will search and display all synonyms in your vocabulary. So now you can easily find duplicates.

Second and really unique: the Quiz now knows about synonyms and treats them intelligently. Let's say you have two synonyms for the German word "Freund" which means both "friend" and "boyfriend". Suppose the Quiz now ask you what "Freund" means and it expects "friend" but you enter "boyfriend".

With the former version this would be wrong but now the Quiz knows that its right and just a synonym. The Quiz will accept it and after that, it will even ask you the other synonym so you can learn both.
We think this is really great feature that will make your learning more convenient and we are very proud to offer the only software with such an intelligent Quiz.

[Update] Users who purchased Papapapaya on our website can get the update immediately, users who bought Papapapaya in the Apple App Store will have to wait until Apple is done with the review process. This may take up to 2 weeks. (Sorry, but we have no influence on this and we don't want to hold back an update just because Apple is so slow...)

App Store here we come

2011-02-26T20:22:00.000+01:00

Finally we are in the App Store.
Papapapaya and Doorman are available since this week. And Papapapaya already is number 3 in the German Education charts. Doorman ranks high in the top loaded.

Since it seems to work out quite well we will now try to bring Dragonfly and Quokka to the App Store, too.

Walk of Fame 1.5

2011-01-29T18:00:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since Walk of Fame got its last update and in the meantime we were working on its iPhone brother Dreamfactory as well as other new Software releases.
But now the time has come: Walk of Fame 1.5 is out and is has a great new feature.

When releasing your movie you had to deal with competition from version 1.0 on. But now you get realistic competing movies complete with AI-Tiles, Genres and expected Impact. So you have much more information available to decide if you want to release your movie now or wait till competition gets weaker.

Also we added more Actors and Directors and we changed the icon which now is even cooler.

Get Walk of Fame 1.5 now, via auto update or from its website.

Papapapaya Thursday on macZOT - Save 45%

2011-01-25T17:01:00.002+01:00

Papapapaya will be on macZot on Thursday January 27 for the great price tag of only $11 (instead of $20). So you get 45% off on the regular price.

Papapapaya is our new vocabulary trainer. If you are learning a new language Papapapaya is just what you need and has everything you want:

intelligent Quiz
learning Mode based on techniques from learning psychology
real time statistics
search
support for ALL languages and scripts
tagging system
and much more...

So take this chance and grab it on Thursday for this great introduction price of just $11.00! http://maczot.com

[Developers] Tips for submitting software to the Mac App Store [Update: Feb. 3]

2011-01-20T15:12:00.006+01:00

We still have no apps in the Mac App Store since they alway got rejected but we won't give up. In the meantime we have learnt some important things about submitting successfully. And we want to share that here to help other developers who may have similar problems.

First Steps
Read Apple's own checklist and guides (developer login required):
http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/checklist/
https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/documents/submitting.html
https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/documents/validating.html (don't read the code you won't understand it anyway - the introduction suffices)

Complementary Checklist for submitting

set up your app on itunes connect
set up your app bundle id in the developer certificates utility (go there from the apple developer website when logged in)
delete aquatic prime framework and any references including update urls in info.plist
delete sparkle framework and any references including public keys
delete any update menu items
delete any references from your About and Help windows that say your app costs anything, or updates can be downloaded from your website [update]
delete any sparkle update objects from nibs
delete and deactivate any demo-mode code
don't use growl or other frameworks that require installation
don't use any deprecated methods

Click Read On for the lengthy rest because we don't want to bore the normal people :-)

In your build settings:

set base sdk to 10.6
Install your code signing certificate and select it. This looks something like “3rd Party Mac Developer Application.”
set debug information to “DWARF with dSYM,”
Make sure your list of valid architectures does not include PPC (only x84_84 and i388).
set compiler to LLVM GCC 4.2 [update: this does not matter. you can use any. GCC 4.2 is fine]
make sure (in Xcode 3.x) that the build settings of your project and that of the target match, yes this is necessary

In your Info.plist file include:

CFBundelIdentifier (this must match the one provided on itunes connect. Don't use blanks and special chars. Avoid underscores and minuses.)
CFBundleShortVersionString (make this exaclty the same as provided on itunes connect. Only numbers and points like: "1.0.1" but not "1.0b")
LSMinimumSystemVersion set to "10.6.6"
LSApplicationCategoryType and set to one of the possible values provided on apples website
NSHumanReadableCopyright set to something like "©2011 My Company"

Test your App

Delete your build folder in your project folder
make "Clean all" (deleting and cleaning is very important because build and archive does not always build the newest version)
Build and Archive your App (Build Menu)
Go to Organizer. Here you find your archived app

Click validate
If validation fails make sure you have already provided all App information on iTunes Connect and in the Developer Certificates Utility (accessable from apples developer website) and ensure the information there matches that of your app (version and app id)
Click "Share" and save it

Delete all copies of your app (or zip them if you need them) - especially the builds
go to terminal and do: sudo installer -store -pkg <path-to-package> -target /
now your app gets installed. If you have deleted all copies it will be placed to "Applications"
open it and test if it works

Submit your App

Because you just deleted all copies you need to do Build and Archive again.
Go to Organizer and click Submit
If it does not work it will give you either a meaningfull error message or it will say something like "Could not extract from Package + ".
If you experience the latter (what we did every time) do the following:

Click validate 3-10 times
Click Submit
If it does not work repeat

Copy protection
You need to take care of copy protection yourself. App Store Apps by default have no copy protection at all. Apple provides some kind of tutorial how to do this (see above) but to be honest we did not understand that. When you used AquaticPrime before or any other DRM-Framework we recommend using the open source App Store Validation package provided here:
https://github.com/roddi/ValidateStoreReceipt

Include it in your project and replace the hard coded bundle id and version number with your own
include all requried framworks (see code)
Check if the app is valid in the beginning of your main method before NSApp starts.
Test with the test receipt provided by apple (this is documented in the code)
comment out the test #define
try if it works as described above. If you open the app after installing it will ask you for your itunes connect account data (you should create a test user before in itunes connect). If your validation code is correct it will open afterwards if not check if you test the receipt from the right path and that you app id and version match.

Of course Apple is right when saying every app should use its own copy protection algorithm (thats why they don't provide any useful code) but before everyone was using AquaticPrime without modification. So if it was good enough before why make such a huge effort for DRM now?
Anyway if someone wants to steel your app he will always find a way. But if you feel to have too much spare time modify the validation code and include some cool security anti reverse engineering tricks. Or just improve your app so more people will buy it voluntarily...

Tips
If you maintain two project versions one for Apple and one for your own shop you can do the following:

make the regular build (non AppStore) your main project. Only make changes here. When a new version is done copy the entire folder and modify it to match Apples requriements
include all Apple stuff that does not hurt (like the info.plist stuff and frameworks needed for package validation, as well as build settings) in both builds so you don't need to add it after copying it every time.

By the way don't be surprised if the review process takes weeks.

If you have some tips of your own please post a comment.

If you're interested what apps we wanted to submit go to http://mr-fridge.de
We can tell you that Papapapaya is still in review because we forgot some of the steps described above, Floret was rejected because it resembles the iOS version (that's strange because Mac OS Tiger does much more resemble and iOS version...), Toady will not be submitted because it relies on grow, and for Dragonfly and Quokka we are waiting to see how Papapapaya turns out.

Quokka on MacZOT 40% off

2011-01-11T12:00:00.001+01:00

Update: the offer has ended. Visit our blog to learn about future special offers.

Today Quokka 2.0 is available on macZOT.com for a special price of just $9 (that's 40% off).

Get it now and improve your workflow with this great clipboard manager. Quokka gives you 10 fully functional clipboards (in addition to the standard cmd+c clipboard) that are accessible from every application through freely customizable keyboard shortcuts.

This unique offer is only available from today, and ends today Tuesday, January 11, 10pm (PST) (that is Wednesday 12th, 06:00 UTC, I guess )

Of course this is the full version of Quokka, with full support and full update service.

New versions and AppStore

2011-01-08T16:55:00.001+01:00

You've probably already noticed that we released Quokka 2.0 and Dragonfly 3.2.
While Dragonfly 3.2 is just a minor update, adding display of RGB values as percent, Quokka is a major leap.
Quokka 2 is a total overhaul with a great new user interface that even better fits on your Mac screen. Moreover Quokka 2 features

full Drag and Drop support
live previews of your clips
lots of bugfixes
new icon

And best of all: Quokka 2 is a FREE UPDATE for all registered customers of Quokka 1.x.

We, too, are working on getting our apps to the Apple AppStore which is not as easy as it may sound. So far none of our apps has been approved but we will tell you here when we know more.

Until then you might want to take a look at the competing Bodega AppStore (no registration needed) which has some benefits over Apple's. Especially users of PPC Macs and those who still use OS 10.5 will have to use Bodega or macupdate.com because Apple supports neither.

Bodega also features important apps like DVD rippers, iPod rippers, system tools and other things Apple does not want.

And of course you will find our products in Bodega, too. (Quokka, Papapapaya, Dragonfly available now, others will follow soon).

Papapapaya - the easy and effective way to learn vocabulary

2010-12-21T16:16:00.002+01:00

This year in our university a new kind of language courses started: the students study with learning software and some native speaking support them.
So I decided to sign up and learn Arab. And because I always had the opinion a vocabulary notebook is not really practical (you have no overview about the words, and can't sort them) i wanted to use a vocabulary learning program.

But I couldn't find one that I liked - all were too complicated and/or too expensive.

End of the story: we made our own!

With Papapapaya you can focus on learning the language and not on complicated software. You can add new words and the translation, and also assign tags to it - so you remember the words in context and add comments.
Then, Papapapaya's learning mode will help you to remember the new words and test you until you know them in a quiz.

We developed Papapapaya together with language/teaching students and foreign students. So, it is adjusted to the real needs of students and modern learning concepts.

...just try it out!

Dreamfactory and others

2010-12-12T12:16:00.001+01:00

There has not been much action on our website but that's just because we were working so hard during the last weeks.
You may have noticed that there is finally a version of Walk of Fame for your iPhone called DreamFactory and "DreamFactory Lite" respectively. We had make some limitations on the iPhone due to the limited display size and we had to obey apple's strict policy of censorship (no naked women even if they are only cartoons with black bars over the important parts). But we are convinced to have produced a great game with just as much fun as on your Mac. Now you can be a great movie producer while sitting in the bus or train.

Stay tuned for other great products and updates to existing ones over the next weeks.

Floret on your Mac

2010-10-03T21:13:00.000+02:00

Floret our virtual Flower is now available for Mac, too. While the iPhone version has the advantage that you can take Floret with you - the new Mac version will comfortably run the the background while you work.
But apart from that Floret for Mac has the same great features and makes looking up the weather forecast just as much fun as on your iPhone.
For those who have not yet got one of our cute little Floret flowers:

Floret is a virtual Flower for your iPhone/iPod. She will start her lifetime as a seed and you have to look after her carefully if you want her to grow up. After a few days she will reach the next stadium of her evolution if you treat her well.

Moreover Floret shows you the current weather for your chosen location and the forecast for the next three days.
Of course flower will profit from good weather like rain but needs protection against rough influences like frost or heat.

Real Racket 1.0 released

2010-07-08T15:01:00.000+02:00

The long anticipated Ping Pong game Real Racket is now available for your iPhone or iPod touch.
You can now play ping pong wherever you want: in the subway, on your couch, in your office, there are no limits!

With Real Racket, you can play table tennis by using your iPhone or iPod like a real racket. You can play Real Racket against yourself in the singleplayer-mode, or against your friends via bluetooth.

Real Racket turns your iPhone into a Ping Pong racket. Just swing your iPhone to hit the ball. Real Racket is just like real Ping Pong. If you react to slow you will lose the ball and your opponent will get a point.

iToady 2.0

2010-07-01T17:38:00.006+02:00

iToady 2.0 is out for iPhone and iPod touch.

New:

lots of new compliments
get next compliment by touching or shaking the iPhone
fully iPhone 4 compatiple (high resolution graphics)
minor bug fixes

New shopping system and Dragonfly 3.1

2010-06-06T13:02:00.003+02:00

Since the founding of your company we were using our own purchase system to sell our software. Although it worked great it means an incredible amount of work to maintain your own shop, especially when updating to new versions. But this is not what we want to spend time on. We want to provide our customers with great inovative software so we were always looking for a partner to outsource our shop.

After looking into several of such services of which none met our requirements of usability and price, we finally found the right partner with fastspring.com.

With today's launch of Dragonfly 3.1 all our e-commerce is done via fastspring's servers. This will save us a lot of time and what is even more important: this makes shopping on mr-fridge.de much more convenient for our customers. In fact you won't even notice that fastspring is involved but we can provide a much better purchase experience to you:

pay with paypal or any major creditcard
receive your licenses even more reliably (less spam false positives)
absolutely secure shopping with full ssl encryption
very simple and fast purchase process with only two clicks and you stay on our site (only url changes)
same great customer service as always: if you have any requests just write us a mail - personal support will always be in our own hands

Dragonfly 3.1 was released, too, today.

Dragonfly is now fully 64 bit compatible
and we fixed sum bugs concerning file opening and wrong file icons

Floret 1.0 in the App Store now

2010-03-16T10:40:00.001+01:00

We are very proud to announce that our cutest App "Floret" is now available in the App Store.

Floret is a virtual Flower for your iPhone/iPod. She will start her lifetime as a seed and you have to look after her carefully if you want her to grow up. After a few days she will reach the next stadium of her evolution if you treat her well.

Taking care of your Floret is nearly the same as looking after a plant on your window board. It is essential that you water her enough and fertilize her from time to time.

Moreover Floret shows you the current weather for your chosen location and the forecast for the next three days - so you will have realistic weather conditions and no longer have to use the ugly Weather app that came with your iPhone/iPod.
Of course flower will profit from good weather like rain but needs protection against rough influences like frost or heat.

We hope you'll have fun with Floret and we are looking forward for your feedback!

Walk of Fame updated to 1.3

2010-03-11T16:14:00.000+01:00

We finally found the time to give Walk of Fame a little update. Yesterday we released version 1.3 featuring some new Music, Studios, Special Effects and other requisites. As well as new bonuses and upredictable events.
Especially we changed the way Walk of Fame handles saved games internally, making it easier for us to update the available requisites (Music, Special Effects, Studios, Scripts etc.) So we hope to give little updates more often in the future.

Have fun playing, everybody!

Saving the planet Part 3 - Learn about global warming

2010-02-14T15:54:00.000+01:00

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has found an interesting iPhone/iPod app that helps you argue about global warming with people who don't belief in it. (read blog entry here)
"Skeptical Science" shows you a selection of the most often used "arguments" of climate change skeptics. So you just click them and get a very detailed scientific counter argument.
While this is not necessary to argue here in Europe since no one has a doubt about global warming, this might be useful for our US readers and in any case it is quite interesting to read the facts that are compiled in this app.

Saving the Plantet part 2 - recycle your iPod

2010-01-10T14:48:00.001+01:00

Tech world usually is changing very fast. So there always are new cool iPods, cell phones, notebooks or other gadgets that you MUST have. But what to do with the old ones? Just throw them away?
As a responsible person you of course would not do that because it is a waste of resources and is potentially bad for the environment because electronic devices contain lots of toxic substances. (And at least in the EU it is illegal to put any electronic devices in your domestic waste).
Yet we understand that you don't want to go your city's dirty and far away recycling center just to give them an iPod.
But did you know that many electronic manufacturers have their own recycling programs? Apple for example will let you send them all your old Macs, iPods and any cell Phone (not just iPhones) for free. If you buy a new iPod and send in your old you even get a 10% bargain.
Apple does that not only because they love the planet but because these devices contain a lot of valuable resources like gold, platinum and cobalt.

That's why even some organisations will take your old cell phones that normally aren't into electronics at all. The zoo of Cologne, Germany will take your cell phone (you can send it in for free) and for the money they get from commercial recycling companies the zoo will support projects to save gorillas.
You sure find such projects in your region, too.
You would feel bad anyway if you just threw you old but beloved iPod in the garbage together with old fish and pizza cartons :-)

Toady 1.2 released

2010-01-04T16:20:00.000+01:00

Today we released version 1.2 of our free compliment software Toady
Toady regularly gives you nice compliments to build you up during work.

New in this version:

you now can configure Toady to show "explicit" compliments or not. This is especially helpful when you are using your computer for presentations where erotic compliments are not acceptable (like in school or university) of if you don't want your boss or colleagues to see comments like "you're so hot" on your screen
minor bug fixes as usual (you always find new bugs...)

Try it! It will save your day

Quokka 1.4 released

2009-12-24T16:34:00.000+01:00

We just released Quokka 1.4. Besides some minor bugfixes it has a new Help that we hope makes it more clear how the applicaton works.

However the best new thing is that Quokka can now save your Clipboards when you quit it. So if you have to restart your computer Quokka will automatically restore your Clipboards. This great new feature makes it even more convenient to use Quokka not just for copying multiple things but also to use it as a permanent repository for often used clips.

Saving the planet Part 1 - Keep your fridge well filled

2009-12-21T17:17:00.001+01:00

As promised we are goint to regularly publish easy how to save the planet post here.

We start with a very easy energy saving task: try to always keep your fridge well filled.
This will save energy because when you open your fridge and there is not much food in it, a lot of warm air from your kitchen will get into it. This air has to be cooled down again and that consumes energy.
In contrast, if your fridge is full and you open it there is not much room for warm air to get inside and thus the temperature in the fridge will not rise much.
Same thing with your freezer.

Saving the Planet at home

2009-12-20T18:57:00.000+01:00

Now that the Conference on Climate Change has failed dramatically we think it is even more important for companies and individuals to reduce co2 emission without help from their governments.
It is a very misleading assumption made by our governments that reducing co2 emission would be expensive. We are convinced that without any costs or loss in life quality our emissions can be reduced by at least 50 percent and with investments that pay off within a few years by 90 percent.

In fact a lot of actions don't cost anything at all like turning off the light when you leave the room, setting the energy management of your computer right and pulling the plug on your electronic devices like tv, dvd, stereo etc. (they consume a lot of energy even when turned off).

And even more actions for emission reduction will cost something but payoff in short time like replacing your light with cfl or led bulbs, isolating your house (especially if you live in the US) or installing solar panels.

Climate does not really concern our politicians because when the oceans rise and droughts seek us in the second half of the century, the people who now debate in Kopenhagen will already have passed away. But we who now are under 30 years old will live long enough to feel the consequences of not acting, and we will have to explain it to our kids. So it should not be the politics to act, it should be us because we are concerned. If most people (that means everybody except those cretins who still insist that there is no climate change at all) change their way of life to a more sustainable one, we don't need any UN-Treaty.
You really can do a lot if you just have a creative look at you and your direct environment.

We have received a lot of positive response to our Green License model and a lot of people told us that they just needed our ideas to get a push in the right direction. So we are going to regularly publish cheap and easy ideas to save the planet here in our blog.

Walk of Fame 1.2

2009-11-17T20:05:00.001+01:00

We were pretty busy during the last weeks because we are working hard on new products. So we did not not have much time to do any blog posts or twitter tweets. But now are happy to present Walk of Fame 1.2

New Features are:

detail view for your finished movies
extensive statistics for your finished movies
minor bug fixes

Doorman 1.2

2009-10-02T20:33:00.003+02:00

We just released Doorman 1.2 our simple but powerful password generator.

New features are:

now already runs on Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger)
fixed minor issues
improved update-checking
added German localization

Dragonfly 2.6

2009-09-25T20:23:00.000+02:00

Ooops, we've forgot to mention here our update release for our great color picker Dragonfly which is now in version 2.6.

Dragonfly is a stand alone color picker especially for web developers and other media artists. The special thing is that you can select four colors side by side so you see how they fit together or just to compare whats better. Dragonfly also automatically creates variations on a selected color and has the possiblity to select matching text colors.
We use it a lot ourselves to find colors for websites and icons - and we love it!

What's new in 2.6:

Fixed a bug that Dragonfly was sometimes using the wrong ColorSync profile - resulting in slightly wrong colors shown in the color fields
Fixed Snow Leopard interface issues
Automatic update reminder can be disabled now
Minor bugfixes

Quokka updated

2009-09-06T19:47:00.001+02:00

We just finished Quokka 1.1
New features are:

No more need to release your keyboard shortcuts immediately. You can keep them pressed as long as you like

Bugfixes:

Now shows the 'Show/Hide Clipboards' menu correctly

Updated Walk of Fame to 1.1

2009-09-04T22:39:00.001+02:00

We just put Walk of Fame 1.1 online.

New Features are:

added German Localization
even prettier icon

And we did some bugfixing:

fixed minor issus
fixed minor Snow Leopard problems

Users of Walk of Fame 1.0 can obtain 1.1 via Software Update (Walk of Fame Menu > Check for Updates)

Quokka 1.0 out now!

2009-09-04T10:07:00.002+02:00

Yesterday we finished our latest Software that we have worked on over the last weeks.

Quokka is a multiple clipboard program that gives you 10 fully functional clipboards in addition to the standard cmd+c clipboard

These are accessible from every application through freely customizable keyboard shortcuts.

You can copy multiple images, text or other data in parallel and keep frequently used expressions ready at hand. With Quokka you can avoid anoying window and program switches and improve your productivity when writing e-mails, doing webdesign, programming or whatever else comes to your mind.

So, try it out!

Server Problems and Vacation

2009-08-30T14:02:00.001+02:00

We are amazed by the success of our latest software products.
This month we had about 3000 downloads of Walk of Fame and over 1000 downloads of Doorman. We were so surprised that we surpassed our allowed traffic volume three-fold. So we had to swich our webhosting providers. Our new provider 1blu.de offers us sheer unlimited bandwidth and webspace so we are ready for even more downloads and hopefully satisfied customers.

Yet our server switch led to a temporary downtime during the last weekend when our sites were not reachable and we could not process any purchases. Unfortunately we were on vacation at that time and had some difficutlties dealing with the problem from the distance.
We are very sorry and we hope that did not frighten off any visitors. Now, the websites are back and running perfectly even with a new additional domain http://mr-fridge.com

Doorman 1.1

2009-08-15T14:08:00.002+02:00

We just released Doorman 1.1.

What's new?

we improved our speakable password engine
Doorman now rememebers your password settings (like length and used characters)

Walk of Fame 1.0 released

2009-08-02T13:34:00.003+02:00

You always wanted to be a famous Hollywood movie maker? This is your chance! With our new highly realistic comic-style simulation game "Walk of Fame" you are able to produce the movies you always wanted to watch.

Find a story, choose your favorite actors and a capable director, underlay great music, impress with costumes and a spectacular coulisse and blow away your audience with stunning special effects.
Find a story, choose your favorite actors and a capable director, underlay great music, impress with costumes and a spectacular coulisse and blow away your audience with stunning special effects.

Walk of Fame comes with a vast variety of actors, actresses and directors. Anyway, if you still can't find the right one for your movie you can create your own in Walk of Fame. Imitate your favorite Hollywood Star or discover a new face and form him at your will: Choose his name and adapt his abilities to your wish and bring him to life with the simple but powerful portrait-generator.
Just like you, your new Actor/Director will start as a nobody but if you let him act in the right movies, he will quickly rise to a star.

Doorman 1.0

2009-07-29T19:52:00.001+02:00

Today we published Doorman 1.0 our new free password generator.
We know there already are plenty of such tools but either are they expensive or they are overloaded with unnecessary features and buttons. The one we were using until now is from 2004 and does not have Intel support so it takes much to long to load.
Doorman allows you to define the length of your password and select the characters that should be used. You can choose between letters in lower and upper case, numbers and special characters.

As a special Feature you can let Doorman create a speakable password, that is easier to remember because it follows the syllable-structure of natural language.
Of course Doorman also shows you the strength of your password on a colored scale.