software

Your iPhone App is a 99¢ Lawnmower

Vlasic, one of the world's top pickle producers, delivered a top selling item to Walmart -- a gallon of pickles for about $3. It was huge, Walmart shoppers went pickle crazy, and bought them by, well, the gallon. The only problem was that the gallon jugs of brine were only minimally profitable -- picklers make their real money on cut and prepared pickles. But Walmart and Vlasic were caught up in the pickle-fever, and Vlasic ignored the shrinking margins as their business shifted from premium gherkins to dime-a-dozen salted cucumbers. Finally, Walmart's continued pressure to lower the cost of a gallon of pickles, and the total loss of more profitable business, forced Vlasic into bankruptcy.

Simplicity Manufacturing, a premium lawnmower manufacturer, was offered the opportunity to become Walmart's house brand of lawnmowers, guaranteeing millions of sales. But that would have watered down Simplicity, forced them to lower their standards, and to reduce their profit margins. Ultimately, they said "no," and continue selling high priced and high quality lawnmowers today. They haven't filed for Chapter 11.

Your iPhone application is a shiny red lawnmower, and you're selling it for 99¢ a gallon.

It would be flattering to call the App Store Walmart on Black Friday. Sure, it generates a ton of traffic, but that traffic is a bunch of sweaty bargain hunters digging through endless shelves of games and applications, guided by $1 flashlight applications, haphazard search and vague and untrustworthy reviews. It's a great place to sell if you're willing to sell your app at the absolute lowest possible price (quality be damned!), and be in cutthroat competition with the next guy who can give the Walton family some pickles for half a cent less per gallon. Unless you're as good at the low price game as Walmart, you'll be in a race to the bottom.

Remember Simplicity and their shiny red lawnmowers? Not only are they unavailable at Walmart, they're also nowhere to be found on Amazon, or at Sears, or most anywhere else. They're sold exclusively through certified dealers, each of which is equipped to be a full service support shop for the mower. There are two such dealers within 100 miles of my house. But that's all right, because if I'm going to spend over three grand on a lawnmower, I'm happy to make the trip.

You've got this great application that's well worth a premium price. Why are you trying to draw people in who are window shopping at Walmart's app store? It's time to to quit bitching and build your dealer network.

Start with your own storefront -- make it a killer website with the sort of depth and trustworthiness that makes people happy to shell out a thousand bucks to upgrade their copy ofAdobe Creative Suite. Heck, make ten killer websites, each targeted at a specific market segment or use for your app. Or give away a thousand copies of your app as coupons in MacHeist-like promotions to get the word out. Put a quarter of your money into advertising and search marketing. Get endorsements from the people in your very particular market niche telling other enthusiasts and professionals how critical your app is to their lives. And keep investing in quality, design, and support, the last thing you can afford is customers who feel cheated.

Yes, this costs money, and time, and has huge risks. Welcome to the world of business. And seriously, what's the alternative...?

Pickles, that's what.

Help raise awareness of how great Mac software is!

Misc

A while ago, I set up a Squidoo lens to let folks vote on which software for the Mac was best. To my great surprise, it was really popular, and quickly shot up into the top 50 Squidoo lenses, and was nominated as a Lens of the Day by Squidoo.

Well, it’s popularity has diminished slightly, but now the lens is in the running for the Squidoo Lens of the Year!

How cool would it be if a lens promoting the very BEST stuff for the Mac was awarded this prestigious title?

If you want to push for that, go vote on the lens of the year and give your vote to “The Top MacOS X Software. Period.” and let’s see what happens. (It’s hanging out around #30-40 out of nearly 200 lenses as I write this.)

Note that I make NO money and get NOTHING if it’s nominated. Any ad revenue the lens gets goes straight to charity. I just think it’s a great opportunity to show off some of the awesome software that we enjoy using every day. So go vote already!

File copying/synchronization software and your metadata (and data!)

Stupid Mac Tricks

Following up on my earlier test of Mac archiving software, I decided to test some popular file copying/synchronization software to see which of these programs kept metadata and other Mac/HFS+ attributes intact. Rather than do a comprehensive test, I tried some popular utilities which seem to cover the general breadth of the software and which are particularly popular or prevalent. I also wanted to catch programs which had been updated since this article was written a year ago.

If you want detail on other utilities, I recommend reading the article linked above, or doing your own tests if you have the time. (And please let us know what you find out!)

The Utilities

The Finder: I just did a simple copy from one disk image to another. Drag and drop. For what it’s worth, an AppleScript copy via The Finder has the exact same results.

Disk Utility: Disk Utility does a pretty good job when making an image from a device, but I was more curious about how it would do making an image from a folder. So I simply chose “New Image From Folder…” and let ‘er rip.

cp: The venerable copy command on the command line. Apple’s updated it to respect resource forks and other metadata.

hard link: This is simply using the ln command or the Gnu cp command to create a separate instance in the logical directory of a file. This is a way to make a file literally exist in two places, where neither version is a pointer or alias to the other. This can be done with the ln command or the Gnu cp command (part of the gnu coreutils).

rsync: Rsync is a great and lightning fast synchronization utility that’s at the core of many command-line backup systems. Apple’s updated it to support resource forks and whatnot, but unfortunately, they broke it in the process. I ran a patched version installed via Fink as the other version pretty much doesn’t work at all.

ditto: This is Apple’s answer to rsync, as best as I can tell, and it’s a nice way to quickly duplicate folders and files. It’s been resource-fork-aware from the start.

psync: psync is a Perl-based utility that does file synchronization similar to rsync. A few graphical clients (such as Deja Vu) use psync on the back end.

CCC 3.0 b5: Carbon Copy Cloner is a great utility for cloning your hard drive. The 3.0 branch is brand new, so I thought I’d give it a try and see how it did.

SuperDuper!: Shirt-Pocket Software’s utility is a fave among many folks who like having a bootable backup. While somewhat inflexible in how it works (it’s pretty much geared toward being a whole-drive duplicator), it’s easy to use and very reliable.

ChronoSync: ChronoSync is probably the most configurable and powerful graphical synchronization utility available for the Mac. It’s users rave about it, so I figured I’d include it in my tests.

Result of tests of file copy/synchronization software

  Tool
  inode number
  permissions
  ACL
  BSD flags
  resource fork
  extended attributes
  type
  creator
  creation date
  modification date
  lock
  stationary
  invisible
  label
comments


  Finder
  copy
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  Disk
  Utility Image
  N
  Y
  N
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  cp -r
  N
  N
  N
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  N
  N
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y



  hard link
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  N


  rsync -aE
  N
  Y
  N
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  ditto
  N
  Y
  N
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  psync
  N
  N
  N
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  CCC 3.0
  b5
  N
  Y
  N
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  N
  Y
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  SuperDuper!
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y


  ChronoSync
  N
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y
  Y

Notes:

Finder Copies: Comments are maintained even when the invisible .DS_Store file is not copied, unlike most other techniques
Disk Utility Image: Attempting to build an image from a folder on a volume with ACLs enabled will fail. As a result, these tests were carried out on a folder without ACLs.
hard link: Files with the uchg flag/locked files could not be linked and were skipped
rsync: Attributes in bold were only successfully copied from a volume with ACLs disabled. With ACLs enabled, these attributes do not copy.
psync: Psync didn’t copy extended attributes, but it did embed the file’s type/creator information into a new extended attribute. Very strange behavior.
SuperDuper!: SuperDuper! maintained the “arch” BSD flag on the clone. While this is not technically correct, it is thorough, and may be desirable if you want a precise clone.
ChronoSync: ChronoSync has an option to maintain Finder comments even when you aren’t copying invisible .DS_Store files

Conclusions

Clearly, The Finder is your only free and bulletproof solution to copying files. Every command-line option, despite Apple’s efforts to make them compatible with all the fancy Mac metadata, has serious failings.

If you’re willing to spend a little money, SuperDuper!, or ChronoSync is a good option. Carbon Copy Cloner comes close, but even with its lower price (it’s donationware), SuperDuper! does a much better job and is quite reasonably priced.

Nik's Picks: Stikkit

Nik's Picks

All right, let’s just get this out of the way. This pick isn’t a Mac application, it’s another web application.

However, it’s a web application that works flawlessly under Safari, but doesn’t work perfectly under IE. Happy now? I thought so!

The web site is stikkit.com. Basically, it’s an online junk drawer/snippet keeper, just like the thousands of similar programs that have been cropping up on the Mac for the last few years. (And yes, even with every word in there as a link to another organizer/outliner/snippet organizer, I didn’t nearly fit all of them.)

Given the wealth of Mac-native applications, why do I want you to check out Stikkit?

Well, because Stikkit has two advantages that are unlike any other application I’ve found on the Mac:

It will interpret what you type in your “stikkits” and determine what kind of information it is, and categorize it for you.
Stikkit is online. If you work in a cross-platform environment, you use multiple computers, you travel a lot, or you just want to share some of your information with other folks, Stikkit will let you do that.

Additionally, as web applications go, Stikkit is one of the smoothest and easiest to use web applications I’ve found. It can be almost entirely keyboard driven, and it is built to appear simple, although there’s some great power under the hood.

So, here’s how Stikkit works:

You have a bunch of “stikkits”, which are analogous to sticky notes or just little text snippets. (That’s right, text, stikkit doesn’t handle files or images, although you can certainly link to either.) They can be searched or viewed in pre-defined categories, including to-dos, calendar events, bookmarks or peeps (contacts). You can also tag them with as many tags as you want and browse them by tag as well.

But the clever part is how they become categorized.

If I type a stikkit of “Call John”, it will just be a stikkit. If I instead put it down as “Call John tomorrow at 3:30PM”, it will become a calendar entry. If I then add another line and add “Remind me”, I’ll get an email or SMS message about 1/2 hour before I need to call John, reminding me to do it.

Or, I can go further still, and type:

> Remember to call John McGillicuddy at 3:30 pm tomorrow > > remind me > > John McGillicuddy > > home phone: 800-123-4567 > > email: john@mcgillicuddy.com > > tag as “sales lead” work “McGillicuddy and Son Inc.”

Stikkit will read what I wrote and go nuts, creating a to-do instead of an event with a reminder for 3:30 PM tomorrow; it will also create a “peep” stikkit for John McGillicuddy, containing his phone number and email address; and finally, both the peep and the to-do will get tagged and categorized as a sales lead, something work-related, and something to do with the McGillicuddy and Son Inc. company.

Oh yeah, all the stikkits there will be cross-linked to one another, so I can click on John’s stikkit and see all my meetings, to-dos, and whatever else are related to him.

It’s this cross linking and simple input that really get me excited. As a big GTD fan, I really like to be able to just gather information and reminders and only later process them and do something with them.

Stikkit lets me follow this methodology (I can just put “Call John” for a stikkit and later go back and flesh it out), plus it makes it stupid simple for me to turn it into something much more useful, without any futzing around with my mouse or creating folders or categories or anything. I can pretty much put in just what I would have otherwise written in my notebook and trust Stikkit to figure out what I intended this note to be about.

Other cool Stikkit things include:

Any individual stikkit can be shared with anybody else. They get a special URL that gives them access. However, they must register for stikkit to share data. (Which is quick and easy)
The calendar can be subscribed to in iCal. (Unfortunately, alarms/reminders aren’t published, nor are to-dos without associated dates.)
Just about any part of Stikkit can be accessed as an RSS feed. Not terribly secure, but it lets you throw your to-dos or latest thoughts into a Dashboard widget or something.
Stikkit has a burgeoning API, which is hinted at and pretty much undocumented, but it already shows promise.

The downsides? There’s a few:

Stikkit IS a text-only system, as I explained above. If you want to store your documents and everything else, Stikkit is not the place for that.
Stikkit’s intelligence demos well, but it’s actually pretty persnickity about what keywords it looks for. If you say “tag with…” your tags, it will assume you’re trying to invite those tags to a meeting (as opposed to “tag as…” which is the proper syntax). On the other hand, the “magic words” are intuitive and easy to remember and many have abbreviations for quick data entry.

Still, having tried out Backpack and Zoho Planner, and a zillion Mac apps, I have found Stikkit to be the right balance between quick & dirty and full featured. Mostly I use it as a to-do list for work tasks (no Entourage at work boo hoo), and a place to store URLs I want to look at later, or people I meet in odd places (that I ultimately add to Entourage).

Stikkit is free to use (and it seems will remain free for a while, at least), and continues to expand and grow based largely on user suggestions.

And, if you do like Stikkit, you may want to check out some scripts and services I threw together that make it quick and easy to add large and small stikkits without ever visiting the website.

Nik's Picks: Find the perfect color with kuler

Nik's Picks

Adobe has a free web-based application out called Kuler.

In a nutshell, Kuler is a color picker that helps you design a color scheme of complimentary colors. It lets you start with a base color, and will generate a family of related colors based on some simple rules (whether you want a high contrast or low contrast color scheme, for example). Any of the automatically generated colors can be overridden as well, should you happen to want to.

Where Kuler really shines, however, is in the community around it. You can publish and share and browse other designers’ color schemes. You can rate the schemes you browse, and the best and most popular ones naturally rise to the top.

Color schemes are annotated with RGB, CMYK, LAB, HSV and and HEX/HTML color values, so you can punch ‘em right into your application of choice. You can also export your scheme as swatches compatible with all Adobe Creative Suite applications.

For people like me who have enough design sense to know that we design poorly, but not enough to design well, a good color scheme can mean the difference between an ugly garish design (this site) and wonderful attractive design.

Kuler is 100% free. If you do any design work at all, you owe it to yourself to go check it out.

Nik's Blog

Geekery, witty insights, software (of dubious quality) and more!

Your iPhone App is a 99¢ Lawnmower

Help raise awareness of how great Mac software is!

File copying/synchronization software and your metadata (and data!)

The Utilities

Result of tests of file copy/synchronization software

Conclusions

Nik's Picks: Stikkit

Nik's Picks: Find the perfect color with kuler

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