The ZAZ Studios: Blog: 2008

Pet Multiplication! by Thom McGrath

My wife and I are not allowed to have dogs or cats in our apartment, so we have a couple rabbits (Mystik and Rayne) instead. Turns out, we have a male and a female. We keep them in separate cages for obvious reasons, but let them run around the apartment quite a bit.

By now, if you're paying any attention at all, you'll guess that Mystik just gave birth. And you'd be correct, we have five new bunnies!

New Website! by Thom McGrath

Finally, after a few months of work, the new REAL Software website is live. We've been working hard on this for a little while now, especially Dana and I, so here's a look at what we've done that may or may not be instantly noticeable.

Image Masking by Thom McGrath

Over the past few days I've seen this topic come up on the REAL Software Forums and the REALbasic NUG. There's quite a mix of information - some correct and misleading. Luckily, I've not seen information that is just flat out wrong.

Custom Controls: Finding your global screen bounds by Thom McGrath

I find myself writing a fair amount of custom controls. Frequently, I find myself wanting to find the position of the mouse relative to my control. The MouseDown, MouseDrag, etc. events have this info, but if you need this in the Paint event, you must either save it to a property or get it from the system. We're exploring the latter, as it's not as simple as you might think.

I hate Gmail by Thom McGrath

I hated Gmail before I ever used it. Now I've been using it for about 5 months now and I've learned to complete despise it.

What I've been up to by Thom McGrath

Just a general post, nothing special about it.

HIToolbar 1.1.3 Released by Thom McGrath

Even though I should be working on getting two other projects made public, I thought I would update HIToolbar first. Since it broke on REALbasic 2008r3, it made sense that this one should get more attention.

Determining if a window should be highlighted by Thom McGrath

I've been working on a window designed to look similar to Safari. This means a window with a "Unified" toolbar and tabs that blend into said toolbar.

Does a window have a sheet? by Thom McGrath

So Norman Palardy recently posted some code for detecting if a window has a sheet attached. Charles Yeomans took this code and modified it to work without subclassing window.

I take it one step further, and fix a bug...

The ZAZ's Open Source Roadmap by Thom McGrath

I've got a brand new open source project coming up. In fact, the code is already complete and in use, I'm just working on the documentation... and this one will have significant documentation. I imagine that nearly every REALbasic project will want this code included.

Best. Song. Ever. by Thom McGrath

I'm going to keep this short and simple. View the picture.

Relove for the iPhone by Thom McGrath

I used the leaked iPhone 2.0 firmware. It's like I when I first bought the iPhone over a year ago - I can't put it down.

But this time, I can keep adding features. Some will be better when push support comes in September, like AIM and NetNewsWire, but it's pretty damn cool.

My personal favorite new app is Shazam. That's one really cool thing Verizon customers could have over me - but this is here now and free!

OmniFocus is pretty great too, I'm keeping it synched with my desktop.

I'm sure you'll read about this everywhere else, but I felt like saying something here.

:: Sent from my iPhone, BTW ::

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Figures... by Thom McGrath

I've been working on an internal tool for REAL Software that is probably my best web app to date. It's a web 2.0 app, feels like a desktop app, on caliber with some of the .Mac stuff. Really sweet.

And yet, I'll never get to show the world.

Figures.

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Tropical Sillyness by Thom McGrath

So, I stumbled across a trailer I thought I might check out.

Tropic Thunder - don't bother. Just to view the trailer, the website asks for too much personal information.

Source-Controlled Website by Thom McGrath

This concept is so simple and easy, I'm amazed I had not yet thought of it. See, I keep a subdomain of this website which I use as a sandbox. I draft new designs or concepts with it. But it's always been a complete pain to bring the sandbox to the live site. I don't want to overwrite too many or the wrong files, and I made the mistake of keeping subdomain files inside my www directory. It's a mess, and I know better now.

Finally, a new day job by Thom McGrath

So after five and a half years with Subway, I have found a new job that's actually in the industry I have real talent in. Not to say hadn't done a good job managing over a hundred teenagers, it just isn't what I want to do. Not to mention it requires me to work about 50 hours a week over 6 days. If I were single and had no friends, it wouldn't be so bad, but considering neither of those are true it really gets to me sometimes.

But no more. I just signed and returned an offer letter.

AnimationKit 2.0 Released by Thom McGrath

I have finally found some free time, so I decided to release a brand new version of AnimationKit. This new version is significantly changed, and will break existing code. It does, however, include some great new features.

Hamachi Starter by Thom McGrath

After reading about some trouble on the Hamachi forums, I decided to whip together something more than the how-to I wrote a few weeks ago. I have here a Mac OS X installer package which will install the files necessary to auto-start tuncfg, and give you a "Start Hamachi" application which you can add to your login items to automatically start Hamachi. You can find it in the /Applications/Utilities folder.

This is not an installer. You must have a working install of Hamachi in order for this to work.

The package is only lightly tested, comes with absolutely no warranty, and is not an official or sanctioned product of LogMeIn.

Download the small file here

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Worst Headphones Ever by Thom McGrath

http://www.arriva.com/

I don't normally do stuff like this, but this thing dropped my jaw to the point I feel a rant is due.

Ham & Cheese Update by Thom McGrath

This is important information for anybody interested in Ham & Cheese. The product will not see the light of day due to a contract I have recently agreed to. As I'm now under an NDA, I cannot reveal any new information, so please keep the requests to yourself. I'm confident this move is the best for every party involved. Thank you for your support.

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Passwording, Favorites, and... Invitations and Profiles? by Thom McGrath

Tonight, I'm sharing two screenshots. Nothing fantastic on that front. But I'm also going to share an idea I just had that I think is very cool - and it's another unique feature!

Services Preview by Thom McGrath

Want more Hamachi? Who doesn't! These screenshots should hold us over for a few days... or make everybody want it more!

Hamachi for Mac OS X by Thom McGrath

After being supremely upset with the current options for using Hamachi on Mac OS X, and the difficultly of getting it installed in the first place, I set out to solve every issue I've ever had with Hamachi on the Mac. At least, as much as is possible.

It's important to note that I am NOT an official developer for LogMeIn, and this project may not see the light of day due to some issues I cannot yet speak about.

But if this does work out... damn... Hamachi on Mac worries are over.

Disclaimer: I am currently an employee of REAL Software. My comments and opinions are mine alone and do not represent those of my employer. My posts are not official REAL Software communications, and may contain information that is incorrect or misleading.