Nick Bradbury

Depressing piracy statistic

This week, 90% of the attempts to activate FeedDemon have been with cracked serial numbers.

Dexter Cartoon for Dec 31, 2004

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Disaster Relief, PII

On Monday I announced that 100% of my revenue from FeedDemon and TopStyle this week will go to disaster relief, but I'm far from the only software developer making a contribution. Here's a list of other developers who are donating from their earnings:

• Fog Creek Software
• Blogjet
• iPodderX
• Whirling Dervishes and Neobyte Solutions
• Visual MP3
• e. g. series

If I missed anyone, let me know by posting a comment or trackback and I'll update this list.

Disaster Relief

Greg Hughes is right:

"This is the right time to stop what you normally do, get out of your little digital world that you assume is all-defining and all-encompassing (it’s not, really) and come back to reality...Very real people are experiencing very real pain, and you can do your part to help them recover."

Until the end of the month, everything I earn from TopStyle and FeedDemon will be donated to the International Red Cross to help those affected by this disaster.

Update: Looking for a way to help? The Command Post has a list of ways to donate. Or how about pledging your Google AdSense revenue?

ANN: FeedDemon 1.5 Beta 4a

This morning I received an email from Radek Gontarek alerting me to a mistake I made in beta 4 which will cause it to expire next week (ouch!). Since I'm planning to take a day or two off for xmas, I wanted to make sure to fix this as soon as possible. So...if you're running beta 4, please stop by the FeedDemon beta page and download beta 4a. The release notes are here.

Sorry for the mixup - and enjoy the holidays!

Dexter Cartoon for Dec 24, 2004

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FeedDemon meets The Beastles

Boing Boing points to the The Beastles, a mash-up of The Beastie Boys and The Beatles (yes, it actually works - esp. "Tripper Trouble" and "Word to the Mic").

Don't want to click every MP3 link then manually sync the downloaded files with your iPod? Then let FeedDemon's FeedStation do the work for you. Just download the FSQUEUE file linked below, then start FeedStation and select File > Open Queue:

Beastles.fsqueue

FeedStation will download each MP3 and sync them all with your iPod or other media device.

Note: Creating and sharing podcast queues with other FeedDemon users needs to be simpler, and I'll address this in a future build.

ANN: FeedDemon 1.5 Beta 4

FeedDemon 1.5 Beta 4 is now available. Before installing it, you might want to check out the release notes to find out what's new. As with previous beta releases, beta 4 should be installed directly on top of your existing version.

If you run into any problems using the beta, please let me know by posting in the FeedDemon 1.5 Beta Forum.

Enjoy :)

Switched to iTunes + iPod

I've been playing around with my new iPod lately trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, and I have to admit that the hype is justified. I've been attached to Windows Media Player for quite a while and it wasn't easy to give it up, but the combination of iTunes + iPod is very slick and the user interface is extremely simple (note to self: you could learn a lot from Apple's UI work).

What's interesting is how using iTunes has changed my music buying habits. In the past I've always bought complete CDs, but now I'm purchasing individual songs via iTunes instead. In the last few weeks I've bought a ton of songs - but no albums. I now have an eclectic assortment of songs that I'm trying to figure out how to best arrange into playlists.

For example, here's my first try at an iMix playlist. Yes, I know - it's a weird set of songs (Danzig and Johnny Cash don't usually go well together), but I actually enjoy the mix. Oh, and I originally had Frank Zappa's "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" as the last track, but as far as iTunes is concerned, Zappa doesn't exist (anyone from Zappa.com listening?).

Couldn't Have Done It Without You

Loyd over at The Daily Thing has some kind words about TopStyle:

Fabulous. Nick Bradbury has made me a user for life. It's an awesome program. If you're serious about your code then this is the program that you should be opening when you sit down to code.

Thanks, Loyd :)