We made it: Übercaster v1.6 was released today!

This is a huge update. Besides German localization, the new version sports native Skype support, Amazon S3 (TM) uploads and tons of more new features, improvements and bug fixes.

Version 1.6 delivers some major improvements and new functions:

• German localization: Übercaster is finally localized in German; including the build-in Help system.
• Native Skype support: It’s now incredibly easy to record Skype conversations. Due to the fact that Übercaster uses the official Skype API you can call your buddies directly within Übercaster. No additional drivers or special configurations are needed.
• “Level Meter” panels: Always have an eye on each input panel’s level or the overall level of your podcasts.
• Export audio clips directly from the Cut layer: It’s now possible to save any audio clip from the Cut layer to disk with just one click; including all assigned filters and volume envelopes.
• Amazon S3^TM upload: Übercaster v1.6 supports uploads to Amazon S3^TM servers.
• ID3 Lyrics tag: In addition to the ID3 comment tag you may now add text to a file’s ID3 lyrics tag.
• Keep ID3 tags in sync: Übercaster v1.6 provides an additional variable token called “Derive Content”. This token copies another release slot’s content of the same text field. This way, you can release your podcast in multiple versions in an even simpler way.
• Übercaster’s handling of external file references has been greatly improved: If audio files, used in a project, are renamed and removed in the Finder, Übercaster is now aware of this changes and corrects the references automatically.

Moreover, Übercaster v1.6 includes tons of additional features, improvements and bug fixes. All in all, Übercaster v1.6 brings more the 45 new features and improvements.

A complete overview of the new features can be found  on Übercaster’s “What’s new in v1.6?” page.

We’re proud to announce the release of PiP v1.1 (sorry, it took a while)!

PiP is a free utility to show video from any webcam on your screen, nicely integrated as “Picture in Picture” which makes it ideal for live presentations, screencast recordings and in the educational sector.

The release of Übercaster v1.6 was planned for late November. But there are currently still two “show stoppers” left in the current Übercaster’s v1.6 beta and I’d really like to fix those two (nasty and hard to catch) bugs before releasing v1.6!

So please excuse the delay. I hope it won’t take long!

But now to the really shocking news:

Either Übercaster had a close encounter of the third kind or some guys at Pixar are using Übercaster:

… or maybe I just imagine this, and should try to get some more sleep

We recently introduced a new section on the Pleasant Software homepage: “Pleasant Software Developer Tools“.

Currently there are two free developer tools/frameworks available from Pleasant Software:

• “iMBiPhoneView”, an open source framework for transferring files and data between Mac and iPhone applications
• “TagDefaultImage”, a command line tool to tag text to Default.png images during a build phase in XCode.

There’s also a new sample movie of iMBiPhoneView in a real world application on the iMBiPhoneView page.

To access the Developer Tools page, click onto the “Developer” icon in the upper left of the Pleasant Software homepage:

Just a short notice, that we’re currently working on Übercaster’s next major update: Übercaster v1.6

Übercaster v1.6 will include some major new features, including…

- native Skype support

- show notes in the ID3 Lyrics field

- German localization

… and many more improvements.

Übercaster v1.6 is currently in closed beta testing. If things going well, I hope to be ready for public release soon.

Please stay tuned!

Once upon a time - back in 2004 -, the “iMac G5″ was finally released by Apple with a complete new design.

Back then, Pleasant Software developed it’s own iMac model for the Halloween season: The iMac H5.

For old times’ sake: here’re the “iMac H5 Desktop Pictures”, re-released in up-to-date screen resolutions:

iMac H5 (1280×800) 
iMac H5 (1680×1050) 
iMac H5 (1920×1200) 

Happy Halloween!

With the release of v1.1 of Birdie we encountered the following problem: where to put a user readable version number without introducing some kind of “splash screen”?

One solution for this is, to put a text with the version number on the “Default.png”. This is an image which is displayed immediately when launching an iPhone app until the application is fully loaded and initialized. Usually this image is a “neutral” screenshot of the application itself.

The problem with this solution is, that the developer has to edit the Default.png each time in a grafic editor to set a new version number. This gets even worse, when the application uses mutliple localized Default.png files.

To solve this issue, I wrote a small command line tool, which takes a “blank” Default.png, writes some text on in (usually the version number) and writes the result back to disk. This way this process can be easily integrated into the build process of the application. The only thing which has to be changed between releases is the version number itself, which may be a build setting.

Here’s an example of how this works in Birdie’s Xcode project:

In the application target a new script build phase has been inserted as the first build phase. It contains the calls of TagDefaultImage for each localized Default.png in the project:

(click on the thumbnail for a full size view)

I use a user defined build setting variable “BUILD_VERSION” for the version number. So all I have to change is only this variable in the target’s build settings. Of course, this BUILD_VERSION variable is also used in my Info.plist to define the application’s bundle version.

If you’re interested, you can download TagDefaultImage for free.

Call TagDefaultImage without any arguments to see a list of available options:
Usage:
TagDefaultImage [args]

args:
--fontname (-f): fully specified family-face name, such as Helvetica-BoldOblique or Times-Roman.
--fontsize (-s): font size in Point.
--posx (-x): x position of text.
--posy (-y): y position of text.
--text (-t): text.
--in (-i): path to background image file.
--out (-o): targetpath.
--color (-c): font color 0. - 1. (black).

If you like it, please leave a comment below. Also any feedback is highly appreciated!

Birdie v1.3 is now available in the App Store.

Changes in v1.3:

• Dutch localization added.
• It’s now possible to change games’ names and dates.
• Rotating the device to landscape now rotates a game’s score card to fullscreen landscape mode.
• Several minor changes and bug fixes.

Today we’ve released Birdie v1.2.

New features include:

• Italian localization added.
• Counter switchs now support autorepeat.
• Score cards are now customizable (enable and reorder columns).
• More result options on score cards.
• Improved automatic course handicap calculation.
• Support for course data updates.
• Many more improvements.

For a full list of changes and improvements, see the full version history.

Birdie v1.2 is a free update for all Birdie users and is available through the iTunes App Store.

Birdie is a golf scoring application, made with golfers’ needs in mind.
Besides the ease of use and enhanced speed, Birdie provides many enhanced features like the built in “range finder” or the fully automated calculation of score card results. In addition to counting each player’s strokes during a game, Birdie also automatically calculates the game’s results according to different rules including “Stroke Play”, “Stableford” and “Match Play”.

Features include:

• Count up to four players per flight.
• Automatic calculation of each players course handicap.
• Range finder to determine the approximate distance to the hole.
• Send game results by e-mail.

Perfect for both: iPhone and iPod touch
Birdie is perfectly usable offline, which makes it well suited for the iPhone in low or no reception areas as well as for the iPod Touch.

Birdie is only $18.99 and available on Apple’s iTunes AppStore starting today.