MacDropAny Now Syncs Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive
With the recent release of Google Drive, I’ve had a number of requests to allow MacDropAny to sync folders outside of the Drive folder with Drive, just like MacDropAny does with Dropbox.
So, I’m pleased to announce that v1.9.2, released moments ago, has added automagical syncing capabilities for Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive!
What are you waiting for? Go download it!
Broomstick 0.9.1
Broomstick (the ultimate menubar icon hider) 0.9.1 is out! Release notes for v0.9.1:
- You can now hide Alfred, Apple’s menubar icons, BetterTouchTool CloudApp, CPU Speed Accelerator, Evernote, Growl, Google Drive, Insync, Last.fm, Splashtop Streamer and LogMeIn Hamachi!
- This update also fixes a couple of typos, improves accuracy with the ordering of the menubar, and for crowdsourcing.
Get your update engines running, or head on over to the Broomstick page to find out more.
Crowdsourcing Broomstick
Over the past two weeks, I’ve received over 500 requests for new apps to be included in Broomstick. To include an app in Broomstick, I have to download the app, launch it, open up its internal bits, and then find which of its files are the icon files it uses in the menubar. This isn’t a very hard thing to do, but it does take about 5 minutes for each app. To get through all of the existing app requests would take me about a week of solid work. This is obviously unsustainable.
To solve this problem, I’ve decided to offer you, the users of Broomstick, the opportunity to help find the icon information for apps that you and your friends want to be able to hide. This means that you can go and find the icon information for the apps that you want to be able to hide, submit this information in to me, and then I’ll throw this information into Broomstick, meaning that in the next update, you’ll be able to hide the apps you want!
For more information about how you can get involved in this project, visit the Broomstick Crowdsourcing page.
Internet Chatter About Broomstick
Broomstick has seen a fantastic reaction online. Here are some links to sites that have been talking about it:
- LifeHacker - “Broomstick is an app that can hide a number of popular apps as well as reorganize your menu bar to help you find what you’re looking for fast.”
- AddictiveTips - “Broomstick provides an easy solution for re-ordering and hiding third-party applications icons from menu bar.”
- Minimal Mac - “I do like the spirit of this though. Also, [the] app developer is 14 years old. Nice to see such smart young people these days.”
- ChristineChan - “Pretty nifty!”
- DescubreApple (in Spanish)
- MacWelt (in German)
- Reactif.net (in French)
- @nharris - “Broomstick is a little gem of an app - thanks!”
Broomstick has been featured in LifeHacker!
A lot of exciting things have happened in the past 24 hours for Zibity. Yesterday evening, LifeHacker (a popular technology news website) posted an article about Broomstick. I’m really excited to have been featured on such a high-profile website.
Unfortunately, at 22:47 GMT yesterday, my downloads server, downloads.zibity.com, was swamped, ran out of funds, and went offline. Luckily, this website, www.zibity.com, is not hosted on the same server, so it was safe, however having my downloads server go offline meant that all of the new traffic from LifeHacker couldn’t download Broomstick.
So that was the situation that I woke up to this morning. I immediately transferred more funds over to my hosting provider, and my downloads server has been back up since 8:24 GMT.
Despite my downloads server having been offline for most of the night, over 700 new users have now installed Broomstick. I’ve also had over 200 new requests for the addition of apps to be able to be hidden. While this is fantastic an I’m very keen to expand the list of apps that can be hidden, please be patient as it will take me some time to work my way through all of these requests, in addition to juggling all of my school commitments.
Some of the comments that I’ve been receiving about Broomstick have been slightly negative, with people wondering whether Broomstick is of an appropriate quality to have been released to the public. Please remember that Broomstick is currently only beta software, and that I’m happy to receive all manner of bug reports. Please direct these bug reports to my contact form.
So, to conclude:
- I’m very happy that Broomstick has been featured in LifeHacker.
- I hope that having my downloads server go offline didn’t inconvenience anyone too much.
- I’ve learnt a valuable lesson about being prepared for surges in traffic.
- I’m currently on holiday, but once I get back I’ll work to clear the backlog of app requests
Thanks everyone for being so supportive. If you particularly like my apps, please consider making a donation to help support future development.
Broomstick 0.9
Today I’ve released a new update for Broomstick (the ultimate menubar icon hiding app), version 0.9. This version has the following lovely new features and changes:
- Adds the ability to hide Avira, Chronicle Mini, Click.to, Droplr, FullControlHelper, GrowlTunes, Hiss, Kuvva, MuteCon, NoSleep, PleaseSleep, PuntoSwitcher, Quiet Read, RemotelessHelper, Wallpaper Clocks.
- Improves the interface for controlling the order of menubar icons.
- Ordering of menubar icons is not 2 to 5 times faster than previous versions.
- Improves quality of dialog texts.
- If you hold down the Option key on launch, Broomstick will now skip the “What would you like to do?” screen and immediately order your menubar icons.
- Broomstick will now reset its preferences if you launch it while holding down the command key.
- Automatic checks for updates will now happen a maximum of once per 24 hours.
To download this new version, just launch Broomstick on your Mac, and you’ll be prompted to update. If you don’t have Broomstick yet, you can get it over here.
My Personal Project Blog
In the International Baccalaureate, the curriculum that my school follows, every grade 10 student must complete a personal project on a topic of their choosing. This project can be about absolutely anything. I chose to do my personal project on encryption, specifically implementing the RSA encryption system in a Mac app.
I’ve now completed this project. If you’d like to see how this project went, and download my app, head on over to my process blog: kruptos.zibity.com
Saving Money
Everyone likes to have money. Having money gives you the freedom to do what you want, when you want. The best way I’ve found to earn money is simply to save what you’ve got. I feel that I’ve got quite good at saving money in my 14 years. Let me share with you a few techniques that I’ve found that help me to save money.
Only have as much money on you as you need. For example, if you are going out to see a film, only take as much money with you as you know you will need to pay for the ticket. If you absolutely must, take a small amount more than you need in the off chance that you need to pay for something else, but try your best not to spend this extra money.
Wrap coins in piles of 10€ (or whatever is convenient for your currency). Personally, I wrap my money using plastic wrap. This way, whenever I want to spend money, I have to unwrap it, and this act really makes me think about whether the 10€ that I’m unwrapping could be better used in another place.
If ever you see something in a shop, and you think you might want it, stop. Ask yourself Do I really need this? What do I gain by having this thing? Is this benefit worth the price?
Then go home and sleep on it. Literally. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll probably realise that you don’t actually need a new all-in-one toaster-fridge-computer-telephone-TV. Your money will be saved for another day.
I use The Birdy to track my expenses. It’s a free web app that sends you an email once a day asking you what you spend that day. You give each item a title, and you can also add #tags to it. The Birdy then generates pretty graphs and charts for you that helps you to understand your spending habits. I highly recommend it.
These techniques help me to limit my spending. What do you do to control your spending?
Broomstick 0.8
Yesterday I released v0.8 of Broomstick, the ultimate tool for hiding menubar icons. This version:
- adds the ability to hide Boom, Dimmer, GrabBox2, Nocturne, MiddleClick, OpenDNS Updater, SnagIt, ToDoHelper.
- provides increased stability and speed for self-updating and reporting of anonymous usage statistics.
You can download the latest version here.
Uptake of Broomstick has been going really well. Since I released it about a week ago, it’s been used by more than 150 people in at least 25 different countries. The most popular app to hide is Dropbox.
Introducing MacPips
Today I’m releasing a new app, MacPips. MacPips does the very simple task of playing “the pips” – otherwise known as the Greenwich Time Signal at the top of each hour, just like on radio stations.
MacPips has no dock or menubar icon, so it is invisible. Just let it run, and you’ll always know when an hour has past.
MacPips is free, and available from my Goodies page.
