Manton Reece
User experience, Mac programming, feature animation, and other personal views.

Wii friend codes from Twitter

As most Nintendo Wii owners know by now, Mario Kart for Wii shipped last week. I put together yet another friend code database to track and share codes, but this one is unique because it builds on Twitter. Just follow @wii and send your friend code in a reply. No registration, no data entry. All your friends on Twitter who also use the system will automatically be linked, so you can quickly get a view of which friend codes to add. It's also a great way to discover new Twitter users.

I'm pretty happy with how the implementation has worked out. It's build on essentially three background scripts:

The system currently only pulls the first 300 followers, but it's running smoothly enough that I will bump that up to 500 this week. Over 150 people are currently using it, and the database has about 10,000 records to keep track of friends. I feel like it's architected well enough to grow significantly from here, so I may do some casual promotion of the service this week.

If you own a Wii and use Twitter, give it a try. If you have any questions or feature requests, please send me an email or reply on Twitter. Enjoy!

May 4, 2008 10:32 PM [link]

Flip Ultra

I first heard of the Flip a few months ago, but it wasn't until this 37signals post that I started paying attention. I was attracted to the simplicity of the video camera: few buttons, decent quality, and kid-proof design. Here is my mini-review.

Speed. This is where the Flip shines. It is compact enough to take anywhere, and simple enough that you can take it out of your pocket and start shooting video in seconds. I've already shot way more video than I would with my traditional DV camcorder.

Battery. It runs on two AA batteries. I was able to record a ton of video before replacing them, accumulating 3 GB of files over several weeks. This is unheard of compared to any other still camera or video camera I've owned.

Transfer. The Flip saves as the Xvid flavor of MPEG-4, which is not supported natively by QuickTime. Luckily a quick Perian install later and you can view and edit them in QuickTime Player or any app that supports QuickTime. Just mount the camera and copy them over, or convert to H.264 with something like VisualHub. The Wii Transfer 2.6 beta also supports Xvid to convert and share to your Wii.

Quality. I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison with Motion JPEG used on most digital still cameras, but this isn't a video hardware review site so an in-depth analysis is beyond the scope of what I need or have expertise in. To my eyes it looks pretty good though. Make sure to get the Ultra, not the regular Flip Video which has a lower bitrate.

Complaints. You need to give the power slider and record buttons some real pressure, and on a few occasions I've clicked record only to realize 1 minute later that it didn't start. I understand that the designers didn't want us turning it on or recording unintentionally, but this negates some of the speed advantage mentioned above.

In a nutshell: The Flip isn't for everyone, but at just $140 it's hard to argue with its strengths. I take it everywhere now. One pocket for iPhone, one pocket for Flip.

April 24, 2008 08:07 AM [link]

Wii Transfer serial numbers

The search phrase "wii transfer serial numbers" (or "wii transfer serials") is consistently one of the top referrers from Google to this blog, usually pointing to my post about the first 75 days. I figure I get enough traffic that I should dedicate a page to this. (I'm the developer, by the way.)

Here are the best ways to get Wii Transfer:

Thanks for your support! I hope one of these options appeals to you.

April 23, 2008 08:57 AM [link]

Unite the Party

After Hillary won Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island last month, I decided it was time to think less about actively supporting my own candidate, who clearly wasn't going away, and more about the future of the Democratic Party and what it would take to come together when a nominee is chosen. I had been quick to defend Hillary on Twitter and in blog comments, but the more I considered the close race and the long month until the next primary in Pennsylvania, now finally here, the more convinced I became that a joint ticket is the answer to a unified party.

Rather than bicker with my friends who support Obama, I changed my tone to emphasize our shared values and launched a new site: unitetheparty.com. I've been posting there regularly since March, and hope to build a group of like-minded Democrats to write on this topic, as well as a list of supporters who want to see a joint ticket happen.

Thinking about the endgame of the race in this context provides an excellent backdrop for discussing the real issues important to voters. There's still an opportunity to use these campaigns for good: setting the right tone against McCain and bringing awareness of the Democratic agenda to everyone.

April 21, 2008 11:06 PM [link]

Ollie Johnston

Last week Traci asked me if I had heard about the animator who had died. Now of the 220 feeds I subscribe to in NetNewsWire, a full 60 of those are in a group called "Animation and Comics", so I should have heard about any news from a variety of artist blogs or industry sources. But I've had my head down working on a number of programming projects -- both Rails and Cocoa and just keeping up with the never-ending flood of email and Basecamp messages -- so that NetNewsWire group was closed, and I was sadly ignorant.

My first question to her: "Was it Ollie?"

And of course it was. Ollie Johnston passed away at the age of 95, the last of Disney's "Nine Old Men". See the epic Cartoon Brew post for more. I had blogged about the death of his friend Frank Thomas in 2004, and also of colleague Ward Kimball in 2002.

For those who don't know me very well, and even many who do, I'll let you in on a little secret. One day my boss is going to wonder why I don't answer his emails, and it will be because I've thrown the computer in the trash, set my USB devices on fire, and returned to the first passion of my life.

Sure, I have an old-school animation desk (old office 2005 and new office this year, next to computer stuff) and a bunch of paper and sharpened pencils to play with. Sure, I'll still always love building software, designing user interfaces, and am grateful for the friends I have at work and in the Mac development community. Sure, I can't support a family and giant mortgage doing silly portraits on the street corner.

But damn it. Ollie Johnston died.

April 21, 2008 08:59 AM [link]

MacLife write-up and Wii Transfer beta

MacLife Wii Transfer has a full-page mini-tutorial in the May edition of MacLife magazine, as part of a section on connecting your Mac to video game consoles. I finally picked up a copy last night. It was certainly a nice surprise and seems to have brought a small increase in sales.

I've also been wrapping up the next version of Wii Transfer, which hopefully smoothes over most of the rough spots in the current release. After sending beta copies to a few customers, I'm opening up a new forums section as an experiment in getting early builds out without a more formal public beta. (It's not linked from the main site yet, but will be soon.) Every developer handles betas in a different way, but I like the balance Jesse at Hog Bay Software has achieved between his released software page and the early builds and developer notes in the forums section, for those customers willing to dig a little bit below the surface.

April 20, 2008 12:29 AM [link]

Fancy-pants productivity

There are a few things in this post by Ryan Norbauer (via 37signals) that bother me. One is this idea that "code is meant to be read by humans first and computers only secondarily". I understand what he is getting at, but even though I respect new advances in productivity, we have to be very careful to keep our core priorities. There's a word for when the balance shifts away from the user and more to us as programmers: selfishness.

Imagine two programs: one is ugly and hard to read, but it compiles and is bug-free; the other is beautiful and readable, and it also compiles and is bug-free. To the user they are identical. They both succeed.

Now take those two and give them both identical beauty and readability, but accidentally break one so that it either does not compile or runs so horribly buggy and slow that it is useless to everyone. Writing code for other programmers to read isn't enough. You have to start with code that works before you get all fancy-pants.

This growing trend to raise beautiful code and programmer productivity above the performance or functionality of the final product is dangerous. The final product is what counts. Not how you build it, but what you've built: how it scales, how it performs, how it solves a particular problem.

And sure, there are many times when I write slow, lazy code that doesn't work well. But that's a compromise you make when you have to meet a deadline, or because you aren't sure how to optimize yet, not because you start out by deprecating user experience. If you believe Ryan, it sounds like there is a whole "movement" of programmers who toss any potential performance achievements out the window before they even get started.

You can say that great products are complex, and so you need to focus attention on how the software is built and maintained. That is true. When I ported a large application from Carbon to Cocoa a few years ago I made the decision to do so because of future productivity.

You can say that happy programmers create high-quality products. That is also true. When I am feeling most productive I am usually enjoying myself because the work environment I'm in is encouraging.

But don't put the practice of software development above the actual result, because to do so means you care more about writing code than solving problems.

March 14, 2008 12:38 PM [link]

iPhone SDK and NDAs

Craig Hockenberry half-joked on Twitter about the iPhone SDK non-disclosure agreement and it reminded me of one of my personal annoyances in the development community: we tend to take NDAs very seriously. I've always been impressed by how Scott Stevenson in particular can write thoughtful articles about Mac software development that go out of their way to tiptoe around unannounced APIs. In his latest excellent introduction to the iPhone SDK, there are no less than 3 mentions of the NDA in the original post and comments:

"Until that time, the SDK is under NDA and the apps cannot be distributed to the general public." (Scott Stevenson)
"The iPhone SDK is very well done (can't say more because of the NDA)" (Florent Pillet)
"To answer without getting into NDA stuff, let's talk about Mac OS X in general." (Scott Stevenson)

I've also been hit by this community-killer. At WWDC last year I posted to Twitter about new .Mac features and it remains the only tweet I have ever deleted. I had this sudden paranoia that conference staff would kick me out of Moscone and revoke my ADC account. Silly.

But let's look at reality. Over 100,000 people have downloaded the SDK. This couldn't be more different than WWDC, which effectively encourages discussion only while in San Francisco by requiring an investment of at minimum $2-3k between conference, hotels, food, and travel. The SDK by comparison is totally free to download.

Put simply, how can Apple expect us to take an NDA seriously while at the same time they spread the applications and documentation covered under this NDA to every corner of the Mac universe?

I'm not a lawyer, but this one seems legally ridiculous. There are a few issues handled by the license:

For years Mac developers have asked Apple for an official, closed mailing list to discuss APIs still under NDA. Maybe things would be different now if Apple hadn't refused that request, but with a release as mainstream as the iPhone SDK it's too late to try to control the conversation. I expect a healthy discussion of APIs and business practices to happen on blogs and Twitter and IRC and email, and that's how it should be.

March 13, 2008 12:21 AM [link]

STAPLE! in Austin today (year 4)

Like independent comics and art? STAPLE! is in Austin today at the Monarch Event Center, off I-35 and 2222. I've been on the STAPLE! planning committee for four years now and have enjoyed watching our little show grow from its humble beginnings, but it's still a completely non-profit, volunteer-led endeavor and we need your support to make it a success. Come join us anytime between 11am and 7pm (or check the schedule for our featured session times), and then come back downtown later tonight for the after-party and live-art show at Red's Scoot Inn (flyer).

March 1, 2008 09:30 AM [link]

Hillary podcast

About once a year I like to put together a podcast episode around a theme, and this weekend that subject is Hillary Clinton. I think I've prepared it with fairness and respect, so even if you disagree please do the same. It's both a personal expression and a way of capturing a moment.

» Download (MP3, 6.2MB)

» Subscribe in iTunes

It's about 13 minutes long. Enjoy.

February 18, 2008 06:23 PM [link]

Don't give up, shipping takes time

I love the passion in this comment from Wil Shipley:

"This app is all I'm working on. My entire reputation, my 25 years in the industry, my company is all riding on this release. I'm not going to just suddenly give up one day for no reason."

I'm one of those people who will upgrade to Delicious Library 2 on the first day and I know I won't be disappointed. Although my indie app has a tiny fraction of the users Delicious has, I'm currently going through the same kind of delays.

After months of quick, focused Wii Transfer releases, I decided in November to skip a minor bug fix release and roll up all the outstanding issues into a bigger release with several important user interface improvements. You reach a point in this process where there is no turning back, and for every refinement to the product you see just how much more you could do. I think it's that kind of constant, iterative polishing that Wil is going through now.

If you are curious about the business of software development, don't miss his talk from C4 last year. In many ways I'm glad it took so long for the videos to go up; I've already forgotten half of the content so it will be fun to review the sessions.

February 9, 2008 03:44 PM [link]

Animation podcasts for a Super Tuesday

Need something to listen to on your iPod while waiting in line to vote today? Try out these fantastic recent episodes of two of my favorite podcasts for animators and animation fans.

Spline Cast with Ed Catmull. I'll be honest, I've followed the careers of John Lasseter and Steve Jobs a lot closer than I have for Ed Catmull, but this podcast shows pretty clearly the depth of impact Ed Catmull has had on the computer industry and the Pixar culture. It's a great listen not just for anyone who cares about animation, but also for entrepreneurs who want a look into how you stay successful year after year.

Animation Podcast with James Baxter. There are many great animators, from well known independents who receive Oscar recognition to those who work 12-hour days in relative obscurity at a big studio, but there are only a handful of true masters of the art form. Baxter is one of my favorites. The powerful sequence with Moses and the burning bush and the mannerism of Belle fixing her hair were both always really memorable for me.

Enjoy! Happy Super Tuesday.

February 5, 2008 08:51 AM [link]

MacBook Air and Europe trip

The MacBook Air is the first Apple product to come along in years that I don't want to buy. It looks great, the multi-touch trackpad is cool and unexpected, and I like Remote Disk. But it's just not significantly different than a MacBook to me, and I don't travel enough to make the thinness or weight really matter. To "upgrade" from a regular MacBook to an Air just seems wasteful.

The "new Apple" has been doing a great job of eliminating duplicates in their product line (only one tower, only one of each size of iPod). If the Air had an 11-inch or 12-inch screen it would be a much easier sell because it becomes clear why the product exists: buy this if you want something small.

For two months in 1999, my wife and I travelled through Europe with only a backpack each and a PowerBook 520c to share between us. That machine was very small (just a 9.5-inch screen), yet she did contract work for Apple on it and I coded and released new versions of Mac software, dialed up to the net via modem from hotel rooms and hostels in the days before wi-fi. It was much heavier than an Air but for traveling light it was still a great choice.

It feels like Apple missed an opportunity at Macworld yesterday. I'm not particularly disappointed, though, since I wasn't one of those hoping for a sub-notebook.

January 17, 2008 02:38 PM [link]

Give us a tablet already

I'm going to skip the usual Macworld predictions and cut straight to the good stuff: Apple needs a tablet for the huge numbers of artists and creative professionals who have stuck with the Mac for so long, or who are finally coming back to the platform. I hope for this every year, but the evidence is starting to mount that yes, Apple is working on something.

John Gruber doesn't see a tablet happening:

"But why force software UI's designed for traditional hardware form factors upon a totally different device? A successful tablet-like device from Apple, I think, would clearly be designed as a secondary computing device — a satellite attached and synched to a Mac or PC (probably, of course, through iTunes)."

I think his reasoning is exactly correct if you think about a tablet as just a Newton or large iPhone, but as I say above I don't think that's the market at all. Honestly as much as I loved the Newton, the iPhone works great as a replacement. The primary market for a Mac tablet is the millions of people who look at the Wacom Cintiq and drool. An Apple tablet has to run full Mac OS X because it has to run Photoshop, Acorn, and Painter.

(Both Gruber and Dan Benjamin also discuss predictions during the latest The Talk Show episode, just posted. While you're listening, also check out the Hivelogic comprehensive podcasting guide.)

So what about this: what if the MacBook sub-notebook and the tablet are one and the same? Imagine a beautiful slim MacBook with a detachable keyboard and touch-sensitive display, for example. Avoid the weird connections by making the keyboard Bluetooth only, with all the guts of the machine (including flash-based hard drive) behind the screen. I have a first-generation Toshiba Tablet PC and the hardware design is just bulky and terrible because they tried to make it all things to all people. A MacBook Nano-Tablet-Air could embrace "thin" and "tablet" and ignore everything else to achieve a truly great design.

But who knows. We'll see in about 30 minutes.

January 15, 2008 10:31 AM [link]

New and old posts about NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is free (congrats again Brent!) and reaction is coming in from other indie developers.

Rory Prior: "It's hard to compete with a product that's as well known and frankly as good as NNW, it's damn near impossible to compete with it when it's free."

Paul Kafasis: "When something is given away for free, its perceived value is lowered. If software is treated as valueless, it becomes much, much harder to sell."

Ultimately I don't think it's going to have a significant negative impact as far as devaluating other software (except of course other news readers) because most people paying attention should connect that it supports Newsgator's core business model. But rather than debate the issue I searched my archives to see what else I had said about the product. It must be one of the most-blogged-about apps ever, right? I'm limiting it to 1 post per year.

2002: Moving to NetNewsWire
2003: NetNewsWire as a platform
2004: Google and the great apps to come
2005: Tabs are a hack
2006: Time for thinking
2007: New software releases
2008: New and old posts about NetNewsWire (you're reading it!)

January 11, 2008 01:29 PM [link]