The latest version of TNEF’s Enough (v. 3.2.1) has been code signed and is ready for Snow Leopard. Get it now for running on 10.6/10.7 and be ready when Snow Leopard lands.

In addition to TNEF’s Enough, TeaTimer has been code signed and is also ready for Gatekeeper.

This version adds a preference for choosing a non-iSight camera. As long as the camera can be used with iChat, FaceTime or other Apple applications, it will be available in QR Journal for scanning.

I’ve also increased the fidelity of scanning QR codes. On the limited test machines I have, all were able to handle the increase. Those scanning small codes will see a benefit.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. The two features added with this version were based on users writing in. I have more changes in the works based on other users as well. And for those who donate, thank you!!!

Set Location and Time

Type Fn-F6 to bring up the Location window. Start typing “Toledo” and then selection “Toledo, United States.” Hit Esc to close the window. You location is now set to the our area.

Type Fn-F5 to bring up the Date and Time window. The program will default to the current time. If it’s during the day then then sun will be too bright. Choose a time like 2:00 AM. Hit Esc to close the window.

Moving Around

You can click the mouse and drag to spin your view – left/right/up and down. You can also use the arrow keys to move. To zoom in and out, use a two finger scroll on the trackpad.

Constellations

Type Fn-F4 to bring up the View window. Select the “Markings” tab. Under the “Constellations” heading, select “Show lines” and “Show labels.” Hit Esc to close the window. You can now view the constellations in the sky.

Selection/Unselecting Objects

You can simply click on an object in the sky to select it. The name and information about the star will appear in the upper left corner. When you have an object selected, hit the space bar to center the view on that object. You can then zoom in.

You can also hit Command-O to zoom in like you would with a telescope. Hit Command-O again to return.

Using the Sky Map

The Sky Map printout will show things that are viewable for this month in our sky. To search for something by name, type Fn-F3 to bring up the “Find Object or Position” window. Type the name of the object and hit return. The program will then center to that object. You can either zoom in or hit Command-O to see it up close.

If the program zooms you to an area that shows grass the object isn’t in the sky the whole night. You need to adjust the time forward or backwards until it become visible.

More…

In the “View” window under the “Sky” tab, look for the “Light pollution” setting. Increase and decrease to see what effect city lights have on being able to view the stars. Set the lowest number for the best viewing.

In the “View” window under the “Sky” tab, select the “Show planet orbits” box and then zoom out to see what path the planets have as they move across the sky.

In the “View” window under the “Sky” tab, find the heading for “Labels and Markers.” Make sure all three checkboxes are checked. Slide each one a little bit to the right to see more labels appear for objects.

Links:

• Stellarium – http://www.stellarium.org/
• Monthly Sky Maps – http://skymaps.com/

One of the recent introductions I gave them was to Conway’s Game of Life. Although far reaching in abstract thought, it’s a really great introduction to simple systems/rules/algorithms and there are good hands-on tools for experimenting with it. So, after dinner was done one evening we all grabbed our laptops and hit the dining room table for science time.

I started with a simple introduction found here and here and then spoke of some real world uses gleaned from the Wikipedia Cellular automaton page. After walking through the rules, I installed Golly on their laptops and showed them some basic starting patterns as well as the more complex patterns. They then spent quite a bit of time drawing their own patterns and watching which died or spun off into oscillators or spaceships.

The night ended with showing mom the cool patterns and how they played out in the game of life.

Links:

• Game of Life Intro – http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html
• Game of Life Wikipedia page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
• Celluar Automaton Wikipedia page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton
• Golly Game of Life Application – http://golly.sourceforge.net/

One of the earliest features of the dashboard was for managers to review time of their direct reports. While we might scrutinize daily time entries for new employees or contractors, the weekly time entries and per client totals are used through the team. Weekly time entries are a great reference when working on next week’s resource plan. “Jane was supposed to work all week on project X, but it looks like she’s getting distracted with project Y issues. Let’s make some adjustments to account for this.”

The roll up in the per client totals is a really great review against the agreements to split certain employees across multiple clients. “Is Bob really working 10-12 hours per week on client A and the rest on client B?” Calling out internal time (the HPI code) also shows billable percentage.

Providing tools for anyone means an HR and accounting department working on problem solving and not running reports. Security in the mapping of direct reports means managers only see the time of the people they manage.

This is also the first time I tried to submit an app to the Mac App Store. The process went smoother than I thought it would but I opted to avoid the more stringent sandboxing until it’s required next year.

Check out QR Journal or get it on the Mac App Store. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

• TNEF files with an HTML body will now display in a web view. TNEF messages encapsulate a full email message. The body of the message can be created in the original email client (most likely Outlook) as Rich Text (RTF) or HTML. TNEF’s Enough will now display both body types.
• Better support for international characters. The string data in TNEF files come through in a Windows (non-UTF8) character set. This was causing some display issues of certain fields as well as issues listing file names with non-ASCII characters (e.g. high ASCII characters like ä, ë, ï, ö and ü).

Thanks to Ari K for helping me with resolving the international character issues!

One approach I took to trying to represent all the SKUs is essentially building the cabinet with 2D graphics. I took inspiration from nine part images used to scale user interface elements. In this case, though, we have an algorithm for an N-part image. The example below is 25-part image that correctly scales rails, stiles and panels.

The base product is gray scale representation of the cabinet. You can optionally apply a texture. The texture work needs some randomization and optimization work but for a proof of concept, it worked well to illustrate the capabilities.

Will return real soon with other things I’ve been hacking around with. Cheers!