Keeping in touch
One of my greatest pleasures is being in touch with both current and potential users of MemoryMiner. People still keep coming forward with new and interesting ways of using the software. And while it’s great to dream up new things to do, it’s more important to take care of the current group of users, some of whom have pointed out problems in our first release. As I promised early on, “we won’t let you down”, and I’m hoping that today’s release of version 1.03 provides further evidence of our commitment to contnually improving our software.
1.03 is prinicpally a bug fix release, but it adds something new and I think very signifcant: an auto-update mechanism created by Andy Matuschak called “Sparkle.” Sparkle is based on “Appcasting,” which as the name suggests, is like Podcasting in that it uses RSS feeds with enclosures to deliver information and updates for a software application. MemoryMiner subscribes to this RSS feed in order to find out about updates that we make available. The update can be done automatically at startup, or manually through the “Check For Updates” menu.
The great thing about this system is that the updates are automatically downloaded, and installed for you. It’s so much better than the typical system which still requires the user to manutally download and install updates. The user can see exactly what they’re getting, press a button and be done. It makes our lives as developers so much easier because we can release updates as and when they’re needed. We hope it will make our users’ lives easier as well.
For the technically minded who want to learn more, here’s a URL:
http://www.andymatuschak.org/pages/sparkle
Now that our distribution problem has been neatly cared for, we can get back to improving the product and website.
Back to the coal mine!