Mac ISV in Japan

Lightbox2を使ってみた。

macppa — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:04:18 +0000

ウェブページにある画像をクリックするとページ全体が薄暗くなり、その画像、あるいは代替画像がハイライトされ表示される機能を実現しているLightbox2を自分のサイトに適用してみました。最終的にはうまく行ったものの、最初は結構苦労しました。

画像は表示されるものの横幅がページ全体に広がるし、一瞬表示された画像がすうっと消えてしまうんです。以下の画面が画像が消えてしまった様子。

でも、Lightbox2で提供しているフォーラムに行って検索したら同じ現象を経験した人がいてすぐ解決しました。私もまったく同じくすべての要素に対して適用していたCSSの記述があり、それからdivを除外したら問題はなくなりました。それで正しく表示されているのが以下のようなもの。

これでサイトのデザインももうちょっと見栄えよくなればいいですけどね。

Shine — All In One Package for Mac ISV

macppa — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:17:53 +0000

I heard a podcast of MDN Show, and knew about Shine.

It is a total solution for a Mac ISV to selling their application through web. It provides most of functions you need to sell your Mac application as a Mac ISV and it includes;

- Support for update management using Sparkle.

- Support for Payment using Paypal.

- Issuing license and send it through email to user.

- Order management

- etc.

I think there are other functions in Shine but I do not remember all. I think I should check this solution out immediately. This might be the one that can save a lot of my time.

A View from My Office Located in Gaienmae, Tokyo

macppa — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:57:17 +0000

My office is located in Gaienmae, Tokyo. I usually work at 19th floor and 15th floor. Below is a picture taken yesterday, at 15th floor. You can see Shinjuku area through the window. It was a fine day.

I Got New MacBook Pro 15′ and …

macppa — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:16:48 +0000

I got a new MacBook Pro because my old black MacBook’s keyboard has broken since about a month ago. Since I used Leopard and old versioned iLife in my old MacBook and this is my first time to use Pro labeled Mac, it is very exciting to me even though I am spending whole time of this weekend to transferring data.

And I am realizing some new features of iLife too. For example, when I imported my previous iPhoto library, new iphoto scanning my old pictures and showed me below picture.

As you can see, I am living in Tokyo, and traveling around Kantou area of Japan. It shows me how my life is. This is very interesting to me.

Apple is still doing good jobs for users and they make me think about the value of UX again.

Minor change

macppa — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:04:48 +0000

I changed a peace of UI of MoneyView.

Can you find out the change from previous screenshot?

(Ignore change of color of pie chart. It’s one of customizable parts.)

My first Mac App — MoneyView

macppa — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:15:31 +0000

Bellow is the screenshot of my first Mac Application, MoneyView.

MoneyView is very simple and visual account book for personal usage. Actually it does not have many functions but have only required functions for my own needs. I guess most of personal user can be satisfied by the Application.

You can find it from http://macisv.jp/Site/Top.html. (Sorry, the site is written in japanese only now. I will make an english version of the site soon.) It is still in it’s beta stage but you can download and try it for free. Any feedback will be highly appreciated.

Hard days

macppa — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:16:14 +0000

I could not even touch my MacBook for more than a week.

My day job, working for a telecom company in Japan as an IT consultant makes me too busy these days. I am currently working more than 12 hours in a day. I am building a grand architecture for the company and it is very hard job because there are a lot of things to consider and stakeholders to handle.

I feel I am wasting my time of life for working for other person. I really wish to have more free time to do my work as an ISV but working style of usual japanese company is far from efficiency. Everyday, I need to wait for my coworkers until all of them to finish their tasks before leave the office even though my tasks are finished earlier. By the hard week days, I am very tired even in weekend and having difficulties to concentrate at my own task. This situation will be continued till end of this year.

Hard time for me. It’s very hard to leave from day job.

Above picture is an office we are work at. We use one floor of huge building with only 4 person.

CODA is Good!

macppa — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:52:27 +0000

As I wrote before, I am writing XHTML/CSS for building my site. I tried Adobe DreamWeaver and CODA and finally decided to use CODA as my main tool for building web site. Actually, I already bought several books on DreamWeaver and have a license of it. But I could not get used to DreamWeaver. It made me confused to do very simple thing on CSS. And the UI was not so charm. After struggled for a while with DreamWeaver, I figured out that I would not like the tool even after I got used it and tried to find any other tools that I can like. CODA was one of the tool and I can say that I like to use it.

As you can see above, CODA provides beautiful and useful interface. From Adobe DreamWeaver, I could smell MS Windows because it should be able to run on the Windows also and I didn’t like it as a Mac user. CODA is an application written for Mac only and has a UI just like Mac application. In Mac, beautiful UI is very import thing for me and CODA is the one fit my needs.

I really hope I can make another beautiful application for Mac in near future.

Mt. Fuji and Tokyo

macppa — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:00:35 +0000

A sunset from 19th floor of my office located in Gaienmae, Tokyo.

You can see the mount Fuji and downtown of Tokyo.

Too many small tasks for starting ISV

macppa — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:51:28 +0000

I already finished building my first application for Mac few weeks ago but I am not being able to release it yet. What happened? Do I want to make it better before the first release?

No, now, after all the way for building my Application, I am designing my web site to sell it. I am writing CSS/XHTML now and it takes time. Huge time. Even though I had been a web programmer few years ago, I am not good at such stuffs. I didn’t need to consider seriously about CSS and design stuffs because I was a programmer and there were good designers work with.

But now, I am alone.* I have to do all things that required to start my own business. I know this is not wise way to take but for me, poor man who does not have enough budget to hire nice designer, this is the only way. Do everything by myself.

Recently, I realized one thing.

Working for other person was really easier than building my own business. It’s why you cannot make huge income from it. The person you work for is the one who built and manage all the business. He or She deserve it.

These small stuffs are the cost I have to pay. No free lunch.

(*Actually, I am not alone. I have a small team.)