Ever have one of those days when you just haven't had the chance to catch up with life? Yeah, that'd be today for me.
I stayed up last night talking to Elissa, which was nice. Sadly, her parents are in the path of the next hurricane to hit the south (Rita). So her parents, the family pets (goats included) are heading up to Austin to stay with Lis and Lawerence for a while. Quite stressful, but still nice for her to get to see the family.
I had a strange, fitful sleep last night which meant I woke up 5 minutes late for work today feeling exhausted. And ever since then, I've been playing catch-up.
As soon as I got into the office, I found there were two annoying StaticText bugs that needed immediate attention. So I fixed the leak and the strange overwriting issues, and then started plugging away at my thank you emails for people I talked to at PDC. While doing those, I had a ton of questions and just minor interruptions. Had to talk to Janet about this and that, had to do some testing for an internal tool Jon was building, my landscaper showed up to tell me that my lawn was too wet, yada yada yada.
So here I sit, whining about my day. :-P I was hoping to write a nice technical post on a topic, but my brain is too frazzled to think of what to write about. So instead, I'm going to use one of my cop-outs today and ask you a question. And it's not a true cop out, because I really am interested in the answer.
What product(s) do you make with REALbasic, and do you have a website showcasing them?
I always enjoy hearing what sort of things people use RB for; it's nice to know people can do useful things with it. However, there are a few things which make me shudder as an engineer. Like the guy who told me he uses serial and networking (two of the areas which I, alone, am responsible for the code) to control Hazmat suits so that when conditions get too dangerous, the suit can tell the person to get out of there. Because, I want to know that a bug in my code (not saying that I actually KNOW of any bugs in those code sections) might cause somebody to melt.... Sheesh!
I am hoping to use Realbasic to make products to sell, that will put my kids through college, that work for you?
My plans are to write software for collection management (specifically music, movies, photos, recipes, and digital photos), a vehicle tracking application (for maintenance and mileage), a download manager (for ftp and http downloads), a money manager, password generator/manager, and a golf-caddy app (to track a group of players' scores on various courses). This is what I *hope* to do/start/finish :P Eventually some of them will gain Internet connectivity to enable users to collaborate on populating a shared database. I plan to release a free version (that contains the most basic features) along with a pay version (with extended features like the Internet connectivity).
Loft goals, but hey, I can dream can't I? :)
Educational assessment and planning tools. www.cosmicsoft.net
Net Tool Box is my main project (albeit on the back-burner just now): http://www.nettoolbox.net/
At work, I use RB to create Kodiak, which is a student information and child accounting system. Our teachers and administrators use it to handle attendance, discipline, standardized assessments, enrollment, and other fun stuff. With RB, I was able to create the prototype in about two months. Typically, these systems take teams of people years to develop. I'm not saying mine's as good as those, just that I made it faster. :) No website for information, though.
On my own time, I do some shareware. I currently offer three programs, with a couple more in the hopper. I have Frequency, which is a cross-platform weblog client (connects to Blogger, MT, WP, etc.) in dire need of an update. I also have RhinoTyper, which is a quick and dirty utility for changing file types and creator codes (Mac only, obviously). My current obsession is Tangelo, a desktop weblogging application, also cross-platform. More info on these can be found at http://bradrhine.com
PS: I think the RB 2005 interface rocks. And I'm primarily a Mac guy. I'm just saying is all. ;)
A free XML and Lua editor for Marathon scenario developers. http://homepage.mac.com/mbenonis/cranberry/
By the way, while IANAL, would it not be prudent to include a phrase in the license agreement about using REALbasic in life-threatening situations? I know Apple includes one somewhere...let's see here...here it is:
"THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE. "
I am currently working on a business management solution (accounting, inventory, job scheduling, order processing and CRM) geared toward the printing industry. It is a client/server suite with the client side written in REALbasic and the server written mainly in PERL with some REALbasic. Client side will be Windows/Macintosh compatible.
Although my current focus is the printing industry, I have designed the software to be modular so that I can later write modules geared toward other business models. I’m am still pretty far from having a finished product, but when it is done I do plan on showcasing it on the web. I already registered my program name as a domain name, I just need to get this bugger done so I have something to put on the site!
I'm working on a RAD tool with REALbasic.
Haha!
Anyway, I'm writing a desktop reporting tool and client for Fog Creek's FogBugz bug tracking system.
My app's called CaseDetective and can be found at http://www.imijsoft.com
Without RealBasic I couldn't of built this app and keep it cross platform, the database handling is also so easy in comparrison to other tools.
Early days, final beta is out there, just finishing up v1.0 and then I can move onto some super dooper features I want to add.
Awesome comments from everyone!
@Charlie -- a man after my own heart, a networking geek. ;-)
@Jon -- Hmm, do you have any more information on this awesome product? A webpage perhaps? :-P
@Mike -- Hah! I never knew they had that in there.
A bunch of applications for amateur (and some pro) astronomers, the most significant of which is AstroPlanner (http://www.ilangainc.com/astroplanner/), the Mac version of which is being used, I believe, to construct target lists for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck monsters in Hawaii.