Starting today, there is a new discussions forum for Reinvented Software, which replaces the old support forums. Long story short, about a week ago, the “users” table on the forums got corrupted and while I could restore it, the backup wasn’t quite complete and people would need to register again.

I decided that rather than make people do that for no clear benefit, I may as well set up something much better. It’s something I’d been meaning to do anyway.

The new discussion forums (based on Vanilla) have some great features, including signing in with your Twitter or Facebook account (or create one just for the forum, as before), pretty URLs, drafts, bookmarking and the ability to manage the discussions you’re interested in. Also, hopefully, it will be less plagued by spam.

The old forums were a few years old and there is a lot of stuff on there, some of it still useful and relevant, so all the posts are archived at the exact same URL as before but it’s no longer possible to register, respond or create new topics.

I hope you will enjoy using the new discussions forums.

I have seen Steve Jobs as an inspiration for my entire adult life. Obviously, in the industry I am in, I am far from alone in that. That Stanford speech he made? I’m living it, and I was when he made it, but I didn’t know back then whether I was just kidding myself. That speech didn’t just inspire me, it validated my life and helped me appreciate how fortunate I am. Watching again earlier, I felt the same. The message can apply to anyone.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

I take nothing for granted. You can have all the ideas and talent and work as hard as you like, but success in any area of life always comes down to some measure of luck and timing. When you set out on the long road to make something happen, you have no idea if it will work or what people will think, but when you know your intentions are good, how could it ever be wrong?

I love what I do. Every day is potentially amazing. I owe that to him.

Reinvented Software’s apps will be submitted to the Mac App Store for its launch, whenever that might be.

It’s somewhat interesting as developers need to create custom versions of their applications for Apple, mostly to exclude things such as built-in software updates, to use Apple’s secuity and copy protection and any other changes required to conform to the store’s submission guidelines.

With those two versions of the apps also comes two licensing schemes. A license bought through the App Store will not be transferrable to one bought directly from Reinvented Software or vice versa and, as things stand, the App Store will lack free trials, education, bulk and upgrade discounts and refunds, while new releases may be delayed by the review process (but available immediately for those who purchased directly).

Free trials and (assuming the Mac App Store is 10.6 only) versions to run on Mac OS X 10.5 and PowerPC Macs will continue to be available through this site and the trial limitations removed by purchasing a license directly from Reinvented Software.

Even with its compromises, I’m confident the Mac App Store will benefit Mac users through its ease of use and Mac developers by providing increased exposure for their apps. It’s also good that everyone will be able to choose whether to buy through Apple or directly from a developer.

This time last year, Give Good Food to your Mac’s kitchen opened for the first time, presenting allowing you to cook up your own bundle of Mac apps by choosing the ones that suited you the best, and the more apps you bought the more you saved with a progressive discount rate. In the summer, there was a developer special.

Today, the promotion is back for another fortnight. While the recipe is the same, you can now choose from around 70 apps from independent developers across the globe. Together is included in this promotion. Discounts start at 20% when you buy three or more apps and rise to 50% for five or more apps. The promotion runs from Nov 17th to Nov 30th.

So, to create your own bargain bundle, head over to the Give Good Food to your Mac store.

Happy New Year! 2007 was a great year for Reinvented Software, but in trying to sum it up, I’ve decided that it was a bit like a sandwich. You can see the top and bottom, while the meat is mostly hidden in the middle. The highlights:

• January: Released Feeder 1.4.
• February: Released KIT 1.3.
• March: Started Together 2.0 in earnest, while Feeder and KIT were getting great reviews.
• April: Announced the Übercaster+Feeder Bundle with Pleasant Software.
• May: KIT on MacUpdate Promo.
• June: Attended WWDC 2007 (photos).
• July – October: Continued on Together, reworking things to use the new Leopard UI. Also worked on Leopard compatibility for Feeder and KIT.
• November: Released Together 2.0.
• December: Give Good Food to Your Mac and MacSanta Promotions.

The year ended insanely busy for me as Together’s launch was more successful than I’d anticipated, but that’s no bad thing. Thankfully though, things quietened down over the holidays, so I could take some time out, work on Together 2.0.4 (released earlier today) and, since I got so many requests for this, set up a support forum, which I’m launching today. There hadn’t been any call for this until Together 2.0, so I’m hoping it’ll be useful.

There are three sections: the “Frequently Asked Questions” section has links to the existing FAQs, “Support” is for support questions or reporting problems, and “Feedback” covers things like feature requests and other general discussion concerning the two applications.

Support is still available via email on the Support pages along with the form to automatically send out lost codes, and of course I will continue to write about the apps on this blog.

Thanks to everyone who helped make 2007 such a great year for me. The year ahead also looks to be a busy one too and who knows what’s around the corner with Macworld Expo in a couple of weeks’ time.