It’s been a rollercoaster week for MacZOT regulars as they have been subjected to the psychological strain that is a StoryZOT, a new mutation of the frequent MyzteryZOTs, where the daily deal site sells a bundle of applications at a really knock-down price for a day without the buyers knowing what those apps will be.

StoryZOT has put a twist on this by running the stories of three developers for a week, promising that none of the apps have been featured on MacZOT before and throwing in a free game. For most of the week information has been slowly drip-fed while the identity of those apps remained shrouded in mystery. There did appear to be a leak on TUAW yesterday that made it onto the front page of Digg, but today all is revealed.

The three apps in question are my very own Keep It Together, rooSwitch from roobasoft and hawkeye from nito – a bundle of apps normally worth $69.85 all for $5.95.

  

You can still buy this bundle today, on the MacZOT site. The deal runs until 11:59 pm PST Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 or until it’s sold out.

Update: The offer has now sold out.

KIT is reviewed on this week’s NeatLittleMacApps podcast with Frank de Graeve. If you’re currently experiencing a mild case of deja vu, that’s because you may recall Feeder reviewed on the same podcast not too long ago.

Don’t think this is some cliquey arrangement with Frank whereby he reviews both my apps; Frank told me he went looking for such an app and wound up back here, at Reinvented Software. 😀

It’s another good review, Frank gives KIT quite a good going over and really gets the app. Frank always gives some developer feedback, in this case he first finds a bug creating a new library (not sure when this popped up, I’ll get it fixed soon!) and also wants KIT to search inside files.

KIT actually does that with as many file types as Spotlight can index – you choose All Contents from the search menu – so I guess I need to make that clearer and add an option to only search the contents. Oh well!

Also, if you listen to the podcast, there’s a chance to win one of three free copies and a special discount code (which is quite funny) if you don’t. In fact, just about every episode lately has had free copies or some special deal. NeatLittleMacApps is a neat little podcast that quickly showcases a different app each week and Frank’s easy style and warm sense of humour make it a pleasure. Check it out and tell all your friends! 😉

Sounds like NLMA is doing well in the iTunes Technology Top 100 also, so keep it up, Frank, and good luck with building that house!

It’s great to see KIT featured on Apple’s Productivity Tools Hot Picks and I’ve received some great feedback about the changes in the new version too. All this is a relief after such a hiatus!

Anyway, I just remembered that I still haven’t blogged about the new site, i use this. The newest and coolest kid on the block, this site has been described as a cross between MacUpdate and Digg, but I don’t think that description really does it justice. In any case, it’s very Web 2.0.

On the site, currently Mac OS X only, is a list of apps. If you use the app, you can click “i use this” to show you like and use it. All users keep a list of apps of their own, you can see who uses a particular app and apps can be tagged so you can find similar ones. Plus you can build a network of friends, see what they use, and there are RSS feeds aplenty too.

All this makes it such a different approach to traditional download sites with their flakey search, rigid categories, random reviews and ratings and download figures that may bear no resemblance to how many people actual really like and use the app every day. It’s also so quick and simple to show what you like that’s it’s actually a lot of fun, and you can see what’s hot that day too, making it great for finding new, happening stuff.

Right now, the site is in beta but working well and growing quickly. I only added Keep It Together yesterday and Feeder is on there too, both could do with a bit of a boost. 😉

… Done it yet?

I released Keep It Together 1.2 today. For anyone who doesn’t know, KIT is my other application that’s been a little neglected of late, thanks to Feeder. The product page says it best:

KIT is like a magic scrapbook for everything you want to keep. Text, documents, images, movies, sounds, web pages and bookmarks can all be dragged to KIT for safe keeping, previewed, collected together in different ways and found again in an instant.

This version is so much better than the last one, I’m really pleased with it. The release notes tell the story of how much has changed. I started working on something more or less like this version just over a year ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my bank balance) podcasting exploded with its inclusion in iTunes and Feeder started to take over my life. It’s only these last couple of months that I’ve had time to work on anything else.

As a result, a lot of things had been piling up for ages – redesigning the website, rewriting my store and administrative backend in Ruby on Rails (because the last system was done in J2EE and I couldn’t work with that any more and I hatehatehate PHP), getting the dreaded books up to date, doing my tax return, etc. I also had to work out what to do next.

So, now everything is sorted out and has calmed down I can devote my attention to both my applications. Expect KIT to continue to evolve alongside Feeder.

Finally, if you read this blog and like the look of KIT, use the following discount code when you check out to save yourself $5 and get KIT for $19.95:

That code will only last a month, expiring at Midnight, PDT on August 25, 2006.

Feeder is reviewed on Episode 6 of the NeatLittleMacApps podcast with Frank De Graeve. Each episode of the NeatLittleMacApps podcast features a single application, gives an overview of their capabilities, a quick walkthrough and usually some special offers and/or prizes too.

In the beginning there was nothing…

No wait, there was something. There was an RSS-feed creation tool called Feeder. And then there was podcasting.

Ok now combine this with a developer who updates his software so fast that he must be psychic, and you get probably the best and most used podcast/rss-feed creating App out there.

Thanks, Frank! For every app Frank reviews, he gives a developer tip such as a feature request, something he thinks is not quite right or whatever.

I won’t spoil the podcast by revealing that here, but I will say: yes, that is becoming one of the most requested features for Feeder, something like that is coming and you might be pleasantly surprised at how it works out.

It’s a great review of Feeder, check it out as there is also the chance to win some free copies and a promotional code. 🙂