So. After several months of not having enough time to write any code, I finally managed to fix the remaining bugs and publish my first application on the iTunes App Store. If it wouldn’t be for work and university, the app would probably have been online months ago. But one has to set priorities, and thus it took me a tad longer than expected.

A dedicated website for the application is here, and the direct link to the iTunes Store Page can be found here.

Happiness is build around the concepts of Dolf Zillmann’s Mood Management Theory and further research in the area of mood modification through media. The basic and empirical verified (in many many studies) idea is that the exposure to funny, sad, frightening or suspenseful media can modify our mood in specific ways (that is, funny or sad, f.e.).
Build around this idea, Happiness aim is to enhance one’s mood in a very positive way through the exposure to nice imagery and the sound of laughing people. There’re different options which allow to optimize the usage behaviour.
While this is certainly not a complex application, it taught me nontheless a lot about the whole iTunes Application Store experience.
The App is really cheap (almost a bargain!), and I’d love if those of you, who own an iPhone or iPod touch, could try it and give some feedback, so I can enhance the app.

A step in the right direction.
In the past years, Linux has considerably matured as a Desktop Operating System. Not only the innovation from Ubuntu, but also new technologies (i.e. Compiz) developed by Red Hat, SuSE, or others, helped Linux to gain awareness of Linux as desktop. One of the fundamental flaws, however, has always been the X-Server. It starts with the incredibly ugly mode-switches during the system boot (vga, text-mode, svga, text-mode, native solution) continues along the lines of dual monitor setup problems, and culminates in ugly redrawing/flicker problems with most window operations.

I do believe, that one of the key problems, holding Linux back from gaining a wider audience, lies (next to the casual users’ stumbling block of not being able to install standard Windows software) in the feeling of a buggy system determined by the visualy visible fragments of on-screen operations.
Think about it: People don’t see the modern 2.6.x Kernel with all of it’s glory, people aren’t able to see the power that is a new O1 scheduler (or whatever), they can’t see the brilliance of the filesystem and neither the flexibility of all those new KDE4 / Qt4 API / technology layers.
However, what they can see is a desktop that leaves ugly fragments and feels immature.

So, although the new Wayland kernel won’t suddenly bring Linux on par with Windows Vista or OS X it should tremendously help in achieving a higher state of satisfaction with the whole Desktop Experience. Often, it’s the little things, that can make a big difference.

As you can see, I just got my iPhone today. Software version is, due to Carrier-Reasons still at 1.0.2, and I plan to keep it that way for some time.
First impression is: Awesome. Absolutely awesome and amazing.
Although it lacks some of the features which I would take for granted in modern Mobile Phones, it shines on many other feature-comparisons.
I’ll write more soon.

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I released tagbag 1.25 yesterday,
it’s only a small bugfix release, adding one new feature. I’ll have
quite some free time this week (once again HP in Stuttgart) so I’ll try
to implement some of those new features I mention in my Todo list over
at http://www.terhech.de/tag

Release History:

13.06.05: 1.25

• Bugfix: @project.task doesn’t open as project.@task anymore
• Feature: Clicking on the group opens a Finder window now

I just uploaded Tagbag 1.20. It’s out of beta now as I guess that all bugs are fixed. I’m looking forward to adding new features now.

Here’s the 1.20 changelog:

*Preferences work as they should now
*Enhanced opening Finder Windows. Now clicking on a tag should always open a Finder window
*Added an option to reload the tags everytime Dashboard is shown

I just uploaded Tagbag 1.10b, here’s a changelog:

*List is sorted alphabeticaly
*Implemented a new CSS-Based Scrollbar (Apple uses the very same one in their Widgets, it feels a lot better to use
*Fixed the bug which didn’t open a Finder-Window when clicking a tag on some systems
*Added a preference-key to optionally don’t display the @
*Added a preference-key to optionally group items based on the
dot-character (design.web, design.print, design.shirts would be grouped
by ‘design) (only works one level/one dot)
*Added a preference-key to optionally hide the amount of files for each tag
*Seems as if Unicode/Non-Western/Asian Characters work now (at least they work here..)
*Changed some CSS-Settings, the dashed line between tags is gone

There’re still some quirks, but they seem to be minor for now, I hope
to get some reactions back I probably missed some new bugs, and the
preference system needs a small overhaul, but for now this one should
work a lot better than the previous 1.02b

Yeha. I’m drunk, sorry about that, I wanted to drink about 1-2 glasses
of good red wine but ended up with 3 glasses of red wine and 2 of white
wine. I updated tagbag, I’ll post the update tomorrow…

First of all, thanks for the donation Feels great!
I’ll write all the above-mentioned changes and bugs down into a small
todo-file and I’ll try to fix and or implement those changes during
this week. I’ll take care of the bugs first and then start to add new
features.
Oh yeah, and thanks for the – on my scale – overwhelming response; The Widget got mentioned on several bigger blogs, thanks for that.
First time I ever experienced such a ‘media response’

I released a new Version of TagBag, 1.02, which fixes a bug and adds a new feature. More info here:

http://www.terhech.de/tag

Here it comes. My first Dashboard-Widget! It’s called ‘TAGBAG’ and
serves the purpose to give a brief overview over which tags you used so
far. This is mostly only usefull to those who extensively use the
Spotlight-Comment feature for tagging files into different categories. I created a page to explain that concept and offer my widget for download.
Check here.

http://www.terhech.de/tag

(The Site’s really ugly in Internet Explorer, I don’t have the time currently to debug for that piece o junk.)

//enjoy!