Trash Talker for Windows Launches

June 29, 2018 Doc

I’ve finally managed to get a version of Trash Talker published in to the Microsoft Store. This was based on the old STP code, but I made a number of improvements that make the app much better.

This app is a remake of a remake. The original app be the classic Shit Talker, by Jaundice. I enjoyed Shit Talker as a kid. I used to it call my friends and annoy them. (Given I’m a youngest sibling, it has been my classic duty to find creative ways of annoying others.) Trash Talker is a modernization of Shit Talker that tries to be a little cleaner, but stays quite true to the original. I have a few plans for things I’d like to add to this app, so check back every so often for updates.

Check out Trash Talker on the Microsoft Store.

Also – Trash Talker for macOS has been out for a while now too, so macOS users can grab it from the App Store.

Using Apple Script to launch System Preferences in to highly specific location

October 21, 2017October 21, 2017 Doc

I’m working on my next update for my goofy little macOS application Trash Talker. This app heavily leverages macOS’s built-in Speech Synthesis engine.

I wanted to add some user-support to help them edit the available voices. I could have just written-out instructions, but reading is for the literate. It took me a while to find a method that I guess will be a good starting point, which is to invoke an Apple Script to direct System Preferences to the right location.

After some hours (I’ve never looked at Apple Script before), I cobbled-together a working solution:

iOS App: To Free, or not to Free, that is the question

September 14, 2017 Doc

One of my iOS apps is Search Site, is a little functional thing I made mainly to help familiarize myself with the full workflow of iOS app development. (IE, it’s a glorified Hello, World! app). It’s been released for free for a few months and has had very few downloads.

In the last month, it has suddenly started getting a relatively large amount of attention, specifically from Asia. I decided to try making it non-free, so I set it to the minimum possible paid value, $1CAD. After a week I decided to make it free again, for now.

See if you can tell when it wasn’t free:

My plan with it is to leave it free, but perhaps release an improved version that also has banner ads that can be paid to go away. For now, I’ll just enjoy that there’s a user-base growing for this cute little application.

Trash Talker for macOS

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 Doc

I’ve released my first application for the macOS App Store. It’s a rebrand of a remake I did years back. I added some small new features based on requests I’ve had from users of the earlier version.

A little over 8 years ago I posted Shit Talker Phoenix for Mac OS X here on dawning.ca for download. I eventually also made a Windows build. STP was an attempt to give myself a bit of a functional Hello World project and to resurrect the classic Shit Talker by Jaundice which had become so old it was no longer functional in most cases. After posting my remake here on my blog, I found it actually has something of a user base.

Lately I’ve wanted to get back more in to typical App development. I’ve been writing software for a while, but most of what I make is specialized stuff made for a small group of people. I wanted to branch-out and get more familiar with more broad stuff. So STP, now Trash Talker has been reused yet again as another kind of hello world. This time with formal distribution through the App Store as the chief goal. I spent about two full days updating the app and getting it submitted. I also went out of my way to maintain compatibility all the way back to OS X Snow Leopard. I don’t expect anyone to actually run it on SL though as I don’t think the App Store runs on it, anyway, Lion and onward definitely work.

Rules of Acquisition

February 14, 2017February 14, 2017 Doc

After getting an Apple Watch I decided to author an app for it. I was also re-watching Star Trek DS9 for the 50th time which means I kept hearing Quark (etc) recite the hilarious and disgusting Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. So I made it an app.