Software Development on

Trash Talker for Windows Launches

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 07:45:50 +0000

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.

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

Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:00:28 +0000

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.

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

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 08:40:21 +0000

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.

Trash Talker for macOS

Thu, 23 Feb 2017 18:37:20 +0000

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.

Rules of Acquisition

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:53:18 +0000

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.

The process required that I also make an iOS app to deliver the Watch app with, so I made that too. It’s served as an education project and I just released my second version (4th revision overall). The exercise would have been stunted had I made it free, as paid apps require the developer to suffer through various tax and legal fuckery, which I have.