BeerAlchemy 1.0.3

Today we released a minor release to BeerAlchemy. The main point of this release was to change the program so that it didn't automatically install 'Smart Crash Reports'. There has recently been a lot of discussion about 'Smart Crash Reports' and it seemed to be the consensus that automatic installation was undesirable.

What is it? It's a program that intercepts the usual Mac OS crash reporter mechanism. The usual mechanism doesn't send crash reports to third-party software developers - only to Apple - and Apple doesn't pass them on. 'Smart Crash Reports' gives the user the chance to direct the crash reports to the developer as well as Apple. Obviously this gets bugs fixed quicker.

So what's the problem? Smart Crash Reports uses a mechanism called an input manager and is loaded everytime a Cocoa program loads. Some people are uncomfortable with this. Consequently we have taken the decision to issue an interim release of BeerAlchemy that doesn't install Smart Crash Reports.

If users would like to uninstall 'Smart Crash Reports', they can do this by dragging the 'Smart Crash Reports' folder from '~/Library/Input Managers' to the trash. You may also need to log out and back in again.

Belgium

Last weekend I took time off from tapping on my Powerbook to visit Belgium. I've been a few times before but this time we went to Ghent which is somewhere I've never been. Had some really nice beer but the highlight for me was (finally!) tracking down a bar with Westvleteren in stock. The 'Hopduvel' had the 8 and the 12 (not the 6). Both great beers but of the two I think I preferred the 8 as it seemed a little more balanced. I have now completed my set of Westvleteren beers having had the 6 in Antwerp last year.

If you're going to Ghent soon I can also recommend ''t Ketelje' (I think that's how it's spelt!) for food and also 'Max' in the main square makes a mean Gentse Stoverij (A beef stew cooked in Westmalle Dubbel).

The Intel Macs arrive

Well, as expected, Steve Jobs announced the first of the new Intel Macs today. The MacBook Pro looks very nice. I'd be interested - if I hadn't bought a new powerbook last year. Ah well, better to let the early adopters knock off the rough edges...

What does this mean for our applications? Whilst we do plan to release 'Universal Binary' versions of our applications, we are currently unable to do so because...

1) We use a third party library that isn't currently released as a universal binary
2) We don't have an Intel mac to test it on.

I expect the first problem to be rectified eventually (come on eSellerate!). As for the second issue...I was hoping an nice cheap intel mac mini would be announced today. Sadly not.

In the meantime, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in either app that will stop them running under Rosetta and neither is processor intensive so should run just fine (of course let us know if they don't).

Brewing by numbers

The next version of BeerAlchemy (1.1) is still some distance away but I can spill the beans on one feature that will be in the new version. It's a little thing but a few people have asked for it....

You can now enter grain bills by percentage.

So now if you want a recipe to 1.050 with 90% pale and 10% crystal you can do it easily. It's the way I build recipes so I can understand why people wanted it.

I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a while for it though as there's loads of other things to go into 1.1....

A new year...a new blog.

Happy New Year!

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone that's taken the time to download BeerAlchemy and give it a whirl. Thanks especially to those that have bought a licence even before the demo period expires. It's given me a lot of encouragement.

I'm already working on the next release and in future posts I'll let you know about some of the new features you'll be seeing.