Simon version 2.4 is now in general release!

This update has a focus on service and notifier enhancements, though it also has a number of other improvements. On the service front, it adds a fantastic new Twitter plug-in, enabling you to monitor a number of aspects of the great Twitter service. You can have Simon watch Twitter updates, direct messages, friends, followers, and more for changes and/or failures. For example, have Simon notify you when someone follows or un-follows you, or someone posts an update (even if you don't follow them), among other possibilities.

The Twitter plug-in also works as a notifier. You can use this to send updates or direct messages to yourself or others via the popular Twitter service when a test has an event. View Simon notifications anywhere you can see tweets! See my Simon Twitter page.

Another handy new notifier plug-in is the Calendar one. This enables you to add events or tasks to iCal, or events to Google Calendar. Failure and recovery events even cover the actual downtime range. This plug-in is only available when Simon is running under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.

The Twitter and Calendar plug-ins were kindly written by Daniel Ellis. Thank you for your efforts!

The existing Port plug-in has had some bug fixes, plus has been extended to work as a notifier. So you can now create port sessions as notifications: have Simon open a connection to a server on a specific port, and send it commands to perform some action. Like the existing Script notifier, this opens up infinite possibilities!

Version 2.4 also bundles several services and notifiers that were only available as separate downloads on the Simon Extras page before, including the Incoming Mail (POP) via SSL, Outgoing Mail (SMTP) via SSL, Mount Volume, Network Time (NTP), Port Available, SNMP Status, and TCP Port Scanner services, and the APC Masterswitch and Growl Change notifiers.

It also includes an iPhone report template, kindly created by Joe Savelberg. This is a simple iPhone web app to allow browsing the Simon monitoring from your iPhone or iPod touch. See a live demo.

But wait, there's more! This release also enhances other existing plug-ins to work better with the Smart Change Detection and Preview features, adds several handy service and notifier variables, and fixes several bugs.

Finally, it also adds a new preference, allowing simplified status icons, by popular request. Normally, Simon displays a green upwards triangle icon when there is a new change, and the green slowly fades to grey as time goes by. Similarly, it shows a red downwards triangle for a failure, which changes to an orange upwards triangle when it recovers, and that fades over time. With this preference, you can choose to have it simply use red for a failure, bright green for a new change, and a lighter green for success (older change or recovery).

Read the release notes for full details.

Simon 2.4 is a free update for licensed Simon 2 customers.

Download now!

Caboodle version 1.1.4 is now available.

This release includes some important bug fixes and improvements:

• The state of the Check Spelling While Typing menu item is now remembered across launches, so you can turn it off if you don't want it.
• Fixed a bug where new child entries might not inherit a newly added icon or custom fields.
• Fixed a bug with exporting, where a "/" in an entry Subject could cause the export to not work as expected.
• Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
• Switched the distribution method to ZIP archives instead of disk images, as it's simpler for everyone. Feedback welcome!

Download now!

Another day, another beta release! Simon version 2.4b3 is now available. Unless any issues are reported, this will be the last beta for version 2.4:

• Added a preference to use simplified status triangles, by popular request. Normally, Simon displays a green upwards triangle icon when there is a new change, and the green slowly fades to grey as time goes by. Similarly, it shows a red downwards triangle for a failure, which changes to an orange upwards triangle when it recovers, and that fades over time. With this preference enabled, it uses red for a failure, bright green for a new change, and a lighter green for success (older change or recovery).
• Fixed a long-standing issue with the Port plug-in's helper, where it could get impatient while receiving text from a slow server. It now waits for a little while if it doesn't receive what it wants, in case the desired text is on its way.
• Fixed a cosmetic issue with paused tests. If a test was paused for a specified time interval, and it was due to resume while Simon wasn't running, the status icon was being left in the paused state until the test was next checked. It's now set appropriately.
• Fixed a crasher when previewing a Port-based test. (beta fix)

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Simon version 2.4b2 is now available:

• Extended the Port service plug-in to operate as a notifier plug-in too. It is the same as for services, but includes fields for the domain, username and password.
• The Ping service plug-in now supports the Smart Change Detection and Preview features. So you can now look for changes in parts of the ping output, if desired, and preview the ping session to see what is received.
• The Application service plug-in also now supports the Preview function.
• The Preview window for non-web services now displays the source text while performing the check, instead of waiting till done, so you can see what it's doing.
• Fixed a bug with the Speech notifier plug-in, where the volume slider was only accepting zero and full volumes.
• Now uses plurals for Checks and Failures units except for values of exactly 1.0. (beta change)
• Updated the French and German localizations.

Download now!

The first beta release of Simon version 2.4 is now available.

This release adds two major plug-ins, written by Daniel Ellis:

• Calendar, a notifier plug-in, which enables you to add events or tasks to iCal, or events to Google Calendar. Failure and recovery events even cover the actual downtime range. This plug-in is only available when Simon is running under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.
• Twitter, a service plug-in, that enables you to monitor Twitter updates, direct messages, friends, followers, and more for changes and/or failures. For example, have Simon notify you when someone follows or un-follows you, or someone posts an update (even if you don't follow them), among other possibilities.
• Twitter is also available as a notifier plug-in; use it to send updates or direct messages to yourself or others via the popular Twitter service. View Simon notifications anywhere you can see tweets -- on the web, in Twitterrific, or on your cellphone.

Version 2.4b1 also bundles several services and notifiers that were previously only available via the Simon Extras page, including:

• Incoming Mail (POP) via SSL
• Outgoing Mail (SMTP) via SSL
• Mount Volume
• Network Time (NTP)
• Port Available
• SNMP Status
• TCP Port Scanner
• APC Masterswitch
• Growl Change

And unlike previous versions, people already using Simon will now automatically get these additions, unless you've already added them.

A couple of report templates from the Extras page are now also bundled: the iPhone and Variable Test templates, kindly created by Joe Savelberg. The iPhone template is a simple iPhone web app to allow browsing the Simon monitoring from your iPhone or iPod touch. The Variable Test template shows all of the report variables and what they output, to assist in creating or customizing templates.

The test scheduler was also updated, to better queue the checks. When multiple tests are to be checked at once, they are added to a queue, and checked at the interval specified in the Advanced preferences (one per second by default — set to zero to always check immediately). This helps spread out the load, and provides more accurate results. The Next Check column in the tests table shows "queued manually" when multiple tests are queued via a Check Now command, or "queued" and a time interval if queued automatically when due.

A bunch of new service and notifier variables were also added. Plus several other improvements. See the release notes for the full list of changes.

Download version 2.4b1 now! This is a free update for licensed Simon 2 customers. It is a beta release, so please provide feedback if you find any issues, or have any suggestions for improvements.

Narrator version 2.0.1 is now available. This release fixes one important bug, that prevented the rate and pitch controls from working properly in some situations.

I've also put together a new screencast on Narrator, showing what was discussed in my previous blog post: using Narrator to read a web interview in multiple voices, including exporting it to iTunes.

Interestingly, I used Narrator to narrate the Narrator screencast... very meta of me. :)

Check it out:

Download Narrator now!

On Monday I did a major upgrade of Dejal Narrator, my app to read out stories in multiple voices, to version 2.0. I usually send out press releases when I do major and minor product releases, but have previously just written and sent the releases myself, using a collection of email addresses I've gathered over the years.

But for this release, I decided to try something different. I had tried free distributions via prMac.com in the past, often while doing my own releases too. It seemed like a good service, but the three-day delay for free releases lacked the immediacy I wanted. So this time I put it to a real test: I used their Writing Service to craft a press release using their experience and skills to get the message across, and paid for the Extended Distribution to get the release out immediately and to a wider audience.

So how'd it work for me? Ray from prMac was prompt and friendly, quickly crafting a release that captured the essence of the product. There was opportunity to review and tweak the wording, but very few changes were needed. Then on release day, I submitted it for posting, which was done soon afterwards. I quickly noticed lots of sites mentioning Narrator, that normally don't pick up my press releases (such as Macworld). The prMac service definitely has a much wider range of publishers than my self-created list.

I'm not sure if it's related or not, but I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the Apple Downloads software listing site selected Narrator as a "Staff Pick"... not only showing it as the "Featured Download" on the Home & Learning category page, but as the "Featured Download" at the top of the All Categories page, for a couple of days (it's been bumped now, though). Quite the honor! I'm willing to give prMac the credit for gaining Apple's attention like that. You can't buy publicity like such a prominent spot on Apple's site, but for a few dollars you can buy an excellent press release distribution. I plan on using prMac again for future releases.

Narrator version 2.0 is now in general release!

Use Narrator to read out a play or story with different voices for each of the parts. It uses speech synthesis to read out marked passages using specified voice attributes. You can choose different voices, rates, pitches, inflections, and volumes for each character in the story. The words are highlighted on-screen, and there are also a couple of silent read-along options for stage directions, or for you to read out your own parts.

Narrator 2 is a major upgrade, a complete rewrite. It requires Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" as it uses the latest technologies. Version 1.1.4 will remain available for people who aren't ready for Leopard.

This upgrade includes a much-requested feature: the ability to export the speech to an AAC sound file, or export directly to iTunes. This is great for listening to stories on an iPod or iPhone, or directly in iTunes. Make your own audiobooks! The tracks can be bookmarkable, too, keeping track of where you're up to when listening to them.

Narrator 2 also has several other enhancements, including preferences to substitute words to fine-tune the pronunciation, the ability to organize your work into multiple chapters, a fancy new look consistent with other Leopard apps, Spotlight and Quick Look support, various text features like tables, links, lists, spelling and grammar checking, and more. It is also localized for English, German and French, and is a Universal Binary, to run natively on Intel and PowerPC machines. See the release notes for details of the enhancements in this version.

This is a paid upgrade (just $9) for existing customers. But I'm offering a generous free upgrade period: everyone who purchased Narrator since October 1, 2007 is eligible for a free upgrade. If you qualify, just contact me to get your upgrade license.

You can see Narrator in action without even downloading it: check out this video, if you haven't seen it before:

Here's a feature graphic for Narrator 2.0, as currently seen on the Dejal home page:

Download Narrator 2 now!

Narrator 2.0b5 is now available.

Well, remember how I talked about the only reason for another beta would be important bugs? It turns out that the previous beta had a doozy: the help book wasn't included correctly! Oops. Apparently a last-minute change to it broke it.

So, here's another beta, that fixes that, plus fixes an issue opening the Welcome document for non-English localizations.

Sorry for the hassle, if you downloaded 2.0b4! You can download Narrator again to fix those issues. (Of course, if you don't care about the help book, you could skip this beta release.)

As always, I welcome feedback, if you find any other issues.

Narrator version 2.0b4 is now available. Unless any important bugs come up, I expect this to be the last beta release of version 2.0.

This update is mainly about some final tidying up before the general release. One big change is that the user guide is now available using Apple Help, so you can read about Narrator without needing to use a web browser. I've long resisted Apple Help, and still don't particularly like it, but I think it's important to embrace the standards. People expect Apple Help, so now I provide it. You can read the same help online via the new Support page, too, if you prefer. Many thanks to my German localizer, Ulf Dunkel, for his help in converting and updating the old User Guide as Apple Help.

Another change in this beta is the addition of an extra page to the Narrator Assistant, that appears after entering the license details. It includes buttons to post reviews to VersionTracker, MacUpdate and iusethis. These were also added to the Help menu, along with the Narrator Voice Talent page (where you can get more voices). The product listing sites thing is an experiment, to see if that helps spread the word about Narrator. Reviews on these sites really does help encourage others to try the app, so I very much appreciate them. If you like Narrator, please tell others on such sites, your own blog, friends, family, user groups, etc. And of course if there's something you don't like, or you have ideas for improvements, I'm always interested — head over to the Narrator Forum.

Sometimes people go through the entire trial period and never get around to buying. Now, Narrator offers TrialPay as an option for such people, so they can get Narrator at no cost by trying or buying a third-party service, that they would probably use anyway. You don't have to wait for the end of the trial, though; you can choose this at any time via the Dejal site.

You may also notice that the Narrator product pages have also been updated with more descriptive text and images, plus a new Narrator Support page has been added. It summarizes all of the support resources in one place, so should be quite helpful. I'll revise other products' pages to include a Support page as I update them.

Download Narrator now!