Last week I got a 10.5” iPad Pro. I have had an iPad ever since the original release, but I have to confess to mainly using it for content consumption rather than creation. Since I am usually close to a Mac anyway, there didn’t seem a lot of point. But now that iOS 11 is really addressing the issue of making the iPad a “pro” device, I decided to give it a try.

jsonfeed.org has announced a new format for web site feeds, designed as an alternative to RSS. TrozWare has had an XML RSS feed for years, but I don’t think anyone ever uses it (I certainly don’t), so today I have replaced it with a JSON feed, which you can access through the button at the top of every page.

I use my iPad to play games as a form of relaxation. Nearly all the games I play are puzzle apps with levels that can be played in a few minutes. Nearly all of them are free to install. So how do they make money? Now I would be the last person you should consult about marketing but it has always seemed to me that the best way to market your product is to convince people that it offers something they want so that they are prepared to pay for it.

I gave a Masterclass on Swift at the NCSS Summer School 2017 in Sydney on 8th January 2017. This post contains useful links for use during and after my class.

I am looking for beta testers for my latest Mac app: Work. Work is a project organizer app for developers, designers, students or any professional who works with multiple projects involving files & folders, web pages, email addresses and lists of tasks. Click the link above for more information and help for getting started. Work requires macOS 10.12 or OS X 10.11. If you would like to test this app, please contact me, giving details of your Mac and operating system.

A quick update to Man Reader to version 1.8 is now available through the Mac App Store. The main reason for this version was that Man Reader was not previously detecting man pages installed by third-party IDEs in the Applications folder. There was also an issue with Man Reader failing to display the text of the previously selected man page on app launch. More complete search for man pages, including in third-party IDEs.

Man Reader has just been updated to version 1.7 and is available through the Mac App Store. The main reason for this update was to make the app work well with macOS Sierra, as I found that version 1.6 was sometimes crashing on launch. While doing this, the update was rejected by the App Store reviewers because it crashed on OS X 10.10. Since I no longer have a Mac running 10.

I have recently started what I hope will be a weekly podcast with my friend and colleague, Jerry Daniels. Each podcast will be about 30 minutes in length. We will discuss Macs, iPhones, iPads, macOS, iOS, programming and anything tech-related that we find interesting. I hope you will find it entertaining and informative, so please join us. We are using ZCast which has an iPhone app that makes it super easy to get together and record our chats.

Dice Pass 1.1 is now available from the Mac App Store. What does Dice Pass do? # Dice Pass is a utility to app to generate random passphrases based on the Diceware system. Diceware uses a table of pre-defined words, each assigned a 5 digit code number containing the digits 1 to 6. The official way to generate a phrase is to roll 5 dice for each word you want in your passphrase and then consult the words table to find the matching word.

Icon Builder is a Mac app that takes a single image file and creates all the different image sizes that you need to make a set of icons for your app: Mac, iPhone, iPad, iOS Universal or Apple Watch. Version 4, released 16 September 2016 is available through the Mac App Store. What’s New in Version 4: # Added support for iMessage apps and Sticker Pack apps. Added support for creating Mac .