Brett Terpstra

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Brett Terpstra has been tinkering with computers since he hooked his first cassette recorder up to a PC Jr. to back up his LOGO programs. A silicon journey through Commodores, Trash-80s, the Apple II alphabet and a plethora of PCs finally led him to embrace the Mac, and only the Mac.

He makes his living as a web developer and graphic designer, and spends the money he earns on indie software and as many peripherals as he can lay his hands on.

In what some would consider free time, he avidly pursues knowledge in the areas of design, programming, hardware hacking, personal productivity and other things that make him unpopular at parties. He does not enjoy long walks on the beach, or sleeping.

Brett Terpstra's Latest Posts

VoodooPad 5: wiki magic

by Brett Terpstra (Apr 26th 2012 10:00AM)

For those of us who nerd out about things like desktop wikis, VoodooPad 5 (from the creator of Acorn) is an exciting release. It brings new capabilities so powerful that they should come with a "for good, not evil" warning. If you're not familiar with VoodooPad, it's a desktop wiki with media ...

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Byword for iOS released

by Brett Terpstra (Mar 14th 2012 9:45AM)

Those who know me know that Byword has become my favorite writing tool. I've been keeping my mouth shut about this release during the beta testing period, but I'm really excited to announce it's arrival: Byword for iOS. The iOS version includes the Markdown-editing features that I love on the Mac, ...

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One Like Son produces entire album on an iPhone

by Brett Terpstra (Feb 13th 2012 8:00AM)

Powerpop band "One Like Son" has done something special. Using accessories like Peavey's AmpKit LiNK (TUAW review) and the GuitarJack from Sonoma Wireworks, they managed to produce an entire studio-quality album... on an iPhone. Daniel Codella of Sonoma Wireworks states that "One Like Son have ...

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Agile Partners rock GuitarToolkit 2.0

by Brett Terpstra (Dec 15th 2011 10:00AM)

Agile Partners (who've come up at TUAW a few times) have released GuitarToolkit 2.0, a major upgrade to the original app which adds extensive features and an iPad version. GuitarToolkit boasts a range of tools geared at guitar and bass players, but now includes enough flexibility to work with any ...

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Postbox 3 launches with more social, more integration

by Brett Terpstra (Nov 1st 2011 8:00PM)

We've tracked the progress of the Postbox email client for a while now, and it keeps getting better. Postbox -- an evolution of the Mozilla email client -- combines ease-of-use and email power tools to create a full-featured client with great polish. Version 3.0 brings with it not only new ...

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Students and iPads: ACU study shows positive results

by Brett Terpstra (Oct 3rd 2011 12:00PM)

The first time I mentioned Abilene Christian University, it was because it was handing out iPhones to students. The next time was a year later when I followed up with an interview about the school's methods and research findings. Its approach to incorporating technology into education was ...

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TextMate 2 alpha before Christmas?

by Brett Terpstra (Sep 26th 2011 1:00PM)

According to a blog post at MacroMates this morning, an alpha version of TextMate 2 will be available by December 25th. As a longtime TextMate fan(atic), this news fills me with cheer usually reserved for closer to that date. A very merry Christmas, indeed. TextMate is an extensible text editor ...

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Yoink takes the drag out of file dragging

by Brett Terpstra (Sep 1st 2011 9:00AM)

Lion users, have you ever tried to drag a file between full-screen apps? It's a bear to do, especially with a trackpad. Matthias Gansrigler at Eternal Storms (no stranger to TUAW) has solved this problem with an app called Yoink. Yoink simply watches for you to start dragging a file and when ...

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Clarify brings focus to your screen-based documentation

by Brett Terpstra (Aug 1st 2011 11:00AM)

Clarify -- now in Public Beta -- is Mango Learning System's new product for communicating screen-based instructions quickly and easily. It's something like a successor to ScreenSteps (which history will show I'm a big fan of), but in the words of developer Greg Devore, "while ScreenSteps was ...

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Paragraft gets iOS Markdown editing right

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 17th 2011 6:00AM)

I just discovered Paragraft, a text editor for iPad and iPhone that boasts some ingenious Markdown features (if I've lost you already, check out the TUAW Markdown Primer for a crash course). The good parts of Paragraft blew me away enough that I'm able to overlook an ugly icon and some bad ...

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