Brett Terpstra

Blogger

blog http://brettterpstra.com
twitter ttscoff

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

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 ...

0 Comments

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 ...

0 Comments

Mac 101: Using Keynote as Motion in a bind (Updated)

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 9th 2011 5:00AM)

Update: KeynoteUser.com notes that it's easy to export your Keynote animations with an alpha channel, making it much simpler to work with them in pro editing apps or in Motion. On this trip to WWDC I packed light. One backpack, a MacBook Air and a camera light. I haven't had my Air for very ...

0 Comments

Prototypes makes iPhone mockups a breeze

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 1st 2011 10:00AM)

This is a cool one, at least for iPhone app designers. Prototypes is a Mac app that lets you take those handcrafted mockups of iPhone screens and turn them into a clickable demo you can share with any iPhone or iPod touch user. Prototypes takes just about any image format, including straight ...

0 Comments

Code Pilot 2.0 with Xcode 4 compatibility

by Brett Terpstra (May 31st 2011 3:00AM)

Macoscope has released version 2.0 of its Xcode navigation plug-in, Code Pilot. Technically, it's still a beta -- judging from the 2.0b6 version number -- but it's been rock solid for me so far. This version brings Xcode 4 compatibility and a revamped interface. If you code and you haven't ...

0 Comments

Byword 1.2, now with Markdown support

by Brett Terpstra (May 23rd 2011 10:00AM)

Byword is a full-screen, "distraction-free" word processor that has an interesting twist: it focuses on just the text around your cursor (or even just the current line), dimming the rest of your composition so that even that can't distract you. Byword (and its predecessors) are based on the idea ...

0 Comments

New Core version of Curio in the Mac App Store

by Brett Terpstra (May 16th 2011 9:00AM)

We've mentioned the brainstorming, mind mapping, project managing notebook application Curio a few times before. The full version, Curio Professional, runs US$169.99, and the Standard version is $119.99, and both are well worth it in this blogger's opinion. Today, however, Curio announced a new ...

0 Comments

Rock the electronic with SynthTronica for iPad

by Brett Terpstra (May 16th 2011 6:00AM)

SynthTronica is a new synthesizer app for iPad that provides some seriously cool audio modeling features. If you're a musician looking for some new sounds or even a live-performance instrument, this is worth a look. Even for the hobbyist, this US$4.99 app is a great way to explore some musical ...

0 Comments

History 3D brings the Civil War to life

by Brett Terpstra (Apr 12th 2011 9:00AM)

Just in time for the anniversary of the Civil War, History 3D for iPad brings the past to life. If you have a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses (the red and blue kind) handy, it gets even better. There are two dozen pictures to view in black and white and anaglyph 3D. The 3D images were taken using ...

0 Comments

QuickCal for Mac: natural language events and todos for iCal

by Brett Terpstra (Mar 25th 2011 11:30AM)

QuickCal has been one of my favorite ways to add items to iCal. It started with a Dashboard widget that let me use natural language to add calendar events. I loved it (actually wrote about it back in '09). Then it became an iOS app, QuickCal Mobile, and I was able to add entries with blazing ...

0 Comments