Relationship Completer v1.1.0 Released

I am pleased to announce that Relationship Completer v1.1.0 has been released.

The changes made in this latest version are:

• Improved name matching algorithm
  Now supports matching names based on a single name
  Now supports matching names that contain prefixes and/or suffixes
• Now Checks for existing relationship before adding a duplicate entry
• Added support for Mac OS X 10.3.9+
• Fixed various crashes and memory leaks
• Added German translation (thanks to Dr. Uwe Werner)

Relationship Completer Icon Design

I’ve started designing possible icons for Relationship Completer. I know an Address Book plug-in doesn’t exactly need an icon but I enjoy messing around with graphic design from time to time. Here are a few of the front runners:

At the moment they all look a little too back-and-white or bland for my taste. I’m sure I’ll come up with something I find suitable soon. Any comments would be appreciated.

For those of you who are interested, I used the open-source vector graphics editor Inkscape to create these icons. Although the UI is very clunky (and doesn’t fit well in Mac OS X) it is still a great tool for creating simple vector icons like these. I’ve never used any of the commercial editors out there so I have nothing to compare it with but it seems to fill my needs without any problems.

Adding Localization to Relationship Completer

I spent a fair amount of time today trying to figure out how to add multi-langauge support to my Address Book plug-in Relationship Completer. This adventure was started when a few users requested a German version of the plug-in. After reading Apple’s documentation on the matter it seemed like a fairly easy task. My first try, however, didn’t work. Either did my second, third, or fourth.

Install Debian Linux on Buffalo LinkStation Pro NAS Device

Today my Buffalo LinkStation Pro ™ arrived. The first thing I did after opening up the box was install Debian on it. This was a pretty straightforward experience thanks to the guys at the LinkStationWiki. I followed the instructions here and didn’t have any problems at all.

Relationship Completer v1.0.0 Released

This Address Book plugin was inspired by my previous rant. It is the first of hopefully many plugins and scripts to realize my vision (and make Address Book more useful).

Let’s say you have the two Address Book entries: “John Doe” and “Jane Doe”. If John and Jane are married, you may set the appropriate “Related Name” fields in Address Book to denote this fact. To completely realize the relationship you will need to add a spouse relationship to both John and Jane’s entry – each pointing to the other. This violates my first law of data entry duplication: don’t do it.

That’s where Relationship Completer comes in. It will add a new menu item for “Related Names” that allows you to automatically complete the relationship by creating the complementary related name entry. Now all you need to do is create one of the spouse entries and have the other one created automatically.

You can find more information and download Relationship Completer from the Software page.

CVS Dependency

When my work’s CVS server went down earlier this week (due to a hardware failure) I quickly learned how dependent on CVS I really am. This is not a bad thing; in fact I think it’s a Good Thing ™. The server was down for less than 24 hours but I was definitely going through withdrawals.

I have officially added CVS (or whatever source control software I happen to be using) to my list of “things I can’t imagine living without”. This is an ever growing list which already contains: my car, my cell phone, my iPod, and my wife.

CVS related links:

• TortoiseCVS – my favorite Windows CVS client
• Pragmatic Version Control Using CVS – a good book on using and managing CVS
• Official CVS web page

Composite Entries in Address Book

One of the things I really dislike in life is duplication; duplication of data and duplication of effort. I find that it usually pays off in the long run to automate a task rather than justifying not to because the task is so simple/small. I’ve been known to utter the phrase “but what if there where one thousand of them” to coworkers more times than I am willing to admit. Recently I have been frustrated by the Mac Address Book application because is requires me to duplicate both data and effort to organize my contacts the way I would like.