A few people have been hurrying to get Timezones before I change the page - not to worry, I have extended it a few days to let the sales cool down a bit and then I’ll start charging the new amount of money for the download. Timezones 1.5 is coming fast, and it’s going to be set at this standard price because of the new functionality. I think all users will be glad to see a free update and the opportunity to buy new themes with each their own functions.

News has really been on a roll lately. With the iPhone ads airing (hey, I might not put it into the blog that much, but man, I’d love to get one of those, I’m a human / geek too you know) and the WWDC a week away, we’re in for a very exciting time. I’ve seen discussion heat up around the topic of a new look for the GUI in OS X 10.5 Leopard. Speculation? Sure, but it’s not like the iPhone has all the normal aqua widgets. We’ve seen a very interesting slider that has a new ’style’ of metal. Loss of plastic gloss, anyone?

Wow, Apple’s really got sophisticated with this new style they’ve got going on. I mean, we’ve all seen the filter bars of Mail and Transmission fame take over the iPhone UI, but this little detail is surprising. This could hint to new UI features we might see in the next week. Only Steve knows.

On a side note, I did want to bring it all a bit closer to the average Mac user, so here’s a little screenshot of what’s been lying around my disk for a while but didn’t seem to get finished.

It’s a makeover kit for VLC. Not just any makeover kit, a complete interface makeover kit with iPhone widgets. Nice, isn’t it? Perhaps I’ll finish it some day.


You will have to pick around some of the Mac-graphics-specific details, but the general math is the same. Note that my code produces final rgb values in the range [0-65535], not [0-1] or [0-255]. Adjust to your requirements. Sorry for the lack of commenting.



What does this do? Well, it essentially reverses everything iTunes does when it stores images on your iPod in the opaque ithmb format. This snippet of code ‘decodes’ the interlaced images of 720*480 (apparently, a TV format for the AV output), and there are a multitude of other sizes present in the files. What does this mean to me? Uh, I got to up the resolution of Timezones to let you be able to check it out in high resolution on a TV. You want that, right?

Now, actually, what I am going to do is reverse the coding of the tiniest thumbnail graphics - the one the iPod displays when you enter your Photo Library. You’ll see why, but it’s obvious that it’s usable for many cool things. I might open-source it.

Since the people at Macthemes already had the love, I have to share it with all my subscribers too. Man, I hope you buy in the next week, because you’ll get a beta invite for this;

Yeah, we’ve come a long way.

Here is a little preview of the 3d functionality (read: eye candy) of Timezones 1.5, in production and slated for June. All buyers reading this know that they are eligible for the beta and will all get the basic upgrade for free. Of course, there will be extra content for the willing. Extra themes, alternate layouts…

So stay tuned, more sneak peeks soon.

Edit: Now with actual live demo.

You really, really want to use this yourself to appreciate it as much. It’s totally awesome.

Timezones 1.1, by the way, will feature the disk image art you’ve all missed (I was doing it erroneously so you guys missed some nice, nice graphics. Ah well, coming up later), some more solid icons, extra timezones (because, unlike many people think, there aren’t just 24 time zones) and the themes are surely something to look forward to. It’s price tag will also see an ‘update’ - we are going from three to four dollars per personalized copy.

Regarding the website, before I am launching Main, I want to appeal to the people buying, so I got that online as a priority. Take a look at the elegant new ‘buying’ page;

I look forward to releasing Cocoia Main and the work I did with various developers on icons and interfaces. My own work too, of course, and everything I wanted to share with the world for a long time. It’s going to be an exciting time.

Very cool. I’ll update the website soon, with all these honorary mentions. Keep providing input via MacUpdate, and iusethis (I love this site) and here, of course.