BravoBug News

So the BravoBug blog has been awfully quiet these past few months. But we are still around; in fact, the blog has been quiet because we have such a huge number of apps and updates in the works all at once. (I know, I know, it sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth!).

In the meantime, we just wanted to break the silence with a quick Thank You to everyone who has supported MiLife, Blackout, EasyBatch, Mega BrickBash 3000, and all our other shareware apps. Until we get our latest batch of updates released to the masses, don’t forget to stop by the main software page and scroll down to the Freeware section where you can grab a bunch of awesome freebie apps including MacTimer, TankBuddy, and BravoTunes!

Thank you for visiting!

Just wanted to post a quick Thank You to everyone who has supported BravoBug Software the past year and a half. BravoBug is coming up on its 2 year birthday in May, and its entire existence has only been possible because of you.

BravoBug has not been, since its start, a very ‘typical’ Mac software company, making some truly oddball apps (PocketLint?) and doing things from time to time a bit differently than the ‘other guys’. The fact that BravoBug has continued to grow despite very little mainstream acceptance or publicity from the major Mac media publications and websites, is a testament to the integrity and creative mindset of the Mac community.

So, thank you for your support. We will continue to improve our apps to be the best they can be, and we hope you’ll continue to find them useful and, most importantly, fun.

Here is a printable template which is helpful in designing and sketching out iPhone app user interfaces. Each page has 3 iPhone screens with a small grid (each square = 32 iPhone screen pixels), and a space for notes.

Click here to get the image in PNG format (or right-click and choose ‘Save As…). You can open it up directly in Photoshop and print onto a standard 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. The image has .5″ margins around all sides and should print well on any standard desktop printer.

Enjoy.

The blog’s been fairly quiet the past few weeks as there is a mountain of new updates in the works, for several of BravoBug’s apps. There’s also a new silly freeware app being developed which will likely be released soon (within a few days).

In the meantime I wanted to plug an awesome iPhone game. The creative guys over at Howling Moon Software released Twilight Golf a few months ago, and it is by far one of the coolest iPhone games I’ve yet to see. It features some really unique gameplay (thanks to a very realistic physics engine, Chipmunks 2D), wonderful graphics (check out the dynamic lighting!), and plenty of puzzling levels.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, stop by the app store and take a gander (or check out the lite version).

Oh, and be sure to check back soon for some new updates and apps from BravoBug, they’re on the way!

Visitors who have been checking out BravoBug.com since before our new website was thrown together might recognize the Brimstone game logo which has just recently popped up on our Software Page. You’ll find it next to the icon for our other new game MechMarine, another massive project which has been under construction for some time.

Although these two games are still in the works, we decided to throw up Coming Soon pages so we would have an official spot to put updates and news tidbits regarding these projects as they continue to come to fruition. As some of you may remember, Brimstone is a large fantasy role-playing game that follows in the tradition of Mac classics such as Realmz, and the Exile series. It is a modern RPG with a very old-school look and feel. MechMarine is a new Sci-Fi game with a unique mix of adventure, role-playing, and action/arcade elements and has been built with a custom game engine that provides realistic physics.

So if you haven’t already, swing by the MechMarine and Brimstone official game pages and add ‘em to your bookmarks. More info will be coming as these two games continue to be chipped away at.

Also, stay tuned for some very cool updates to several BravoBug apps including Blackout, MacTimer, MacMetronome, Lotus, and more!

Thanks for visiting.

Happy Holidays from BravoBug Software! BravoBug is currently cooking up some fun new updates to several of our apps (see the Coming Soon post below). These updates are expected to be released very soon, but in the meantime here’s a super-spooky, fun, and free MiLife Halloween Theme to get you in the festive spirit!

Click here to download the free theme. (It will open in a new browser tab. Choose Save from the File menu to save it to your Mac. Or right-click the link and choose Save Link As…)

Installing the Halloween theme to your copy of MiLife is easy:

1. Open up MiLife Edit
2. Choose Custom Image… from the Background Template pop-up menu
3. Select the downloaded Halloween theme image
4. Add stickers, if you want, and then click Save Theme…

Happy Holidays! Thanks for visiting and please check back soon for the upcoming releases to EasyBatch and others!

Here’s a cool ‘glitch’ you can have fun exploiting on your Mac, or the next time you’d like to play a harmless prank on a friend. We’re all familiar with Apple’s nifty genie minimizing effect, which you can watch in slow-motion by shift-clicking the Minimize window button. But did you know by force-quitting the dock process you can stop the animation midway and the window will get frozen in its wacky shape? And yet it’s still (mostly) functional.

Here’s how:

1. Open up Terminal.app (Applications/Utilities/Terminal).
2. Type:      killall Dock (but don’t press return yet!).
3. With the Terminal still the top app, shift-click the minimize button on another window, such as a Safari browser or a TextEdit document.
4. Before the window begins shrinking completely to the Dock, hit return to kill the Dock process.
5. Enjoy your new Mighty-Morphin Mac OS X Window

Original article at atzenbeck.de/research.

You may have noticed that BravoBug.com just got a major face lift. The new site is designed to be easier to use and navigate, with a cleaner style, and it should load much faster than the previous design.

As with any major change, however, there may be a few broken links here and there while I tidy up loose ends. So for the next day or so, please excuse my dust while I tweak everything into tip-top shape. I hope you’ll check back soon for some new app updates which are on the way.

Thank you for visiting!

This is a photo I took at the Japanese Zen Garden in Portland, Oregon. It’s contrasted next to (on the left) a modified version of the image in which blurring has been applied for a “tilt shift” effect, along with a few other minor adjustments such as saturation, etc.

This is one of those things that is spreading quickly across the net, I’m seeing this effect everywhere. And for good reason – it’s very cool! It’s a lot of fun to make your photos look like they were taken inside a miniature model! If you’d like to learn more about applying a “tilt-shift” to your photos, just do a quick Google search and you’ll find plenty of tutorials.