It’s been ages since the last release, but we have been hard at work on Xbox Live Friends 4.

This version is miles better than any of the previous versions, and miles better than anything else like it on the Mac.

Head over to the Xbox Live Friends site and check out screenshots, screencasts, and then download it!

Bonus: Since Xbox Live Friends now supports Growl, we’ve made an Xbox 360-themed Growl Style which you can download here.

Just a quick update on Xbox Live Friends: it still exists, and I’m working on it when I can. To prove it, here is a shot of the new Gamer Info window. However, we’re a one-man team over here so it’s a little tough to get things done.

All that needs to happen is to fix some bugs and then it should be ready. However, these are tricky bugs that will probably take a little time to solve.

Massive apologies about the delay, but the new version should be pretty cool.

In the interim, a brainstorming session about which games have online stats that could be added to XLF would be interesting. Halo 3 is the only one I can think of. (Rock Band and GTAIV both have websites that do not work for screen-scraping, which is unfortunate).

Hot of the heels of the previous release, Harmonic has been updated to version 2.3. Here’s what’s new:

• New, more compact, design for the options toolbar
• “Clear Lyrics” button now works correctly
• Additional international support for artists and titles with special characters in the name, like Mötorhead

Harmonic 2.3

After the jump, there’s a story! A boring story! For developers! Read the rest of this entry »

Harmonic has been updated to version 2.2.1. This is an extremely minor release and the only change is to simply report “Lyrics Not Found” when LyricWiki spits out its terrible errors like it has been prone to lately.

This should resolve the “Host ‘pedlfaster.pedlr.com’ is blocked because of many connection errors” issue.

Harmonic 2.2.1

You may have noticed that Harmonic recently hasn’t been able to find any new lyrics. This is because of an issue with LyricWiki, whose API, has stopped returning lyrics correctly. We’re hoping this will be fixed soon, and the next version of Harmonic will include a few backup lyrics sites in case of an issue with LyricWiki. We are, however, still looking for good lyrics websites to leverage in Harmonic besides LyricWiki. If anybody has any suggestions, we’d love to hear about them in the comments. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Edit (March 16): LyricWiki is operational again!

It’s been a couple years since Symphonic received an update. The winds, they are a-changin’.

This is quick maintenance update to Symphonic. Here’s what’s new:

• New (and working) update system. It’s now much more obvious when there is an update.
• Links to user manual fixed
• Cleaned up some code

Head on over to the Symphonic page to download it.

It’s only been a day or so since the last update, but we thought we should keep on a roll.

So, welcome to Harmonic 2.2. Here’s what’s new:

• New colors: indigo and pink
• Looks nicer when the lyrics are set to “Instrumental”
• Fixed issue where preferences button was hidden on some color schemes
• Preferences button is now on the left
• More reliably finds lyrics under alternate names and through LyricWiki redirects
• Fixed an issue with ColorSync that could cause Harmonic to look funny on some monitor setups
• Made the “Update Available” banner more obviously clickable
• Tweaked preferences layout

Please download the new version and enjoy!

Harmonic has been broken for a while, but it’s finally fixed with version 2.1.1!

In case you’re wondering why the odd number leap, version 2.1 came out last night, but there was an issue with Tiger compatibility, but that’s been fixed.

This version is fully compatible with the latest versions of Tiger and Leopard.

We’ve just upgraded the website to be powered by WordPress, instead of the unholy combination of Blogger and static pages of yesteryear.

So please, enjoy the new digs, and leave comments like no other!

It seems like some people have been having trouble unzipping applications they’ve downloaded from Mindquirk.

Our apps and widgets are all zipped with Mac OS X’s built-in unzipper. For some reason, this creates issues with old programs like StuffIt Expander.

If you’re having trouble unzipping, control+click the zip file and open it with “Archive Utility” (10.5 Leopard) or “BOMArchiveHelper” (10.4 Tiger). I also suggest you set all your zip files to open with these built-in apps, as they are simple and fast.