This is a weekend for long-awaited software updates. Not a day after new versions of Cuckoo and LCD Scrub appeared, a bugfix update to our TapeDeck audio recorder is now available for download.

Here’s what’s new in version 1.1.1:

• Fixed a crash that occurred when playing back corrupt audio files. Now the tape will simply appear to stop playing earlier than expected.
• Copies .m4a tapes directly into the library, rather than sending them through the QuickTime importer engine
• Drawing performance improved slightly
• Set the file’s extension automatically according to the user’s currently selected QuickTime export component.

The day after Thanksgiving, November 28, has been declared National Day of Listening by the StoryCorps oral history project and NPR (among others). The idea: With family in town, bellies full, and (hopefully) a little time off work, we might all take an hour to sit down and tell each other stories. An essential part of the NDoL is to record those stories, because they probably don’t already exist on blogs or email or Twitter—particularly if the storyteller isn’t of the Internet generation.

We realized this is a perfect use for TapeDeck, our fast, fun, and foolproof audio recording software for Mac OS X. So this week we’re taking 20% off the price of TapeDeck with the hope that you’ll use it to capture your family’s stories this Friday. Just download TapeDeck and press the big red REC button to get started. By purchasing a registration you’ll remove TapeDeck’s time limits (so you can record for as long as you like); do so before Sunday, November 30 to get the discounted price.

We sincerely hope this helps you and your family start and preserve your own oral traditions. Happy Thanksgiving!   —Dan & Chris

New releases: TapeDeck and Pyrothèque

TapeDeck, my exciting joint project with Chris Liscio of SuperMegaUltraGroovy, has made it all the way up to version 1.0.3 without so much as a mention over here on toastup!. The latest release fixes a few more quirks that we’ve discovered in the weeks since TapeDeck’s big introduction last month.

More recently, Pyrothèque got a long-overdue update. Version 1.1.1 incorporates almost a year’s worth of minor bug fixes, including an adjustment to the rocket launcher to better position explosions on monitors of odd sizes and proportions. (That means the fireworks ought to show up properly now, Mister Thirty Inch Cinema Display.)

Web site fixes

One of Google’s robot army helpfully informed me last month that spammers had exploited a hole in the version of WordPress used here at toastup!—resulting in lots of invisible nasty spam keywords that got the blog evicted from Google’s index. The hole’s now been patched, so (hopefully) we’ll re-appear in your search results in the near future. I’ve also gone through and fixed up earlier blog posts that were mangled by the update, so you should be able to see images again in the popular LCD Scrub article, among others.

And, finally—

Expect updates to be light for several months, as we’re expecting a rather large new “version” here at toastycode HQ in the next few weeks. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch (using the email link below, or in your toastycode software product) if you have questions or find any bugs—but also please understand if my replies are somewhat in arrears.