Elephant Back Ride

HoudahGeo 3.0 - All new and shiny

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:09:20 +0100

Big news: HoudahGeo has reached 3.0!

HoudahGeo 3.0 is a complete rewrite with a focus on ease of use and performance.

HoudahGeo now presents itself with an all-in-one-window interface. The window has three 3 states: load, process and output. At each stage only the currently required elements are shown. While loading images and track logs into the project, a media browser gives you access to your iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom libraries. During the process stage coordinates and metadata are added to images. For this HoudahGeo shows a map and an inspector pane next to the list of images. Once you are ready to output the newly created metadata, only toolbar buttons for export and publishing operations are shown.

HoudahGeo 3.0 also brings new features. Probably the most welcome addition is the support for many more GPS devices. This was made possible by several excellent open source projects: GPSBabel, igotu2gpx, iTU4l/sr2x and rgm3800.py.

The new offline reverse geocoding feature lets you perform reverse geocoding at top speed without requiring an Internet connection.

Type2Phone

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:08:11 +0100

Have you met Type2Phone?

Type2Phone does exactly what its name implies: you type (or paste) on your Mac and text appears on your iPhone / iPad.

More precisely, Type2Phone emulates a Bluetooth keyboard to which your iPhone 3GS or later can connect. iOS 3.2 required.

Start typing and your key presses are forwarded to your iPhone. Paste text and the iPhone receives the key pressed to input that text.

All this comes in handy to:

★ Type SMS text messages

★ Reply to emails on accounts mapped only on your iPhone

★ Send Tweets and update Facebook status from the office Mac

Type2Phone 1.2 supports the following keyboard layouts:

★ U.S American

★ Belgian

★ British

★ Canadian

★ Dutch

★ Dvorak

★ French

★ German

★ Hungarian

★ Italian

★ Japanese

★ Norwegian

★ Portuguese

★ Serbian

★ Slovenian

★ Swedish

★ Swiss-French

★ Swiss-German

Mac SuperBundle

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:31:39 +0200

HoudahSpot is currently available as part of the Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle.

The bundle is priced at $49 and includes $365 worth of Mac software:

★ Camtasia for Mac - $149

★ Fantastical - $19.99

★ CleanMyMac - $29.95

★ DiscLabel - $35.95

★ HoudahSpot - $30

★ MacHider - $19.95

★ Ensoul - $9.99

★ Audio Converter Pro - $35.95

★ Font Explosion Volume I - $19.99

All apps in the Mac SuperBundle are OS X Lion compatible.

Tembo localized in French, German and Japanese

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:06:46 +0200

We have recently released Tembo 1.6 with French, German and Japanese localizations. This week's release of Tembo 1.6.1 irons out a few kinks and even adds a new feature.

You may now drag and drop a folder onto the main sidebar to easily set the search scope.

Other recent improvements include:

★ Option to extend an active search to all groups

★ Ability to rename search scopes

★ Result count in group headers

★ Display of begin dates for events registered with iCal

★ Option to use larger font size

★ Option to quit on close of last window

★ Advanced option to exclude files by type

★ AppleScript API to open search to a given folder

Tembo 1.6.1 is available both in the Houdah Software store and on the Mac App Store.

Launch Tembo using AppleScript

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:13:13 +0200

Tembo implements a service to create a new search window. This makes it easy to start a Tembo search upon a single keystroke. Just follow the instructions from the Tembo > Preferences > Shortcuts to the Keyboard System Preferences Pane. There you may assign a hotkey to the "Search in Tembo" service.

If you want more flexibility, you may use AppleScript to launch Tembo:

1. Download the LaunchTembo script

2. Move the script to ~/Library/Scripts/

If you wish to assign a hotkey to the script:

3. Download and install FastScripts (free for up to 10 keyboard shortcuts)

4. Set your hotkey in FastScripts

MacTech / TUAW Interview

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 20:58:57 +0200

While in San Francisco, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at Apple's WWDC 2011 about the keynote and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers.

In t his video Brett Terpstra interviews Pierre Bernard of Houdah Software. Pierre reveals that future plans for Tembo include localizations in German, French and Japanese.

Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here.

Alain Le Gallou reviews Tembo

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:43:21 +0200

Alain Le Gallou has written an review of Tembo. His in-depth article - written in French - includes a walkthrough of some of Tembo's features and set-up options.

He concludes:

Being based on the Spotlight engine, Tembo enjoys the same performance as Spotlight. It adds the ergonomic quality upon which the reputation of the Macintosh was built, but which Apple forgot to implement for Spotlight.

Tembo: The Elephant is Back

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:56:26 +0100

By popular demand, the elephant icon will return in Tembo 1.4. He brings a magnifying glass and is cuter than ever.

Tembo 1.4 will itself bring quite a few enhancements.

Group headers will show result counts.

There will be an option for advanced users to exclude certain file types.

And much more…

Tembo 1.3 - A major update

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:27:40 +0100

Yesterday, we released Tembo 1.3. This is the biggest "dot" update in the history of Houdah Software.

The biggest challenge of Tembo is too keep the interface lean and simple all the while adding new features. Tembo 1.3 responds to most of the feature requests we heard since first releasing Tembo. Yet on the surface, the UI remains unaltered.

Improvements include:

★ Option to specify the folder to search

★ Support of quotes to specify a phrase to search for

★ Display of total sizes for folders

★ Display of begin dates for events registered with iCal

★ Wildcard support to filters in Messages & Bookmarks

★ AppleScript access to search results

★ Mac OS X Service to search a selected folder

★ Bug fixes

Tembo 1.3 also introduces a new icon by Lars Herrmann. Lars had previously designed the original icon for Tembo. Unfortunately the cute elephant icon was frowned upon by many who found its cuteness to clash with the productive nature of the product.

Head over to AppGiveaway.com for your chance to win a free copy of Tembo. Or visit Tembo on the Mac App Store.

LogicielMac.com likes Tembo

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:05:55 +0100

The French LogicielMac.com web site reviews Tembo 1.2. The title, Tembo, Spotlight, mais en mieux, says it all. Tembo: The better Spotlight.

Tembo offers better options for managing criteria and leads to more precise results.

VVMac Magazine: 5 star review for Tembo

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:51:37 +0100

The French "Vous et Votre Mac" magazine has just published a glowing review of Tembo 1.0.

Tembo was awarded 5 out of 5 possible stars.

Download the full review as a PDF file. The article walks through all the major features of Tembo: grouped results view, drill-down and filters.

In conclusion, the reviewer writes: "A very practical window with grouped results; many pre-definded filter functions; an easy interface inspired by the iPad, but very efficient; works well as extension the Mail, iChat and Safari applications."

Tembo on the Mac App Store

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:25:43 +0100

On January 6, the Mac App Store opened its doors. Since then Tembo 1.0 is available for purchase. Tembo 1.1 has already been submitted for review and should be available shortly.

Unfortunately, a bug in the Mac App Store prevents Tembo from being listed in the Utilities and Productivity categories. You may still find Tembo by searching for it by name.

Update: Tembo 1.1 is now available on the Mac App Store

Tembo - Searching Made Easy & Fun

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:01:23 +0100

Houdah Software is proud to pre-announce it's latest product. Tembo has reached draft / public beta status.

Like HoudahSpot, Tembo is a search tool based upon the Spotlight engine. The job of Tembo is to make searching (and finding) of files, mail messages, bookmarks, … as easy as possible.

At first sight you will find Tembo to have been inspired by the original Spotlight interface as we knew it under Mac OS X Tiger.

Search results are grouped by categories. Preferences allow for categories to be enabled, disabled and reordered.

Behind a small arrow on the header bar for each group you will find the real power of Tembo. Tembo provides appropriate result filters in each group.

Tembo may list up to 2500 search results. Rather than have you scroll through the long list to find the desired result, you would apply filters to narrow down the list. The Messages group, for example, offers filters on author, recipient and subject.

Thus Tembo is much more than a file search tool. It works as extension to Mail.app / iChat.app to locate messages.

Give Good Food to your Mac

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:46:15 +0100

The fourth edition of Give Good Food to your Mac is now open!

For two weeks only, download and taste cool Mac applications and enjoy great discounts!

Give Good Food to Your Mac is a highly-respected promotion where you can find awide range of software at amazing prices.

Discounts range from 20% to 60% off; the more apps you buy, the less you pay.

The promotion runs from November 26th to the 10th of December 2010.

Applications on sale include HoudahSpot, HoudahGeo, BannerZest, PulpMotion, Pixelmator, Speed Download and many more.

iPhoto 9.0.1 / iLife'11

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:08:24 +0100

I finally received my copy of iLife.

The good news is that HoudahGeo should be fully compatible. Apple did not change the API.

The bad news is that the API used by HoudahGeo to notify iPhoto is broken in iPhoto 9.0.1.

I hope for Apple to fix this soon.

HoudahGeo 2.6 adds EveryTrail upload

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:07:26 +0200

Within a HoudahGeo project photos are matched with locations. Most often location information comes to a HoudahGeo project a GPS track log. Once photos have been assigned to their locations, HoudahGeo offers several options for saving or publishing the newly gained knowledge. The most obvious one being geotagging: writing the GPS coordinates to EXIF / XMP metadata tags.

But what happens to the aforementioned GPS track log?

Wouldn't it be great to see where one travelled?

Wouldn't it be interesting to see the photos in the context of a map?

So far HoudahGeo has offered Google Earth KML and KMZ export options. These made just that possible: your photos on a map. Unfortunately KMZ files are heavy and can thus not always be shared by email. KML files on the other hand require one to run a web sever.

HoudahGeo adds a new option: EveryTrail upload. HoudahGeo and EveryTrail are indeed a perfect match. What's a HoudahGeo project but a set of photos attached to a track log? Well an EveryTrail trail is a a track log with photos attached to it.

It's now easier than ever to share trails and photos with the world. EveryTrail.com makes for a great viewing experience. HoudahGeo brings geocoding and publishing down to an easy 3-step process.

ACTCurrency

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:48:56 +0200

ACTCurrency - Free for 24h only , selected "Surprise of the Day" in the World Football Calendar 2010 by MagicSolver.

HoudahSpot 2.7

Thu, 06 May 2010 10:43:32 +0200

Houdah Software has recently released HoudahSpot 2.7.

While this release does not bring a striking new feature, it does include some significant changes and many improvements. The biggest change being the semantics of the "Any Text" criterion. This has been changed to also match text content.

The options for the global menu and global shortcuts have been simplified. HoudahSpot now automatically determines when it needs to install or to remove its helper tool to handle the menu and shortcuts. This also makes manual upgrading easier. Formerly the running helper could prevent trashing of the old application. Quitting the helper is now taken care of automatically.

Recently Don McAllister praised HoudahSpot as "one of my favourite (and most useful) Mac apps".

All-new Houdah.com web site

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:02:04 +0200

Head over to Houdah.com to discover an all-new web site.

We hope the new layout will improve your experience of reading up on our products and on finding support resources.

Thanks go to Ryan Scherf for the excellent job on the design.

BTW, while we were at it, we have also created a Facebook fan page.

HoudahGeo 2.5 - Aperture 3 support

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:52:48 +0200

Last week we released HoudahGeo 2.5 - a major update to our photo geocoding solution for the Mac.

HoudahGeo 2.5 has adds full integration with Aperture 3. Upon geotagging photos with EXIF & XMP tags, HoudahGeo may notify Aperture that new metadata is available. This allows for Aperture Places to immediately refresh. This brings the same level of integration to Aperture which was previously reserved to iPhoto'09 places.

This makes HoudahGeo the ideal companion of the Places feature in both iPhoto and Aperture. It extends the photo geocoding feature set way beyond what Aperture can offer. Yet iPhoto and Aperture users retain the full benefits of the excellent Places feature. HoudahGeo adds a myriad of ways to geocode and publish photos. The latest of which is geocoding from iPhoto reference photos. HoudahGeo also brings Google Earth export to the table - a brilliant way of sharing and showing off your photos.

HoudahGeo is also able to access iPhoto, Aperture & Lightroom databases without opening the actual applications. Thus iPhoto and Aperture users may now handle the whole geocoding workflow within HoudahGeo and still find their Places database to be up-to-date.