Not a version announcement

[turly]

Hey there -- hope all well.
This is not a version announcement - just a heads-up on why there has been so little happening on the FinderPop front over the last couple of months. Aside from sheer laziness on my part, of course.

The main excuse is that I am still recovering after an accident a month ago -- I somehow managed to walk into the path of a bus in Paseig de Gracia here in Barcelona. It was at 6:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon so I can't even blame the beer :-)

Looks like the timing of the collision was just right in that the bus's mirror hit my head and the upper left part of my body while its front wheel ran over my right foot. I still don't understand how I didn't hear it or see it. I ended up with a broken collarbone (clavicle), a couple of cracked ribs, a fracture in my skull next to my left eye, a fractured cheekbone below my left eye, a badly-bruised left leg and 4 broken metatarsals on my right foot. My left arm is in a special sling to immobilise my left shoulder and my right leg is in a plaster cast up to my knee. The blow also did something nasty to my left eye - I can no longer read normal-sized text with it and have double vision depending on the angle at which I look at things. Also I have reduced feeling in my left cheek and upper left row of teeth, looks like a nerve or two have been chopped.

The good news is that most of my ailments (and especially my eye) are slowly improving, and of course that it could have been much worse ... I'm a very lucky lad, all things considered. Anyway, I hope you will understand that there is not going to be a 10.6-compatible version of FinderPop for a while - but there will be, eventually..! (10.6 will require a considerable rewrite as there's no 64-bit Carbon... FinderPop rewrite number 3-and-a-half!)

In a couple of months time, I'll be able to look back on this episode and laugh. Might be a bit hollow, though :)

Edit 2009-08-28: It's a couple of months later, and while I'm not looking back and laughing just yet, I'm a heck of a lot better now. To look at me, the only way you'd know something was amiss is because I still limp a little and one shoulder is about an inch shorter than the other. The left eye has improved dramatically but is still a bit blurry... but I'm at the age where I'd probably need glasses anyway so I'm not complaining. Indeed, meeting some of the other accident victims in my physiotherapy sessions made me realise just how lucky I am...

Edit 2009-11-16: It's a couple of more months later, and it turns out my clavicle never really healed properly, so nearly three weeks ago I had an operation to insert a titanium plate joining the two halves of the clavicle together. Some live bone was also needed for the mix, and apparently my hip volunteered :) So now I have a very impressive scar on my left shoulder and a less impressive one on my right hip. (Oddly enough, the hip hurts more than the shoulder.) I had to wear a sling for the first 2-and-a-bit weeks which meant typing one-handedly. Thankfully at this stage I can dispense with the sling at home, but still have to wear it out-of-doors for the next two weeks. At which point I will probably commence some physio sessions. Hopefully will be back in good working order by Christmas!

[RonaldPR]

I wondered where you were. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Take your time to get well.

[G-Montseny]

Get well!

[taryn]

I hope this month of silence means you're busy getting your life and self back together. I'm rooting for you, sure that the bus took unfair advantage. A mirror! D**n that hurts, the Barcelona busses must have some evil heavy mirrors.

Here's a measure of my fondness for FinderPop, which replaced fruitmenu years ago (I never looked back): As a developer using the Snow Leopard betas, I found I was crippled without FinderPop, aimlessly wandering through Finder windows, entirely unable to work without my good right hand button man. I relegated Snow Leopard to a build-and-test-only machine, and thankfully returned to 2.2 and 10.5.

So I have a huge ulterior motive for wishing you well and just now sent along a few pints in appreciation. But no pressure mate, just want you recovering, resting on your laurels.

Be well,
Taryn

"...By accident or subconscious design, we destroyed the pattern of our lives, reduced our species to tiny pockets of survival and engendered a world whose very fabric responded to our thoughts....We all of us looked at the turmoil around and were afraid, and instead of going out to meet it and sniff it like good mammals, good primates, we got cold feet and fell back upon our cold blood; like lizards on a cloudy day, we wished ourselves back in the comfort of our holes; we wanted our finite horizons of predictable problems and predictable joys...."
--- The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway, 2008 ---

"Don't abstract a standard abstraction"
-- -E. Texley to TVW ~12/28/06

[ljmac]

I'm so sorry to hear about this. I hope you're mending well Turly!

I guess I won't be upgrading to Snow Leopard for a while then.

[turly]

Thanks muchly for the expressions of support, etc! I've just edited the first post with my current status which is thankfully much better.
Anyway, I hope to start work on a Snow-Leopard compatible version of FinderPop next week sometime
... but be warned, there is much to do :-/

[offline]

It's a wonderful product, turly, but take care of yourself, first. Prioritize.

Regards and best wishes,
Mark

[fox]

I know that station, having used it on a number of occasions to get from Barcelona to Girona. Had you stuck to the train instead of the bus - but then again who wants to get hit by a train ( ). Seriously, I hope you get better soon!

[ljmac]

I have to echo offline's comments - while I'm keen to upgrade to Snow Leopard, you have to focus on getting better first Turly. I mean, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have the most essential Mac utility at all, would we? And for free!

The initial lack of FinderPop was one reason it took me so long to upgrade to OS X, and I won't be upgrading to any future OS versions it doesn't run on unless I absolutely have to (or somebody else replicates FinderPop's functionality).

[adrianrf]

> somebody else replicates FinderPop's functionality

tish! away with you, man.

I love much more about FinderPop than merely its "functionality". (what a soulless word!)

it's not just what it does; it's how it makes you feel that matters.

my trips into FinderPop's UI are few and far between, because it just works — and as a multi-decade software industry insider, I'm a wee bit jaded; but every time I hit that panel, it makes me in delight!

it's a mighty thing indeed that yer man here tickles that same reaction every time.

let's simply declare: there's no other software author like Turly!