TinyPlanet Software Blog

Knapsack Tip #2: Sync your trip to iCal, iPhone, and MobileMe

2009-01-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

The iCal integration released as part of Knapsack 1.1 provides a simple way to get trip information to and from iCal, iPhone, iPod Touch, MobileMe (formerly .Mac), and anything else you may have synced with iCal for use while you're traveling. Any changes you make in a synced device (iPhone, iCal, MobileMe, etc) while on your trip will be synced back when you return home and relaunch Knapsack.

To sync a trip with iCal:

Select your trip from the trip list or double-click your trip to open it.

Choose Sync with iCal from the Trip menu.

You can now choose which iCal calendar you would like to sync with. It is recommended that you choose the New Calendar option to keep your trip on its own calendar. You can choose an existing calendar, but any items already existing on your calendar during the date range of the trip will be added to your itinerary in Knapsack.

Click Sync. Now, any changes you make in Knapsack will be made in iCal and vice versa. When a trip is synced, activities on your itinerary will show up as iCal events and to do items on your checklist will show up as to do items in iCal.

Once your trip is complete, it is recommended that you stop syncing with iCal to preserve your trip data. Knapsack will automatically prompt you to end syncing when you open a synced trip which has an end date in the past. You can also choose Stop iCal Sync from the Trip menu at any time.

Has this tip helped you? Have you used iCal syncing before? What other tips or tricks do you have that you'd like to share with other Knapsack users? Leave a comment here or email us directly.

New Year's promotion ends tomorrow

2009-01-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

Just a quick reminder that our New Year's 2009 25% off promotion ends tomorrow. If you've been trying out Knapsack for the last few weeks but haven't purchased yet, head on over to our store and enter the coupon code NEWYEARS2009 before time runs out!

Resolve to travel more and save 25%

2008-12-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

According to Wikipedia, one of the most popular New Year's resolutions is to take a trip. Many people make a resolution to visit a new place or to better document their travel experiences. That sounds great to the four of us here at TinyPlanet Software. We have taken many trips together and even formed our company while traveling. Because of our love for travel, we designed our flagship product, Knapsack, to be the personal travel organizer for Mac OS X Leopard.

If your New Year's resolutions include traveling more often or you know someone who wants to take the trip of a lifetime, we'd love to help. To celebrate the new year and get you on your way, we're offering 25% off a single-user or 5-user family pack license for Knapsack from December 29th to January 15th. Just enter the coupon code NEWYEARS2009 on our online store and the discount will be included automatically.

Enjoy and Happy New Year from the TinyPlanet Software crew!

Knapsack Tip #1: Reuse Checklists with Template Trips

2008-12-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

New Blog Series: Knapsack Tips
We've decided to start a series of blog entries containing tips and tricks to help our users get the most out of Knapsack. Our first tip below deals with reusing checklists by creating custom template trips. Future items will include topics covering all aspects of trip planning and organizing with Knapsack. We'll be sharing our own Knapsack habits plus some ideas we've received directly from our users. Of course, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know how you're using Knapsack for your travels. Feel free to leave a comment here or send us an email directly.

Knapsack Tip #1: Reuse Checklists with Template Trips
As we're preparing for our trip to Colorado this winter, we need to make sure we've packed everything. In this case, it's a trip to visit family, exchange presents, work on our software, and snowboard. As you can imagine, that involves a lot of different items: warm clothes, presents, snowboarding gear, laptops, power supplies, etc. It would be tedious to re-enter every single item to pack in every new trip, so we use previously-created packing lists from a "template" trip to make this easier.

In this case, we'll copy the existing "Snowboarding" and "Business Trip" packing lists from a template trip called "Packing Lists" into our new "Colorado 2008" trip. This is simple to accomplish and can save a lot of time when creating new trips.

Create a new trip and name it "Packing Lists"

Use the Checklist area in the itinerary view to create various packing lists for different types of trips

When planning a new trip, open this Packing Lists trip, select the top-level item in the list you'd like to use in your new trip, and choose Edit > Copy

Create and open your new trip file, click in the Checklists area of the itinerary, and choose Edit > Paste

Within a matter of seconds, we have a great start on our packing lists for Colorado. This same technique can be used for checklists other than packing lists: souvenirs to buy, postcards to send, etc. In fact, sharing content between trips isn't limited to only checklists: activities can be copied and pasted between trips just as easily. Use your imagination to prepare some fun and useful templates or get started by simply borrowing from trips you've already taken.

What has the TinyPlanet crew been up to?

2008-12-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

The short answer: A lot!

We've all had quite an eventful year and we just wanted to take a moment to reflect on it all. To recap, we launched Knapsack in March, followed by our first supporting dot release in May. But what's happened since then? Well, shortly after our last release Chris finally, and when we say finally we mean after 12 years finally, pops the question. Not "Would you like fries with that?", but "Will you marry me?". Chris and Ruby are engaged! The four of us squeezed in WWDC in June; lots of brain storming, lots of iPhone planning, lots of fun! Then in August, it was off to Hawaii for Chris and Ruby's wedding. Picture a breath-taking Maui sunset, a private ceremony on a grassy bluff overlooking the ocean and classical guitar music playing as Ruby walks down an orchid petal isle; you get the idea. The trip to Hawaii was an especially meaningful trip because we were also there to celebrate 10 years of blissful marriage for Brad and Merrilee. Way to go guys, you're an inspiration! In November, to honor Ruby's Chinese heritage and to honor her family, Chris and Ruby threw a semi-traditional Chinese Wedding Banquet; lots of family and close friends, lots of food and an open bar, ah good times. All this excitement took our attention away from Knapsack, but now we're re-energized and itching to get back to it. So, in December we'll be going on a TinyPlanet Software coding retreat to Colorado. There'll be some relaxing, there'll be some snowboarding and there'll definitely be some designing and developing to kick 2009 off with a bang. Speaking of 2009, we have a few more surprises still to come...

Knapsack 1.1 reviewed by About This Particular Macintosh

2008-08-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

About This Particular Macintosh posted a very nice review of Knapsack 1.1 in their August 2008 edition. Head on over and give it a read. My favorite quote:

Knapsack’s integration with iCal seems particularly impressive. Not only can you export a trip to iCal, but you can also sync a trip with iCal. In this latter mode, changes made to the trip’s calendar are mirrored back into Knapsack. This includes both the trip’s itinerary for a given day and the to-do items.

I was able to create my trip in Knapsack, sync it to iCal, then modify the trip information on my iPhone. When I later synced my iPhone with my computer, the changes were reflected back in Knapsack.

That's exactly the use we had in mind when we designed the two-way iCal syncing included in 1.1. We're thrilled to see our users enjoying the tight integration!

Meanwhile, we're continuing work on the next version of Knapsack. We've reviewed and re-reviewed all your input and put our heads together to come up with what we think are some great improvements to the map and the overall integration of Knapsack's different components. We think you're going to like what we have in store. Keep the feedback coming and we hope you continue to enjoy using Knapsack to plan, organize, and relive your travel adventures!

Getting the most out of WWDC

2008-05-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

The four of us here at TinyPlanet Software will be traveling to Apple's annual Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC) in just two short weeks. This is the first year that the show has ever sold out, so there will be a lot of new faces milling about Moscone West in San Francisco. After a recent Cocoaheads meeting, we received questions from other developers asking how they can best prepare for the conference and what to expect. Now, we're not experts - WWDC07 was our first year - but we know some experts and had them review our advice (thanks, Scott and Roelof)!

WWDC07 was pivotal for TinyPlanet Software and our flagship product, Knapsack. We came back from San Francisco with a redesigned and largely re-implemented application. We were on a Cocoa-high for weeks afterwards. We hope this advice helps others get the same benefit out of Apple's annual developer-fest.

Here's our advice for making the most out of WWDC:

1) Set your planned schedule:
First and foremost, you really need to work out your schedule ahead of time. Spend some quality time with Apple's Schedule. Pick out the most interesting sessions you see, and pick backups in case you want to duck out of a session if it's not going where you thought it would. Read about the sessions and the APIs which will be covered. Make a special note of the TBD sessions, as they often cover material revealed during the Keynote. Also, be sure to watch for schedule changes when you get there and update accordingly.

2) Set your planned after-hours schedule:
There are lots of events that happen after-hours, both Apple and non-Apple sponsored. So far, we know of the following. There will probably be others. For example, last year there was a great Cocoaheads meeting at the Apple Store just down the street from Moscone with Brent Simmons, Daniel Jalkut, Gus Mueller, and Wil Shipley talking about "Going Indie".

Sunday: MacCommunities Pre-WWDC Social Gathering

Sunday: The sfIndieMac Soiree

Monday: Apple's WWDC Welcome Reception

Monday: Buzz Anderson's 5th Annual WWDC Party

Tuesday: VMWare Fusion User Meetup WWDC Edition

Tuesday: Ars Technica and Gizmodo WWDC Party

Wednesday: Apple Design Awards and Stump the Experts in Moscone

Thursday: Apple's WWDC Bash

3) Prepare questions:
If you're working on an app or a specific problem, compile a list of 10-20 very specific questions to have handy. Take advantage of the lab sessions, Q&As, and chance meetings to ask these questions; you can often talk to the very people who wrote the framework you're trying to use.

4) Sign up for a UI consultation:
If you would like your UI reviewed by an Apple human interface expert (and who wouldn't?), sign up for a 30-minute one-on-one UI consultation. Sign-ups usually begin on Tuesday morning on a first-come, first-served basis and are only available one day at a time. We radically redesigned Knapsack after going through two UI sessions last year.

5) Take notes:
Bring a spiral notebook to take notes during the sessions. Write down the names of the presenters, demonstrators, lab helpers, UI consultants, and anybody who you might want to talk to - or refer to - later.

6) Meet people:
Hand out your business card, shake peoples' hands, get other peoples' cards. We're all engineers, so we tend to be introverted and taking that first step can be hard. Be an extrovert for the week. Write down context information on the backs of others' cards so you remember the person and can stay in touch after WWDC is over. Stay in touch after WWDC is over.

7) Show up early:
If you have a chance, pick up your badge before Monday morning to avoid the crowds. Similarly, admission to WWDC does not guarantee admission to the Keynote with Steve Jobs; you may end up in an overflow room. If you want to be in the actual room, plan to get up bright and early on Monday morning.

8) Bring gear:
This may go without saying, but bring your laptop, iPhone, and whatever else you need to be a productive developer. Bring a small external hard drive or a hard drive partition to install any beta software on.

Anything else? What do other folks think? Anybody else want to throw their own tips in for the good of the community? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing you developer-types in Moscone!

Knapsack is "Hot Stuff" in Macworld June 2008 edition

2008-05-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Chris, Merrilee, and I were out on an 8-mile run with our marathon training group this past Saturday when one of our fellow coaches, Richard, casually mentioned, "Hey, my wife saw your write-up in Macworld this week. Pretty cool." Thinking he was referring to the blurb we received on macworld.com back in March, we said, "Yeah, that's been up for a couple months now". He said, "No, Macworld. The magazine. The printed version." We were excited, surprised, and anxious to see it for ourselves so on the way home we stopped by the local bookstore and, sure enough, right there in the Hot Stuff section on page 32 is a screenshot and little blurb about Knapsack.

We were so excited that we bought five copies to share with family! When we came back and showed Ruby, she was, in her words, "jumping up and down like a bunny on speed."

For me, the printed Macworld magazine has been part of my Mac-user experience since my first Mac LC back in the early 90's. I had a subscription for many years and always enjoyed the articles, news, reviews, and commentary. Seeing my own product printed in its pages brings a great sense of pride and nostalgia. We'll be holding onto this month's edition in the TinyPlanet Software offices for awhile to come.

Knapsack 1.1 is here!

2008-05-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

The four of us here at TinyPlanet Software are excited to announce that Knapsack 1.1 is now available as a free upgrade for existing customers. Version 1.1 features two-way trip synchronization with iCal among a host of minor improvements and bug fixes (view the complete release notes on our website). We believe integration with iCal is something that improves all aspects of Knapsack's mission to help you plan, organize, and relive your travel adventures and we've made the integration as seamless as possible. There's a screenshot below.

Read on to hear how we chose to focus on iCal integration for our first update.

It's been less than two months since we first released version 1.0, and as Merrilee mentioned in her earlier post, the response has been amazing. We loved finding and reading the apple.com feature, the website interviews, the reviews, the blog entries, the tweets on twitter, the forum comments, and all the rest. But one thing that we really love is direct user feedback. We're continually amazed by the high quality of our users' ideas. Knapsack really resonates with people and many take the time to let us know. Here are just a few examples:

"I'm extremely excited by your software. Not only can I keep track of everything in one place, but it will be there for future reference."

"I'm a frequent traveler, so an app like Knapsack has a lot of appeal for me."

"I am considering purchasing Leopard just so I can use Knapsack."

Now, not everybody is completely satisfied, as you might expect for a 1.0 product (or any product for that matter). We've had many, many feature requests since we went live and a few keep on bubbling to the top. Our top-three requests continue to be (in no particular order):
* iCal integration
* an improved world map
* iPhoto integration

Our plan is to tackle these features in minor releases (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc) which will be free upgrades for existing customers. Here are a couple of the comments that lead us to iCal first (I love the second one. So ... pithy!):

"The things obviously missing are iCal and Todo integration. I'm pretty much bound to want to put trip details into my calendar. So I hope this is on the roadmap."

"It doesn't integrate with iCal? Are you kidding? IT'S A TRAVEL PLANNER!!!"

We took these to heart and got cracking on the design and implementation. We're quite happy with how it turned out and as always, would love to hear your thoughts. Leave your comments on this blog or feel free to send us an email to our support address listed on our help page.

Where in the world is Knapsack?

2008-05-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

We've been thrilled with the positive response that we've received so far for our initial release of Knapsack. You may be wondering, "Where is Knapsack now?" After reviewing all of the incredibly thoughtful and insightful feedback, we immediately began work on version 1.1. We are so close to releasing! One of the most popular requests from users was integration with iCal, and so that is what we did. This means that it will be easy to get your itinerary events and checklists onto your iPhone which we think many users will be excited about. We're anxiously awaiting feedback from our beta testers and we'll keep you posted on an official release.

In the mean time, we decided to take a look at our customer base and see where our users call home. We wanted to know where in the world Knapsack was hanging out and it turns out...all over the place. It was pretty stunning to see the distribution. We've got users from Australia to Munich to Singapore and many places in between. This got us thinking about all of the amazing trips that are being planned in Knapsack. We'd love to hear about your adventures. Leave us a comment on the blog and let us know what you're up to.

Win a copy of Knapsack 1.0

2008-04-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note that David over at World of Apple has posted a review of Knapsack 1.0 and is offering a free copy of Knapsack to a lucky person who reads the article and provides feedback via the comments. Head on over, take a look, provide some feedback, and see if you're lucky enough to win.

An organic masterpiece?

2008-03-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

Many of the projects that I’ve undertaken throughout my life have been projects with a clear end and beginning. My M.O. has been to create a masterpiece that will hang on the wall, never again to be changed. The software development life cycle has always been something hard for me to swallow. I’ve never been comfortable releasing something that didn’t include all of the features that I thought were important or something that wasn’t developed to its fullest.

So our whole adventure into Knapsack has been quite contrary to my last big project, my Master’s thesis; a project that was bound and published in all of its perfection and now sits dusty on my bookshelf. Others might use it to create something bigger and better, but my piece will stay intact and unchanged forever. I planned it out from start to finish and completed it. I have since learned that academia does not always parallel reality :)

When we initially began designing Knapsack, I envisioned that we would code everything and create some sort of Picasso or Rembrandt. However, actually implementing the entire list of features that we dreamt up was laughable. If we had tried to accomplish everything we had listed, technology would have far surpassed our coding speed and we would never have released a 1.0. So we chose a set of features that made sense, tagged the rest to future releases (despite my protests), and carried on. During this process, I fought the urge to exhume all of the tickets we filed away in Trac and I trudged along with what I saw as our “bare bones” app.

I quickly learned that we chose the right route. Initially, you have to start with something small and do it well. We could have half-assedly (I didn’t make that word up - I credit the Barenaked Ladies) implemented all of the features that we brainstormed, but we would have missed the point. If you want people to use your app, you have to find out what they want and then “surprise and delight” them with your implementation.

During these last few days, we’ve been overwhelmed with positive feedback. People are truly excited and are asking for all sorts of features (iPhoto integration, iCal integration, and Google Maps are the most popular requests). This sort of feedback is invaluable. We’re beginning to get a picture of what people want and we can develop accordingly rather than trying to guess.

With all of that said, I think I finally get the organic process. Knapsack will never be the dusty masterpiece on the shelf, but instead, a living, growing, dynamic, and ever-improving organism and I can’t wait to see where it goes. We are so excited about the ideas that are appearing in our in-boxes. The keyboards here at TinyPlanet Software are already starting to clack out your feature requests. Please keep them coming - we really value the feedback!

Apple.com Featured Download

2008-03-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Wow - it's been quite rush the last few days since we went live with Knapsack
1.0. Lots of emails from potential customers, fellow developers, well-wishers, and even some first-day sales. We couldn't be happier.

That is, until we saw that Knapsack is currently the featured download for Mac OS X on apple.com/downloads. Check it out!

We're currently linked from at least four places on apple.com:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/home_learning/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/home_learning/knapsack.html

We can't wait to get cracking on some really cool feature requests that have come in. Exciting times, indeed.

Okonomiyaki

2008-02-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, the four of us ventured out to an okonomiyaki restaurant called Gaja in LA. The beauty of okonomiyaki is that it is truly what you make it. Apparently, the Japanese translation is something to the effect of "cook it like you like it." The adventure revolves around a smoking hot griddle in the middle of your table and a truckload of condiments. The servers bring bowls of meat, veggies, seafood, noodles, and batter, along with a barely decipherable set of directions that instruct you to essentially dump everything onto the griddle, make a giant pancake, and finish it off with any or all of the sauces and toppings. While they do provide you with instructions, it is noted by an asterisk at the bottom that these are the Gaja ways of cooking. Basically, if you know a better way to cook your food, you are free to do so and with reckless abandon.

This whole philosophy of "cooking like you like it" is really quite akin to our approach to traveling. A trip to the U.K. might be fine with a tour group, but there is something really empowering about picking and choosing the castles and the pubs you want to visit and putting it all together exactly as you like it. This is what led us to create Knapsack, our flagship travel planning app for the Mac. We found that we really needed a tool that would let us organize all of our research in one place and then remember the details of these carefully crafted adventures the next time someone asked for a hotel recommendation in Thailand or a good gelato spot in Rome. We designed Knapsack to be flexible enough to plan any trip exactly the way we wanted.

So this blog is meant to be a place not just for ramblings about Knapsack, but also a place to muse about traveling and digress on the technical side of creating software. We intend to chat about whatever happens to be on our minds and more or less just blog as we like it.