Brett Terpstra

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Brett Terpstra has been tinkering with computers since he hooked his first cassette recorder up to a PC Jr. to back up his LOGO programs. A silicon journey through Commodores, Trash-80s, the Apple II alphabet and a plethora of PCs finally led him to embrace the Mac, and only the Mac.

He makes his living as a web developer and graphic designer, and spends the money he earns on indie software and as many peripherals as he can lay his hands on.

In what some would consider free time, he avidly pursues knowledge in the areas of design, programming, hardware hacking, personal productivity and other things that make him unpopular at parties. He does not enjoy long walks on the beach, or sleeping.

Brett Terpstra's Latest Posts

Agile Partners rock GuitarToolkit 2.0

by Brett Terpstra (Dec 15th 2011 10:00AM)

Agile Partners (who've come up at TUAW a few times) have released GuitarToolkit 2.0, a major upgrade to the original app which adds extensive features and an iPad version. GuitarToolkit boasts a range of tools geared at guitar and bass players, but now includes enough flexibility to work with any ...

Postbox 3 launches with more social, more integration

by Brett Terpstra (Nov 1st 2011 8:00PM)

We've tracked the progress of the Postbox email client for a while now, and it keeps getting better. Postbox -- an evolution of the Mozilla email client -- combines ease-of-use and email power tools to create a full-featured client with great polish. Version 3.0 brings with it not only new ...

Students and iPads: ACU study shows positive results

by Brett Terpstra (Oct 3rd 2011 12:00PM)

The first time I mentioned Abilene Christian University, it was because it was handing out iPhones to students. The next time was a year later when I followed up with an interview about the school's methods and research findings. Its approach to incorporating technology into education was ...

TextMate 2 alpha before Christmas?

by Brett Terpstra (Sep 26th 2011 1:00PM)

According to a blog post at MacroMates this morning, an alpha version of TextMate 2 will be available by December 25th. As a longtime TextMate fan(atic), this news fills me with cheer usually reserved for closer to that date. A very merry Christmas, indeed. TextMate is an extensible text editor ...

Yoink takes the drag out of file dragging

by Brett Terpstra (Sep 1st 2011 9:00AM)

Lion users, have you ever tried to drag a file between full-screen apps? It's a bear to do, especially with a trackpad. Matthias Gansrigler at Eternal Storms (no stranger to TUAW) has solved this problem with an app called Yoink. Yoink simply watches for you to start dragging a file and when ...

Clarify brings focus to your screen-based documentation

by Brett Terpstra (Aug 1st 2011 11:00AM)

Clarify -- now in Public Beta -- is Mango Learning System's new product for communicating screen-based instructions quickly and easily. It's something like a successor to ScreenSteps (which history will show I'm a big fan of), but in the words of developer Greg Devore, "while ScreenSteps was ...

Paragraft gets iOS Markdown editing right

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 17th 2011 6:00AM)

I just discovered Paragraft, a text editor for iPad and iPhone that boasts some ingenious Markdown features (if I've lost you already, check out the TUAW Markdown Primer for a crash course). The good parts of Paragraft blew me away enough that I'm able to overlook an ugly icon and some bad ...

Mac 101: Using Keynote as Motion in a bind (Updated)

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 9th 2011 5:00AM)

Update: KeynoteUser.com notes that it's easy to export your Keynote animations with an alpha channel, making it much simpler to work with them in pro editing apps or in Motion. On this trip to WWDC I packed light. One backpack, a MacBook Air and a camera light. I haven't had my Air for very ...

Prototypes makes iPhone mockups a breeze

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 1st 2011 10:00AM)

This is a cool one, at least for iPhone app designers. Prototypes is a Mac app that lets you take those handcrafted mockups of iPhone screens and turn them into a clickable demo you can share with any iPhone or iPod touch user. Prototypes takes just about any image format, including straight ...

Code Pilot 2.0 with Xcode 4 compatibility

by Brett Terpstra (May 31st 2011 3:00AM)

Macoscope has released version 2.0 of its Xcode navigation plug-in, Code Pilot. Technically, it's still a beta -- judging from the 2.0b6 version number -- but it's been rock solid for me so far. This version brings Xcode 4 compatibility and a revamped interface. If you code and you haven't ...