The Aptly Named, Sam’s Blog

I’ve just released Avatari 0.3. This version adds support for Adium and also updates the FriendFeed API to the latest version to ensure forward compatibility.

I’ve been considering developing Avatari on iPhone. Would you be interested in it? If so, please answer a couple of questions here. It will take less than thirty seconds of your time. You can also write to me on Twitter at @samgrover or @AvatariApp. Thanks!

The latest version of Avatari is available at the link below, or just select “Check for Updates…” in the menu from within Avatari.

Download Avatari

Avatari 0.2.2

Why I <3 my Google Translate bookmarklet

Avatari Teaser

I released an update for Avatari two weeks ago. Since then I’ve found a few blog posts talking about it. See them here, here, here and here.

Did you check those out? I did and found that none of them are in a language I know!

So, what do I do? Well, there’s Google’s language tools which can translate foreign language pages to a language of your choice. Google has handy bookmarklets for many languages. Find yours and set it up in the bookmark bar in your browser. When you’re at any website in a foreign language, just click that button for a quick translation. Awesome!

By doing that I read those blog posts and am quite happy to see that folks like Avatari and are finding it useful. Thanks folks!

I appreciate all comments and feedback regarding Avatari. Blog it or write me directly!

No related posts

I’ve just released Avatari version 0.2.2. This is a minor release. It preserves avatar file type when uploading to a service. It also improves and simplifies the user interface design when adding a new account. Many thanks to my friend @ubercolin for his suggestions regarding these improvements. For a complete list of changes, please see the Release Notes. You can get the latest version at the link below, or just select “Check for Updates…” in the menu from within Avatari.

Download Avatari

New version of Avatari adds Adium support

Why I <3 my Google Translate bookmarklet

Avatari Teaser

You wanted AddressBook and iChat support. It is here!

I wanted more web services to adopt an API for uploading avatars. Shizzow responded with enthusiasm. That support is here too!

By enabling AddressBook and/or iChat support, entries appear in the account list for each of those. When you are ready to update your avatar, just select them if you want to update those too.

If you use iChat for Google Talk, then setting your avatar in iChat will update your avatar on Google’s servers the next time you connect or immediately if you are already connected. Google then updates your avatar across all their services including Gmail, Google Profile, etc.

I’ve just updated Avatari to the latest version using the newly added auto-update feature. This has been made super simple through the Sparkle framework for Cocoa. After you download this version, the application should auto-update with each new release. There is also a “Check for updates…” feature in the application menu for manual checks.

Special thanks to @bsneed for the idea to support AddressBook and iChat and to @ryansnyder at @shizzow for responding to my call for an API within a matter of days!

Heartfelt thanks to all of you for the enthusiastic response to my first Cocoa application! I hope you like this release and continue to provide me with your feedback on my Gmail address, samgrover. I will do my best to deliver.

Download Avatari

Requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Runs on Intel and PowerPC based Mac computers. Supports multiple accounts on Twitter, FriendFeed, Shizzow and your Mac’s AddressBook, iChat.

Announcing Avatari

Avatari 0.2.2

New version of Avatari adds Adium support

Avatari is an application to update your avatars across the Internet with one click.

I keep my avatar the same most of the time but every now and then I would replace it for a short period to represent a holiday or a cause or some event. When I would do that it would annoy me that I had to go to each individual location where I had uploaded my avatar for a brief replacement.

Not anymore.

I made Avatari to solve this problem. It currently supports multiple accounts on Twitter and FriendFeed. When I came up with this idea, I found that Twitter already had an API for uploading an avatar but FriendFeed didn’t. I requested the folks at FriendFeed to create an API for me, and to my pleasant surprise, they had one ready in twenty days. Thanks guys! I hope to add more services in the future.

My other motivation for making Avatari is to teach myself Cocoa programming. I had hoped to make something useful while familiarizing myself with Cocoa. It’s working great and I’m hoping to advance my knowledge of Cocoa software development with continued effort.

Last week I presented Avatari to the folks at Portland CocoaHeads and tonight I presented it at Demolicious. I’d like to thank all the folks at either event for their feedback, ideas and encouragement regarding this project.

Special thanks to Giglielmo for sharing the photo used in the logo under the Attribution-Share Alike license and to my wife, Liz for transforming it into the application logo.

I hope you like using Avatari. Let me know what I can do to make it better. You can reach me at my Gmail address, samgrover or via @samgrover. You can download Avatari from the software section on my website or by clicking the link below.

Download Avatari

Requires Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.

Announcing LazyEngine

New version of LazyEngine

Avatari 0.2.2

Avatari 0.2.2

New version of Avatari adds Adium support

Why I <3 my Google Translate bookmarklet