Ewen Wannop has released ByteBagger, a new NDA for the IIGS, and updated his popular SAFE2 FTP program.

Announcing the first release of the ByteBagger NDA

• ByteBagger is an NDA that lets you view the raw data from either the data or resource fork of any file, and search for target strings within that fork using either Hex or ASCII data.
• ByteBagger optionally allows you to edit the data using either Hex or ASCII data fields, and then write the changed data back to the file.
• ByteBagger can change the filetype and auxtype of a file.
• ByteBagger has a low memory impact, so can be used while other memory intensive apps are running.
• ByteBagger is supported directly by SAFE 2.2.6 onwards.

SAFE 2.2.6 Update

There have been several bug fixes, which are listed in the Version.History file included in the archive. There are also a number of new features and interface improvements, of which the main new features are:

• Reworked the ‘Retrieve File’ download function to a ‘Download Linked File’ function. This now allows downloads from both FTP and HTTP servers.
• The Home and Away file lists are now sorted, are targetable, and can be navigated using the character or arrow keys.
• You now move an item in the Favourites editor directly with the arrow keys.
• The Balloon NDA is now directly supported for automatically unpacking downloaded files.
• If you double click a file name in the Home folder, SAFE2 will now send out an IPC call to see if any NDA can handle that file.
• SideClick is supported for many of the dialogs, for instance to allow copying of full paths and URLs.
• Encoded characters in a command string will now be decoded before sending.

To get either of these applications, and their PDF manuals, as well as my other software, go to:  http://www.wannop.info./speccie

Cheers – Ewen

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Ewen Wannop, British programmer of 16-bit telecommunications programs such as Spectrum, SAM, SNAP, and SAFE. The hosts share feedback galore from the last episode and contemplate how to record a live show. After catching up on some headlines from last month, we plow forward, celebrating the return of an interactive fiction publication and grumbling that even beginner IF can be as obscure as the medium is infamous for. The September 2012 issue of Juiced.GS just shipped, and with it, a look at what features a hypothetical System 7.0 operating system would include. Is it reasonable to consider that a software upgrade warrants a hardware bump, and what the next model of Apple II would look like? Photos of Steve Jobs in his natural habitat show an Apple stronghold as Spartan as ever, but you can decorate yours with Melissa Barron’s screenprints from Etsy. There’s a Disk II floppy drive on eBay that holds within it a working Mac mini — a cool hack, but is it worth a cool grand? We question the value of purchasing free software on eBay and marvel at everything from lighters to thumb drives in the shape of an Apple II.

Find the show at the Open Apple Web site or in the iTunes and Zune podcast directories.

From Ewen Wannop’s posting earlier this morning:

As my contribution to KFest ’12, I am reclassifying all my commercial software. From now on, all my commercial titles that have been sold by Syndicomm are now Freeware, and can be downloaded either from Syndicomm at no cost, or from my own web site:

http://www.wannop.info/speccie

The titles include:

Spectrum 2.5.3 Deluxe disk image
Spectrum 2.5.3 floppy disk set
The original SAM script set for Spectrum
The Bernie ][ The Rescue Starter Kit
The TABBS CD File Archive

If you require Spectrum, or the other titles on disk, Syndicomm will still be able to supply you with shipping costs only. Check out the Syndicomm web site for further details:

http://store.16sector.com/

Ewen Wannop

Apple ][ Forever – Spectrum does everything else!

Speccie’s News Acquisition Program (SNAP for short) today received an update to v1.1, according to program author Ewen Wannop.  SNAP is an NNTP client program for the Apple IIGS.  According to Ewen:

This is an update release of SNAP, which fixes a multitude of bugs, as well as introducing many enhanced features. Please read the manual fully to see what has changed, and what has been been enhanced. A IIgs readable manual is included with the archive package, or alternatively, download the enhanced PDF manual.  SNAP is an online NNTP News Client for the IIgs.

Download the update here.