ComicBookLover Beta Testers

The next update to ComicBookLover will involve an update to the comic library's data model and the introduction of metadata. What this means is that information about a comic (e.g. title, series, authors) will be stored with the file and not just in ComicBookLover's internal database.

If you would like to help (stress) test this out, get in touch by sending an email to support[at]comicbooklover.com. Please fill in the following details:

Mac OS X version(s) :
Hardware :
How long have you been a ComicBookLover user? :
Approximately how many comics are in your ComicBookLover library? :

Do you also use Windows or Linux to read comics? :

Beta testing will require that you are comfortable backing up and restoring CBL data files. Ideally you will have some experience with using the Terminal.

ComicBookLover is the Pick of the Week!

First it was PandoraJam, now it's the turn of ComicBookLover to be MacBreak Weekly's Pick of the Week, hurrah!

"ComicBookLover truly is the iTunes of comic book reader apps..."

"Gives you all the tools you really want for reading the stuff on your screen..."

"A superior experience to actually holding the real comic book..."

Check out their podcast online, or click below to download and listen to Andy Ihnatko discuss ComicBookLover and digital comics.

• Digital Comics - MacBreak Weekly 163 (MP3 format)

Andy has also written an article for the Chicago Sun-Times about digital comics and a possible Apple tablet. Go check it out!

Migrating ComicBookLover to Snow Leopard

A few people have asked how to migrate ComicBookLover from their existing computer to a brand new Mac running Snow Leopard. Well, the answer is that it's easy!

Simply copy the following file and folder to your new computer.

• HOME/Library/Preferences/com.bitcartel.comicbooklover.plist
• HOME/Library/Application Support/ComicBookLover

Note that your username should be the same on both machines so that any comics stored on your computer will have the same file path on the new Mac. Otherwise, you will have to try to open a comic and when the app asks you to locate the comic, do so, and select the option to update all the files paths stored in ComicBookLover.

Remote Control access broken on Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard has broken apps which need to take full control of the Remote Control. A bug report has already been filed with Apple by other developers, so let's hope they fix things soon. For the moment, both ComicBookLover and PandoraJam are affected :(

Snow Leopard Compatibility

I'm pleased to let you know that nearly all our software is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard'. If you come across any issues, let us know.

• ComicBookLover
• iRecordMusic
• PandoraJam
• RadioLover

Radiotastic, our dashboard radio player, is not yet compatible... hold on, thanks!

UPDATE: There is an issue with the Remote Control in both ComicBookLover and PandoraJam where the applications no longer hog the remote, so events are being sent to iTunes etc. Investigating.

PandoraJam & ClickToFlash

The compatibility issues with ClickToFlash are now resolved and will appear in the next release barring any gremlins.

We are now tweeting experimentally, so follow us: http://www.twitter.com/pandorajam

Quick question: what's your preferred form of communication? Mailing list, blog, forum or twitter? Thanks.

iPhone 3GS security problems

With the iPhone 3GS, I was quite impressed with the hardware based AES-256 engine, encrypting and decrypting data on the fly, with negligible performance impact for end-users. Call it tech lust.

However, the devil is in the detail, and as Jonathan Zdziarski demonstrates to Wired, the new iPhone 3GS suffers from serious security problems. Watch the videos! In a nutshell, if a thief or attacker has physical access to your iPhone and they have rudimentary knowledge of many hacking tools floating around on the Internet:

• The passcode lock can be removed
• All user data can be extracted and decrypted in about 45 mins

If you have important data or sensitive photos on your iPhone, encrypt them with an app like CameraSafe. Even if you lose your phone and the attacker decrypts the user data partition and gets their hands on your encrypted photos, they won't be able to decrypt the photos unless they know the secret password(s) you use with CameraSafe.