Since this is my first post to the brand new Orbicule blog, I would like to briefly introduce myself and the company. I'm Peter Schols (28) and I'm living in Heverlee, a small town close to Leuven, Belgium, Europe. On January 3, 2006, I have founded a new company: Orbicule.
Orbicule is dedicated to developing innovative, high-quality and fun software for Mac OS X. Although Orbicule is barely three weeks old, these are not my first steps into the world of software development. Back in 2001, while doing a PhD at the University of Leuven, I studied Cocoa and developed a couple of scientific apps, mainly for in-house use. During my PhD, I also started the BioCocoa project, an open-source Cocoa framework for biology and bioinformatics. After my PhD, I started development of iMap, which has been honored with an Apple Design Award during WWDC 2005. Getting this recognition from Apple was a big step: it helped me in taking the decision to start as a full-time, independent, Mac OS X Cocoa programmer.
I will use this blog to talk about our products, but also about being an indie Mac developer and about everything that's going on in the Mac universe. Feel free to leave comments and link to this blog. I hope you will enjoy!
Peter
6 comments:
This looks like a great product and a really elegantly designed site.
However, you may want to correct the typo for the word 'instead' which occurs a few times as 'in stead'
It was the only mistake I noticed and not bad for a non-native English speaker!
Hey Peter-
This is very cool. Once I upgrade to Tiger, this will be on top of my list for software purchases.
Good luck in your new venture.
Guys,
If you made this for the ipod you would make millions. I think everyone knows atleast two poeple who had their Ipods stolen. Mine was stolen from my car while I was at work.
I would GLADLY pay $20 to 30 a year just for the peace of mind knowing that if someone were to take it this time with the software installed that they would get caught.
- Juan
How does Undercover handle the following situation: an owner is using FileVault or requires a password to wake from sleep and the thief has to reformat the harddrive to use the PB. Does Undercover escape the reformatting?
What if the thief connects to the internet but cannot wake the PB, will it still communicate to the server?
Thanks for taking the time to create what looks like a great app - I look forward to getting it as soon as I upgrade to Tiger.
In responce to an earlier comment regarding FileVault lockdown - interesting point - to make this a successful product you almost need to "encourage" the thief to use the computer as is, perhaps you need to set up a guest user account with no password required
Which brings up the question - does the app install itself in the user library, or the system library?
Wishlist - I think a great feature would be the ability to execute applescripts. This way a user can write an applescript to delete sensitive/personal files, which could be executed by Undercover in the event of the computer being stolen.
Best of luck with the new business
Thanks for the great feedback on our website (we fixed the typo, thanks).
Regarding the FileVault comments: Undercover runs as a root process and therefore it works continuously, regardless from the user that's currently logged in. It even works when no one is logged in. However, we do recommend our users to create a dummy guest account without admin privileges and with a blank password. That will enable the thief to play around with the Mac and connect to the net.
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