2005 IORCC Edition - Official Sponsorhip Page

Pragmatic Programmer, Syngress Publishing, Purgatory Design, Oreilly Publishing, Stone Design

Solitaire Forever, Running With Scissors, Sol Robots, Bartas Technologies, Macro Mates

CodeTek, OmniGroup, InterServices New Media, Kula Co, Ltd., BasaSoft, Bare Bones Software, Pipe, Ambrosia Software, Ambrosia Software

The Pragmatic Programmer (pragprog), Dave Thomas was the first to step up and say hey, what the heck we'll sponsor the IORCC. With this commitment, we say THANKS! Dave's companys are lengandary providing one of the most sought after book series in the world todate.




I have just finished this book, and WOW is it packed with real world examples useful to the field Rubyist. Loads of developer tips and hints, Source code gallore, and lots of coverage for tools (honestly that I don't use but I'm a CLI kinda guy) in the GUI world. Tk, GTK+, FOX and others. Its worth a read!




All the drawing and flow charting in this contest by this judge (and others) is done with the Intaglio drawing application. It is perfect for simple and complex object graphing and drawing. We REALLY appreciate Purgatory Design for the dedication and support!




Tim and gang continue to put out some of the most informative and interesting books for the tech markets. I still have my first issue AWK/Sed, Perl and Shell books, as well as other classics in the early 90s. And ORA continues to put out the Nutshell series which always delivers. Get some of their books. Tim has agreed to sponsor this event with Matz's own book, Ruby in a Nutshell! Fantastic read and pretty much a must have for any Rubyist, new or old school.






Simply stated, Andrew is one of greatest folks in the world of OSX development. Going back to the late 80s, and in my case the 90-91 time frame, Stone Design has always produced some of the simplest and yet most powerful software hands could touch. Starting with TextArt, and then moving to Create, Stone Design is now a full house of titles to offer. Create, PStill, PhotoToWeb, SliceAndDice, TimeEqualsMoney, StampInStone, GIFfun, PackUp&Go, LicenserKit, TrueBlue, DOCtor, GlobalWarmth and FontSight. You can't go wrong with any of his titles. Andrew is almost always available at all times, and gives his heart and sole to his work while standing behind the customers needs and wants. IORCC thanks Andrew for his apps, his love for all things OSX, and also his great personality! Visit Stone Design now and see for yourself why folks call Stone Design the venerable OSX software developer.




Want to make a great puzzle out of an image online, or out of your weekend party photos. Makes it very simple to snap and take an image making puzzles out of them in no time. We're working hard now on a puzzle with another sponsor's Ruby image, wait and see :)




I have known about OpenBase since 1992 when it first hit the NeXTstep scene. Since then it has matured into a preferred database for the small shop and large entprise. I was pleased to see it now runs on OSX, Linux and Windows. OpenBase has offered to sponsor IORCC with full customer licenses for the winners, and after our contest we will be rolling out a Ruby interface to OpenBase while using OB for our backend data store. Thanks OpenBase, you're a class act!




Probably my favorite sponsor only cause these guys don't pay attention to the negative and focus on the positively negative :) Vince and the guys (including the deranged but lovable Gary Coleman) have decided to buck the trend of taste and market Postal2 to the winners of the IORCC and IDRCC. Beyond tasteless, you have to simply laugh at the sillyness of Postal2, the ludicracy of the content and extreme nature of the violence. For adults only, kids and whiners need not apply (but do anyway). Running with Scissors, you guys and Postal2 are the deal! Thank you for coming thru!



Using Crossword Forge was as simple as it gets for constructing a puzzle on the Mac. Decidely simple, basic interface and simplicity to a tee. You can't go wrong. From simple to complex (the IORCC Fun Puzzle has 84 questions/words), you can configure this app to produce just what kind of layout and information in each game so to make it personal, but not difficult to use! Thank you Sol Robots!





The great folks at Bartas have agreed to provide copies of their CopyWrite 2.x to the winners of IORCC and IDRCC. I have not used this application extensively, but I can tell you without a doubt what I have seen is amazingly simple to understand, use and leverage for writing books and manuals. Its interface is clean, crisp and simplified. Nothing is in the way, and I suspect professional writers will enjoy the power and speed of CopyWrite. Thank you Bartas!




I have used Interface Builder, then Project Builder and now XCode as well as Metrowerks and the Unix file system with Make for the past 17 years. I have always wondered why IDE's keep getting more complex when for most needs in SCM and development I simply need to file/folder a project and access it quick and easy. Emacs is a decent tool with the right lisp macros, but I'm a Vim guy myself on the CLI editor front. I took one look a few days ago at TextMate and said 'IORCC has to get these guys and product as sponsors" It is ***THAT*** much of a winner in design, simplicity and power. I can't sit here and explain it, this app deserves the best of power editors awards for the past 15 years for me. I'm smiling ear to ear as I code again, in large part to Ruby, and the other part to TextMate. A perfect coupling of power and style wrapped up into one.




In the early 90s there was Virtspace for NeXTstep and at times (they gave up) for Openstep. Then NOTHING for years. Once Quartz and OSX were happy together (and solid/fast enough), came the virtual space managers. I have tried 3 of them. This one is the best, cleanest, fastest and most cost effective to use. IORCC approached this with a level head. Could have Apple's kinda-wanna-be-virtspace tools. Could have an unsupported product. Or, could have Codetek's VirtualDesktop. The winner was obvious. With awards left and right, and thousands of unit sales, it is obvious why the clear winner is Virtual Desktop. Hard to imagine using OSX without it!





Better late than never its always said, and no more true than with OmniGroup's committment to provide 2 licenses of their OmniPopular sofware, OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner. Both Class A applications from one of the most seasoned of all OSX developer houses. Thanks Linda Sharps and the top brass at OmniGroup!




Working with MySQL and PHP was never that easy! dbSuite WebBuilder is an integrated environment to administer your MySQL database servers and automatically generate PHP code for input forms, edit forms, list, etc. from your table definitions. Integrated Administration Environment, Navigate through your Database, Generate Web Forms, Run SQL Queries.


Also available for OSX only is the highly functional utility tool SQL4X Manager J allowing access to a large number of datastores... OpenBase, PrimeBase, FrontBase, MySQL and many more commercial databases from large vendors.




And of course, what would a WebCentric Contest be with a blogging interface tool? The great Ecto for both OS X and for Windows is the Official 2005 IORCC Blogging Tool. Interfacing to all the major blogging sites, Ecto from our friends Adriaan Tijsseling and Alex Hung is simple, clean and does one job really well. Makes your blogging experience SIMPLE and FAST! Thanks to Kula Co., Ltd. it is very true, Ecto ROCKS!!!




BasaOne is a Graphical Web Application Development tool. You design an application and BasaOne will generate all the necessary HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL and PHP. Quicktime is also supported. There are times I get excited (I'm an excitable personality), and this is one of those times. Here is a tool allowing you to hack/program/craft websites with real DB functionality and form without having to be a DB expert. Don't want to hack MySQL, learn crypting layers of abstraction to get the data to the store? Well, Basasoft is right for you. Online classes, tutorials, great response time, this company and product makes your life easy and fun.Try it for 14 days and decide for yourself.




Bare Bones Software is the grandpappy of application developers for OS X. Coming into their own during the 90s boom, they survived the new millenium bust with solid application development and listening to their customers. With award after award received its no wonder they are still going strong. Enjoy these two super applications, the seminal BBEdit 8.0 and of course Mail Smith 2.1.




A simple, Pipe is powerful, tiny in size (at only 140K), launches in seconds. I have used this application, and can say only wonderful things about Pipe. Pipe for OS X integrates well with TextWranger, TextMate and many more. You can buy some bread and cheeze to celebrate afterwards too, nice pricing! Works fantastic with Ruby and Sensetalk, shell and more!





The IORCC is flattered and happy to have Ambrosia Software as the Official 2005 IORCC Cool Utility Sponsor! Why take a static screenshot when Snapz Pro X 2 makes creating a movie just as easy? Snapz Pro X 2 does that, and so much more -- what a difference a version makes! Download a free demo version from our web site today or check out the demo movies we've created and see for yourself. Ambrosia does have the neatest retro-icon in existance, WireTap!





We couldn't believe it when it happned, but it did. The most momentum OS X software company today, Delicious Monster, has agreed to be the official 2005 IORCC Library Sponsor and provide 3 licenses for Delicious Library to the IORCC. Right to the end, the folks at Delicious Monster have shown their true colors, a full rainbow. Thank you Drew and gang!

NOTE: The IORCC as general policy requests each sponsor to provide a license to each judge, and if not then to the IORCC. This is done for a number of reasons. First we believe in congruency in product promotion. The IORCC believes disclosure as well as using what is promoted and sponsored. All these products have been used, at some level for usefulness and seen fit into the mission of the IORCC. The IORCC has *NOT* taken cash/money in any way (aside from pooling cash prizes, which to date has not been pursued). IORCC also encourages all sponsors to deliver products directly to the winners immediately after winners are announced. Leaving the IORCC judges to promotion and smile. We all love to see happy campers, both contestants and companies that value the IORCC. If you have not figured this out yet, the IORCC's mission is to make coding fun again.