Plazes, beta software, and the Mac

So Plazes is this thing that fingerprints whatever network you are on, and then lets you see who else (registered with Plazes) is on the same or nearby networks.

It has a very beta bit of desktop software for MacOS X, most of the stuff happens through the web page interface.

Like all good new web software it has an API.

Martin Pittenauer wrote a little menubar thing (using the API) that Plazes liked so much they recommend downloading it instead of their own installer.

The only problem is, it's user-contributed software.  It's nice that it exists, but it's not exactly supported in detail.

Details like, say, how to disable it.  Or uninstall it.

I discovered eventually (via comments in Plazes is starting to work for me) that you can remove a MacOS X menu thingy (I don't know what they are called, extensions? extras? plugins?)  by, get this, command-dragging the icon to the desktop (command key = apple splat key).  That's right, you can drag the little icon to the desktop and it disappears (with an elaborate sound-and-visual "poof" cloud effect), the same as dragging from the dock.

I blame Steve Jobs for this crack-headed new idea that some things you drag to the desktop to place them there, and some things you drag to the desktop to make them disappear.  Also, it would be nice if Apple had an interface to manage menu addins.

It also points out a challenge in our perpetual-beta, user-contributed world of managing expectations and support for third-party software.  If your company is promoting that a third-party app be downloaded instead of your own software, maybe you should make it supported software?  Or at least having a consistent download location?  Between the website and the blog, they list no less than two versions and three download locations for the menubar software.

AFAIK the correct one to download is version 1.1 or higher, from
http://beta.plazes.com/info/files/#contributed

The earlier version has some problems on MacOS X 10.4 Tiger.

Comments

[Dan Karran]

Thanks for the tip on how to remove it. I think it was freezing up that part of the menu bar when it was having difficulties connecting. I hope removing it will help fix that...