BitLoot helps turn ideas into Open Source software

I've written about plenty of great software, but I'll probably never create any on my own. I'm no programmer, unless you count the projects I used to cobble together on our Commodore 64 and Apple IIe when I was in middle school.
That's why I like the idea of bitloot. It's a simple concept. Submit your idea for an application and it's added to bitloot's listings. Once some financial contributions are made, a developer is selected and creates the code.
Developers that think they've got a cool idea and would like a way to gather some donations can submit an idea and select "me" as the developer.
It's a terrific idea. You get a custom-made program, the developer gets a little compensation for his or her efforts, and the community gets both a new application and open source code to play with.
Bitloot is still fairly new, so why not help get things rolling? Visit the site and submit some ideas, or donate a few bucks to a worthy project!
[Via: Download Squad ] [Tag: coding, development, FOSS, open-source ]

Silverback brings advanced usability testing to the Mac

Silverback, a new OS X application from the renowned UK-based design team Clearleft, was a mystery for quite a while. The app had a site with some neat visual tricks and a gorilla with a clipboard, and it said the application was for designers, but what did it do? The suspense was killing us! We finally had a chance to test Silverback this week, and if you design websites or application interfaces, this program is worth the wait.

Silverback basically turns your Mac into a full-featured usability testing station. Add a new project, add some users, and have them come sit down and test out your interface. Silverback hangs out unobtrusively in the background, capturing video of the the entire screen, including a cute (and useful) effect that marks where your tester is clicking. This in itself would be handy, but Silverback also takes advantage of your built-in iSight camera to include a picture-in-picture of the tester's reactions, on top of the screen capture.

This way, you can see everything the user is doing in real time, and they can speak comments aloud as they come up, rather than pausing to write them down. Usability testing the old-fashioned way generally involves expensive setups and lots of instructions, but Silverback is intuitive to use and provides straightforward and informative results. Silverback is currently in private beta, so some testers can test its testing functions (this makes our heads hurt a little bit.)
[Via: Download Squad ]
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