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2007 MacTech 25 (continued)
Page 2

Adam and Tonya Engst

Adam and Tonya Engst have existed in the Macintosh world since the dawn of time. Instead of getting stuck in a rut, though, they continually update their skills and adapt to the changes in this world. More than just getting by in the publishing category, they continually lead it. Beginning with the publication of TidBITS in the early 1990s as an e-mail based e-zine, they've also learned to take on the Web and e-books for their publishing needs. Even TidBITS itself has been published in many, sometimes experimental forms (Hypercard stack, e-text, HTML).

As editors and publishers of the highly successful "Take Control" series, Adam and Tonya have not only made the transition from the old world to the new world, but have managed to maintain and even advance their standing and contribution to the Macintosh technical and end-user community. Adam and Tonya are also currently active in groups like MacNotables (http://www.macnotables.com), and as contributing editors to magazines such as Macworld. - erm

Allan Odgaard

Allan Odgaard is clearly a special man on the Mac landscape. He helps developers, well, develop! With a single product, TextMate, he has changed the lives of many Mac developers. TextMate is a commercial text editor for developers -- one that staves off many free editors, including XCode. It does this in two ways: technical superiority, and a fanatical community. When it turned out that Allan was unable to attend Macworld 2007 in person, users of TextMate volunteered to staff the MacroMates booth.

Thankfully, it's not just a small, fanatical fan base that recognizes Allan's work. TextMate has won not only an Apple Design Award in late 2006, but has also recently been honored with a Jolt productivity award in early 2007.

In addition to creating the product himself, Allan keeps in close touch with all users of the product through forms and the TextMate blog (http://macromates.com/blog). The blog features tips and tricks from Allan himself, and news about bundles submitted by users. If you're into programming or scripting in practically any language, you can presently do no better than to do so using TextMate. - erm