We’ve been really busy over the past week finishing up some big enhancements to SQLCipher, the open-source full-database SQLite encryption extension that powers Strip, our Data Vault for the iPhone.

The latest version SQLCipher 1.1.1, is based on the most recent release of SQLite (3.6.21), which has a many improvements and bug fixes. In addition the new SQLCipher features include:

1. Code clean up to allow compilation with VS.NET on windows.
2. Enhancements to the codebase to allow encrypted databases to be attached to unencrypted database for the purpose data migration
3. Resolution of a minor memory leak in the pager subsystem
4. Documentation and test enhancements

The newest build makes SQLCipher truly cross-platform – it’s now been used successfully under Mac OS X, iPhone, Linux, and Windows (across MinGW, Cygwin, and native VS.NET). The new version is a drop in replacement for previous releases, so we’re recommending that all SQLCipher users upgrade to the latest.

Check out SQLCipher on GitHub.

Today and tomorrow I’ll be bringing you some news and updates related to Strip, answering some common email queries, and providing an overdue update on where we’re at with the desktop version. Before I get into the upcoming stuff, however, we could use your help! Strip for iPhone been nominated in the Best App Ever awards, under the Best Productivity Enhancer category. As I know there are a lot of you out there who have quite an affinity for Strip, mind clicking over to the page and voting for us?

Nominate
Strip – Password Manager & Data Vault…
for
Best Productivity Enhancer

We really appreciate your continued support and enthusiasm for the platform. Stay tuned for updates!

Having been a big fan of CLERKS and most things brought into this world by Kevin Smith, I was delighted to receive an email this morning telling us that our NSDate category made itself into the credits for the new Kevin Smith iPhone app by DenVog. It’s exactly what you’d expect from Smith — it’s silly, awesome, immature, and well done. I can’t tell you how many times I watched CLERKS in high school, so being exactly that mature still, I downloaded it immediately.

This is my favorite part:

Weekend terror will ensue. None will be spared!

NSDate (Helper) is continually being used in our own Cocoa projects, and I’m constantly mucking with it and pushing new changes to the github project. It’s probably due for a touch of code clean-up.

I love seeing the change summary after a large and major branch is merged into the master branch. I think this is our best one yet:

282 files changed, 11893 insertions(+), 12129 deletions(-)

We successfully deployed the Tempo update “Teams” last night. There are a few lingering issues that we’re working hard to resolve. If you notice anything funny, please get in touch so we can get to work on it.

Since the topic is going around lately, I figured we’d chime in. Max Cammeron of Big Bang makes a strength-in-numbers appeal to consultants everywhere to abandon RFPs, while Carl Smith from nGen Works has a post up making a strong case that RFPs aren’t good for his clients. We don’t respond to RFPs either, and this isn’t because we’re starving artists/consultants. Many of the comments on Max’s article at Hacker News seem to be pushing this notion that responding to RFPs is the cost of business for a consultancy, and they couldn’t be more wrong.

We don’t respond to RFPs, and all of our business comes from repeat customers and referrals. And we’re not exactly making web sites for Jumpin’ Jack’s Chicken Shack, we’ve got some really big clients. Stephen gave a really good run down of why we don’t need ’em in a recent interview with Subvert.ca (emphasis added):

When we get a referral or start a new project for a past customer, there’s already a relationship in place. The client already knows that they can trust us, and it cuts out the entire “dance” that we’d otherwise have to do to prove ourselves. There are other benefits, too.

People only ask us to prepare a proposal when they are seriously considering a project. Plus, we rarely find ourselves as column fodder behind another incumbent company — we call it column fodder when you have no hope of winning a deal and your estimate is just filling in a cell on a spreadsheet for comparison purposes.

This level of trust also means that we can work more closely with our customers to develop requirements. They take our estimates and advice seriously. In the end it works out better for everyone involved.

We can talk ourselves blue in the face about the effectiveness or lack thereof in the RFP process, as I’m sure they will remain in the industry for some time, but in the end, nothing replaces good work combined with good communication, and trust. We only work with people we trust, and so do our clients.

Stay tuned, sports fans; later this morning I’ll post a run-down of where we’re going with Tempo, our time-tracker. Change is afoot!