| The Ultimate Business Machine Technology, business And, not least, about by: Bernard Teo
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Fri 16 Oct 2009 Maven Snow UpdateCategory : Technology/MavenSnowUpdate.txt I released Maven Snow too quickly yesterday without testing on another machine that didn't have my development libraries (for MySQL and PostgreSQL) installed. They crashed on launch. Investigating the crash report - Dyld Error Message: Library not loaded: The "lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.16.dylib" was detritus left behind from my (ultimately successful) attempt to set up on single code base to build database connectors for three platforms - Mac OS X, iPhone, and the iPhone simulator. I've made it such that if I can think of algorithms that can make our database access code run faster, I only need to implement it once in one piece of code and Xcode will build libraries that will work for the Mac and the iPhone, including the iPhone simulator. Considering that the Mac and the iPhone are actually two different hardware architectures, and that my own C code has to link with client libraries from MySQL and PostgreSQL that I have to build from source, that all goes to show why Xcode - Apple's development environment - is so good. There's really a Mac way of looking at the world and if you are in synch with that world view, life is good. I didn't need libmysqlclient.16.dylib and a few other dylibs from MySQL and PostgreSQL in order to make Maven (or Luca) run. But they were there when Maven was being linked with its libraries and, since I didn't need them, I didn't package them with the Maven app, of course they couldn't be found, at launch time, at some other person's Mac. Hence the crash. Removing all these garbage from my build environment cleared the crash. Lesson : do not leave your workspace in a mess. These things will trip you up and, at the least, give you untold embarassment. Speaking of embarassment, Nick Lo asks : Also, this feels like a stupid question so I'm hesitant to bring it up, but I was reading your "Maven for Snow Leopard" post and noted you say... "I think it's gotten a lot faster now than Cocoa MySQL. I believe I can work faster now using Maven's interface than with Cocoa MySQL. But there's still quite a few things that Cocoa MySQL has that Maven hasn't, including the ability to do searches on the data and that's what I'm working on next." ...and was wondering why you are comparing your new version of Maven with what is now an abandoned project rather than to its successor Sequel Pro? The answer is, "I'm out of touch". I don't know about Cocoa MySQL being abandoned but it's what I use, still, on my desktop (e.g., to check up serial numbers for people who've lost theirs, or to update my apps' version numbers) and my aim was to make Maven good enough that I could stop using it. So maybe I'm aiming too low. But the truth is, as a GUI for SQL databases, Maven has still a long way to go. But as a Cocoa framework for database access, so that I can have one unified way of accessing three different bases from both the Mac and the iPhone (and one unified way of making SQL calls), Maven is coming along fine and I can't wait to get some current stuff out of the way so that I can move on to iPhone development. Thu 15 Oct 2009 Maven for Snow LeopardCategory : Technology/MavenSnow1dot0.txt This is a completely new build of Maven for Snow Leopard. It's 32/64 bit Intel. It's compiled using the new Clang LLVM compiler that helps produces cleaner, faster code. But it'll only run on Snow Leopard. From now on, all improvements to Maven will only be made to this version. I've fixed incompatiblities in the code with the 10.6 SDK. And I've fixed a crashing problem when Maven has to work with tens of thousands of records. I think it's gotten a lot faster now than Cocoa MySQL. I believe I can work faster now using Maven's interface than with Cocoa MySQL. But there's still quite a few things that Cocoa MySQL has that Maven hasn't, including the ability to do searches on the data and that's what I'm working on next. But here it is, for people who've been following its development : Maven for Snow Leopard version 1.0, and the downloadable zip file. I'm experimenting with using Apple's Pages for my software manuals and documentation. I wish there's a way to automatically convert a Pages document to web pages - and not just a pdf file viewable in a browser - because that would be perfect.
And I'm also watching how information proliferates. For example, I've not made any announcement about LDAP Enabler for Snow Leopard in places like Version Tracker or MacUpdate, yet it gets picked up by the amorphous thing we call the web. It starts with one or two downloads, and then it beccomes a regular stream. Even that frst download. Besides the couple of people I invited to test it, how did the rest know where and how to find it? Probably Google. That's one institution that has made a dent in the universe. We couldn't do what we do without Google. So far, nothing else comes close. MacBook Pro crashed - it's Nvidia's fault!Category : Commentary/MBPandNvidia.txt My MacBook Pro crashed. I couldn't wake it up from sleep. All I get is a black screen. I powered it off and rebooted. Still the same. It gets progressively worse with each try until I don't even get the startup chime. Fearing the worse - a logic board replacement without AppleCare coverage - I sent it in for servicing. Turns out, happily, it's a known problem. There's a MacBook Pro recall program going on due to faulty Nvidia chips. What luck! My MBP fell into the range of products covered by the recall, so I got a free logic board replacement. But I couldn't work for a couple of days. Couldn't release Maven for Snow Leopard as I had planned. Will do it now. Sun 04 Oct 2009 LDAP Enabler for Snow LeopardCategory : Technology/LDAPEnabler1dot1dot1.txt I've released LDAP Enabler 1.1.1 for Snow Leopard. This has been built using the new Clang LLVM compiler on Xcode, which is supposed to produce faster code, and it's 32 bit Intel and 64-bit ready, like all our other Snow Leopard apps. This is the last of my apps that had yet to be transitioned to Snow Leopard. So now everything runs on Snow Leopard. But Maven and Luca have yet to be made true Snow leopard apps. The latest ones that could run on Snow Leopard were simply built on Leopard with the version check removed (I can do this for these kinds of apps because they don't have to work in sync wth system-supplied files like Postfix and BIND, so I don't have to go through the same kind of work that I do with MailServe and DNS Enabler). I've yet to release a build that's specifically for 10.6 (because you get all sorts of compile errors when you do) but Maven for Snow Leopard is almost done and will be released in a couple of days. Then it'll be Luca's turn. There's been a change as to how Snow Leopard's Address Book can be made to look up an LDAP directory, so I've updated LDAP Enabler's Address Book How-To panel to reflect that :
So LDAP Enabler ver 1.1.1 for Snow Leopard - download available now. Fri 02 Oct 2009 The Art of PricingCategory : Commentary/TheArtofPricing.txt There's a book by that name that I've read. It has a five-star rating at Amazon and I remember it being one of those books that I would call nourishing, in terms of its contribution to my development as a business-person. Coming from a family of civil servants, I still find it hard to see myself as a business man. "If you don't study hard", my grandmother would say, "you'll end up as a salesman, like that useless so-and so", no doubt hoping that I'd be the mandarin that I never could be. I still hear her voice, all these years. But, ahh, that's the matriarchal Chinese family. Then there's also Chris Anderson's "Free - The Future of a Radical Price" that I'm reading now. It's another day in my personal, custom-made, self-learning MBA course, with a good measure of practical experience thrown in. That's what it's like doing this - designing, building and selling software on the Internet. So I've ended up as a salesman of some sort - selling software that I've built myself - maybe that isn't quite a large fall from grace (I hope). I've only now managed to get a break from coding to think about pricing (no doubt getting things ass-backwards, as the Americans would say). But Snow Leopard is so good that I want to get everyone who has ever used any of our products to get on the platform, so we can build on up with the good stuff from this point on. I've changed our system to make it possible for everyone to upgrade to the equivalent Snow Leopard product for USD $15 if they've ever bought any one of our previous products, including going all the way back to Postfix Enabler for Tiger. I say "our", not because I'm royalty, but because Hai Hwee, who's responsible for a lot of the work in Luca and for our Internet store - every time you buy something, it's her code that is doing the processing - is going to come back and work with me full time from end December after a stint teaching at the local polytechnic (but she's through with all that). Maybe work on Luca will move a lot faster then. Or at least that's what we've planned. Now that's $15 for a "pro-level" product that's superior, in terms of features, to the product that it replaced in Leopard, and which a significant number of people have shown they're willing to pay $25 for at full price. So I believe $15 represents good value for those who're upgrading to Snow Leopard. But why $15? After 5 years doing this, I think it's absolutely the lowest point to make this type of venture worthwhile. To compete, someone with another product will have to come in at $10, but that's a very painful place to be in. Just ask me - I've been at that level for 4 of the last 5 years. And 15 USD now has lost so much of its value following the slide in the US$ exchange rate that it's a lot closer to the 10 USD of 4 years ago than it is to 15. Then there is the element of charging what the market will bear. What has surprised me is the number of people paying the full 25 USD price - even people who could have taken advantage of the upgrade offer if they had wanted to. Over the years I've been bouyed by the sentiments (if not the money) of these people who've signalled with their purchases that the product has at least met, if not exceeded, their expectations even at full price. But setting the price higher than that could create a shelter for a competing product to slip under. Or at least that's the theory from MBA-land. But then, what do I know? I'm still learning. Now, off with the suit, and back to coding. I've just finished Outliers - The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. Like the first book, The Tipping Point, I would give it two thumbs up. I believe there's a lot of truth in what he says. That your success is not a product of just your own hard work, but it's also through a whole lot of luck as to how opportunities had come your way. Like my life would have been vastly different had my grandmother not plucked me out to rear as her own simply because I was the eldest son of her (remaining) eldest son - probably as a substitute for the favoured son she lost to the Japanese in the Second World War. I think my brothers had always felt that. DNS Enabler 4.0.3Category : Technology/DNSEnabler4dot0dot3.txt I've been working on DNS Enabler for Snow Leopard. I've released DNS Enabler 4.0.3, a day after releasing 4.0.2, because while working on adding CIDR-formatted IP address support to 4.0.2, I've realised that people do use DNS Enabler to manage a whole lot of domains. So, that one line data entry field for Virtual Domains is getting to be vastly inadequate. (And that goes the same for MailServe). I've extended the length of that field, for the moment, while I take some think about how I should be handling this going forward :
I'm very happy seeing these CIDR addresses (e.g., 12.53.154.64/30.65) in DNS Enabler because those slashes had been rather difficult to handle - they messed with sed when I do text substitution in the Unix scripts. And you're only asking for trouble when you name Unix files with a slash in their name. But I got that sorted out in the end and learnt a few more things about Unix shell programming along the way. By now I think, comparing features, DNS Enabler is on par with the Quick DNS Pro from Men and Mice that I used to use from some time back. Maybe it can already do some things better and faster. But if I can add BIND views and custom BIND options support, now that would be really taking things forward quite a bit. And I remember paying $200/$300 for Quick DNS Pro then. If only I can find the cheek to charge that much for DNS Enabler :-) Fri 11 Sep 2009 Snow Leopard 10.6.1Category : Commentary/SnowLeopard10dot6dot1.txt I've updated my MacBook Pro and live server to 10.6.1. This time, FTP works. And everything else does, too - web, mail, dns. So if you're wondering, it's safe to upgrade now. Tue 08 Sep 2009 A Word about 10.6.1 - FTPCategory : Technology/10dot6dot1.txt I've updated both my MacBook Pro and my live server, a new iMac, to the developer's release of 10.6.1. While the mail, web and dns functions continue to work, FTP didn't and I wasn't able to update my site from my MBP. So that was a pain (literally) as I'm down with chickenpox (at my age!) and I need to hide in my room so as not infect my wife (who isn't sure whether she's got it before) and my kid (who so looked forward to this one-week holiday that it'll pain me to have to spoil it all for him if he comes down with it, too). So after having tried everything, I downgraded my MBP back to 10.6. Guess what? FTP works again. I can make it FTP to itself. So, this lunch time, while my wife and kid were away, I went into our shared work-room and down-graded the live server back to 10.6. How I missed our bright, sun-lit work-room, where we each have our own corner and a Mac, or two? It's one of life's simple pleasures. Now I can FTP to the server from my private jail (room), and think about how I can make revisions to this site (One of the things I really want to do is to update the pictures - my kid's a lot bigger now than he was in the picture on the right). The Snow Apps get their first revisionCategory : Technology/SnowAppsRevision1.txt I've made a few tweaks to the Snow Leopard apps and bumped up their versions by one point release. MailServe Snow becomes 4.1.1, DNS Enabler Snow 4.0.1 and WebMon Snow 4.0.1. I had also built them using the new Clang compiler on Xcode, which is supposed to produce faster, more optmized code. There's also a new Static Analyzer in Xcode and running it, I caught one non-obvious memory leak in the apps that in all honesty I would never have spotted on my own. So the platform is in a healthy state and there's much to look forward to, coding for the Mac. And iPhone. But for now, I'm still watching these three apps and trying to finish the BIND Views feature for DNS Enabler. Then I need to get Maven and Luca really updated for Snow Leopard. Right now, they're not truly Snow Leopard applications. The ones I've released were compiled on a Leopard machine with the version check removed. But once you set them up to use the Snow Leopard API, you get a huge number of errors for everything. So I can't even get them built. It'll take me some time to pick my way through these. So, it's not easy to build a Snow Leopard application. Lots of work still to come. Sun 30 Aug 2009 Snow Leopard AppsCategory : Technology/LetItSnow.txt OK, this is where my Snow Leopard apps are : MailServe Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/MailServeSnow/ DNS Enabler Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/DNSEnablerSnow/ WebMon Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/WebMonSnow/ I'm still updating all the documentation. But those who can't wait can get them now. Sat 29 Aug 2009 I've got SnowCategory : Technology/Snow.txt I'm going to do a clean install of my store-bought copy of Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro. Doing a backup of all my work now. I've solved the problem with MailServe's new anti-spam feature not working on the last development copy of Snow Leopard that I had, i.e., 10A432. It works OK now. I was trying to squeeze in one new feature for DNS Enabler - the ability to do BIND views - but I have to concede that this going to be a bit more than I can chew. So I'm going to release my last good version of DNS Enabler for Snow Leopard and continue working on it. Quite a lot of mail coming in for the new versions that will work with Snow Leopard. While I will answer every mail, it may be better that I spend the time getting the work done. Give me one more day and I'll have them ready. I'm going to call them all MailServe Snow, DNS Enabler Snow, and WebMon Snow (dropping the MailServe Pro designation to simplify all the naming). There are subtle improvements and changes in all of them (e.g., new binaries, config files, new techniques, and new oft-requested-for features). I'm just disappointed I couldn't get the BIND views feature done on time for DNS Enabler but I'll get there. I love a lot of things about Snow Leopard. Little things, like I can now control my HP all-in-one (including scan) using Apple's much more simplified interface in System Preferences (rather than HP's cluttered attempt at writing Mac applications). And the speed. And not having to build PPC fat binaries. It's a platform to build on. My backup's done. Snow Leopard is on its way. Mon 17 Aug 2009 SpamCategory : Technology/SnowSpam.txt I think it's a good thing that I'm trying to run our live server on Snow Leopard (or at least the 10A432 release of Snow Leopard) because I've just discovered that the new spam filtering mechanism that I've built into MailServe is not working. It was working on Leopard. So I'm now getting all the junk mail coming in again. Something subtle had changed, but I don't yet know what, because there are half a dozen suspects. It's one of those things that make going from one major OS release to the next such a pain for developers - especially if you're working, like me, on the innards of Unix in OS X. It's always the smallest things that are the hardest to trace. Just one example - on Leopard, if you copy a file, the user and group access rights for the copy is set to that of the person doing the copying and the set-uid bits, if there are any, are cleared. But on Snow Leopard, the set-uid bits are left as they were. It's one small unobservable difference - but it'll smash up all your code (if they do things like making admin-level changes to config files) to bits. That one took me a long time to spot and then to debug. But for this new problem, I'll have to live with all the junk mail - until I can find a solution. But, of course, it's way better to get hit now, then when I have many people using MailServe for Snow Leopard live. Read more ... |
Mac@Work
Services running on this server, a Mac Mini running Mac OS X 10.9.2 Mavericks:
all set up using MailServe, WebMon, DNS Enabler, DNS Agent, VPN Enabler, Liya and our SQL installers, all on Mavericks. |
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