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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Sat 30 Apr 2005

Postfix Enabler for Tiger - Update

Category : Technology/PFEforTigerUpdate.txt

I think I've solved it. A few things essential for Postfix to run were missing from the final Tiger release installer. Postfix Enabler for Tiger will check, and if they're not there in the system, it'll attempt to put them back. Postfix on Tiger seems to work fine again on my test PowerBook.

But we're going to do one more round of testing before we release the update. It'll be version 1.1.1 now.

Basically, the entry for MAILSERVER was missing from /etc/hostconfig, plus a couple of other things, and these confused Postfix Enabler because I wasn't expecting that.

Actually I had made sure to test both a fresh install and an upgraded system using my developer release of Tiger, which was updated up to December or January. The changes must have come after that.

Never ever again will I attempt to release something the same day as Apple's OS launch. It's just not worth it. And maybe, try not to ask me for free serial numbers unless you've contributed something like $50. My mood's changed. This is really hard work.

Posted at 12:06PM UTC | permalink

Postfix Enabler for Tiger

Category : Technology/PFETigerNotWorking.txt

I've had to hold this. I've just found that the retail version of Tiger hasn't got a couple of things that were on the developer version. This is making Postfix Enabler not work for those who're using a totally fresh version Tiger. It seems to work OK for those who're upgrading. Will try to fix this problem now.

Posted at 8:11AM UTC | permalink

Postfix Enabler for Tiger Unleashed

Category : Commentary/PFEForTigerUnleashed.txt

Okay, this is out. It's at http://cutedgesystems.com/software/postfixenabler.

I'm keeping this low-key because I've only had my pre-release version of Tiger to work with. All the people that I'd sent this to for testing reported that it works okay. But until I get my own retail copy of Tiger, I wouldn't know for sure if anything has changed to throw things into disarray.

If this gets picked up slowly, I would have time to fix any problems.

But I hope it works for everyone and that they'll love it.

This is the first time we're really charging for its use. It's the first version of anything we ever did that requires a serial number to use. The problem with things like Postfix Enabler is that it may sometimes not work if the user has made his own custom modifications to system files. After all, its just a stupid program. It'll never be as smart as a human being in figuring out all the variations. So if it doesn't work for anyone, we'll refund the money. That's the policy we'll be taking.

Also, I'm most appreciative of the people who've taken the time to send me donations even though they didn't have to to do it. That's really kept my faith in the human race. You know who you are. Just drop me a note and I'll be glad to send you a complimentary copy of Postfix Enabler for Tiger.

Posted at 8:06AM UTC | permalink

Fri 29 Apr 2005

Tiger's come a little too fast

Category : Commentary/TigerComeTooFast.txt

It's Tiger's launch and we've just finished getting Postfix Enabler for Tiger ready. But I'm going to get some sleep before releasing it.

Come back in six hours and it'll be up.

Actually, I feel Tiger's come a little too fast. For weeks I've been thinking about how I can make Postfix Enabler work remotely. Tiger was the furthest thing on my mind. I've finally found a way to make it all work exactly the way I want. This will make its way into a future version.

Posted at 5:36PM UTC | permalink

Mon 25 Apr 2005

Flu bug - with love from Shanghai

Category : Commentary/flubug.txt

I've been been down with flu ever since I got back from Shanghai. In a place where people spit on the floor within two feet of you in a restaurant, I guess that's to be factored into as a travel risk.

But I shouldn't be complaining. I had a really great time there. You go to each place to learn - about all its idiosyncrasies, about why it is what it is, and all that adds to your world view. Otherwise don't go anywhere.

I really hate it when foreigners gripe about Singapore, especially the very ones that Singapore welcome as "foreign talent". Instead of criticising, try understanding. Don't do unto others, etc...

This is the world's most populous nation on the move. Gucci, Calvin Klein, Prada. Surely this is not the face of communism. How did it get to here? There's a fantastic energy about the place. I came back and found this book in the library - "Big Dragon - The future of China: What it means for business, the economy, and the global order" by Daniel Burstein and Arne de Keijzer. Been quite interesting reading...

Posted at 3:57PM UTC | permalink

Postfix Enabler for Tiger?

Category : Technology/PFE-Tiger.txt

I've had so many questions about this that I stopped being able to give an answer to each one. So, there will be a Tiger-compatible version of Postfix Enabler. Come back again to these pages when Tiger ships.

I think the NDA still applies but I've had to re-do quite a bit of my shell scripts in Tiger because of a change in AppleScript. I then decided that I'd try to keep as much of my old scripts as I can, and so I rewrote the interface in Objective-C to emulate the behaviour I had in Panther.

Plus, I wanted to be able to have a shot at creating an interface that can do the configuring remotely. Not quite there yet, but a Postfix Enabler that will work with Tiger will be ready on the 29th.

Not sure if I want to give this away free this time. I believe it's proved its worth. So get your 9.95 ready.

Posted at 2:53PM UTC | permalink

Sun 10 Apr 2005

Books - Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Category : Commentary/manfredi.txt

Just one book recommendation before I go. I've discovered books by Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

I picked up "The Last Legion", not knowing what to expect, but I enjoyed it tremendously, and so I've started on his Alexander trilogy and, so far, it may not be as good, but it'll be with me on the flight.

I love reading history (a whole lot more than I enojoyed my engineering books). Novels like these help you feel how things could have been, and there are ideas that will make you think while you're being entertained.

But I really got to pack...

Do I or do I not bring my iBook. If I don't it'll be total radio silence for ten days. Let the mail pile up.

Posted at 4:03AM UTC | permalink

Shanghai

Category : Commentary/shanghai.txt

I've been shanghai'ed. By my wife and kid. Dragged off my work to Shanghai for a week. We're leaving in the afternoon and I've got my head still wrapped up in code.

I've realised that it's not quite so easy to make Postfix Enabler work remotely on a server. For a variety of reasons, it's turning out to be quite intricate. But the solution, if and when it does unveil itself, will need to be clean, simple, and precise. Otherwise, I can already see where and how it won't be reliable. Along the way, I've had an education on the subtleties of using quotes on Unix shell scripts.

By the way, I've got a version of Postfix Enabler that should work with Tiger. I re-wrote it in Objective-C, so I could get more control over the execution of the shell scripts and so that I could dream of making it work remotely. But it's not quite ready. Just found a bug.

Anyway, back to Shanghai. This is from the Lonely Planet guide, and I'm looking at this page :

"Whore of the Orient and Paris of the East; city of quick riches, ill-gotten gains and fortunes lost; the domains of socialites and swindlers, adventurers and drug runners, missionaries, gangsters and pimps, all owing more to Marlene Dietrich than Mao Zedong - Shanghai has a history so impregnated with myth that it's hard to decide whether it was once a paradise or an all-emcompassing evil."

One such history that I've quite enjoyed was "Shanghai" by Harriet Sergeant.

My wife would scoff that I read history books on China written by Westerners, Jonathan Spence & all - unlike her, who could read the sources. She's effectively bi-lingual while I'm hopelessly mono-lingual. I tell her that there's a historical precedent. The late medieaval Europeans emerging from their Dark Ages, recovered the works of their Greek intellectual forebears from the Arabic, the ascendent culture at that time, to which these have been translated and preserved, while their own lands fell into ruin at the fall of the Roman Empire. Like them, I feel we're emerging from our own dark ages. I'll have to make do with what I can find.

So to Shanghai, I go. Time to pack.

Posted at 3:38AM UTC | permalink

Sun 03 Apr 2005

How Soccer Explains the World

Category : Commentary/SoccerExplainsTheWorld.txt

I've just finished this book, "How Soccer Explains the World" by Franklin Foer, subtitled, "An {Unlikely} Theory of Globalization".

It didn't seem to get great reviews at Amazon, but I enjoyed it all the same. (One man's meat and all that...)

I'm soccer-mad (or at least I used to when I played it regularly but those days are long gone) and it did set me thinking.

For example, Foer describes a scene from a Celtic-Rangers game where Rangers' Italian defender Lorenzo Amoruso (who's now with Blackburn) celebrated a Rangers goal by turning to the Rangers' supporters and egging them on in their chanting and baiting of Celtic's Catholic supporters.

I know, as most soccer fans do, that Celtic and Rangers occupy opposite ends of the Catholic/Protestant divide. I've watched that scene on TV.

I've often been transfixed by the intensity of the commitment, these Glasgow derbies, and I've been lucky to catch the games a couple of times when the soccer was so much fun.

Now what I didn't know, though I should have guessed, was that Amoruso was Catholic, as Foer mentioned in his book, and he also described what Amoruso's Rangers/Protestant fans were chanting at that time. I couldn't hear it, of course, on the TV. So it was interesting to have the scene described from this other angle. What must have been going on in Amoruso's mind?

This book may not have reached anywhere near its goal - of explaining the state of the world through soccer - but it's a good book to read for a soccer fan who has at least an interest in the rest of the world. It's a different kind of soccer book, for sure.

Sometimes I think I know all about the Catholic/Protestant divide, having been brought up by Protestant aunts, ruled over by a staunch Buddhist matriarch for a grandmother, and, to complete the triangle (and my utter confusion), parents who were Catholics. In the midst of this three-cornered fight, I learnt to trip safely through the minefields of the religious wars from an early age. That's how I ended up a Taoist. I walk the middle path. And I attended Catholic schools all my life! So it's with some sadness to mark the passing of the Pope. May he rest in peace.

Posted at 5:18PM UTC | permalink

The Weightless World

Category : Commentary/weightlessWorld.txt

Looking through the log files, with my new-found ability to decipher which country the hits are from, in the last two hours, Postfix Enabler has been downloaded by people in Japan, Sweden, France, United States, Canada, and Spain.

These bits are flying all over the place. If only I could do that myself - de-materialise, shoot through the ether, and re-appear at the other end in seconds. That would be a great way to fly.

Posted at 3:59PM UTC | permalink

WebServer Monitor 1.0.6

Category : Technology/WebServerMonitor106.txt

I love the way the Mac OS X Cocoa API's work. It has, what I call, expressive power. You could think of an idea and find the constructs in Cocoa to express them and make them come alive, and it doesn't fight you or make you go through hoops. It's great.

I'm now just one step away from being able to do customisable log formats (if I can figure out how the interface should work). And being able to allow the user to set up the webserver, the way Postfix Enabler allows you to set up mail services.

Setting up PHP would be trivial. But setting up WebDav - that will allow you to use the webserver to store and share your iCal calendars, and from there, you'll start to see how all these little elements start to work in concert.

This 1.0.6 release will pave the way because it will give me the framework to turn features on or off the webserver in an orderly way, again much like Postfix Enabler.

This release also brings you, in conformance to the Apache "combined" log format that I'm adopting, the ability to track virtual hosts, traffic in the form of bytes served, status of hits (success or re-direct or page not found), as well as the ability to show or hide columns selectively.

You can download it now and use it while I figure out how to do the interface for customising the log format (among other things).

It'll still only read the log records from /var/log/httpd/access_log, though. Sorry, but if I solve this, I may be encouraged to think further about how to read the log records from anywhere else.

One more thing, WebServer Monitor will show only the records that have come in since you updated it to track the new log format (essentially the "NCSA extended/combined log format" with the addition of the virtual host field - "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\" %v". For the ones that came before, it will (should) politely ignore them.

What's next - provide a way to filter by virtual hosts, and by page views (rather than page hits), and to show only the downloads. And the customisable log format stuff. And who knows? Stats and graphs - once I've learned how to draw graphs with Cocoa. Or figure out a way to accept plug-ins, so other people can supply the graphs.

Joe Mullins sent over some suggestions, including a mock up of how it all might work. Thanks. Step by step. I'll try to get there.

Posted at 3:33PM UTC | permalink

Tue 29 Mar 2005

WebServer Monitor 1.0.5 - New Features

Category : Technology/WebServerMonitor105.txt

The Search Field remembers your most recent searches. You can now double-click on a log record line to launch the web page of a referrer. And, there's a new Country Field when you look at a log detail. (Download 1.0.5 from here).

I've always wanted to be able to do this - thanks to Hai Hwee who supplied me with the SQLite Cocoa framework to store the country data in.

The user I have in mind is one who's just bought a Mac mini, say, to use as a server, and he turns on Remote Login at the Mac mini, and then uses some of the stuff that I'm writing now, running them on an iBook, remotely, to turn on a variety of services at the server.

I'm assuming that he doesn't know how to do any custom configuration, and that he doesn't care about Apache httpd.conf files, etc. In fact, that's better for me because it gives me a predictable target to aim my code at.

I'm trying to take that user through the shortest possible route towards using that server as a foundation for running his business. For building the ultimate business machine.

From my experience with both Postfix and Sendmail Enablers, I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to work around all the modifications that people could possibly make to their config files. So I'm going to assume that the code is running on a freshly installed un-(hand)-modified Mac. That's the tradeoff that one has to accept. Otherwise, roll your own.

Posted at 3:59PM UTC | permalink