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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Sat 16 Oct 2004

A New DNS Enabler

Category : Technology/NewDNSEnabler.txt

I'm working on an "enhanced" version of DNS Enabler. I haven't worked on this for ages. But, for the upcoming OS X Developers' Seminar (for which, Leon Chen says, almost 50 people registered within the first hour), I'd like to create a local network using my Airport Express Base Station, and then allow people to interact with our demo using domain names rather than IP addresses. (... for people who've brought along their iBooks or PowerBooks or PC laptops, that is).

I've finished the interface (more or less) and was going to wire it up with the Unix shell scripts when I realised I've forgotten to bring home the picture I drew of which files go where in /var/named and how they should be configured.

Now, I drew that on a piece of paper but my first thought was to wish I could somehow just ssh (remote log-in) back to the office and pull that piece of paper back through the Internet and plonk it on my desk in front of me.

The fact that I could get so frustrated is a sign of how much my mind had wired itself to the idiom of the Internet. I've spent a lot of time drawing up the connections for just so I could move faster when I got to the Unix scripts. But I'll just have to work from memory. This part of a lazy Saturday afternoon, with my kid having a nap and the birds singing along outside, it's a great time to do some programming.

My friend, Hai Hwee, took one look at this yesterday and said, hey, we could be our own dyndns.org - especially since she's written her own code to update dyndns.org when we were having some problems with the DNSUpdate application. It's not quite so simple because I know just enough to build a little DNS system for a local network - to get around an earlier problem with the original Apple Airport Base Station. But it's set me thinking. Why not?

Anyway, I've noticed quite a few people downloading DNS Enabler. I found that surprising. I wouldn't have known until I started checking the web server log to see how my Address Book Plug-in had been doing. So, people are using it. And Sendmail Enabler continues to be downloaded a lot. I hadn't had PayPal payments coming in for Sendmail Enabler for a long time, so who would have thought? ;-) (And Luca, too. About once a day. Interesting.)

Posted at 9:05AM UTC | permalink

Thu 14 Oct 2004

The Mac OS X Developer Seminar @ The Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory

Category : Technology/DevSeminar.txt

There's a Mac OS X Developer Seminar next Friday at the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory at 1.00 pm (to 5.00 pm). It's free. Just register.

Leon Chen from Apple will be covering Mac OS X 10.4, the Tiger release, and some of its cool features.

I'm also going to be presenting but I'm staying on Panther (10.3.x) and showing how we can go under the hood (of the OS X Aqua interface) and turn on all those delightful stuff in the Unix layer.

I'm calling my talk, "The Developer's Mac - Productivity, Power and Portability".

I'm showing how productive we can be when we have all these tools on tap, ready to use. And we use tools that cut across the arts and sciences, moving effortlessly from one mode of thinking to the other.

So, I'll show a complete application built using tools like Photoshop, GoLive, iPhoto, Apache, PHP, Java, WebDav, MySQL, Postfix, etc, all the while sustained by the great music coming out of iTunes (no, I won't show the iTunes part).

The power comes from simplicity, from being able to find just the right tool to solve any problem, and being able to express any solution, on a single computing platform. And you do get computational power - you can do a lot on an iBook, let alone an Xserve.

Finally, the portability comes from being able to move the work around, both in the sense of being mobile and being platform-agnostic. We can move our finished product to just about any hardware platform on earth.

It'll be great if I can show the complete demo on my iBook and then show everything running the same on our PC laptop - with no change of code. We're working on it.

Posted at 11:21AM UTC | permalink

Reflections on Man United, iCal, and a life well lived

Category : Commentary/ManUtdiCal.txt

I thought there would be something like this - Manchester United's fixtures on iCalShare.com (where you can also find Arsenal's fixtures if you follow the gooners). This is what I now have on iCal.

It's wonderful - iCal displays the time as local time, from whatever locale you view the calendar. No need to check the newspapers or guess if it's a Wednesday or Thursday morning that United is playing.

See what I mean about how the technology is helping us to merge work life with the rest of our lives.

The calendar with the orange tab, above, shows the Singapore Public Holidays. You definitely don't want to schedule a business meeting on a holiday. And my wife updates an Appointments calendar for me, when she needs me to know when I have things to do for the family. I also publish my work calendar, of course, so that's where she goes to get an idea of my schedule.

It's all very easy to set up, if you have your own server. iCal calendars are published using WebDav servers and it's not that difficult to turn on WebDav support using the Apache web server that Apple builds into every OS X machine.

It's the little things that count, and these little things do add up to quite a lot, if what you're looking for is a quality life, or a life well-lived.

I was reading this review of the Mac by a "die-hard" PC user, the other day. It's interesting reading, if only to understand how PC users think and it'll be a useful reminder for when I'm teaching our OS X courses. A PC user is very concerned about speed - e.g., how fast a window opens or scrolls - but what I observe is an absence of context.

Context is what your inner eye is looking for when you think about what you want to do with the machine. For example, using iCal to coordinate a family's schedules. Or using the Font Book, below, to organise the typefaces on my Mac, so that I can use them to add colour to the messages I'm trying to communicate - on a web page or on a piece of printed page.

I love reading Allan Haley's "The A B C's of Type" and I often have it by my side when I work. I've created a collection containing some of the typefaces that Allan Haley covers in his book and I can make them available with just one click in the Font Book.

But I digress. Yes, the Mac may be slower than a PC when it scolls or opens a window. But I don't often notice it because my mind's usually on the context, on what I'm trying to communicate or achieve, and what I can tell you is that the Mac's usually faster than the time I take to find solutions or ideas. Context is the key. Without it, we're always going to be pointlessly arguing about the merit of one tool or the other. With it, the choice is so clear - at least to me.

Posted at 10:20AM UTC | permalink

Wed 13 Oct 2004

ISP blocks port 25? No problem

Category : Technology/Port25.txt

Ronnie Teo found the solution to a problem that quite a few people have encountered - the case of an ISP blocking port 25, the default port that mail servers use to contact each other. This is what he says :

Just to share with you some good news. �My Tarawerkz.com mail server is up again. Finally. �The mailhop relay service offered by Dyndns was the solution. �This was what I had to do:

1. In Custom Postfix Settings (in Postfix Enabler, below), two parameters were added: soft_bounce=no, and, unknown_local_recipient_reject_code=550

2. On the Dyndns website, I chose an alternate port on offer from a list including 24, 25, 587, 2525, 10025 and 52525. �I chose 587.

3. Then I forwarded this port on my Linksys router.

4. Lastly, I went into master.cf file to add a line to make postfix listen on the alternate port 587 (instead of just SMTP 25 port)

That's it. �The last thing is to wait. �I thought it didn�t work initally because nothing happened. �Then this morning when I came to the station, all the incoming mail sent over the the last 4 days were there (including the one from Hai Hwee); all automatically retrieved by Spamfire.

Now I am happy and relieved and I have you to thank for it. �So, thanks again.

Thanks for sharing the solution, Ronnie. For point 4, the line to add in the /etc/postfix/master.cf file is :

587 inet n - n - - smtpd

There is already a line that says :

smtp inet n - n - - smtpd

so you add the 587 line to it.

As Ronnie mentioned, you can chooose to use 24, 25, 587, 2525, 10025 or 52525, if your ISP blocks more ports than port 25.

I'm thinking of making this even easier to do by incorporating it into the Postfix Enabler interface - probably the version that I'm preparing for Tiger. But, for the moment, this looks easy enough to do, manually.

So, there. I ought to look into all my mail about Postfix Enabler and do an FAQ. Oughta. Shoulda. Gotta find the time.

Posted at 4:22AM UTC | permalink

Tue 12 Oct 2004

Postfix Enabler speaks Italian

Category : Technology/ItalianPFE.txt

Thanks to Joram and Daniele from the University of Rome's Mac Users Group (MugRoma), we've got an Italian localisation for Postfix Enabler.

Postfix Enabler 1.0.9 now works in English, French, German, Italian, and Traditional Chinese.

Posted at 4:38AM UTC | permalink

A Correction

Category : Technology/correction.txt

Sorry, I made a mistake. Matthew Hall doesn't write TheJouleBlog. He sent me the permanent link to the IMAP+Fetchmail article and I made the wrong assumption.

Posted at 3:38AM UTC | permalink

Mon 11 Oct 2004

PacNet is so slowwww today

Category : Technology/pacnetslowDNSaddresses.txt

Seems like a day for short posts. PacNet users who are seeing a slow-down in web access to sites outside Singapore should add these two IP addresses into (and right at the top of) the DNS field of their Network Preferences set-up : 203.120.90.40 and 192.169.33.3

Looks like they're having problems with their usual DNS servers. These alternate DNS servers help a whole lot. Just don't tell them you're using a Mac. If you're unlucky to get a PC-centric support person, that's the first thing these guys always think is wrong.

If you don't want to be thrown red herrings, always tell them you're using a PC and then translate their instructions into the equivalent (and often shorter) concepts on the Mac.

Though it's somewhat self-defeating in the sense that it will only confirm, in the minds of these PC-centric techies, that the world only consists of PC Windows users.

Posted at 8:25AM UTC | permalink

Postfix Enabler and Tiger

Category : Technology/PostfixEnablerforTiger.txt

And I can confirm that Postfix Enabler doesn't (yet) work with Tiger. Just tried it. Seems like quite a few things to fix. I say it because I've been asked (a few times). I'm sure I can get it ready when that cat comes out to play. Enough of that T word, for now.

Posted at 8:07AM UTC | permalink

Postfix and Software Update

Category : Technology/PostfixSoftwareUpdate.txt

I read elsewhere on the web that Postfix was updated by the latest Apple Software Update. But I've had no problems after doing the update.

So, if you're wondering whether your Postfix Enabled-mail server would go right on working through all the latest updates, have no fear. Just do it.

That's why it pays, as a strategy, to use as much as possible of what Apple puts into the system. Never try to replace things like Apache, PHP, Postfix, etc. with your own versions, if you can help it. You'll spend a lot less time fixing the system, and more time just using it.

Posted at 7:57AM UTC | permalink

Postfix Enabler, IMAP and FetchMail - A How To

Category : Technology/IMAPandFetchmailAgain.txt

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about Postfix Enabler, IMAP and FetchMail.

To recap, if want to use Postfix Enabler to set up an IMAP server and then use Fetchmail to pull down mail from a variety of other servers (so that you can re-distribute them to all your IMAP clients in a consistent manner), here are some instructions on The JouleBlog that can send you on your way.

Matthew Hall writes The JouleBlog and he's sent me a permanent link to the article. I'm making a note of it here because I ought to try this someday. Thanks, Matthew.

Posted at 7:31AM UTC | permalink

Fri 08 Oct 2004

The Speedtouch ST570 All-In-One Wireless Modem

Category : Singapore/Singtel1500wirelessmodem.txt

In case anybody is thinking of trying it out, I've upgraded to Singnet's 1500 kbps plan from the 512 kbps plan and got a free Speedtouch ST570 ADSL All-In-One wireless modem, which includes installation.

Of course, the Singtel counter staff will say they're not sure if it'll support the Mac. (Note that this is already better than it was before, when you get a flat-out "no, we don't support the Mac, and probably never will"). So I just said that I was using a PC, and did have a laptop ready.

After the technician finished his installation, and got my laptop connected to the wireless station, I showed him how much faster I could get my iBook up and running and doing the same thing (it took a lot less steps than what he needed to do with my laptop - he had to go to the command line on the laptop and I was wondering how any ordinary PC user would know how to do ipconfig / release - or something like that).

So he said he was very impressed. He didn't know the Mac could do all that, and that it was all so easy, and that he's going to consider buying an iBook, too. He could do all those Unix stuff (plus iTunes and all that, of course).

Installing the wireless modem from scratch looks easy enough, if you want to do everything yourself from the Mac.

So, just in case the Singtel counter staff tells anybody differently, the modem does support the Mac (though it's 802.11/b rather than g, i.e., Airport classic rather than Airport Extreme, but it's free and that's probably good enough).

And it's freed up my Airport Express. There are a few things I mean to try out now that I can move my Airport Express around.

Posted at 2:28PM UTC | permalink

Wed 06 Oct 2004

A Map Plug-In for Address Book (for Panther users)

Category : Technology/addressBookPlugIn.txt

I've created an Address Book plug-in for Singapore Maps (based on Stephen Wither's WhereIs plug-in for Australian Maps).

From Panther (OS X 10.3.x) onwards, Apple's engineers gave Address Book users a new ability to work with plug-ins. And smart people are starting to exploit it.

I modified Stephen's AppleScript code and made it work with Singapore's streetdirectory.com. I also wrapped a one-click installer around it.

The installer looks like this and you can download it from here.

Once you've downloaded and installed the plug-in (you can choose to install it at the system level so that it'll work for every user on your Mac), you can go over to Address Book and find a new function in the pop-up menus of Address-related fields :

Choose "Singapore Maps" and your browser will launch streetdirectory.com and point you towards where that address is in Singapore :

Please note: you've got to store your STREET field in Address Book in a regular way - "3 Shenton Way, Shenton House #11-05/06" - i.e., Block No. first, then Street Name, and (very important, don't forget) the comma (or a carriage return), then Building Name and then Unit No. for this to work. You need the comma or carriage return to separate the Street Name from the Building Name.

Neat, right? I've always wanted to be able to do this. This makes Address Book so much more useful.

With AppleScript, and the ability to extend Address Book with plug-ins, and the ability to move the information around to wherever you want it using either Apple Scripts or Unix shell scripts, the things you can do are limited only by your imagination.

Thanks, Steve Withers, for the use of the code.

Posted at 2:34PM UTC | permalink