| The Ultimate Business Machine Technology, business And, not least, about by: Bernard Teo
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Sat 28 Aug 2004 Airport ExpressCategory : Commentary/airportExpress.txt This is my newly-delivered Airport Express. Plug it in, connect to broadband, connect USB Epson printer, install CD (which I'm not sure I even need to), enter some info. It just works.
No fuss, Internet access from anywhere, at home. (Nice box, too). Creative Not So CreativeCategory : Commentary/notsocreative.txt Creative unveils its not-so-clever "imitation iPod" at the Comex computer show in Singapore - even down to using Garamond on the poster, similar colours to the iPod mini, and what looks like Chicago on the music player's screen. The device will remain un-mentioned here. Embarassing doesn't even come close to describing it.
Meanwhile, at the Apple booth, they're reeling in the money. These fellas are actually queueing up to give Apple some of their hard-earned cash.
Fri 27 Aug 2004 It's TurningCategory : Commentary/MacsAreCheaper.txt More and more people are realising that using Macs is the right way to go - even if we're looking at things purely in terms of the cost of purchase (let alone total cost of ownership over the life of the machine). "So, bottom line, are PCs cheaper than Macs? No, despite what you read in the PC press, it's the other way around. Compare Apples to apples, and Macs are cheaper than PCs." That's from an article on LinuxInsider. Way to go ... Thu 26 Aug 2004 A German Localisation for Postfix EnablerCategory : Technology/PFEInGerman.txt From Stefan Hartmann (www.glamorama.de), we now have a German localisation for Postfix Enabler. I've updated both the Postfix Enabler 1.0.9 and the Postfix Enabler Beta pages with Stefan's contribution.
It's things like this that makes it all so worthwhile. Thanks, Stefan. This also shows why Cocoa and the Mac is so cool. It took only a few minutes to include Stefan's localisations. So now we can use Postfix Enabler in French, German, English, and Traditional Chinese, all within the same application. Japanese, anyone? Tue 24 Aug 2004 WebLogicCategory : Technology/WebLogic.txt We've got WebLogic running on the Mac. WebLogic is a Java J2EE-class application server. We're setting up a demo for Apple Singapore that will show WebLogic integrated with Oracle and running on an Xserve :
The figure above shows the WebLogic console. All the examples work, including support for multiple languages, like Japanese. And support for encrypted communications between browser and server, via SSL. The Xserve is running OS X Panther Server. More importantly for us, LucaWeb - the web browser-based version of our Luca Accounting System - also works on WebLogic. That's what we will be able to demo - plus having the data coming out of an Oracle 10g database, sitting on the same Xserve.
Isn't OS X great? That brings to three the number of Java application servers we know we can run on - Tomcat, JBoss, and now, WebLogic. Total code portability. And reusability. That's freedom of choice. Freedom of ChoiceCategory : Commentary/freedomOfChoice.txt In this article, "Consumers Say Apple Should Share", there's this last paragraph : According to GartnerG2's McGuire, "the real test for Apple and everybody else in the online music world will be when Microsoft unleashes its online store--and when portability comes to subscription services such as Rhapsody and Napster's premium services." In this case, he said it might be difficult to successfully run a proprietary format, "as the market choices expand, and consumers become more aware of them." "The real test will be when Microsoft unleashes its online store..." "in this case, it might be difficult to successfully run a proprietary format..." As if Microsoft won't be pushing a "proprietary format" of its own? "Consumers are always going to want choice." But we're already exercising our right to choose by choosing the Mac. And the iPod. The difference between the Mac and the iPod is that the iPod is outside the reach of IT Departments. People buy what they want and there are no Thought Police around to ban the iPod on ideological grounds - like that contorted definition of what it means to be proprietary. The business press is still waiting for Apple to fall flat from its "proprietary" leanings. What if, instead of dying, Apple grows from strength to strength with its iPods? Won't it be time to rewrite the history books? Microsoft didn't win the "platform wars" because its strategy was manifest destiny. If it were so, it will win this war, easily too. So, let's wait and see. Fri 20 Aug 2004 Fax StatusCategory : Technology/faxStatus.txt Following on from the last post about Shared Faxing on Panther. You can check if the fax has gone out successully by entering this URL into any web browser : http://10.0.1.201:631/printers/Internal_Modem?which_jobs=completed where 10.0.1.201 is the IP address of the machine hosting the fax capability in your internal network. This is what you'll see in your browser :
I can't remember now where I found this tip but I'm leaving it here for reference. You can bookmark this on Safari, or drag the URL onto the desktop (and then onto the dock), so that you can check the fax status with just one click. OK, I've found the reference. It's at Apple Discussions (message no. 31). Thanks to Malcolm McLeman. Shared FaxCategory : Technology/sharedfax.txt We've set up the server so it acts like a fax machine that is shared out to the rest of the network. For example, I could be on any Mac on our network (even a new Mac that's just joined the network wirelessly), use the Print function, click on the Fax button, and do something like this :
RoadsteadFax is the shared fax facility that we've set up on the server. Actually, you can use any Mac running OS X Panther, so long as it's connected to a phone line. This how you turn on the fax function on Panther, using the Print and Fax panel on System Preferences :
While you're on this window, look up the Printing panel (next to the Faxing panel), and see if you've turned on the check box : "Share my printers with other computers). Then, turn on Printer Sharing (via the Sharing panel on Systems Preferences) and you're done. You can fax things out through here from any other machine on your network. Notice, in the window above, I've checked the option : "Email to: ... ". This allows you to route all in-coming faxes to a designated person's e-mail in-box. This person can then forward the faxes to the appropriate recipient. The whole process is totally paperless. And fast. Currently, in the hostel project, I need to fax a lot of specifications to contractors. And contractors don't do e-mail. They fax stuff back and I retrieve them from my e-mail In-box. So I'm really glad I had set this up. Wed 18 Aug 2004 BackfireCategory : Commentary/backfire.txt Real petitions Apple not to break the iPod. But they got exactly the opposite of what they intended. This is the link before it disappears. Wed 11 Aug 2004 SamizdatCategory : Commentary/samizdat.txt I read William Gibson's Disneyland with the Death Penalty and I feel I have a response to that. But people who come to these pages to get technical information about using Macs for businesses may not be all that interested in what I have to say. So I'm going to put all my Singapore-related posts in a blog called Travelog that I created on beds-central.com, the website that I'm setting up for the traveler's hostel. But I will say something about this blogging system that I'm using. I took this PHP port of Blosxom, which is called PHPosxom, and modified it to make it easy for me to change the look of the pages without touching the PHP code. I'm benefiting from it now because it took me only a while to add a blog to Beds Central that fell in with the look of the rest of the pages on the site. There are already a couple of interesting Singapore-related blogs have been created using it. If you look closely at Otterman Speaks and Habitat News, you will see that they are using a blog engine called Samizdat. Click Samizdat and you'll come back to the page where you can download my version of PHPosxom, which I'm sort of calling Samizdat. My friend Siva is involved in creating both of the afore-mentioned blogs, which are about conservation and wildlife and natural history. He's also found a lot of interesting blogs written by Singaporeans that I wished I had noted. But I'm going to start collecting them now on Travelog. The great thing about a weblog format is that I can take a subject matter, in this case my love for this place that is my home, and take my time to build a whole collection of stories around it, including links to that will show you a Singapore that is worth knowing, rather than the travesty conjured by William Gibson and people of his ilk. I think the weblog format works. More than a year ago, on February 20th, I wrote about why I'm doing this weblog about the Mac, which I'm calling "The Ultimate Business Machine". I wrote about how "I'll put things on the side bar that people can try. Between the commentary here, and the reference/tutorials at the side, I hope to convey a feel for the power that is latent in the machines we have grown to love..." If you've come over and enjoyed reading these pages, then you will agree that the idea works. I'm hoping that it'll do the same for Singapore. It's the least I can do to pay it back. Mon 09 Aug 2004 We are SingaporeCategory : Singapore/singapore.txt It's National Day in Singapore. This marks the 39th time we've celebrated Singapore's birthday. Amidst the rush of red, Singapore's national colour, worn by the schoolkids let out early last Friday to throng the shops and theatres along Orchard Road, I came across two books that typify the conception that people abroad have about Singapore. "Police state", subservient population, dictatorship - these are the usual adjectives. One finds them in abundance in a couple of pages devoted to Singapore in "The Book of Cities". If the people are subservient, I didn't meet them in the army when I was doing National Service. You get the same problems you get everywhere when you're trying to get people to do what they won't naturally want to do. It's much like herding cats. No more and no less. And the squeals of laughter that resounded from the corridors of the top floor of the Heeren, where 77th Street resonates with the pulse of our youth - street-smart clothing and fashion accessories, stashed haphazardly in delightful spaces in a chaotic maze. These are smart, intelligent kids you see. But what you see most are expressions of pure delight, filled with the joy of living. Do I sound like I live in a police state? The more I travel, the more I've come to appreciate the place we call our home. There's this other book I found - Gerrie Lim's "Invisible Trade - High Class Sex for Sale in Singapore". Ahh, Gerrie Lim. I enjoyed his other book, "Inside the Outsider" - a collection of interviews with rock icons like Patti Smith and David Bowie. I found the Patti Smith interview most memorable. Intelligent questions and an easy writing style. His latest book doesn't disappoint. It's well written and I learnt some new things. But what saddens me is the need to turn to people like Paul Theroux to lend credence to the book. Writes Mr Theroux in the blurb, "At last, after thirty years of my avoiding the city-state, this book restores my faith in the Singapore character and gives me reasons to return." I actually read the book to figure out what he means. I just watched the National Day Parade on television. This is Goh Chok Tong's last day as Prime Minister. The affection that most Singaporeans feel for Mr Goh is genuine and unforced. Who would have known, fourteen years ago when he stepped into Lee Kuan Yew's big shoes, that we're going to miss his thick Hokkien-accented English and straight talk. Talk about faith. I watched the faces of Mr Lee and Mr Goh during the parade. We know, and I think they know, that they've done a great job. Who cares what Paul Theroux thinks. Tue 03 Aug 2004 Oracle 10g on OS XCategory : Technology/Oracle10g.txt We've got Oracle 10g running on OS X. This is the Oracle Database 10g Early Adopters' Release 2 for Mac OS X. It's supposed to need OS X Panther Server but we've managed to install and run it on a normal OS X Panther machine. But the installation process seems to have gotten so much harder. Even I could handle Oracle 9i but, for 10g, we've got to send in the commandos (command-line-philiac people like Chiang Hai Hwee). We're testing it by running Luca (our Accounting application) over it. This is what we've found so far, in comparison to running Luca over MySQL. The first one is minor. There are some incompatible SQL statements, due to the differences in the SQL dialects spoken by Oracle and MySQL. Second. We've got to take note of the following while programming Luca - MySQL search strings are not Case-Sensitive, but Oracle's are, so some searches can be found by MySQL, but not by Oracle. Here's a major showstopper. MySQL handles semaphores (so that we can prevent more than one person updating a database record at the same time) by names, but we had to use table locking in Oracle, which results in deadlocks, even with a single user logged in. We need to review this part. Maybe we're wrong? On top of it, Oracle 10g feels significantly slower than both 9i or MySQL, when tested on the same machine. But then, we don't know much, yet, about tuning this beast. And this, I must stress, is not the final product. It's interesting how MySQL gets more and more attractive all the time. Score one for the Open Source Movement? 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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