Mac@Work : The Ultimate Business Machine

The
Ultimate
Business Machine

Technology, business
and innovation.

And, not least, about
the Mac.

Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Thu 04 Sep 2003

Postfix works great

Category : Technology/postfixworksgreat.txt

A couple of things that have made sendmail a pain to use are : on some machines you have to restart sendmail manually even after a reboot, and you have to restart sendmail whenever your IP address changes (if you're on a dynamically assigned IP address).

Postfix seems to have none of these problems. Apple's probably made the right decision to go with Postfix. Plus it's a cleaner design. So here's looking forward to Panther. (Trying the SMTP-AUTH feature next).

Posted at 3:50PM UTC | permalink

Wed 03 Sep 2003

DNS Enabler

Category : Technology/dnsenabler.txt

Finally had enough time to finish up a basic DNS Enabler for the Airport Base Station tutorial. Had enough people writing in for it, so I might as well just finish it. This used to be bundled with Sendmail Enabler. Now that it's "unbundled", it may be possible to give it more "features". Well, maybe...

Posted at 9:17AM UTC | permalink

Tue 02 Sep 2003

Postfix on Panther

Category : Technology/postfixpanther.txt

We've got Postfix running on Panther. Actually, one of our Titaniums had a hard disk crash, and so we just installed our seed copy of Panther on it. I believe we're on a non-disclosure agreement and so can't say much about Panther.

But Postfix on Panther is nice. Seems to not need a restart when the machine boots up. Also doesn't need a reboot whenever the machine's IP address changes. These two "features" alone will make it worth the switch to Postfix from sendmail. Needs more testing.

Posted at 4:41PM UTC | permalink

Sat 30 Aug 2003

Tons of Work

Category : Commentary/tonsofwork.txt

Since I made the decision to stop doing pro bono server trouble-shooting for people, I've managed to get tons of my own work done.

Does doing shareware pay? I'm not so sure. For all the time I spent designing the software, testing it, writing the documentation, and then answering all the questions, only about 25 people bothered to pay the shareware fee (making a grand total income of $250) - out of about 8,000 to 10,000 downloads. One would have thought that the ability to help people do something they couldn't do for months would be better valued.

A couple of observations about these 25 people. Most didn't even need help. They just paid (a lot of others who took up the most time never did). And they were mostly from France. Thanks.

So, this needs more thought, though it's definitely a great experience. There's a fine line between wanting to help the platform grow, and the need to watch over the health of your own business. It's better to keep things on an even keel.

On a related matter, I've got Postfix running in Jaguar on one server, as well as on my iBook which I lug around everywhere. It's truly a "drop-in" replacement for sendmail. And I've got a copy of Panther, courtesy of Ernest P.

The question is? Does Postfix on Panther even need an Enabler? At this point, if you just want to send mail out and you're handy with the command line, I don't really think so. But I did blow a large chunk of the $250 on Postfix and DNS books and three weeks reading them.

Running a full-fledged mail server (with incoming and outgoing streams, and the need to get things like DNS right) is always going to be a different proposition. It may be better to help people understand the difference right from the start.

Posted at 3:57PM UTC | permalink

Wed 20 Aug 2003

The Ultimate Business Machine Redux

Category : Commentary/TUBRedux.txt

The idea of the The Ultimate Business Machine works on three levels. On one level, it refers to the Mac, which I believe to be the ultimate business machine. You can use just this one machine to support the widest range of activities you are likely to find in the course of running a business. Don't think so? Think about Photoshop, the Office Suite, FreeHand, Keynote, Sound Studio, Maya, MySQL, Java, Apache, and of course sendmail.

I think the tide is turning for Apple and the Mac, and I believe they deserve all the recognition that they're starting to get from places like ComputerWorld (Mac Myths and IT), InfoWorld (see The Mac Observer's summary of the InfoWorld coverage), and even Robert X Cringely (from the Pulpit).

On another level, The Ultimate Business Machine refers to the way a business (or any business) ought to be run. Like a MacDonald's. Smoothly, efficiently, scaleable and cloneable. So that the owners don't have to be there all the time to make the business run.

To achieve that, you need to have good systems. And, since computer systems form a large part of those, you need to watch what you're doing here. As Cringely puts it, "Ideally, the IT department ought to recommend the best computer for the job, but more often than not, they recommend the best computer for the IT department's job." You need good computing tools to build the best businesses. If you're competing head-on with another company, it's possible you can come out ahead, using the Mac. Don't think so? Let's say, I'm helping a company set up a mail server, web server, e-commerce server, accounting system, etc, and I'm equipped with tools like the one-click Sendmail Enabler, DNS Enabler, etc. And the other guys are using the type-a-lot Linux and Windows systems. Guess who gets done first and so gets to spend more time looking into the business workflows and issues?

Finally, on the third level, the Ultimate Business Machine refers to the business I want to build. So it'll work even when I'm not there. And I would be in no position to give other people advice on how to run healthy, profitable businesses, if I run my own as a loss-making concern.

The enduring image I have in my mind is the one depicted by Michael E. Gerber in the E-Myth Revisited (why most small businesses don't work) - when he described the harried owner of a bakery shop, chained to her business, getting close to breakdown. I've lived through that horror. I'm reminded of that feeling again, these last couple of weeks. So, we've got to get back to building a machine of our own.

Posted at 1:45AM UTC | permalink

Tue 19 Aug 2003

Wrapping up sendmail

Category : Commentary/sendmailstumped.txt

SMTP-AUTH refuses to work this time. It's funny. I got this part woking before. Then I went on and did a little bit more. But I can't remember what. I remember leaving it in an indeterminate state. Now even the basic stuff refuses to work.

This makes three the number of things in sendmail that have left me stumped. Maybe it's time to put this aside for a while. There are a lot of other stuff waiting to be done. Goodbye, sendmail, at least for a while.

Posted at 3:40PM UTC | permalink

Mon 18 Aug 2003

Breaking a few rice bowls

Category : Commentary/ricebowl.txt

"Love these guys" who leave their two cents worth in versiontracker.

Great idea, and good functionality, but I'm stumped over the instructions ie: "Enter the server's URL". What URL? What Server? The instructions seem to assume that I have an Airport network, and don't explain how to set this up without one. Please, just a little more info.

Okay, so I did go back and try a bit harder on the documentation, but do they realise how subversive this whole effort really is? It may break a few rice bowls, as the Chinese like to say.

To follow this trend of thought, read Robert X Cringely, who asks the popular question, "Why aren't Apple Macintosh computers more popular in large mainstream organizations?" As MacDailyNews sums it all up, "IT Hates Macs because Macs reduce IT head count."

Posted at 10:38AM UTC | permalink

Sun 17 Aug 2003

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

Category : Commentary/hell.txt

I don't know why but this phrase keeps cropping up. It's been an interesting experience, putting up a piece of software on the 'Net, and seeing it getting sucked into people's machines thousands of times. But it's time to take stock.

Firstly, I'm going to stop being the Agony Aunt. It's bad for my health. Don't think so? Just take a look at this.

My position with Sendmail Enabler is this. I know it works. I know it's helped many people. But I don't know half as much as I wish I do about sendmail, and router, and firewall, and stuff. I can't solve the world's problems and I don't want to try.

If it helps people and they're thoughtful enough to pay the shareware fee. That's really fine. In fact, from the definition of shareware, there is a moral obligation to pay the fee - because it's not freeware. But it's shareware because we're really not ready to make it a commercial product, with commercial-grade support. Like sooloo says, period.

If you're going to come and ask me for help, please don't dangle the promise of paying the shareware fee. It's already done its job and I owe no one anything. At this point, I believe I'm doing this of my own free will and I want to enjoy it. Don't keep thinking only of your own problems. I may have a family. I may have a kid. And I may have a kid who is sick.

Posted at 3:16PM UTC | permalink

Fri 15 Aug 2003

Getting Ready to Talk to MUGS

Category : Commentary/preparingforMUGS.txt

I'm scheduled to give a talk to the local MUGS tomorrow and I'll need to get down to preparing for it. Soon.

I've been fiddling with a 1.1.3 release of Sendmail Enabler that implements the Masquerade feature. It should have been out last week but I was making too many changes then. So it's out now. That'll make a few people working on PHP happy. Sendmail will work a bit better for them.

And 1.1.3 also checks the sendmail queues. I've found that one or both of them could disappear when I swapped in a new sendmail binary last week. While it will help people who've messed up their sendmail installation now, it's really preparing for the day when I try replacing sendmail, on the fly, with either Postfix or a sendmail with SMTP-AUTH. It'll help make sure that I get a safe passage back when I need to make the original sendmail work.

So back to the talk. What do I say about Sendmail Enabler? Enter domain name, click one button, and welcome to your mail server? Of course there are the issues with the router, firewall, dns, etc...

But what I really want to get across is how there is so much richness under the OS X hood. You get to do all the Linux-y thing. But you can also wrap it all up as a Mac application that thousands of other people can use. If, in just four weeks, we've now got a few thousand more sites running the Mac as an Internet server, how's that for leverage?

So I've got to figure out how to get that across. And how to fit in a demo. I don't want to meddle with the local AppleCentre's network, so I'll just run everything off the local network, including having a private DNS server, to demonstrate the mail server stuff.

Talking about setting up a DNS server. I could do it all on the command line. Or I could hit one button. Guess which one I chose to use?

Posted at 3:26PM UTC | permalink

Thu 14 Aug 2003

"If you need this, you shouldn't be using it. Period."

Category : Commentary/sooloo.txt

A guy called sooloo left the above comment at the Sendmail Enabler page at the versiontracker site.

It left me pondering the truth of his statement. (Let's leave his "A Really Dumb Idea" aside because it doesn't add much value to this discussion).

Unless he means that making sendmail work out-of-the-box in OS X is quite a snap (which would be easy enough to dispute), I think he probably means that if you haven't taken the trouble to build up enough technological knowledge of your own, then you shouldn't even dream of being in a position to benefit from the technology. Conversely, if you do have the technological prowess, then you shouldn't even need a tool like Sendmail Enabler.

There may be other ways of interpreting it, but this is really just an excuse for me to launch into an idea I had been thinking about these last few days.

It's about leverage and the compression of time.

As soon as we get something difficult done, we ought to cast our minds backwards to see if we can find a pattern in the process. If so, we ought to re-organise the steps into a system, so that we can do it better, faster, and smarter in the future. This is the basis of progress. For all time.

This, in a nutshell, is the struggle that pits the Mac culture against the prevailing IT/MIS mentality. The IT guys want to luxuriate in the technical complexities; while the Mac guys just want to hit one button and get with it.

Where does that leave the guys like me, who do luxuriate in the technicalities. I believe that the IT guys have got it wrong. I believe that life is too short to worry about looking like wimps. The more complexity we take out of life, the better life is going to be.

It's funny. Just this morning I was corresponding with a Sendmail Enabler user, Stephan Riess, and he had a quote from Antoine de Saint Exupery in his signature line :

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

Most approriate.

Posted at 9:13AM UTC | permalink

Sun 10 Aug 2003

The Rise of the Muscular Mac

Category : Technology/MetrosexualMac.txt

Today's Sunday Times chronicles "The Rise of the Metrosexual" - "he is manly, has a girlfriend and is interested in topics like hair, clothes, jewellery and skincare".

The Mac, if you think about it, is going in the reverse direction.

Just five years ago, I would be spending the majority of my time in Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Persuasion, FreeHand. If I do programming, it would be in 4th Dimension. And, when I teach a Photoshop course, it's likely to be filled with guys with long hair and scruffy jeans.

Today, I've just finished the 1.1.2 version of Sendmail Enabler, documentation, and all. I'm spending most of my time in Unix. When I search Google for a solution, I'm likely to be peering over the shoulders of Linux geeks. The Mac is twice as powerful today, and infinitely configurable.

Watch what a Linux guy does when he wants to help someone implement a solution - he sends over lines of code, or a set of shell scripts.

The Mac culture's a bit different. We send over an icon, packed with all the code you need. Just double-click, hit a button, and let the Mac do its stuff. It has put on muscles. But it's still the Mac. What's there not to like?

Posted at 11:54AM UTC | permalink

Thu 07 Aug 2003

sial.org

Category : Technology/sial.org.txt

I'd like to say a thank you to Jeremy Mates. His notes, plus the hefty sendmail "bat" book from O'Reilly, have been my constant companions these last few days. If people ever do get a one-click Sendmail Enabler with SMTP-AUTH plus STARTTLS, you know where the good stuff came from.

Why not write directly? Now, from my own experience, you get tons of mail when you put up stuff like these - things that border on the arcane. Some of the questions come from so far out, it frightens me the number of cycles I've got to use to process it. If I've read the queries and comments following the James Duncan Davidson article at MacDevCenter, I may never have dared put this up on versiontracker. I wrote to Duncan Davidson just to thank him. I never got a reply and I don't blame him. After countless such messages about problems running sendmail, I don't blame anyone for running for the hills. Talk about DontBlameSendmail.

Posted at 5:19AM UTC | permalink