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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

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

Sendmail SMTP-AUTH

Category : Technology/smtp-suth.txt

I'm just re-surfacing after diving into the murky depths of the beast. For there is no other name for sendmail. It's a beast of a system.

But I'm amazed I could even compile sendmail from source. So, now I've got a version of sendmail with smtp-auth that works. And I know how to put that in, in place of the stock sendmail version that comes with OS X, and also how to take it out.

And I also know enough how to put in Postfix, swap out sendmail, and do the reverse.

And, I can confirm that the version of the pop server I bundle with Sendmail Enabler does SSL. I'm still having some problems with the Airport Extreme Base Station, but it works beautifully when it's sitting behind the original base station. If I can figure out how to set up the certification stuff with just one click, you can pull your mail down from the POP server under SSL

So, a summary. Even though I can do smtp-auth, I'm wondering what's the point? It was meant to make sure that people on the move can always get back to the home server to send out mail, because that's what smtp-auth does - it authenticates the user before authorising the user to send mail. But, if you make authentication a requirement (otherwise it makes no sense to have it), it creates a downside - this server can now only send mail out. Another mail server that is trying to send mail to this server probably won't know how to authenticate itself to this server. So you end up having to set up two servers, one for sending out mail and another for receiving mail.

But with Sendmail Enabler, people on the move can enable sendmail on their PowerBooks to send mail out themselves. They only need to go to their home server to receive their in-coming mail. For added security, this takes place under SSL so that all the communication is encrypted. They've always had to authenticate themselves anyway when they're retrieving mail.

So, I believe that's the optimal solution. Freed from the need to act as a relay for roaming users, the home server can be set up with the tightest of security, including a variety of strategies for blocking spam. Also, you get a freer hand to tie the workings of the mail server with back-office e-commerce applications - there are variety of hooks in sendmail to do that - since most of the users are sending mail out directly from their own workstations.

I had a concern that Sendmail Enabler could have made it even easier for spammers to equip themselves with their own spamming engine. But, if you free your mail server from having to relay anything from outside your local network, you cut off one source of free bandwith for the spammers. You can't stop them from trying, but at least they're being pushed back to use their own bandwidth. You can, however, put in all the blocks you can muster to kick them out before they can even come into your network. And you can do it better if you don't have to make allowances now and then to let in one of your own guys to use the mail relay. If this works, Sendmail Enabler could have changed the rules of the game - at least for the Mac-speaking world.

Posted at 4:48AM UTC | permalink

Sat 02 Aug 2003

"It's stuff like this that makes us love OS X"

Category : Commentary/geeklove.txt

Nice words from the O'Reilly MacDevCenter. Thanks, whoever wrote that. Just as the slash-dotters were packing up and leaving us alone... It's an interesting phenomena this, watching the successive waves coming down and pounding on the server - first when Jon Udell wrote about Sendmail Enabler, then when Slash Dot picked up on it, and now this. It gives new meaning to the surfing metaphor.

But it's Cocoa that makes us love OS X. Just wrapped up our exploration of Cocoa using Java. We've got most of the interface elements covered - tables, data source, outline views, notification, sheets, drawers, and alerts. Plus the backend - access to MySQL and Oracle, and web services. Just one more - how do you interface with the Unix command line the way you can with AppleScript Studio? It'll be nice to load in a MySQL database on the fly, making it all work invisibly for the user.

We're not trying to be funny, using Java instead of Objective-C. After years of seeing the Mac thrown out of one database after another, we've now got JDBC on the Mac, and access to all the databases we've ever wanted. And you can use 80% of the code you've written for a web server application. Write once, deploy many, and re-write only the user interface. Objective-C may be nice but you don't get to use a Tomcat or J-Boss. And, it's a point that's often overlooked, you've got a better chance of avoiding getting thrown out by corporate IT departments (just because you use a Mac!) if you come in with the Java/Open Source stuff. It's hard stuff to swallow, but I believe it's worth it if it keeps the Mac relevant to businesses. Being marginalised is just one step away from the Death Spiral. Or have we forgotten that?

Posted at 12:45AM UTC | permalink

Wed 30 Jul 2003

The brick only wants to get laid

Category : Commentary/brick.txt

I've always thought that that was the answer to the question posed by the American architect Louis Kahn, "What does the brick want?" But, of course, the studious will say that he merely meant that we should understand the nature of the material we're working with, as well as the situation we find ourselves. If we feel the brick straining to be an arch, we should build the arch.

That's the same way with software design. It's quite possible, if you care enough, to feel the way the design wants to be. So you keep whittling away at it, pruning away the things that are merely ornamental, until all you're left with are the things that really matter - in the case of the One-Click Sendmail Enabler, it's that single field and that single button.

If you zoom out a bit, you see the same thing happening around that product. I built this little thing for myself, but I thought I'd share it, source code and all. You know, Linus Torvalds and Linux. But the market is saying "we want support". "More documentation, please. Docs should be written as if the user is a complete newb, examples all the way", says one entry at versiontracker.

Now, how do you support that? But, you know Louie Kahn? Go with the flow. If that's what the brick wants, build it the way it wants. Build the support, answer the queries, improve the product, release frequently, and see what else people need. Will it pay? I don't know. We'll start with a PayPal donation button and see how it goes. Hang on for the ride.

Posted at 3:11PM UTC | permalink

Mon 28 Jul 2003

Biz Stone, Genius

Category : Commentary/bizstone.txt

While going through the server logs, I occasionally come across interesting sites that, somehow, contained a reference to our site.

Here's one - Biz Stone, Genius - "Yes, my name is Biz. If I have to live with it, so do you." So it starts, and he's a lot of fun to read. Highly recommended. If you're wondering why people bother to write weblogs, go read some of his essays, like "The Blogging Revolution - An Early Exploration of Blogging", or "Keeping a Professional Blog - it'll change your life".

Here's another interesting item. Last Saturday, he mentioned his visit to the Peabody Essex Museum where they actually transported an entire Chinese house from somewhere near Shanghai, through the Panama Canal, and reconstructed it in Salem, Massachusetts. This is an astounding idea, when you think of the scale and painstaking reconstruction needed. They mean to exhibit "beautiful and captivating works of art in the world in which they were created". It seems like this is just one of twenty-three other historic houses in the Peabody Essex collection.

One day, after I've created the Ultimate Business Machine that will make money for me even when I'm not working, I want to be a guide at the Asian Civilisations Museum. That is something that I've been really wanting to do.

Posted at 11:16AM UTC | permalink

Turning Night to Day

Category : Commentary/nightandday.txt

I'm reaching a point where I'm aware that sleep is just a nap we take at night. Late in the night, when mails start coming in about Sendmail Enabler, I make a mental note that it is quite likely that the day has just begun for the sender. So I avoid writing a reply. There's an impedance mismatch here (like we used to say when we mixed and matched our stereo systems). I'm out of juice and these guys are just raring to go.

So you go to sleep, knowing that it's daylight where these people (who have somehow intersected with your life) are.

And just last night I was working on a Mac 5000 km away like it was sitting right in front of me. I was thinking, Unix is good.

And I think we must be the first generation in the history of the world to ever work on this scale.

Posted at 11:13AM UTC | permalink

Fri 25 Jul 2003

Cocoa Notification works in Java

Category : Commentary/notificationjava.txt

At my wit's end, I created a fresh project just to see if there were other side effects that prevented the Cocoa notification feature from working in Java. I'm happy to say, it now works.

So it means that there was probably something wrong with my project files. I had taken a short cut and duplicated a nib file just to create another that was a bit different. I searched Google and read that you could get a corrupted nib file this way. That seems far too fragile, so I'll have to check it further. But right now, I'm happy to keep on moving.

If you're into programming Cocoa using Java, rather than Objective-C, there's a web site WhiningDog.net that has quite a few sample code. Thanks, you guys at WhiningDog.

So, right now, I've got table views, outline views, and notification working in Java. On to drawers, next.

Posted at 4:37PM UTC | permalink

Smart Host

Category : Technology/smartHost.txt

I received a request from Hunter King to include a "smart host" feature in Sendmail Enabler. According to the James Duncan Davidson article on MacDevCenter, it requires the addition of just one line to the /etc/mail/config.mc file to make this work.

Looks easy enough. So I did that. But I couldn't test it. So I've sent it back to Hunter for testing. If it does, it'll be in the next release.

Other requests are not so easy to do (yet). For example, do SMTP-AUTH, POP before SMTP, ESMTP, Postfix. I would love to do all these. But the great dampener is that Sendmail seems to have been dropped from Panther. They've got Postfix there, but not enabled. Perhaps there'll be a Postfix Enabler.

I'm going to do a more full featured DNS setup next, then I'll see what I need to know about all those SMTP stuff. But right now, I wish I can make the notification feature work in Cocoa when I code in Java. I've got lots of Objective-C examples, but I'm tearing my hair out making this work in Java.

Back to work.

Posted at 10:43AM UTC | permalink