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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Tue 18 Mar 2003

My Whole Life in iTunes

Category : Commentary/wholelifeiniTunes.txt

I've got every piece of music I've ever loved in my iTunes collection - with Karen Carpenter's ethereal voice in the space between my ears, it's yesterday once more. These free headphones I got from the IT 2003 Show (from a company called Labtec) are pretty good. It's Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross now. And people protesting against a war. We've come full circle.

Posted at 11:14AM UTC | permalink

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Category : Commentary/giants.txt

With Sendmail Enabler, I've a taste of how much power is available when one can tap into the Unix command line from a GUI-based application. I'm reminded of Isaac Newton when he said he was standing on the shoulders of giants.

In this very same way, that's what Apple is doing with OS X. Apple didn't create Sendmail, Apache, Java, XML, Unix, or almost everything else that went into the foundation of OS X. What they had was the genius to put the hardware and software together in this incredibly useful way.

That's is akin to a much-praised feature of the economics of the Microsoft-led world - that companies like Dell and HP had the whole world as their laboratory, and that's what's allowed them to make PCs cheap as commodities, spelling the doom of a company like Apple.

When the tables are turned, you don't get many people who noticed that change. I have a theory that the people who write for journals like BusinessWeek don't really understand what they're writing. They see a company that's rich and they find reasons that make good reading about why it's hot. But they're always three steps behind the curve and not much use if you're looking for insight.

That's why this article at InfoWorld is interesting (Apple's Risky Business) - interesting because it's a contrarian view from within a traditionalist IT bastion like InfoWorld. And also because I believe, like that author, that studying Apple will help you understand the rest of the IT industry that much better.

Posted at 10:43AM UTC | permalink

Mon 17 Mar 2003

Syndicate this

Category : Commentary/syndicatethis.txt

I've found time to make the syndicate feature work on this weblog. The syndicate link on the left side-bar produces an RSS feed you can drag into NetNewsWire (from which you can monitor any number of web sites with an ultra-quick glance).

This is Kaisen which, I believe, means gradual, unending improvement.

Posted at 9:17AM UTC | permalink

At the IT 2003 Show

Category : Commentary/IT2003.txt

In theory, one ought to be able to spend a productive time at an IT Show doing a whole lot of comparison testing. All the vendors are there with their latest products. All you need is to bring your own PowerBook. (I wanted to check out two colour laser printers at the S$2500 range - an HP 2500 and an Epson 1900. These are significant new products. They make high quality colour printing truly affordable for the first time.)

But, in reality, you get a surprising number of obstacles. At HP they hadn't made provisions for people who might want to test-print using samples they've prepared using their own computers. I've prepared InDesign, Acrobat and FreeHand files that I can use to check if the printer will do the job for me. And I tried to go before the crowds descend on the weekend.

At Epson, they and their partner JK Technology do get it. I was quite welcome to plug in my iBook and print away. But I couldn't install their drivers because they only had an OS 9 installer and OS 9 is long gone from my machine. So they got someone to get the OS X installer from their office the snail-mail way.

There were a lot of wireless networks running at the show but they were almost all closed networks (Apple even hid theirs). I almost reached the Epson OS X driver at their Aussie site using one of the few freely available networks but was cut off when I started the download. So I had to wait a couple of hours ruminating if everybody couldn't sell more stuff just by being a bit more generous.

For example, Apple could actually Think Smarter. If they offered free wireless access (one where you needn't have to go and ask someone in the know for the password), they will quickly see a Mac community sprouting around their booth. You won't get better advertisment than lots of people using your products and passionate about it. Mac users are funny; they do a better job conveying the usefulness of the Mac than the people Apple often hire. (Sometimes I feel that if the latter breed would only spend less time posing, and more time thinking, they would sell more Macs. Am I the only one who thinks this way?)

Anyway, back to the Epson. I found some problems printing from OS X. It seems to be always printing in draft mode, no matter how often I tried to switch to fine mode - so text at very fine point sizes pixellate noticeably, e.g., Garamond Light Italic at 8 or 9 point sizes. But I fell in love with the colour prints. I've waited a long time for colour laser printers to fall to this price point. So I made arrangements to test it further after the show and committed to buying it because I believe this problem can be solved. See how far good service gets you?

Posted at 7:32AM UTC | permalink

Fri 14 Mar 2003

Sendmail Enabler

Category : Technology/SendmailEnabler.txt

I'm finally done with this little project. First, I wrote a how-to on setting up OS X's mail server. Then I realised this would be of limited use, since I took a whole evening to set up the mail server the first time I took this path.

So, I wrote a shell script in a half-a-day that automated the whole thing so people could do this in five minutes. Actually, the script did its stuff in half a minute but people may need a totally unpredictable amount of time finding their way around the OS X Terminal. And they'll probably make mistakes that could kill their systems. So what was I getting myself into?

I was about to throw it all away. But it's such a waste. So, one more try. I remembered I could use AppleScript Studio to create a Cocoa application that can control the Mac at the Unix level, in effect hiding all the hoary stuff behind a pretty interface.

My first try at AppleScript Studio proved so enthralling, I didn't want to sleep. It's that fun. Again, the thing works in half-a-day. But I wanted to reduce to the absolute minimum, the things the user had to do. It ended up with just one field the user had to key in (the domain name) and then just one click. It can't be simpler.

But wait, things could still go wrong. I need to give to the user a POP3 server which I have pre-compiled and some configuration files that I've edited. What if these were somehow separated from the main package. So I needed to find a way to pack all these into one bundle so the user sees just one application they can download. Again, nothing simpler than that.

Finally, the S word - security. In the PC world this dredges up visions of the Thought Police. But think about it. The application which I have writtten and called Sendmail Enabler will need super-user rights to install all these stuff on your machine. One mistake and I can wipe out your system. So I have to keep testing to make sure that any mistakes I am ever likely to make is limited in its impact.

But I can't stop someone from trying to alter my scripts so that it will screw up your system. You may run it because you trust me - but what you're running may not be what I had written. So I have to make it a bit harder for the casual would-be terrorist (for indeed you will face terror) to do this. It's not foolproof but it's what I know to do at the moment. To be sure, only use a copy you downloaded directly from my site.

It took a total of one day to get the basic concept right. And five days to wrap some industrial strength around it to protect against what could go wrong. That ratio, in my experience, is usually what it takes.

(So why do people begrudge the cost of things like the Mac, which are truly well-made?)

Posted at 1:08AM UTC | permalink

Wed 12 Mar 2003

Java Stuff Up Again

Category : Commentary/JavaUp.txt

Tomcat and Eclipse are running fine with Java 1.4.1. On the Internet, the speed with which you can find solutions is exhilarating. It doesn't matter that we're living in Singapore. The world is one big Silicon Valley when you're connected like this.

This looks like a relatively painless upgrade - for us, at least - putting aside the grumbling that's still coming out elsewhere in the world. People ought to remember that when Sun released 1.4.0, it was termed a totally unusable release - they took a year to get things right.

Java 1.4.1 is supposed to be the foundation that will allow Apple to keep pace with Sun on Java releases - not more than 60 days, they say. If they keep to this, things will be just fine.

Posted at 5:35AM UTC | permalink

Falling Down

Category : Commentary/fallingdown.txt

Java 1.4.1 on OS X broke a lot of stuff - among the things affected are Tomcat and Eclipse - both of which are critical components used in Java development work. But this is such a massively important update (as a foundation for the things we can do on the Mac in future) that I feel we just have to batten down and take the hit.

The great thing about the web is the real-time nature of things happening. Everything we're seeing, somebody else is having, too. Things break in a torrent. But the solutions come in just as fast. Even this shall past.

Posted at 2:21AM UTC | permalink

'Secret' Screen Shots

Category : Technology/screencapture.txt

Just want to capture this before I forget. Typing Shift-Command 3 will capture the whole Mac screen into a preview file. Shift-Command 4 gives you cross-hairs to define the area of the screen that you want to capture.

But what's cool is hitting the space bar after Shift-Command 4. With this, you get a camera you can use to hover over a window, menu, or even the dock that you want to capture. Clicking the camera will capture just the window, say. No need now to go into Photoshop to crop out the window from the rest of the image. A great time saver. (Attribution : ClubMac).

Posted at 2:20AM UTC | permalink

Tue 11 Mar 2003

Java 1.4.1

Category : Technology/Java141.txt

This has finally been released. Though it won't mean much (yet) to regular Mac users, this is an important milestone. It's important that Apple has kept its promise to keep OS X level with Sun on Java releases - it feels better to work with someone who pulls his own weight. Apple's developers have kept on improving OS X. It's probably the most exciting platform to work on now.

The Java side of Applet support appears to be in place, but I still can't get into the DBS site. It may need an update to Safari.

Posted at 2:06AM UTC | permalink

Mon 10 Mar 2003

Debugging AppleScript Studio

Category : Technology/applescriptdebugger.txt

Very soon now, I'll be able to release a tool that will let people turn on their built-in mail server in the most Mac-like way I can think of - just by clicking a button. But I'm experimenting further with AppleScript Studio because it's got a lot more use going for it - AppleScript, the sheer fun of using Interface Builder, and the ability to do Unix-level things - this is a potent combination. There's nothing quite like this anywhere else. Even a bug in the AppleScript debugger (it's simply not functioning) hasn't dampened my enthusiasm.

Posted at 7:39AM UTC | permalink

Sun 09 Mar 2003

Hello Siva

Category : Commentary/siva.txt

I was showing Siva my set up and enjoying it. I was showing him how easy it is to update a weblog. I'm linking to his home page. He writes well. It'll be great if he has a weblog. Remember, bloggers use Macs.

Posted at 3:49AM UTC | permalink

Fri 07 Mar 2003

AppleScript Studio and the Unix Shell

Category : Technology/applescriptstudio.txt

The first time I set up OS X's mail server, it took me a whole evening. I've done it about four times in all, so far, and each time I'm getting faster. Now I think it's possible to write an installer that will do it in two minutes. But I'm trying to avoid having the user edit SendMail's config files by hand. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong here.

I'm experimenting with using AppleScript Studio to create an interface to collect the necessary configuration parameters from the user, e.g., the domain name and the name of the user who will be the postmaster. The hard part was the writing of the Unix shell script to do all the installation and that is mostly done. Now I just have to link the two together. Then I'll have a totally Mac-like SendMail installer. Mail services in under two minutes.

AppleScript Studio is proving to be really fun. I can see a lot of use for this, e.g., installing an accounting system written in Cocoa that needs to link to a MySQL backend. You can drive things at the Unix level invisibly while keeping the why/are/we/back/in/dos people happy.

Posted at 12:32PM UTC | permalink