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Saturday, February 6th, 2010
A lot of our plugins use embedded shortcodes inside square brackets.
Our embedded shortcodes look something like this:
[command parameter=something value=number]
The reason we use square brackets is that square brackets parse just fine in WYSIWYG editors including our own Foliopress WYSIWYG.
We've had a lot of simple questions about how to use our FV Wordpress Flowplayer. I couldn't understand why. The instructions are pretty straightforward.
It turns out that the shortcodes were being parsed and showing the result instead of the code people should be using. How anybody managed to get the plugin working without the short codes is a bit of mystery to me. But they did. Wow can people be ingenious sometimes.
So once I'd found the error, we weren't much better off. I couldn't get the square brackets to stop parsing. With angled brackets it's not so difficult. One just escapes them like this:
< >
But there is no such escape for square brackets (or rather the escape still gets parsed by our plugins).
It turns out that the shortcode won't trigger even if there is a non-breaking space: .
But that is no real solution as it means that we are telling our users to insert a space or weird character where there is none. No, we needed a real invisible character to disable execution of the shortcode but leave no visible trace in the html.
After much poking around, I finally found one: ­ That's the soft hyphen character.
So I can boldly post commands like this:
[flowplayer src=example.flv, width=400, height=300]
Which would otherwise result in this:
Clearly showing an empty movie box isn't going to teach a visitor much about how to place an flv in his or her own post.
The long term solution is to code our plugins not to parse what is inside code tags. But in the meantime, soft hyphens can save you in a pinch from having embedded shortcodes execute when they shouldn't.
Alternate techniques (all in use on this site)
- use javascript to write the opening square bracket): not bad but I'd rather put in an invisible character than face fragile javascript in half a dozen tutorials
- use sniplets to hold the documentation (as sniplets don't get parsed a second time but just inserted).
Downsides: unwieldy as you have to go over to sniplets to edit or change tutorials each time. Not easily moved between CMS's or even sites. Plugin dependent.
More readable source code without a javascript code parser
While I was at it, I decided to turn all code into a nice dark green to be more readable and made it a few pixels larger too. Previously code on Foliovision was an elegant but slightly difficult to read medium gray.
WordPress |
Friday, January 29th, 2010
At Foliovision, we still plan to build a dual load balancing open source router on one of our old computers someday soon. In the meantime, our trusty old D-Link DI-804HV router was misbehaving a couple of weeks ago with all kinds of routing errors and slowing down our work. Another consequence was lousy Skype communication. Happily enough after a full reset, I was able to get it back to normal.
D Link DI 804HV
Our router has to look after about eight to fifteen computers at a time so it's no longer the load of just a few computers. Our primary connection is 3 MB/sec download from Chello.
But we aren't doing much VPN work so our needs aren't extreme. It would be nice if Skype didn't drop off on us in the middle of work. Our main concern is redundancy. With 8 to 15 people working at any given time, even 15 minutes downtime is too much now. Four hours downtime would be nearly 40 hours work as most of our work requires Internet access at this point!
So we were shopping for a backup router, really as our workhorse was back in action. A router which would allow us to work for a few days in the meantime. We don't use any WIFI (or Bluetooth) at Foliovision as wirelesss is the biggest IT time sync and security risk. WiFi is also quite possibly unhealthy.
Most modern routers include the WiFi station whether you want it or not so there is a limited selection of basic routers without WiFi.
We bought two to compare and to keep one or both (I need one at home as well). We bought ZyXEL Prestige 334 and a D-Link DIR-100. I've had good experiences with D-Link and Asanté (not easily available in Europe) and horrid experiences with LinkSys and SMC (defective wireless cards sold in knowledge that they didn't work, useless return policy). We wanted something that would work properly out of the box.
ZyXEL Prestige 334
The ZyXEL cost about €30, the D-Link €25. In each case, less than $50. Not much for relatively full-featured boxes.
I prefer the classic D-Link look of the DI-804HV but the DIR-100 is very small, every elegant and very discreet. No complaints. The flashy silver ZyXEL looks like a refugee from a Star Trek set. Still, its silver shell is perfectly serviceable if a little bit more attention seeking.
D Link DIR 100
To test, we set each router up with its default setup with ports closed and ran SpeedNet tests.
I expected the D-Link DIR 100 to be not up to the test as it has just 2MB of RAM memory plus 8MB of additional flash. No problem. Handled our 3MB/sec cable connection perfectly, identical speeds to the D-Link 804HV.
D Link DIR 100 speeds
To my surprise the ZyXEL could only handle 1.4MB/sec download.
ZyXEL P 334 failure
The D-Link was very easy to configure with full features, so we didn't even bother wrestling with ZyXEL interface which has a reputation for being a little tougher to use as the other router/firewall manufacturers.
For an advanced router in the multiple hundreds of euros category (an area where ZyXEL has lots of candidates), the best way to go is with a custom built load-balanced solution. It will be more powerful and configurable and the software is all open source anyway. Based on what I've seen from ZyXEL's entry-level Prestige 334 unit, you are paying for brand and not performance.
For instance, the D-Link DIR-100 is open source. The operating system is MClinux. For the VPN section, the software is FreeSwan. D-Link is playing fair and releasing their source code. You can download the D-Link source code for their routers.
We run a Mac and PC mixed network now and the D-Link DIR-100 was easily configurable in Safari on Mac. No issues running it with both Mac and Windows running at the same time. In fairness, the ZyXEL didn't appear to have any issues either.
For a backup or basic router, the D-Link DIR-100 is the clear way to go. I might look up at picking up DIR-130 for its QoS (quality of service) priority filtering for our Skype calls. What's interesting about D-Link is the entry level DIR-100 is that it keeps up with their former mid-level 804HV. That's impressive and a wonderful migration of capability across the range over time.
IT |
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
We use primarily use Paypal for our smaller transactions at Foliovision ($1000 and under). Some customers complain. They'd just rather not do business with Paypal. In these cases, we do have bank accounts in three major jurisdictions but it does slow down transactions and increase transaction costs on smaller invoices.
I tell them there is just no other payment service which works well for small international payments.
Precautions we take:
- we don't confirm our bank account numbers which technically means that Paypal can't withdraw funds from our bank accounts.
- they do do it anyway, but in our case it would be illegal and there's a very good chance that the bank would go after Paypal for the money themselves if Paypal did manage to snooker them into giving them cash.
- we run a balance under $2000. Over that and the money gets shunted off to one of our bank accounts.
- we are very good customers. We send lots of sales through and we buy lots of goods too. Occasionally we even have to switch currencies. Paypal makes a fortune off of Foliovision. We even introduce lots of new customers to them as well.
In general, limit liability and make yourself valuable. I recommend you do the same.
But then I go and read a post like this one about how Paypal single-handedly nearly ruined the Macgraphoto graphics bundle (sorry to have missed it Jacob: great idea for a themed bundle!). And I think we haven't done nearly enough and that we are playing with fire.
In the comments over at apparentsoft, someone recommend SWReg. Reasonable fees, big solid company, international operation. A lot to like on paper. But then it turns out SWReg is a shell of the original customer focused company built up by Steve Lee. SWReg is part of Digital River who specialise in two products these days, banes of the shareware world:
- download guarantees (if you lose your license they will give you the code and let you download the software again). Any respectable shareware author does this free of cost.
- reservations clubs. You sign up for $10/month usually unwittingly making you eligible for 10% off of 50% overpriced services and vacations. Great deal. Spend money to be marketed to at rip off rates.
So every time you send a customer to a Digital River company they will take his or her personal data and monetize/abuse it to the limits of the law and beyond. There is no way I'm putting any clients of Foliovision on that boat.
That knocks off RegNow, eSellerate, ShareIt, RegSoft, Reg.net, Emetrix in a single blow.
Someone else recommends Google checkout. Fortunately a more informed soul piped back that you'd be exchanging the frying pan for the fire. No one answers the telephone at Google (well AdWords does, but only AdWords).
PayPal certainly has its problems, but trust me, the alternative is NOT Google. Do not trust Google Checkout. If you think this story is bad, consider the following:
1. The author was able to speak to people.
2. He will eventually get the money.
If you have a similar problem with Google Checkout, your account will be closed automatically, there will be no one to talk to, and you will never, ever, ever be able to receive the money in the account. They keep it.
Here's Amy's full Google checkout horror story. In any case Google checkout is available only in the US and the UK. So much the better.
The payment provider to whom Apparent Software moved was often mentioned in the thread with Dan Engel, the FastSpring CEO even coming doing a drivethrough carrying a welcome sign. Unfortunately when you go to checkout the FastSpring site, you see that all that friendliness comes at a very high price: 8.9%. Ouch. That's triple Paypal and quadruple Google checkout rates. I'm afraid our accountancy firm and taxes already get a big slice of our revenue straight off the top. I'm not looking to lose another 10%. Thanks anyway Dan. While highway robbery with a smile may be better than a knife in the back it's still brigandry.
Kagi and Plimus are the same with 10% fees on sample $50/orders with Plimus scraping down to 9%.
kagi fees 10 per cent
Curiously Plimus likes big value sales, so we'd be in better shape with our larger value transactions at 4.5%. Plimus is also open to international businesses.
So where does the absence of customer service and extortionate fees leave us now?
We've implemented e-Junkie for clients and like it but e-Junkie only provides the shopping cart and delivery. They don't actually run the transaction for you. You're back to Google Checkout and Paypal.
There's just Avangate who gets high customer satisfaction rates. One independent provider in the world! But fortunately Avangate is international so they will accept us.
What are the rates like?
A bit confusing as there are two packages: 4.9% plus €1.95 or 8%.
On $50 transactions they both work out to $4.50 or 9%.
On a $300 transaction the 4.9% plus $2.50 fee costs $17.20 per transaction or 5.7%.
So for the international software or services seller who would like to break free of Paypal and Google and have a payment gateway, there are really two options. Plimus or Avangate.
Their existing customer base like Avangate much better: Avangate outscored Plimus on both ease of use and reliability. On the customer side, I don't like buying via Plimus as they are always holding up my orders for fraud verification. If I have to spend half an hour wheedling my $25 software out of the payment provider, I've just paid about $100 in hidden costs. I'm sure many of my clients would feel the same way.
Avangate as a buyer has been quick and painless.
My vote goes Avangate. Those clever Romanians, naming their company as if it were Stonehenge and somewhere in Britain. Who would guess that Avangate is headquartered in Their CEO Radu Georgescu is one of the few companies to best Microsoft in business, selling RAV anti-virus to Microsoft at an enormous profit and managing to keep his independence, retaining his company and his team in Romania. If Georgescu is smart enough to protect his software company from Microsoft, I expect he's clever enough to protect his merchant clients from fraud.
Avangate also shows enormous transparency, displaying names and photos of all their top management on their website, including links to their LinkedIn profiles. Elsewhere Avangate tell the whole story of their company, including products which they sold off. That kind of accessibility and transparency also earns heavy respect from me.
Avangate for the win by two full lengths.
avangate's Radu Georgescu: the man who outsmarted Microsoft and got his money and kept his life
Footnote:
Why not run our own merchant services?
- Heavy setup and monthly fees.
- Not compatible with Freshbooks (Avangate isn't now but I'll see what I can do about that.
- Not compatible with the supplier of our hosting so we wouldn't be able to automate our rebilling there either.
So at the end of the day, running online payment ourselves would be a whole lot of hassle and a lot of costs with very few discernible benefits.
Business |
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
We buy and use a lot of software here at Foliovision. We have all kinds of weird stuff running for checking web rankings and logging backlinks in our SEO business. We don't like Adobe much for price gouging so we buy all kinds of graphics bits and bobs to
Basically our rule is that if a software program can do it faster, then have a software program do it. This approach allows us to offer our clients more service within their budget. So we have contact with a lot of software. While out shopping online (how's that for a pleonasm) I've often seen sterling awards pages for what looks like really rubbish programming.
inventory builder bogus software awards
Where do these ugly little banners come from and how the software developers earn them?
It turns out just by submitting software. No, you say, impossible. Somebody's looked at the software. No, no one has ever looked at the software.
Prove it, you ask.
I don't have to. A gentleman by the name of Andy Brice already has.
He submitted a bogus piece of software to 1033 sites. His bogus soft included a screenshot like this:
bogus software submission screenshot
Andy's fake app was approved and listed on 218 software directories. Incredible. Even more shocking, he won 16 awards. Sixteen 5 star awards would be enough to give even the worst piece of malware a veneer of respectability.
So what is a shareware purchaser to do?
Buy a Mac. In the Mac universe, there are only three software download sites of any import with VersionTracker.com and Macupdate.com battling for top dog for the last three years, with IUseThis.com trailing.
The ratings and comments on all three are legitimate and minimally censored in favour of the developers. Even I'm aghast at some of the things I read on Macupdate in particular (Nate, for the most part, please keep them up, following the profiles of some of these curmudgeons is incredibly entertaining and keeps people coming back to Macupdate).
The sites are not perfect. One developer had friends inside Macupdate whom he tried to use to censor commentary (Misha, I believe). In the end, after some comments being pulled and the tempest in a teapot rising higher Nate finally intervened and put the review back online and warned off the developer.
In any case, these three sites don't hand out prizes. They allow developers to display user ratings badges on their sites like this:
If a developer posts an incorrect Versiontracker or MacUpdate badge he or she will be asked to pull the badge down immediately. In any case, it is standard practice for the badge to link directly to the developer's site. If a developer encourages sock puppet votes he's blacklisted. Unfortunately the list is only three developers long, so I'm not inclined to believe it's complete. On the other hand, perhaps Nate and team have caught and warned 200 developers but it didn't get to blacklist levels.
A couple of years ago, I had the feeling MacUpdate might become a bit smug as VersionTracker atrophied. IUseThis.com came along just in time and made MacUpdate pay more attention to the convenience of users of the site first. What kind of nuisance am I talking about? There was a period of six months where it was impossible to search MacUpdate from outside the site - you had to load their overly busy, distracting home page to do so. Finally they quit that about a year ago.
So in the Mac universe there are just three sites of any import. On any of them fake feedback is likely to be called quickly. There are no fake awards. If a Mac user sees any other award badges, s/he will ignore those banners.
Straightforward access to high quality shareware is another reason I decided to take Foliovision Mac-centric at the end of 2009. Previously we had only had one and then two Mac users in the company. Now we have moved to fifty-fifty. We do have some very bad copycat developers like Koingo Software (from beautiful BC just like me) who hawk their second class wares everywhere, but you can usually suss them out pretty quickly.
It would be nice if CNET would pull about three quarters of the javascript and half the ads off of Versiontracker so we could go back to a two horse race. I'm not quite sure what ails IUseThis.com but at least they are there as an insurance policy if MacUpdate starts to go off the same overly monetized rails as Versiontracker. But all in all, as Mac users we are quite fortunate in our developers and our shareware sites.
Especially in comparison to the Windows world.
IT |
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Everyone who works on the web should have a keylogger. Browsers crash often enough when you are writing into a form or browsers have hot keys (especially forward or back) which will reload the page on you at an unexpected time, just when you are in the middle of a very long post.
The question is not whether to use a keylogger but which keylogger
for Mac OS X to choose. If you value your time. Photo jgarber.
I've heard all the privacy arguments against keyloggers but I'm not sold. If you are typing into a computer, particularly one which is near constantly connected to the Internet, you need to accept that there is very limited privacy. For very private writing, it should be done on paper or on an old computer which is no longer capable of being hooked up to the Internet easily or at all (i.e. missing a network card and wifi and/or automatic DHCP).
Better to remove the floppy drive as well and unplug the USB connectors. You can do your backup to a zip drive for which you keep track of all the media (people don't carry around zip disks anymore, so if you have someone determined enough to come after your writing computer with an extra zip disk, nothing will protect you). You could also encrypt the disk on which your secrets are written, but my own experience with encrypted disk space is that the person who will suffer is you.
Even unencrypted hard drive storage is relatively unreliable. Once you bring encryption into the process, even with the slightest corruption no disk utility will ever be able to help you restore lost data. You just need a single bit to go wrong in your 20 GB of private space and au revoir your memoirs. No thanks.
Not prepared to take such measures? Then self-installed keyloggers are the least of your privacy concern. If you are using an encrypted disk, then you can and should store your keylogger files in the encrypted disk or folder.
Despite my relative lack of concern about privacy issues, the ideal keylogger would not log passwords.
So returning to the keylogger – the keylogger will save your backside at least a few times a month (sometimes in a week) when you think you've lost all your work (usually about a half hour or so). That means a keylogger is worth about 25 hours/year of your time. Your best time when the creative and intellectual juices are really flowing. I think there's about three to five such hours in any given day. That makes a good keylogger worth nearly a week's work (premium hours remember) per year. I.e. a good keylogger is worth between 4000 in most Western countries. If your week is worth much more than $4K, you are probably dictating and your assistant would be transcribing so you wouldn't get the same value out of a keylogger, but your assistant would.
What are the options on Mac OS X (we'll deal with Leopard and above at this point)?
Keyloggers for OS X: Candidates
A comprehensive spell checking suite with a feature called GhostWriter. I installed, bought and used Spell Catcher for about a month and then had it lurking around for a few months. Spell Catcher interferes with your input menus, is always turning itself on and off. GhostWriter was unreliable in my testing. Sometimes it was running, sometimes it wasn't. Having a browser crash and then learning that your typing wasn't not saved is extremely irritating.
Spellcatcher is one of the more invasive and troublesome apps I've had the displeasure of having on my computer. Verdict: Avoid.
Spell Catcher X GhostWriter Preferences
Nice concept. BackTrack is the only keylogger which actually separates your typing by document and keeps it cleaned up. Seems to work. It does install an exta MySQL lite database which runs constantly so you are looking at some overhead.
But what I really object to and why I won't install or use BackTrack is that there is a daemon running constantly stealing processor cycles and pinging your whole network looking for other copies of BackTrack. Bill is effectively stealing your processor time in perpetuity. Not acceptable.
BackTrack textlog
What Bill is really after apparently is stopping people from running BackTrack on their own laptop and desktop at the same time. As many people, including me, have up to 3 Macs which are their own (although only two in the same place at any given time), per computer licensing is a bit annoying. I could live with a family pack but without the background checker. The pricing is right at $10.
A real pity as I would buy BackTrack in a minute for my own computer and for the 5 Macs in my company if Bill would remove the processor and network stealing background processes.
Bill, the pirates will always win (they beat Adobe everyday and Adobe is a lot better prepared for this war than you are). You should be worrying about the paying customers and not the pirates. Please let me know if and when you remove the spyware. My money is ready.
Verdict: Recommended with serious reservations.
Really and truly free open source software. I think I remember running into occasional CPU issues and that the log format is very messy. A deep system hack. Not supported, as the programmer has abandoned the project (although D. Springfield left it with a functioning Google code page, very responsible. Trvia: D. Springfield also created the first SafariBlock adblock port from Firefox). Has some issues with stopping logging as well, but logKext is working in Snow Leopard so has at least a couple of years of life in it.
Uninstaller is partially broken. Logs come with all the delete gibberish and no date or time or applications stamping. But definitely priced right. Software is looking for a new owner. Perhaps Foliovision could pick this one up and make it work. We're bit too busy and don't have the right expertise in-house yet.
Verdict: Strongly Recommended if you can handle the command line and write your own grep parser to clean up the logs.
From a very strange and mysterious developer. The logs are also dirty with delete and backspace characters, although apparently application changes are noted. At $20, the nod has to go to either BackTrack or logKext, depending on one's own fluency. Verdict: Not recommended.
Nasty expensive spyware which is supposed to send screenshots via email and ftp as well. Not tested, but clearly in the category of spyware rather than a keylogger. Website full of keyword stuffing as well. Even if I wanted this sort of software, I would be very careful before sending these jokers that kind of money. Seem like the sort of people who might even spy on their own clients. They seem especially obsessed with people spying on their own children. Verdict: Avoid like the plague.
More of the same, arguably worse. Especially focused on the cheating spouses category. Primarily a Windows developer. Verdict: Avoid like the plague.
Used to be much ?more expensive before Camp Software came to their heads and/or competition came on the scene. In development since 2002, with lots of issues along the way. KeystrokeRecorder prides itself on making it easy to spy on people:
Use a good name, like "iTunes Optimizer", "Disk Speedup", "QuickTime Control", or "MP3 Accelerator" with the thought that if it looks useful or it makes the computer run better, people won't delete it. Please remember that changing the name of KeystrokeRecorder will create a new preferences file based on the name you provide.
At least now they do provide an address where you can find them and some names to blame when you buy their software. Verdict: Avoid like Chickenpox. ?
Obsolete: MonitorerX, 1.5.1. $12.
Last updated in 2003. The price is right but Monitorer doesn't work, runs up the CPU and is PPC. Verdict: RIP.
Out of business: Typeagent. Website is down.
It was lousy expensive software. Good riddance. If you got burned on Typeagent and it won't run on Snow Leopard, let me suggest logKext. You won't lose any money this time around.?
Out of Business: TypeRecorder X, $50.
TypeRecorder X was always one of the worst keyloggers for Mac, with a reputation for being expensive and unreliable. Incredibly enough Rampellsoftware managed to sell Typerecorder X to an even more macabre outfit, SpectorSoft who are flogging TypeRecorder X as overfeatured ?spyware for $170.
Install Spector Pro and start recording EVERYTHING your children or employees do on the computer and Internet.
This is what user Mickel Mackin has to say about his experiences:
This thing calls home in a very stealth manner LittleSnitch does not pickit up. I have two drives on my computer, but I only use one drive at a time. Apparently this makes them think I have installed the software on two different computers. They threatened to shut off my software. So if I sell this computer and get another one are they going to demand payment? Hard to say but my guess is yes.
These SpectorSoft people spy on you too!
Run do not walk. Verdict:? Avoid like HIV.
Recommendation
So what keylogger am I using? Alas, it must remain a secret. There's hidden functionality in one of my favorite applications which I sussed out. Unfortunately the developer is not yet prepared to release the keylogging functionality to the public. I am working on persuading him to change his mind and enhance the keylogging functionality a little bit. I'm glad I figured this out as it saves me having two utilities monitoring all my keystrokes, thereby keeping my OS leaner and faster.
In the meantime, I recommend either Backtype or logKext depending on your level of technical expertise.
IT |
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
In this day and age, running a computer without some kind of an outgoing firewall is like driving your car with your eyes closed.
There are so many malfeasors - from phishers to corporate spies - trying to track you and place you and grab you every time you check your email or you browse the web, that everyone needs a firewall.
You can test this on OS X by installing Little Snitch and scrolling through your messages. A few of the outgoing calls are for innocent images, mainly they are for tracking tags and tracking images.
Little Snitch - a few of the Edgesuite calls on one week fresh install!
Little Snitch is free for 3 hour periods at a time so it can be installed to test and find out what domains you'd like to be blocking.
For long term blocking of nasty sites OS X, your solutions are threefold:
- buy an outgoing firewall, i.e. Little Snitch. A bit pricey at $30 a license but it's Little Snitch or go hungry
- configure your hosts file to block most of the major offenders (people do keep lists)
- use GlimmerBlocker control panel to block the baddies via internal proxy (works on all browsers)
Of the three, GlimmerBlocker was the best and the simplest. Until after a year and a half GlimmerBlocker decided to seize up and prevent me from editing Wordpress sites. Apparently it's database got full or something. I lost eight hours trying to troubleshoot this mystery when I desperately needed to work so GlimmerBlocker is banned now. A pity as GlimmerBlocker is free.
A hosts file is also great. By adding bad sites to the hosts file and redirecting them to localhost (127.0.0.1) you stop them dead in their tracks.
One of the more complete lists of domains to block via hosts is kept online here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt
To edit your hosts file on OS X, the quickest way is to use Terminal to give TextEdit root access to the hosts file.
- Open a terminal window and type the following: sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts
- Hit return and enter your admin password when prompted and again hit return.
- Your Hosts file should automatically open in TextEdit.
- Copy the hosts from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt or ssomewhere else (mvps wastes a lot of space on the x-rated zone for those of us not into: alternative suggestions to mvps welcome)
- Paste it into your text hosts file.
- Save.
- Test that hosts is working by browsing to one of the domains listed in mvps.
- Continue to edit and save at your leisure (at each save the hosts file is updated and live: well done Apple).
Unfortunately both LittleSnitch and the hosts file suffer from the same fatal flaw. They don't allow wildcards. So for instance, one of the worst bits of spyware around is Infusionsoft. Every time you get an email from a subscriber of infusionsoft they want to know if you opened it. Therefore every image is specific to you. But each user has his or her own subdomain, i.e. empowered.infusionsoft.com.
If you block infusionsoft.com in hosts with 127.0.0.1 infusionsoft.com, you will only block the homepage. You would have to block 127.0.0.1 empowered.infusionsoft.com for each and every Infusionsoft subscriber who sends you email.
Little Snitch automates this process and allows you to make the block application specific. I use Apple Mail exclusively as my email client (looks great, full feature set and very fast, btw) so Little Snitch and I pick off these offenders one by one.
What I really want though are wildcards in Little Snitch so that I can ban all infusionsoft.com subdomains with a single *.infusionsoft.com within Apple Mail. The same applies for edgesuite.net within Apple Mail (Edgesuite is for corporate email spies like Apple and eBay, Infusionsoft is for slippery marketers like Rich Schefren and friends like Mike Filsaime).
When is the Objective Development team going to get off their backsides and improve Little Snitch by adding wildcards? There is a three page thread in their forum which goes back to 2004 asking for subdomain blocking in Little Snitch. What's particularly galling is that ObDev have not even bothered to answer our concerns.
Until Objective Development add a subdomains/wild card feature to Little Snitch, you may want to hold off on the purchase. Managing outgoing requests one subdomain at a time is very tedious work.
In the meantime, if you'd like to block certain domains or you have doubts about a certain piece of software, there is a free solution. You can turn Little Snitch on for three hours while you deal with spam email or install new software, take note of the domains you'd like to block and then add those domains to your hosts file.
IT |
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
We just released a new version of FV Wordpress Flowplayer plugin. For those of you who don't know it - it's the standard opensource Flowplayer, but without any branding in it.
Version number is 0.9.15 and it has two new features:
- widget support - now you can put videos to your sidebar with ease
- template support - allows you to insert videos with some simple PHP - nice feature for site developers
Read our FV Wordpress Flowplayer page to see how to use it or download it from FV Wordpress Flowplayer on Wordpress plugins.
WordPress |
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
I ended up with thousands of these ghost messages after moving from Eudora to Apple Mail with the help of Andreas Amann's brilliant Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. I didn't worry too much about it, as the messages were there in duplicate.
But after a while I got tired of seeing double messages when searching the old archives. I couldn't find any way to scare away these ghosts. Rebuilding the mailboxes didn't help. Nor did running duplicate message scanners.
Even the fantastic vacuum command line cleanup routine wouldn't get rid of the ghost messages with their "Show in Mailbox" in the top right corner. But vacuum did get speed up Apple Mail (highly recommended).
sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index vacuum;
But finally I found the solution on a long dead Omni mailing list archive.
Here's how to stop the haunting. The issue is with the Envelope index. It needs to be deleted. Steps:
- Quit Apple Mail
- Open up ~/Library/Mail
- Delete Envelope Index
- Restart Apple Mail
- Sit back and wait as the full index is rebuilt
Don't do this if you are in a hurry. For my 270,000 messages, it takes about twenty minutes to index them all (pretty spiffy coding Apple Mail Team, getting through that many messages that quickly).
But when it's done, your messages will all still be in place, but your index will be a whole lot faster. I don't know why vacuum only partially cleans and why Apple Mail doesn't have an effective built-in cleaning mechanism. But I'm happy that all systems are go again. Now that you know this trick to, you won't have to care either.
As a footnote, I should say that I was initially a reluctant switcher from the poor departed Eudora (the most robust and configurable email client ever). But Apple Mail handles my huge database of messages astonishingly well and looks quite a bit better doing it.
IT |
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
The argument against the cloud succinctly made:
Cloud computing will not achieve measured penetration because data is the penultimate when it comes to IP and what drives value for corporations going forward. Look no further than Toys R' Us and Target as two recent examples. Once they realized that they had allowed the fox [Amazon] to guard their hen houses [i.e., their online stores], they immediately withdrew from Amazon's cloud.
When a competitor [or potential competitor] knows where your customer is located, what your customer purchases, how much they pay, etc., then you have given your business away -- pure and simple.
Do you think that Amazon, EBay and Google are not data-mining every transaction that occurs for every online store that they host ? The minute that they see a trend in a new product selling in quantity, etc., they will use the data to their advantage, which usually disadvantages the owner of the data.
Putting your data in the cloud is a sucker's bet.
via Sky's the Limit - Barrons.com.
Internet Marketing |
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Yes, everything awful you've heard about these adapters is true. They don't really work right, under Mac OS X. The strange thing is that those who've turned their Mac Minis into either Windows XP or Linux rigs do not have trouble with the adapter. So it's not really hardware related. A bit embarassing that the Apple engineers can't get their own gear working. Another senior engineer transferred to the iPhone video driver department?
Apple Mini DisplayPort Dual Link DVI Adapter MB571Z
Here's what recent reviews on Apple's own store say (just two of two hundred):
Flicker two or three times a day – GM, Dec. 9
I am a totally MAC fan. I love their stuff. It is always quality. This thing is awful. I depend on my monitor as I do a lot of photo work. I had an older macbook pro which had the DVI output. Ok, so I have buy a 100 adapter now, I am sort of ok with that. Then I find it takes up one of my USB ports as well. A little less happy, but give me a product that works. Now this… Two or three times a day I need to cycle this thing. Very poor. I really hope they fix this.
bad, bad, bad – VC, Dec. 9
This thing is junk. Sadly I have to re boot or put my computer to sleep at least three or four times a day because it goes out and comes back with the dreaded TV Snow we all hated as kids when the cable went out. Apple should have gotten this right by now. As a consumer and big spender on apple product I'm disappointed again. Windows 7 anyone? (Joke) Is Apple listening?
Apple Mini DisplayPort Dual Link DVI distortion
Fortunately for Apple the Dual DVI MiniDisplay adapter problems only affect those of us with 30" monitors. I have two of them so this matters a lot to me. The cost of this adapter and its lousy functionality were the primary reasons I didn't buy the high end 13" Macbook Pro when it came out in October.
Straight out of the box with 10.5.6 and without SuperDrive EFI update 3.0 and Performance Update 1.0, the issues were extreme. Flickering every few minutes, with the screen lost in blurry double vision every half hour or so.
The only cure was to unplug the MiniDisplayport and replug it. Absurd remedy.
The adapter was on the fast track back to the store at that point.
The next step was to do some research about what is and what is not working. I updated everything to the most recent versions. It took about 4 cycles to get everything updates, but most of the changes were with iLife and iLife applications and Digital Raw compatibility. That was a good start. But there was one more step to go for success.
I'm on firmware 1.1. There is a 1.2 out there but apparently it can slow down response time for the screen. In this case, the cure might be worse than the disease. In any case the 1.2 firmware is not available for download.
The final step was to delete a couple of lurking preference files:
- Library —> Preferences —> com.apple.windowserver.plist (I don’t know why)
- User —> Library —> Preferences —> ByHost —> com.apple.windowserver.xxxxx.plist
Afterwards, you should the PRAM (Command-Option-P-R and reboot). Which I did, several times (I recommend keeping at least one Apple keyboard around for this sort of troubleshooting: I had to pull mine out of the closet). Often a single PRAM reset won't ferret out all of the lurking settings.
Immediately afterwards, the issues were far less. I could even turn my HP LP3065 display on and off without getting a fuzzy distorted picture. That's gone now and I get the fuzz whether I switch off the monitor and turn it on again or switch between displays. During work, the adapter works pretty consistently.
Apple Mini DisplayPort Dual Link DVI Snow
There are three well known ways to bring the picture back:
- unplug and replug MiniDisplay connector
- unplug and replug USB jack
- put the computer to sleep and wake it up
All of those are a hassle and involve hands leaving keyboards searching for small plugs (there's a good chance you'll knock Apple's magnetic power plug loose) or long waits.
But you don't need to go so far. There's a trick which makes the issues just bearable. Just sleeping the screen is enough.
There are two easy ways to sleep the display:
- press Shift-Control-Eject. Your display will turn off and your hands don't even need to leave the keyboard. If you use an Apple keyboard as your primary keyboard, this is the easiest and fastest.
- If you don't use an Apple keyboard, there is a way around it. Go into System Preferences —> Exposé and Spaces —> Exposé and set the lower left corner to Sleep Display. I chose the lower left corner as it's the one I visit least and it's never too far out of the way.
After you've slept the display, you can almost immediately just move the mouse to wake it up. The work interruption isn't more than a few seconds. Not exactly productive but a lot better than reaching for the plugs on the back of your computer.
The biggest time saver: if you think that you will be able to make this work perfectly yourself, give it up. I've even tried plugging the Dual DVI MiniDisplayport adapter's USB connector into another USB hub. No better results. Perhaps it would help with a laptop. But on a Mac Mini do plug in the USB connector to the USB plug farthest away from the MiniDisplayport.
Mac mini back late 2009 Mini DisplayPort USB
Another tip: instead of just sleeping your computer (what I usually do for weeks until my mobile internet causes enough trouble for my network settings that I need a restart), I recommend that you restart relatively regularly. The adapter problems tend to worsen over time.
If you are thinking about buying alternative hardware, forget it. You'll need a male MiniDisplayport cable to female DisplayPort (1,2). That didn't exist a couple of months ago but exists now. But from there you'll need DisplayPort to Dual DVI. Dell has one but it also costs $100/€100 and also requires USB power. I.e. it looks like it wll cost more and be more complicated (extra MiniDisplayport to DisplayPort adapter).
If you are shopping for a new 30" monitor to use with Apple computers, I highly recommend buying one of those which comes with displayport in. Currently the Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP looks like the only one. Samsung announced in 2007 but didn't deliver: their 305T is still Dual DVI.
Personally, I find it incredible that Apple can't or won't fix this problem for their 30" monitor users. It makes them look incompetent and I'm sure it's costing them a lot of sales (I didn't buy one of their high end notebooks as a consequence). I'm an old Mac hand so I was able to find the resources necessary to get this issue partially under control. It took hours, as if I were on Windows. What a new Mac user would feel, I can hardly imagine.
If all of the above prevents you from buying a Mac Mini or a Macbook Pro, so be it. If you do want to go Apple (and we do), plan to avoid going with 30" monitors or buy Dell until this adapter issue is fixed.
Additional Resources
IT |
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Until recently, Apple had no good inexpensive computer in its lineup. There was the Mac Mini but the graphics were crappy built-in on-board Intel adapters. As an ex Macbook owner, I knew how weak that chip is.
On the other hand, the Mac Mini with the 9400GF is a real computer. A Core2Duo processor at 2 GHz can handle anything except gaming and high end video editing.
I hope to hell my staff are not gaming and I know we aren't doing high end video editing these days. If we decide to start, I'll get a more powerful computer.
I know that when we do go to video editing, there are no audio and video sync issues on Macs (sync issues are the historic bugaboo of video editing on Windows computers).
We've just bought a total of six Mac Minis and Macbooks to switch Foliovision over to being primarily an Apple company. Here's why.
How Apple Won Our Mini Enterprise Contract
- What is great about the Mini is that it is small and silent and powerful. We spend a huge amount of time finding and configuring custom power supplies and fans to make our Windows computers silent. Minis are silent out of the box (the power supply is on the floor). Silence is goal number one for our computers. That Macs used to be loud (even the G5 towers, I had one) was one good reason they didn’t have our business earlier.
- We can move the OS around from computer to computer without going through a complicated and painful . I.e. we will build a standard setup for our Minis with all the software and extras onboard that we want and just clone it from one machine to another.
- All hardware is compatible (limited choice but what exists works)
- I know all the software so whatever software anyone needs I can tell them off the top of my head which one to install
- We are all licensed software. Which means we are paying for our work tools anyway. As we are paying for our tools, we’d like nice ones. We’ve tried Linux but it is too widely configurable (i.e. too much choices so you end up spending time fiddling) and suffers from the same issues as Windows (driver and hardware compatibility issues).
- Maintenance is minimal and I don’t have to dedicate a staff member to working just on the computers (adding 5 more Windows boxes means that the IT guy would be almost unavailable for anything except computer maintenance).
- I want my programmers to write simpler, more attractive software which means they shouldn’t be on Windows or Linux as Windows is ugly and complicated and Linux is just too complicated. We aren’t writing for other programmers but for real estate agents and best selling authors. Simple and attractive are Steve Job’s watchwords and ours too.
How Apple Almost Lost Our Business
- Minis are very difficult to get into. We almost didn’t buy them at all as it is so difficult to change RAM and hard drives. I figured we are buying enough of them that we will get good at opening up the little devils.
- The warranty period is inadequate. All computer makers in Europe are offering two years. Apple is trying to offer one, along with a paid upgrade to three years. Yes for a laptop, no for a desktop. By the time you buy the extended Apple-Care on a desktop, it’s no longer a cost effective solution.
- There is no reasonable step up. iMacs are lovely computers but it’s next to impossible to change the hard drive. Guess what? We just won’t buy a computer in which we can’t change the hard drive ourselves. Crashed hard drives are the number one hardware issue and we expect to be able to deal with it without lugging a heavy iMac around town. Moreover the top of the line new quad iMac was issued without an external SATA port. For no good reason Apple has limited us to FireWire 800. Even FW 800 raid with 80 MB/sec throughput is not fast enough for HD video and just adequate for heavy duty photo processing.
- Custom video ports. We have to buy five mini-DVI adapters and five miniDisplay adapters for our dual head setups. Fortunately there are third party solutions now which come in at €8 to €15 per adapter instead of Apples €25 to €29. Tell me again why Apple are not using DVI and displayport instead?
Conclusion
The computers are arriving this week. We'll be setting them up over the holidays. I'll be back with some tips on how to set up Macs for enterprise use straight out of the box.
Microsoft had our business until they lost it with complicated licensing.
IT |
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
We are moving half the office to Mac computers this month.
Originally I was in the market for a couple of quads with Microsoft Windows. But to be able to buy those two computers, I had to figure out all the troublesome licensing of Microsoft. Originally we just wanted to say with XP, as that's what we know and like. On the way, here's what I discovered about Microsoft Licensing:
- licenses are extremely confusing (8 license levels? come on)
- licenses are not portable
- licenses are restricted to a single language
- licenses have to be activated
- hardware changes require reactivation
- you need antivirus software for every Microsoft computer (we've actually bought it for all ours from Avast)
We were relatively happy Microsoft Windows XP users with five XP licenses and four Windows 2000 licenses. We planned to stay that way, but it's difficult and expensive to buy XP licenses these days and they don't point forward.
Microsoft does offer Windows Professional 7 licenses with the option for downgrade.
When we called Microsoft's telephone numbers for volume licenses, they were very coy about telling us what we could expect to pay. I'm sorry I don't like hidden prices, which can only be revealed after review of your contract. If you have to hide your prices, there's a scam in there somewhere. Moeover, we were also told that volume licenses would not allow us to do XP downgrades.
Apparently with Windows XP, a license is good regardless of what language you choose to install in the end. In Windows 7, unless you choose ultimate version, you have to keep the computer in the language for which you bought the license.
Which brings up the issue of versions. There are over 8 license versions. Guys, make it a lot easier, please. I.e. Ultimate shouldn't exists. Starter shouldn't exist either. Home and professional cover the two usage scenarios. If I buy a license, I should have the right to move it to another computer if I take it off the first computer.
In contrast, with Macs you just install the software. Of course you need the computer, but once you have that you can just copy a working OS from one computer to another.
We spent ten man hours just clarifying what Windows 7 licenses were available and which would work for us.* That's a good start on explaining why we just don't want anything more to do with Microsoft.
Go back to selling software, guys in Redmond. Complicated licensing to confuse and shaft customers is no way to do business. You've just lost ours.
* Once you are done with the licenses, you still have to configure and troubleshoot your own custom computers, downloading and debugging drives. There are hours to be spent here as well. Enough.
IT |
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
We received a lot of requests to add some buttons to the toolbar of our own Wordpress WYSIWYG editor called Foliopress WYSIWYG. That's why we added a brand new drop down menu which can be easily customized - you can add any kind of styling you can imagine to it.
Foliopress WYSIWYG Formating Dropdown
The usage is simple and straightforward for more advanced and experienced Wordpress users, but in case you need help you will find everything about it in:
And of course - you are welcome to ask questions in the comments bellow our articles.
The version number is 0.9.7. Download it from our main Foliopress WYSIWYG page or Wordpress plugins.
WordPress |
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
As we announced a couple of days ago, the new version or our WYSIWYG editor for Wordpress is done. The main improvements are:
- Multiple image posting
The Image Management window stays opened after to send an image to the post. This allows you to insert multiple images with ease. If you like the window to be closed every time you insert the image into the post, you can disable multiple image posting in the options.
- No need to edit any configuration files
Everything important is in the options screen now!
New Foliopress WYSIWYG options screen
- Available thumbnail sizes are limited by the size of the picture
Each time you are going to insert a thumbnail for an image into the post, only the sizes which are lower than the horizontal size of the image are shown. This won't let you insert a 500px thumbnail for a 320x240px image.
- Better security
Since the Image Management window may stay opened after you insert an image, we implemented a technique which disables the usage of that window after you log out from your Wordpress admin panel.
- Automatic wpautop can be turned off
If the post you are about to edit with Foliopress WYSIWYG was created with the default Wordpress editor (TinyMCE), Foliopress WYSIWYG runs wpautop on it prior to editing. TinyMCE is storing posts without any HTML markup for the paragraphs, so it's necessary to run this core Wordpress function in order to work with the posts correctly in our editor. You may want to disable this function if some of your special posts are destroyed after opening with Foliopress WYSIWYG.
Download the plugin from our Foliopress WYSIWYG page or from the Wordpress plugin page.
If you are going to do the auto-upgrade, you should use this simple guide to preserve your current settings.
WordPress |
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
If you use our WYSIWYG editor for Wordpress called Foliopress WYSIWYG, then you will be probably happy to hear the exciting news:
You will be able to upgrade to the next version (which will be released in next couple of days) using the Wordpress built-in automatic plugin updater.
However if you ever made any changes to the custom configuration file, these changes will be lost, as we have no control over the Wordpress update process and all the files will be overwritten. This is a list of your configuration changes which we can't keep after the update is done:
- configuration of BodyId and BodyClass for the editor
- custom Toolbar configurations
- custom plugins for the built-in FCK editor
What you need to do is to write down these settings before the upgrade and then put them into the new options screen which the new version of our plugin will feature (in case you used any extra plugins inside the editor, you need to save all the plugin files and update the same custom config file manually).
Here's an article about how to change the custom config file in all the old Foliopress WYSIWYG versions which will help you to pull these settings out of it: Foliopress WYSIWYG setup and edit.
If you are not using our editor yet, we hope this feature will help it compete with the others.
WordPress |
