The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
21
On Second Thoughts – iWeb Sucks
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 21, 2006 | 10 Comments
When I first reviewed iLife 6 in my article about creating my first podcast I was a little hard on iWeb but gave it a generally OK review. Turns out I was a little hasty! After a few more weeks of use I’ve come to the conclusion that it sucks! Yes, the interface is very nice and yes you can easily make a podcast by dragging and dropping but it still sucks because everything goes most terribly pear-shaped the moment you go to publish your web page. To see what I mean have a look at the site for the IFAS podcast which I’ve been using as a test case for iWeb: www.minds.nuim.ie/~ifas/podcast.
You might say my sample page looks alright on the surface, because it does. But, now try to highlight some text. Oops, you can’t because it isn’t in fact text but an image. Everything is in fact an image. All text everywhere. WTF! That’s not web design, it’s desktop publishing! The result is not so much a web page as a poster or flyer for printing! So much for getting indexed by search engines …. oh well, it’s not as if you publish stuff on the web for people to find and read is it …. oh wait …. bugger!
Things go even more pear-shaped when publishing though. If you remember last time I told you that you could only publish directly to the web if you had a .Mac account (which I don’t because I don’t need one). This means that you have to publish to a folder on your local machine each time you want to update the site. You might not think that’s too bad. You’d think you just publish it and then use a good SFT client like Transmit 3 to sync with the server so you only upload changed files. Well you’d be in for a nasty shock. Each time you re-publish the site everything gets re-generated so your sync will result in ALL files being uploaded again. This is inconvenient when your podcast has two episodes, positively annoying when it has three (like mine now does) and simply impossible when it has 10, 20, 30 or more.
Conclusion
The simple truth is that iWeb is totally impractical and un-usable in the long term. Nice Try Apple but absolutely no cigar this time. Version 2 had better be a major major improvement!
May
15
MySQL on the Mac
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration on May 15, 2006 | 2 Comments
MySQL on the Mac has come a long way in the last few years. MySQL now release binaries for the Mac and those binaries are contained in a nice OS X package and even contain a preferences pane for the System Preferences App to allow you to easily control your MySQL server. I installed the latest version on my machine in work today and it is fair to call the installation process painless. You just click next a few times and enter your password once or twice. Because of this I have no problem saying that the server end of things with MySQL is now sorted on the Mac, but what about client GUIs? In this article I’ll be describing three free MysQL GUIs that I found and tested. All my tests were carried out with the latest stable binary release of the MySQL server for OS X (5.0.21) on a G5 PowerMac.
CocoaMySQL
The first GUI I came across was CocoaMySQL and I have to say I was far from impressed. Although the interface is nice in it’s simplicity the app simply does not play nice with the latest versions of MySQL server and hangs and does funny things so until the app starts to work correctly with modern servers the simplicity of it’s interface is irrelevant. After failing to create a table I un-installed this program.
MySQL Administrator
MySQL Administrator is released by the MySQL people so I considered this app to have great promise. The first thing I noticed is that it gives you an awful lot of
information about your MySQL server and also lets you control the server
and edit it’s config very well. However, when it came to creating tables I
was horribly disappointed.
I tried a simple test to create a table with two columns, an auto
incrementing integer called ‘id’ that is the primary key and then a
column called ‘name’ that is a varchar. The interface let me
prepare it all beautifully but the moment I clicked ‘Apply’ I got an
SQL error. I tried repeatedly but no matter what I did with the GUI I
could not get this simple table created. The GUI shows you the SQL it’s
about to execute and lets you edit it so I did eventually get the table created by manually editing the SQL being sent. I did experiment on a bit
and found that if you don’t use auto increments the interface does work
but since I use them a lot I just got fed up with this application. My
disappointment was magnified even more when I realised that there is no
way to enter data with this app either.
I had very high hopes
that this app would turn out to be my on-stop-shop for everything I
want to do with MySQL but it simply isn’t. The fact that it’s obviously
still buggy as hell and that you can’t use it to insert data means that
I really have no use for this app.
YourSQL
YourSQL is another nice simple front end for MySQL. I tested the latest stable version (1.7.2). This is very much a program for people who are familiar with MySQL and know the various datatypes etc.. This program will only make sense to people who know what they are doing but for those people it will save a lot of time. It uses a Finder style column-based interface for navigating servers, databases and tables which works really well if you have a lot of databases to manage. This is a good app for speeding up simple DBA tasks if you know what you are doing. The app is small and fast and hence I actually really like it.
I spent a few hours using this app today to build a fairly complex database and I have to say I found it a joy to use. It was easy to add a database, to add and edit tables and to view, search and insert data. To me that is what a MySQL GUI should do so this app gets 9 out of 10. Why not 10 out of 10? Well it didn’t do one thing, it didn’t give me an easy way to set up foreign keys. However, the interface makes it very easy to run SQL queries directly so if you want to add a foreign key to a table you can do so yourself quite easily in this way.
Below is a screen shot I took while I was experimenting today.
Conclusions
Although the actual MySQL server is now very easy to set up and control on the Mac there is still a shortage of good GUIs out there. ATM there is only one that I would recomend over the classic phpMyAdmin route and that is YourSQL.
May
10
Automator – Lives up to the Hype
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 10, 2006 | Leave a Comment
When OSX came out there were three new features that Steve ranted on about. The first was Spotlight, which I use a lot and really like, the second was Dashboard, which a quick scan of the articles in the Mac section of my blog will clearly show I like a lot, and the final one was Automator, which I’ve really neglected. I never even bothered to play with it properly until today! But, better late than never and since I had a free hour and some backups I wanted to automate I figured I’d give the classic rsync shell script approach a miss this time and see what Automator could do for me.
Introduction
In case you’re not familiar with Automator the idea behind it is that you can write scripts to automate repetitive tasks or tasks that you do a lot but without typing or seeing a single line of code. For the full Apple hype have a look at the Automator page on the Apple Site.
So, the question is, does Automator live up to the hype? Well IMO it does. It did take me a few minutes to get into the swing of things and I have to say I’d probably never have figured it out without looking at the sample workflows but once I got into it it was dead easy. You just drag and drop in the actions you need in the position you need them and then tinker with the options on each action until you have what you need. Something I found really helpful was that you can create complex workflows by chaining together simple ones. I initially started by trying to write one killer workflow that would deal with all elements of my backup but I soon realise I would be much better off breaking the task up and then creating the killer workflow by adding together all my small workflows.
My Experimental Workflow
I wanted to back up to a SAMBA share that is not that big so I was only interested in backing up important stuff. To me important stuff meant:
- My email
- My FireFox bookmarks
- My Work Documents
So, I started by creating a simple workflow to archive my Thunderbird folder to my desktop, move it to a folder on the share and then re-name it with the current date. Then I used that as a base for creating similar flows for my FireFox settings and my documents. Finally I tied all this together with a flow that did the following:
- Connected to the samba share
- Ran the three backup flows
- Ejected the samba share
Within 30 minutes of starting to play with Automator for the first time I had the above done, tested and working. I can now very easily and very quickly backup my important stuff to my samba share.
Below are some screenshots of some of my workflows to give you an idea of what the interface is like.
(above) The workflow for backing up my email.
(below) The workflow that ties all my small workflows together
Not Perfect
However, there are a few things that annoyed me, firstly, Automator crashed once when it had just finished saving a workflow. I’m not accustomed to Apple programs crashing so that worried me a bit but it only happened once and since then I’ve been poking around with automator for hours with no more crashes. The other thing is that I can’t get the action for disconnecting from the share to work. I’m not sure if the problem is with Automator or with OS X’s samba. Mind you samba support on Tiger has been flaky to say the least so it doesn’t really surprise me that Automator has some issues with it. The important thing is that it can connect to the share which it does without problems.
Conclusions
Automator delivers on it’s promise of letting you do powerful things all within a simple drag and drop interface. The range of actions available is simply phenomenal ranging from simple sysadmin tasks like moving and copying files or running shell scripts to automatically burning backups to CD and automatically processing entire folders of images. Automator also integrates with just about every Apple program so you can automate more tasks than I could possibly describe here. To get some idea of how many actions there are have a look at the screenshot of the action browser pane below. Yes, it crashed on me once but I’m still very happy with it and will be using it a lot.
Apr
27
Windows Remote Desktop Client for OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I unfortunately need to run one Windows application at work (Remedy for managing user-support calls) so I need some form of access to Windows from my Mac. Dual boot is just not an option, I need remedy running in one Window and everything else I need to actually solve the users’ problems in other windows all at the same time. There is a very old Windows machine in my office that is just used for Remedy so in theory I could move over to that machine each time I need Remedy but that’s just annoying so I’ve been using VNC and it worked OK but I couldn’t copy and paste and the lag was a bit annoying. Anyhow, today a colleague was looking for something else on the MS site and found a Mac version of the Windows Remote Desktop Client and me the link. I’ve just installed it and I have to say I’m well impressed. The app is small, efficient, fast and very user-friendly to configure. I have no problem with lag anymore and can copy and paste to/from the windows machine. It even has a cute icon! Basically everything I expect from Apple Apps but it’s a MicroSoft App! Here’s the link: www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient
Apr
4
OS X Dashboard Widgets for Techies
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech on April 4, 2006 | 2 Comments
OS X is becoming a popular choice among techies these days but many of us tend to ignore the Dashboard feature introduced in OS X 10.4 Tiger. I find Dashboard quite useful and have compiled the following list of widgets you might consider installing. They range from the very simple things like password generators to nmap frontends and system monitors.
Beginners/Lazy People
Although I can now easily calculate Unix file permissions in my head I’m sure there are many people who are new to Linux/Unix who may find it helpful to get a bit of help with them so below is the nicest of the Unix Permission widgets I found on my travels.
It’s called, sensibly enough, UNIX Permissions Calculator Widget and you can get it from http://vocaro.com/trevor/software/widgets/.
Another handy one that I do confess to using myself from time to time is the IP Subnet Calculator Widget which you can get from www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/ipsubnetcalculator.html.
Password Generators
I’ve tried out a LOADS of password generators over the last few months and some really suck! The first one I tried always gave the same sequence of ‘random’ passwords which sorta defeats the point some what! ATM I use the rather simply named Random Password widget (www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/randompassword.html).
System Monitors
There are more system monitor widgets than you can shake the proverbial stick at but after much experimenting and playing around I’ve settled on iStat which comes in two versions. There is iStat Nano which is small and compact and has multiple screens you can flip between as well as a nice, compact overview, and then there is iStat Pro which is far from small but wonderfully detailed. I generally use the iStat Nano but both are very good. The screenshot below is taken on my PowerMac and shows both nano and pro in action at the same time. You can get these widgets from:
- iStat Nano – www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatnano.html
- iStat Pro – www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html
Network Monitors
Something I like to keep an eye on is what network connections are going to and from my machine at any time. A lovely compact little widget for doing this is called Pakze which may sound like a strange name but if you speak Dutch you’ll realise it means ‘get em’ and the background is a rather grumpy looking doggie! You can get Pakze from www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/pakzewidget.html.
There are also lots of other network status widgets that tell you what you internal and external IP addresses are and how much bandwidth you’re using etc but since iStat has all that information anyhow I don’t see the point in cluttering your dashboard with extra widgets that tell you nothing new.
What can be useful is a widget called Sunemo (www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/sunemo.html) that uses nmap to show you all the machines that are active in your subnet. I only use this widget on my home network and I would warn others to do the same. Your network administrator will probably get grumpy at you if you try using this on a corporate or university network!
Finally, it can be useful when keeping an eye on who is accessing or attempting to access your servers to know where suspicious people are coming from, hence the GeoLocate widget can be very useful to techies. I’m not really sure how accurate it is but it tends to get the country right at least. You can download it here: www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/geolocate.html.
Final Word
Those are the techie related Dashboard Widgets I use. Of all the widgets I’ve downloaded and installed I’d say only about 25% are keepers if even that so these really are the cream of the crop that I’ve been collecting pretty much since Tiger came out. I also have other good widgets for helping web programmers so I might do a follow on article shortly on Dashboard Widgets for Web Monkeys.
Apr
1
Thunderbird 1.5 Released
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 1, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I’ve just switched to Thunderbird 1.5 and I’m impressed. There is no real noticeable difference in the overall look of the app but there are some changes that really make it worth upgrading from 1.0. The most noticeable difference is that it now checks your spelling as you type rather than only doing it when you click send. This will save a lot of time and effort and gives Thunderbird the only thing that apple’s mail client had over it IMO. The other thing they have finally addressed is the interface for setting up multiple SMTP servers. Each account now has a simple dropdown menu for specifying what server to use which is a big improvement to the hoops you used to have to jump through in version 1.0.
Basically, if you haven’t upgraded yet, get cracking and if you are still using something ghastly like Outlook Express or Eurdora get switching now, you won’t regret it!
Mar
1
Musings on the New Mac Mini
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 1, 2006 | 1 Comment
Well I was about half right with my predictions for yesterday’s Apple announcement. New Mac Mini’s are a reality but no super video iPod and, as I expected, no iTablet. What we did get instead was an iPod stereo. I have zero interest in the iPod stereo so I’m just going to talk about the new Mac Mini.
Feb
27
NmapFE – Nice OS X Frontend for NMAP
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on February 27, 2006 | 1 Comment
If you manage a server or a network nmap is one of those tools that you’d just be lost without. However, remembering the syntax for all the cool stuff it can do is a right PITA. Hence this nice simple OS X GUI to nmap is a real time and energy saver.
I can’t stress enough that NMAP is a tool that must be used responsibly. If you go around randomly scanning random people it is only a matter of time till you get into trouble, remember, it is a crime to scan machines that are not yours!
You can download NmapFE OS X from here: http://faktory.org/m/software/nmap/
It’s not particularly fancy and doesn’t have many bells and whistles but it does it’s job excellently. It gives you all your options neatly laid out in the main dialoge and then a separate window for the results of each scan (you can run many at the same time). The app even has a sense of humor, click the "script kiddie" checkbox and watch the output go all 1337!
The screenshots below show the main window and a sample output window (with the sensitive data blacked out) showing the results of a scan on one of my servers.
Jan
21
HornWare – Some Nice File Sharing Utils for OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Something which has annoyed me for quite some time about OS X is how little control you get over SMB sharing (unless you run OS X server). I am generally a fan of Apple’s "keep it simple" approach but in this case they’ve gone too far and made it so simple as to deny ordinary users access to many features the underlying OS has. Well, the problem is now solved by some nice DonationWare utils form HownWare (www.hornware.com).
OS X contains a complete Samba Server and a complete Samba server and client but
unless you have OS X Server you only get very limited GUI access to these features. You can fully share your entire home dir to your username
and password and you can have a fully public folder called "Public" in
your home directory that everyone can see and that’s it. IMO that is
not good enough! If you are not afraid of the command line you can of
course set up your own shares manually, as I have done on some of my
Macs, but that is beyond the realms of the Ordinary user.
This is where HornWare come in with a nice set of utils. The best one IMO is SharePoints which gives you both a standalone app for managing all your SMB shares as well as a pane you can add to the system preferences app (OS X’s version of Windows’ Control Panel). This gives you all the control you could hope for and at first glance seems a nice app. Another very useful app is SharePoints Auto Mounter which allows you to set up finder to automatically connect to remote shares when you log in, ideal in a work situation where you want access to files on departmental shares etc..
Screenshot of SharePoints System Preferences Pane:
Jan
20
SimCity4 for Mac – UNPLAYABLE
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 20, 2006 | Leave a Comment
After much hassle (see here) I finally got SimCity4 installed on my Mac today and I am unbelievably disappointed. The game is so buggy and unstable that I’ve seen pre-alpha releases of software perform better. Both my Macs are dramatically above the minimum spec but the game does not work on either. On my Mac Mini it crashes each time you try to load any city and on my better half’s G5 iMac it just freezes every few minutes and forces you to do a hard reset of the machine. The only way I can describe this game is un-playable. If you’re tempted to buy it, don’t! It is so bad I’ve just emailed to the shop that sold me the game asking for a re-fund because the product they sold me is sub-standard. TBH I am tempted to take them to small-claims if they don’t comply because I genuinely feel defrauded here.