Geeks on Coffee

Well,

I’ve pretty well proved that I’m not capable of writing long posts on any sort of regular basis given my current life situation, so we’re going to try something different… I’m going to try and post shorter things more frequently… I think this will be more worthwhile for everyone involved.

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When TechCrunch’s article about new Google Analytics features  http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/07/google-analytics-gets-an-upgrade-with-annotations-new-api-and-more/ came across my RSS feed, with interest I logged into the Geeks on Coffee Google Analytics account. We just did some testing at work, and I wanted to put in the annotation that the traffic spike we had that day was related to that testing. Sadly, the option to add annotations was nowhere to be found. Was I surprised? Not really.. this is typical practice for sites of this size. It does, however, raise an interesting question: Is the loss of hype-capitilization worth the ease-of-support caused by this rollout practice? What I mean is this: I see a blog post about a new Gmail feature. I log in to Gmail to see how much it is going to change my life. I don’t yet have access to the feature. I forget all about it, and go on with my previous, featureless life. Unless I see another blog post about it, the odds are pretty good that I will forget all about it.

Despite being a developer, website support is the thing I seem to spend a depressing large chunk of time doing. My company is not Google, by any stretch of the imagination, and our rollouts and feature additions are not nearly as monumental, but even on our scale, we couldn’t get away with doing incremented rollouts. Every few months we get one user looking over the shoulder of another whose account has different access, and the one with less features emails requesting the cool stuff the other has.

It also seems to me that managing different cuts of the code for different user groups would be tediously over-complicated. I understand there are some benefits to it (a limited test group makes it easier to fix bugs that made it to production) but keeping track of the different paths seems like it would be more trouble than it is worth.

As for the Google Analytics changes, the annotations certainly look like they will be the most interesting for me.. GeeksOnCoffee still doesn’t get enough traffic to warrant using the advanced analytical features.. I wonder how long it will be before somebody figures out how to automate creating annotations for various things (each time a new article is posted, each time a referring link is posted to reddit, etc). For a small blogger, that level of automation would be useful.

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Apple Computers, Inc. is trying (although they don’t always admit it) to gain adoption in the enterprise. They don’t seem to be having a lot of luck. From my perspective, there are a few reasons for this:

1. The throwaway computer: As long as there are computer manufacturers making computers for 1/3 to 1/2 the price of an Apple, it is hard to justify the added cost to run Excel and Outlook.
2. Outlook: Lets face it. Entourage sucks. Beyond just poor performance, key missing features such as setting server-side rules (essential for anybody using a smartphone). Snow Leopard will help eliminate this, but only for companies running Exchange 2007. My company is not, and I imagine we aren’t alone.
3. Internet Explorer: Few people will argue that IE is the worst browser available. That being said, most companies have an application that works best or only works in IE; SharePoint, Outlook Web Access, VPN solutions, or corporate intranet sites that use ActiveX. There is no support for these technologies on the Mac. I’m not saying there should be; the last thing I want is ActiveX support on my mac, but until these technologies are eliminated (not likely), they are barriers to entry. 
4. Specialized Corporate Software: Most types of software are represented on the Mac. Some are even better than their Windows equivalent. Unfortunately they are very rarely the same software, and very rarely compatible. Transitioning from one piece of software is not something that people take lightly.
5. It’s Different: From the simplest standpoint, it’s not Windows. The tried and true Help Desk advice of “try restarting it” doesn’t typically help. People who have to do PC support tend to be resistant to change, because they have to change their answers; even worse, users who experience change ask questions. 

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Apple, Exchange, Outlook, Snow Leopard

Download Now

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 and is now listing it as the main download.

More information coming later.

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It appears that Gmail is rolling out themes… The themes available (on a tab in the Settings menu) are:

Default
Classic
New Blue
Cold Shower
Steel
Minimalist
Green Sky
Bubblegum
Cherry Blossom
Night Shade
Marina
Dusk
Sunset
Silver Lining
Contrast Black
Shiny
Desk
Tree
Beach
Mountains
Pebbles
Summer Ocean
Phantasea
Graffiti
Planets
Zoozimps
Candy
Bus Stop
Ninja
Tea House
Terminal

Some of the thumbnails are too small to really give a good indication, but they will give you a general idea. Some of the themes are also ‘Zip Code Specific’.. Not entirely sure what that means, but I will post more information when I find it.

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One of the most beautiful aspects of OS X is the support for system wide proxy settings. Configure a proxy in the system preferences, and just about everything uses it automagically. Unforunately, Firefox (and Thunderbird, or so I hear), doesn’t make use of this functionality, meaning you have to configure your proxy twice.

The solution to this is really quite simple. Pick up a copy of System Proxy, and you’ll see a new check box in the Firefox proxy settings: “Copy proxy settings from OS X”. So long as that’s checked, Ff will automatically use whatever system settings are in place.

Happy surfing!

Edit 2008-08-28: It would appear that System Proxy only updates the Ff settings when the browser is first loaded. Or possibly when new windows are openned. Therefore, changes to system-wide settings made while the browser is running may not be reflected.

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Firefox, OS X, proxy

The original creator of Ruby on Rails didn’t believe in the necessity of RoR being threadsafe. Josh disagreed, and took things into his own hands.

http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/8/16/josh-peek-officially-joins-the-rails-core

The world (or at least Rails developers) is a better place because of it.

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Josh Peek, Ruby on Rails, Threadsafe

UPDATE 3-Feb-2009: GPGMail for Leopard is out of beta and now includes a handy script for installing the bundle. You can use that in place of the sub-steps in Step 4.

I’ve been using encrypted email on Windows for a coupla years new, courtesy of Thunderbird and the wonderful Enigmail. Moving to the world of Mac, I’ve decided to migrate to Mail, rather than sticking to Tbird, so Enigmail’s not going to work in the new environment. To that end, I’m venturing forth to find a Mac-y counterpart, and have decided to chronicle that journey here.

A few disclaimers before we begin: I’m working on Leopard, so your mileage may vary. More importantly, I already have cryptographic keys that I’ll be moving over from my old system, so these instructions won’t include information about setting up your own keys, or even getting your keys ready for importing in the new system. I’m also assuming you can install software without too much hand holding. With that out of the way, let’s get started:

1. Get GNU Privacy Guard and GPG Keychain Access from http://macgpg.sourceforge.net/
   MacGPG is the OS X native version of the GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) software. It’s equivalent to Gpg4Win in that it takes the gpg package from *nix and makes it easily installable in places without direct access to the normal *nix install tools.
2. Install GNU Privacy Guard, followed by GPG Keychain Access
   There’s nothing special here. One’s an install package, and the other is the standard copy-to-the-Apps-folder thing.
3. Open GPG Keychain Access and import your private keys
   The first time you load Keychain Access, it will notice you don’t have keys and ask what you want to do about that. Click ‘Import’ and then find your keys. With any luck, your private key should now show up on the Secret tab, and any other keys should be displayed as appropriate.
4. Now, go get GPGMail from http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/English.lproj/GPGMail.html and install it.
   Since I’m using Leopard, I’ll be using the beta version. Detailed installation instructions are included in the dmg, but can be summed up as:
   1. Quit Mail
   2. Copy GPGMail.mailbundle (from the file you downloaded) to the folder Library/Mail/Bundles/ in your home directory, creating folders as needed
   3. Execute the following in the Terminal:
      defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool yes
      defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion -int 3
   4. Restart Mail

All other things being equal, your keys should now be ready to use in Mail, which is the goal. You can safely stop here, but I’m going to go one step further and add a bit of GPG integration to the Address Book.

1. Go get ABKey from http://abkey.far-blue.co.uk/
2. Install ABKey by copying ABKey.bundle to the /Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/ folder in your home directory

You should now be able to see the gpg keys of any contacts in your keychain right in Address Book.
And there ya go. One quick, easy transfer of secure email to the Mac. Hope you find it helpful.

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Address Book, GPG, Mail

Registering for the site now gives you “Contributer” Status. This will allow you to write posts. They will, of course, be moderated, but worthwhile content will not be unreasonably refused or brutally edited. So, Sign Up, and give us your opinions, website/product reviews, favorite coffee recipes, etc.

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