Computers

Recently, I’ve been hunting around for a blogging engine that can replace this ageing installation of Serendipity. The reason why I went with a full-blown PHP on-the-fly dynamically generated system was that there was no other way to provide interactivity to visitors to a blog. Stuff like commenting, link tracking, and page tracking were all impossible.

However, with the rise of AJAX and JavaScript capabilities in browsers, what was once only possible on the server-side can now be delegated to the client-side. Rather than having the server operator foot the cost of running the whole infrastructure, part of it can be “outsourced” to visitors who are on similarly powerful computers.

When dealing with a handful of visitors, the processing power requirements on the server-side is low and negligible. However, when you scale up to above 150 concurrent visitors, everything starts to crumble and the load becomes asymmetrical. Distributing or outsourcing part of the site generation to visitors can save a site when under heavy loads.

With Google Analytics and Disqus, all dynamic parts of a site, once formally under the domain of dynamic server-side scripting, can now be offloaded to visitors with the use of asynchronous JavaScript. How it actually works is that the visitor’s browser fetches a static and light-weight HTML from my server, parses it and loads externally linked JavaScript files from these content providers, such as Google and Disqus, and then renders and attaches the output onto the static HTML site.

This way, a once static HTML page has become dynamic, with much of the data outsourced to content providers, and rendering to visitors’ browsers.

The upsides of managing static HTML is that it requires very little infrastructure to support and aggressive caching can be employed with the help of CDNs. If a server migration is needed, the static HTML files just need to be mirrored over and all will be well.

So now, the problem shifts to that of generating these static HTML files. Surely they all require a unified look and hence have much markup in common, manually managing this across thousands of files will be a chore. A different kind of blogging engine is thus required. One that takes a set of templates, applies it consistently to all your posts, possibly written and formatted in markdown, and outputs to a directory where a web server can serve files from it verbatim.

As part of my hunt, I’ve found 2 solutions that fit my requirements, one way or the other, with different and contrasting Pros and Cons.

The easiest solution that I’ve found is Calepin.co. It basically takes a folder of markdown formatted posts and runs it through Pelican, a python-based static blog generator, and generates a usable blog at http://username.calepin.co.

The upside is that it is easy to use and relies on Dropbox where you can access anywhere, including an iPad, with iA Writer. You blog will be generated when you click a button on the calepin site.

The downside is that there is no custom CNAME (domain) support yet and there is no customisation available for the blog layout. You can’t even have a static “About” page on the blog! These two downsides (especially the first) are an absolute deal breaker for me.

The next blogging engine that I’ve found is Octopress. It is basically a bunch of wrapper scripts and a curation of plugins around Jekyll—a no-frills static blog generator based on Ruby.

It has all the features I need, such as CNAME (via heroku or github pages), static pages, but the downside is that it requires Ruby 1.9.2 to run. Mac OS X Lion and most other distributions come only with 1.8.x version of Ruby and getting the 1.9.x branch requires the installation of RVM, which in itself is easy but it makes ugly modifications to your shell environment. Fortunately, I can work-around this downside by generating my site in a virtualised environment with RVM and Ruby 1.9.2 installed.

Given that Calepin is iterating at a rather high velocity, I’m considering holding back for a while before I decide to rule it out completely. On Twitter, the developer has indicated that CNAME is on his todo list, and he might be considering support for static pages.

Nonetheless, if for whatever reason I have to rule-out Calepin, I will consider adopting its typeface and layout cues into Octopress and write a few wrapper scripts around it to accept input from a Dropbox directory.

It looks to be an exciting time for an epic redesign for my various web-properties.

GitHub is an awesome place to host public git repositories, absolutely free of charge. However, you will need at least a $7/month plan for 5 private repositories. That’s quite expensive if the stuff you plan to host aren’t that important or propriety and you just can’t open source it.

For those of you who have no idea what git is all about, consider reading The Git Parable for a better understanding of what version control systems are all about.

In my search for a way to host my git repositories online but privately, I’ve come across this fantastic solution—gitolite. It is in short an authentication and authorisation system for multiple git repositories. It also comes bundled with many cool features, such as repo mirroring, on-the-fly repository creation, self-service permission administration, just to name a few. This system is very well documented, and you can learn about its internals without ever having to dig through its source.

I now use it for all my projects that require versioning and it increased my usage of git tremendously.

If you would like an account to host your git repositories privately, feel free to drop me a line.

I’ve realised that iMessage will fall-back to SMS automatically when it detects that the recipient is unable to receive iMessages for whatever reason. This tiny feature alone one-ups Whatsapp.

To the uninformed, iMessage was rolled out to all iOS devices that support iOS 5. This includes iPhone (3GS, 4, 4S), iPad, and iPod Touch. iMessage allows users to message one another via the Internet, free-of-charge, similar to the ubiquitous Whatsapp.

It is deeply integrated into the SMS Messages app and will be in-use whenever the recipient of your message is on iOS 5 (and does not have iMessage disabled). You will be able to tell that you are sending an iMessage when the interface chrome is blueish in colour, and the placeholder text in the message area reads ‘iMessage’.

While it is clear that a Text Message will be sent when the recipient does not have iMessage enabled, what about cases in which the user has iMessage enabled, but does not have access to the Internet at the moment you send an iMessage to him?

In the case of Whatsapp, your message will be stored on the server, and the user notified only after he establishes connection to the internet. Well, as some will say, you could always fall-back to SMS when you noticed that he has not read your message after awhile, albeit manually.

As for iMessage, it will automagically fall-back to SMS the moment the system detects that the recipient has not received the message via iMessage, after a few minutes.

So, don’t worry about not being able to switch to SMS manually. You don’t have to—the system will do all the heavy lifting for you.

—Jonathan Mak

Today, Steve Jobs left us. No words can be used to describe what he has done, or who he is, but one thing for sure, we can see his touch in the technology we use every day.

He has propelled humanity forward, made things that were once inaccessible, accessible to everyone. He has raised the bar of possibility, turning hyperbole into reality.

His passion for his vision brought him where few have gone. He has proven to us that passion trumps rationality. To live the life that your heart leads you, he did exactly that—nothing more, nothing less.

As an inspiration to many of us, let’s not forget, this man changed the world—we should too, in our own ways.

Let’s raise our glasses:

Steve Jobs, 1955–2011, aged 56.

While installing Windows 7 (x64) on a white (late-2007) Macbook via Boot Camp 4.0 (Lion), I received the following error when running the setup.exe from the disc downloaded and created by Boot Camp Assistant:

Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model.

(But first before continuing, please ensure that Windows 7 64-bit edition is actually supported on your Mac before manually bypassing this error.)

After digging around on the net, I’ve found that this computer model check can be bypassed by running “Bootcamp64.msi” directly from the “Drivers/Apple/” folder, found in the Boot Camp support disk or drive.

However, another annoying error may popup:

This installation requires elevated privileges. Launch the installer through setup.exe

Back to square one. The option to run the .msi as a system administrator is blanked out within file properties. With right-click non-functional, there’s not much more prodding I could do.

After further digging all over the internet, I’ve found that the solution is to launch Bootcamp64.msi via msiexec through a cmd.exe that has elevated permissions.

Here’s how to go around doing it without right-clicking at all:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Type “cmd” into the search box.
3. Cmd.exe should appear as the first result under “Programs”.
4. Instead of hitting Enter to open it, hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter (⌃⇧↩) instead.
5. Accept the UAC dialog and command line will now run.
6. Assuming that the disc of your Boot Camp support drivers is “D:”, enter the following in to the prompt:

D:

cd Drivers\Apple

msiexec /i Bootcamp64.msi

The Boot Camp (x64) installer should now start normally.

As there I have yet to know any technical pitfalls of bypassing Apple’s check in the setup.exe so far, I suspect the reason is more legal and technical-support related than just purely technical.

Have fun!

There are two main applications that I use on my Mac to manage text input, depending on whether it’s free form text, or structured text such as code.

For the former, I use iA Writer (available on both the Mac and the iPad). It is simply the best text editor ever created. It has the best display font, Nitti, which ensures clarity and at the same time, slows your reading such that you’ll read every character of what you’ve typed. In addition, the text size is sufficiently large which allows you to see your progress very visually. Most importantly, it comes with a very sparse distraction-free writing mode, called Focus Mode, that fades off all text except the current sentences, allows you to just type without any distractions.

Given that this application has absolutely no configuration settings and the fact that it still feels right, it could be said that it is extremely well designed. Every design decision, including the background and cursor is meticulously engineered to look beautiful, and hence, less distracting.

Here’s an introduction video:

This is one of the few applications that have made writing a pleasure for me and I use it for all writing tasks. Word is just for formatting at the end. I hope the developers would release a trial version someday as the only way to fully appreciate its beauty is to use it.

Another aspect of writing that I do often is coding. Programming languages are very structured and the least the code editor could do would be to enforce and aid in such syntactical rules. On the Mac, I’ve always used TextMate as it has awesome colour scheme support and bracket autofill. There are also bundles that are language specific that would allow you to run custom commands with a simple shortcut-keystroke.

Lately, development of TextMate has almost stopped and the developer claimed that he is working on a successor version, TextMate 2. It’s been a few years since that announcement (2009) and nothing much has been said publicly after that.

Thankfully, someone stepped up to the game and is now working on releasing another code editor that is similar enough to TextMate, but better. Sublime Text 2 is currently in beta, but in my currently regular use, it has performed reliably well. The best part of this is that this editor is cross-platform, available on the Mac, Windows, and Linux. As of this version, (build 2111), it has almost reached feature parity with other mature code editors. The only minor downside is that the code-editor configuration is driven by text-based JSON configuration files, no spanking clickable GUIs available, yet.

For a code-editor to be decent, I have two requirements. First, it needs to automatically indent the text-insertion point whenever I insert a newline. If my text-insertion point is between two brackets (or curly braces), it should be smart enough to send the closing bracket to the next line, leaving my cursor right in the middle of both lines, indented by 1 tab-stop. Second, it needs to automatically close my brackets, while at the same time, prevent me from generating an additional closing bracket should I choose to type it in manually. Stepping in when I forget, stepping out of the way when I remember.

Before I came across Sublime Text 2, I was on a lookout for a decent and usable code-editor for the Windows platform—Notepad++ is not decent. I’ve tried UltraEdit too, which supposedly is the most popular text editor, but it didn’t fit my requirements. With Sublime Text 2, I’m at ease.

In both my code-editor and my Terminal.app, I use Ethan Schoonover’s Solarized colour scheme. It comes in both light and dark variants, and I personally prefer using the light variant. Here’s how it looks:

In Sublime Text 2, there’s also an option to customise the interface chrome so that it is less jarring and black. For that, I use the Soda Theme, light variant. Here’s how it looks:

As for the font, I use either Apple’s Menlo (if available) or André Berg’s Meslo (a modified version of Apple’s Menlo), “Meslo LG S” variant (on Windows especially). It is monospaced and it has great readability at most reasonable sizes (9–13 pt). Nitti Light would have been a great monospaced font if not for its exorbitant price.

Happy writing and coding!

I’ve always wanted a functional email client for my Gmail account. The web-based interface is just slow and clunky, highly inefficient in when you need to jump right in, look for something, and get right back to work.

Lion’s Mail.app isn’t of much help, as with any other mail client. Gmail’s IMAP access comes with some idiosyncrasies, where the delete function archives your mail, leaving you with tones of useless trash archived without a way to really delete them.

For Gmail’s IMAP access to be usable, a email client needs to be designed with Gmail in mind to take advantage or workaround Gmail’s unorthodox IMAP implementation. Thankfully, such a solution now exists.

I’ve been using Sparrow Mail for a few days and have been thoroughly impressed by the design and the attention to detail the developers have. Instead of the usual delete button in email clients, Sparrow comes with both Archive and Delete buttons, perfect for Gmail. The message list is also collapsable and expendable, allowing it to look like your Twitter client or act like a full-blown Mail.app.

For US$9.99, I think it’s a good steal for a minimalistic and flexible Gmail desktop mail client. Best of all, it supports multiple (and non-Gmail) IMAP accounts, including ShortMail. Take a peak at Sparrow Tips and observe some cool things that it can do.

However, do note that the Sparrow Lite (free) version available in the Mac App Store is a few versions behind and is not fully compatible with Lion. Sparrow Mail, on the other hand, works perfectly.

Little did I know, this domain that powers my site, blog, and my email addresses became 9 years old today. Time really flies and this is the perfect opportunity to recount the evolution of this domain name.

I first registered iphoting.com when I was in secondary one, hoping to learn something about servers from my seniors in secondary school. Then, there were few domain name registrars available and I used Network Solutions, one of the most reputable but expensive around (there wasn’t much choice and I didn’t know better). It was expensive at almost US$20 a year. I didn’t have a credit-card then and had to borrow one from my parents. (E-commerce then was a relatively new and unproven to be safe concept and yearly renewals were a chore as I had to convince them all over that e-commerce is still safe.)

Once I took custody of my domain name, I set up ZoneEdit to be my name server provider, as they were free and were highly recommended. Furthermore, they also supported Dynamic-DNS updating which was essential for my set up. In addition, they also offered to forward all my emails to my SingNet email address for free. I pointed the domain to a PIII 1GHz machine with 128 MB of RAM, running Windows ME, on my home’s SingNet 256 kbps broadband connection. Whenever I got disconnected or reconnected, a piece of software will detect the change in IP address and dutifully update ZoneEdit with my new IP address. After getting Apache 1.3 up and running, it marked the birth of my site.

After that, I upgraded the hardware of that machine and migrated to Windows XP. This then allowed me to migrate to the 2.0 branch of Apache. Meanwhile, I also messed around with IIS and found that it is not a solution at all—insecure out-of-the-box.

Eventually in 2003, I migrated the machine to Mandrake Linux 9.1 (now known as Mandriva) and that was the first taste I had in operating a production web server in a GNU/Linux environment. This migration from Windows to GNU/Linux instantly brought performance improvements. Apache on Linux, unlike its counterpart on Windows, does not use a pre spawned process model. Rather, the Linux version allows Apache to dynamically increase the number of processes based on load.

This was also when I first started learning how to operate a mail server. The mail server that I chose to use was surprisingly difficult to install and set up—qmail. It used to be the most popular mail server, but fell out of favour over time due to the lack of new features and development. Nonetheless, it was and still is the most secure mail server available out there.

However, a year after Google released Google Apps, I migrated my email services over to them as I had trouble handling SPAM. SpamAssassin was just not up to par despite my sincere efforts in tuning and training it. With Gmail, Google has successfully solved the problem of SPAM.

I’ve never had the interest in visual design as I found Adobe Photoshop a very cumbersome and overcomplicated piece of software. I never had time nor the interest to figure out how to do anything, and where all the functions were hidden. The craze then was Flash, but I never messed with Flash enough that I could do more than just moving shapes around the stage. I spent most of the time in learning about systems administration.

I was glad I made that choice. Command-line has never changed much since it was invented, only made more convenient. Sooner or later, one has to learn it, why not do it earlier when the mind still learns quickly?

Later in 2006, the year that Apple started producing Intel-based MacBooks, I switched to a Mac. Although the first-generation Core Duo white MacBook that I’d bought had some teething first-generation problems, it was undeniable that Apple made something that I’d really liked. Not just something that I could use, but some that I had enjoyed using it. I was slowly being exposed to good and functional industrial design.

Eventually in recent months, my interest in typography grew, and my appreciation for minimalist design became even stronger. This also led me to explore, to some degree, minimalist-responsive web design.

As my site has been left in a state of disrepair for some time, I initially wanted to work on a revamp of my site during the summer holidays, in celebration its 9th anniversary, today. Unfortunately, somehow, I haven’t managed to deliver it.

Given that it’s the 10th anniversary next year, I think I ought to finish the revamp by then. Meanwhile, now is the time to bring my skills in visual design up to a usable level.