Categories
Technology

Backups with Backup

I’ve been manually making backups of my main web server for the past year and I finally got fed up with it and decided to get an automatic system set up again. I had used the Backup gem in the past and decided to do it again.

It did everything I wanted and more.

This is the basic setup:

  • Archive entire home folder so that I can grab all of my data and my client data as well
  • Grab my custom Apache configuration
  • Dump everything in MySQL
  • Gzip the whole thing
  • Move it over to my FreeNAS box on a dedicated ZFS dataset for web server backups
  • Send me an email when everything is complete (or, in the case of errors, send me an email then as well)
  • Do this once a day when I’m (supposed to be) sleeping

Hopefully I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to an email from my server and everything will be working well. Currently the size of a total backup sits at 234 MB, which is not bad. By my estimation, it will take me about a year to fill up my current dataset to the point where I will have to think about adding some storage.

I think I’m good for now.

Categories
Life Technology

Some Tiny Thoughts on Patents

Now that Honeywell is suing Nest, the whole patent issue is coming back in the software community again. A tweet conversation I had with Ben Bleikamp ended with this:
https://twitter.com/bleikamp/status/166677721269800960

I’m not a fan of patents mostly because they’re now being used to stifle and intimidate than to protect. I would much rather see all patents be dismissed than add any more strength to the patent system.

I do wonder, though, what the economic impact would be of dismantling and destroying the patent system. A lot is focused on the innovation that would be possible if people were not afraid of getting destroyed by a larger company (looking at the Nest vs Honeywell situation, you can understand that), but I think it would be interesting to look at the other issues it would cause.

Licensing agreements go away. Partnerships born out of mutual destruction go away. There is a lot of economic destruction that would need to happen if it did happen. Is it good? Is it bad?

I don’t know, I just hope that cooler heads prevail.

Categories
Technology

The Death of Hosted Email

I have this sinking feeling that Google Apps has killed the hosted email business. While there are many providers still slinking around, they’re essentially zombies as Google Apps continues to gobble up more and more people and businesses.

I also think this is bad.

I’m hoping that the new Atmail Cloud offering will fill the needs that I have which is basically just mail, webmail, and ActiveSync so that I can get push mail to my iOS devices. If I’m not happy with it, then my next step is to run my own server and cobble together the pieces so that it will fulfill my needs.

Categories
Life

My Twitter App

This is the basic list of what I want from a Twitter app for iOS.

  • Uses the built-in Twitter keyboard from iOS
  • A minimum of wasted UI chrome (take a look at Twitter for iPhone for an example of wasted UI chrome)
  • Has DMs as a first-level option (Tweetbot and Twitterrific do this right)
  • Fast
  • Push. Notifications.
  • Doesn’t force you away from the Twitter stream for tweet actions
  • Easy conversation views
  • Good icon
  • Some integration with the built-in Twitter auth in iOS 5

That’s about it. Sadly, nothing hits on all of the points, but there each one hits on just a  few. As of today, Tweetbot seems to get the closest … if only they would use the built-in Twitter keyboard.

Categories
Technology

iOS Twitter Apps

For the longest time I used the now-dead Tweetie for iPhone as my iOS Twitter app of choice. After Tweetie was bought by Twitter I used the renamed Twitter for iPhone (later Twitter for iOS)  and was relatively happy … even through all of the stupid things like the trends car that they would do from time to time.

The reason is because Tweetie was still there.

However, with the release of Twitter for iOS 4.0, they changed everything, and I’ve been pretty sour on Twitter for iOS 4.0 since the release. I’ll get into the specifics a little later. So I’ve been trying out three different Twitter apps for the iPhone to try and find one that will work best for me. So Twitter for iPhone, Twitterrific for iPhone, and Tweetbot have been the “big three” so far. Needless to say, I haven’t settled on one yet.

Twitter for iPhone

  • Good Stuff
    • Fast, probably the fastest of the three apps
    • Will have access to the newest stuff Twitter releases
    • Integrates seamlessly with the built-in Twitter auth in iOS 5
    • The Connect tab show mentions along with follows and retweets
    • Has an iPad and Mac app available
    • Push. Notifications.
  • Bad Stuff
    • Extra UI chrome distracts and takes away from the actual tweets
    • The Discovery tab is absolutely useless
    • Must click on tweet and be taken to a separate page to do anything with the tweet
    • Changing accounts is cumbersome (and the shortcut is a non-obvious, hidden swipe)
    • Both iPad and Mac apps are decidedly different applications
    • Doesn’t use the built-in Twitter keyboard supplied by iOS 5
    • Demotes DMs and Favorites into your profile
    • Feels user hostile

Twitterrific for iPhone

  • Good Stuff
    • Uses the built-in Twitter keyboard (makes adding hashtags and usernames a lot easier)
    • Can complete actions on tweets without being taken to another screen
    • Provides both light and dark themes
    • Closely related Mac and iPad apps
    • Easy to understand navigation (not hidden)
  • Bad Stuff
    • No pull-to-refresh
    • Does not integrate with built-in Twitter auth
    • No. Push. Notifications.
    • Handling of URLs in tweets is sometimes spotty

Tweetbot

  • Good Stuff
    • Clicking on a tweet brings up options but does NOT take you to a separate page
    • Very easy to change accounts
    • Some integration with built-in Twitter auth
    • Push. Notifications.
    • Quick and customizable navigation (two tabs are customizable)
  • Bad Stuff
    • Does not use built in Twitter keyboard
    • Highly stylized UI chrome can sometimes feel heavy
    • There are some hidden actions that can simplify things but are hard to find
    • The integration with the built-in Twitter auth is incomplete (but that is the fault of Twitter)

Conclusion

I wish I could mash the there of them up or just get Tweetie back. Sadly, neither of those are possible, so I am now trying out Tweetbot after spending time with Twitterrific for the past week.

At some point in the future I will go ahead and report back what I decided on.