www.mronge.com latest posts

reMail now open source, uses MailCore on the iPhone

2010-03-08T20:31:50-05:00

Exciting news from reMail! reMail has been acquired by Google and reMail is now open source!

This means that MailCore for iPhone is now available as part of the remail-iphone project. MailCore code has been compatible with the iPhone, but because Apple doesn’t allow iPhone apps to link against OpenSSL or CyrusSASL, using MailCore has been non-trivial. Gabor Cselle has done the hard work for us by including OpenSSL and CyrusSASL dependencies and providing his work under the Apache license.

My hope is that this will spur new IMAP/SMTP apps now that it’s easy to use MailCore on the iPhone. In the future I’d like to make this even easier by pulling in some of reMail’s MailCore changes, but for now check out remail-iphone

[comments]

Announcing Rocketbox & Central Atomics

2010-02-10T19:43:33-05:00

Stupid me… I just realized I never announced the launch of my new company here! I’ve been so busy shipping Rocketbox, sending out press releases and answering support e-mail, that I forgot about my lonely blog!

I’ve built a search add on to Mail.app I call Rocketbox.. It provides more powerful search with handy features like person auto completion. If you’re the kind of person that uses search a lot, make sure to check out Rocketbox!

Along with Rocketbox, I’ve setup a new company I call Central Atomics to house my new product. So go check out Central Atomics and Rocketbox

[comments]

Nasty hacking with 64-bit Objective-C

2009-09-10T21:05:35-05:00

If you’re loading code dynamically and using an unsupported API under Cocoa 64bit, you’ll be greeted with this unpleasant surprise:

9/7/09 2:34:06 PM   Mail[8641]  MailTest.mailbundle failed to load. The error was:
Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3588 UserInfo=0x100563840 "The bundle “MailTest” couldn’t beloaded."

After many hours of slamming my head against the desk, and help from others (namely Erik Hinterbichler, I’ve figured out how to get around this error. Why would you want to do this in the first place? Well, it’s useful for creating addons to closed source products like Mail.app and Safari. The usual procedure involves dumping the headers for the app using class-dump, determining how to swizzle your code in, and finally figuring out how to load your code into the app.

With the switch to 64bit, Objective-C has a new dynamic loader that pays attention to symbol visibility. The 32bit loader didn’t, and would allow your code to bind to any symbol in the app. With the 64bit loader, only symbols that are explicitly exported are available for dynamic binding. As a result, nearly all the symbols in an app like Mail.app aren’t exported for binding. If you do try to bind, you’ll see that error message above.

So what’s the trick? Never reference any of the symbols directly! Instead you’re going to us NSClassFromString along with the Objective-C runtime methods available from the header <objc/runtime.h>

Here’s how I now set the super class for a Mail.app plugin:

+ (void) initialize {
    class_setSuperclass([self class], NSClassFromString(@"MVMailBundle"));
    [MattsMailBundle registerBundle];
}

Notice, this is done in the initialize class method, and no Mail.app symbols (in this case MVMailBundle) are referenced directly.

Hope that helps, happy hacking!

[comments]

→ 13 more things that don't make sense

2009-09-03T14:08:53-05:00

Thirteen scientific mysteries each with articles. I absolutely love this kind of reading. It’s easy to forget how much we don’t know about the universe.

[link]

→ Urinal protocol vulnerability

2009-09-02T13:56:37-05:00

A tongue in cheek take on the math behind choosing a urinal in the mens bathroom. Just read it, it’s funny.

[link]

→ The bar for success in our industry is too low

2009-09-02T13:39:30-05:00

“This pattern — “success” based on forecasted future success instead of current success — shows up all over in the tech-business press … If there was an airline that flew more > passengers than anyone else, but lost money on each one, would we call it a success? If there was a restaurant that served more people than anyone else, but lost money on each meal served, would we call it a success?”

Amen. I’m tired of all the worshiping of startups/business that don’t actually make money… Facebook, Twitter

[link]

Mini book review on Making of the Atomic Bomb

2009-08-31T19:01:15-05:00

Posted it to my reading section. Take a look. Summary: If you’re into physics go buy it, it’s an excellent book.

[comments]

→ The Wysiwym Markdown Editor

2009-08-31T12:11:05-05:00

A simple, clean Markdown editor I stumbled across today.

[link]

→ Top 10 tips to a new django developer

2009-08-31T11:41:52-05:00

A good top ten list of Django tips. Many of these took a while for me to learn on my own. Recommended reading

[link]

A hacker's easy dinner: Vegetarian Tacos

2009-08-13T22:35:02-05:00

I’m adding some simple recipes that are, potentially, useful for fellow computer hackers. Most of these recipes are great for getting dinner out of the way, without resorting to a fast food trip.

My first recipe: tacos made with a vegetarian ground beef substitute. I’m not a vegetarian, but the soy protein substitute is faster and easier to make. I usually grab a few bags of ground beef substitute and keep them in the freezer for when I want to throw something quick together.

Ingredients

2 - 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
Small onion
2 cloves garlic
1 bag Morningstar Grillers Crumbles OR Boca Ground Crumbles
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/2 tsp Chili Powder
Salt & Pepper
Corn tortillas
Toppings (cheese, salsa, tomato, lettuce, etc…)

Directions

Heat up a skillet with the Olive Oil.
Dice the onion and add it to the skillet
While the onion is cooking, mince the garlic and add it
Cook the onion and garlic until the onion looks fairly translucent and it’s soft, now pour in the bag of crumbles
Stir around the crumbles, and add the cayenne pepper, chili powder and toss in some salt and pepper. If the pan is really dry, add some more oil
In less than 5 minutes the crumbles should be ready, meanwhile heat up corn tortillas with the stove or microwave
You’re done! Add some toppings I like to eat my tacos with some cheese, tomatoes, and jalapeños. Try mixing it up for some variety

It’s pretty damn tasty, and very easy. Now back to coding!

[comments]

Recent Reading List

2009-08-10T20:17:26-05:00

I put a little reading list together on this site where I can make small comments on recent reading and whether or not I recommend the book.

Take a peek as I get started with my list

[comments]

MailCore 0.2.7

2009-08-10T19:57:20-05:00

I’ve finally gotten around to releasing a new version of MailCore… Since my last release a few patches have been submitted, special thanks to those that sent in patches.

MailCore is now being used in a few iPhone apps (maybe someone can submit a patch to make MailCore buildable on the iPhone?), and I’m currently using it for an unannounced product (and no, not Kiwi, something else I’ve been working on).

Here is a list of the major changes:

Fixed a memory leak found by Stefano Barbato where mime structures weren’t autoreleased when returned
Added a new method to CTCoreMessage that can be used to init from a string
Added proper decoding of unicode characters, w/ test (patch from Julián Romero)
Updated the examples to work with the latest API
Fixed a issue with CTCoreMessage where fields were being freed twice

Grab a prebuilt framework here or grab the source from BitBucket

[comments]

Why Not the Best?

2009-08-02T13:35:48-05:00

I had applied for the nuclear submarine program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job… Finally, he asked me a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said, “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?” … I swelled my chest with pride and answered, “Sir, I stood 59th in my class of 820!” I sat back to wait for the congratulations - which never came. Instead, the question: “Did you do your best?” I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was … I finally gulped and said, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.” He looked at me for a long time, and then finally turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget, or to answer. He said, “Why not?”

[comments]

Rickover's psychological exam

2009-08-02T13:27:04-05:00

SHRINK: Do you like your work?
RICKOVER: No.
SHRINK: Do you like people?
RICKOVER: No.
SHRINK: Are you happy?
RICKOVER: No.

[Shrink pauses, to figure out where to go form here]

RICKOVER: Are you going to ask any more damn fool questions?
SHRINK: No.

[comments]

→ Tail mode in emacs

2009-08-01T16:02:00-05:00

For you emacs users out there. Try out auto-revert-tail-mode. Open up a log file you’d like to monitor in emacs and then do M-x auto-revert-tail-mode. Emacs will automatically watch the file.

I like to open up a small frame and watch log files this way.

[link]