Bombarding the Apple APNS with 500,000+ messages might not go down well with Apple, and we didn’t want to risk getting our server IP blocked for any reason.

We created a fake APNS on a separate server that we could point our Push Notification Server to. This would accept the request but do nothing with it. It’s not a 100% accurate test (the Apple APNS would be slightly slower since it processes the data), but it’s good enough to find a benchmark.

We implemented this using Python, which you can find the code for below. To use this, run the script on the server you want to be the fake APNS. Then in your code that connects to the socket, replace the apple url with the one to this fake server.
e.g “ssl://gateway.push.apple.com:2195″ will become “tcp://yourserver.com:2195″

From this test and other tests we performed, we found that we could send between 1,000 to 3,800 Push Notifications a second to the APNS. Not too shabby I think!

import SocketServer
 
HOST = "0.0.0.0"
PORT = 2195
 
# this server uses ThreadingMixIn - one thread per connection
# replace with ForkMixIn to spawn a new process per connection
 
class EchoServer(SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn, SocketServer.TCPServer):
    # no need to override anything - default behavior is just fine
    pass
 
class EchoRequestHandler(SocketServer.StreamRequestHandler):
    """
    Handles one connection to the client.
    """
    def handle(self):
        print "connection from %s" % self.client_address[0]
        while True:
            line = self.rfile.readline()
            if not line: break
            print "%s wrote: %s" % (self.client_address[0], line.rstrip())
            #self.wfile.write(line)
        print "%s disconnected" % self.client_address[0]
 
 
# Create the server
server = EchoServer((HOST, PORT), EchoRequestHandler)
 
# Activate the server; this will keep running until you
# interrupt the program with Ctrl-C
print "server listening on %s:%s" % server.server_address
server.serve_forever()

Cheers!

Working in our Abingdon Office (near Oxford) you will predominantly be developing iPhone/iPad applications for our clients. You will also have an active role in the design & development of our own games. You may also be developing apps and games for other platforms in the future such as Android or PS Vita.

You will need to be self-motivated, have excellent problem solving skills and be able to manage your own time efficiently. We are looking for a developer who will share our values of passion, quality & service and a good attention to detail is very important. We believe that a rushed product is bad, and that the small details can make a big difference.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone who wants to grow with the company – someone who enjoys the challenge and excitement of being on the cutting edge and someone who will reap the rewards of their hard work.

Download the full job spec here

If you’d like to apply for this position please send us your CV to jobs@onimobi.com

If you think this might be of interest to anyone you know please pass it on!

However it is a little sad to find out the day has finally come. I wish Steve Jobs all the best for the future and with his recovery.

This is Steve Jobs’s Resignation letter in full:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

The errors crop up something like this:

ld: bad codegen, pointer diff in b2ContactListener::b2ContactListener()to global weak symbol vtable for b2ContactListener

The fix we found was to modify the build settings for every static library, as well as the App to:

Symbols Hidden By Default = YES
Inline Methods Hidden = NO

Hopefully this helps someone else out with the same problem!

The judging panel will assess what applicants have learnt from running a new business, plus any achievements, growth, challenges overcome, profitability and potential.

Wish us luck!

It’s a brand new year and a perfect time for us to unveil our new look for OniMobi. We’ve redesigned our logo for both OniMobi and OniDev, and we’ve given our websites a lick of polish to smooth things over. We hope you like it!

Last year was a busy and exciting time for us. We’ve had the pleasure of working with some great clients, building a wide range of fantastic apps – some of which are still to be released! In November Simon joined the team and we moved into our new office in Abingdon (near Oxford, UK), which has been heaps of fun.

Looking to the year ahead, we’ll continue to design & create apps for our clients but we’ll also be doing a lot more of our own stuff in the months to come. We’ve been talking about our upcoming games for a while now but hopefully we’ll start to unveil the lid on some of them soon!

This is where the magic happens! (Plus we got a little bit festive with our mini xmas tree!)

Check them out below.

This is a fairly brief step by step guide and assumes you are familiar with Debian, the command line, and tools like apt-get and ruby gems.

1. Install passenger:
   sudo gem install passenger
    
2. Setup passenger in Apache. Run this command and follow the instructions:
   sudo passenger-install-apache2-module
    
3. When it asks you to edit the Apache config file, do it like so (using the contents given to you by the program):

   Create /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load with the contents:
   LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.14/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so

   Create /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf with the contents:
   PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.14
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

   Enable passenger module:
   a2enmod passenger

   Note: Make sure you use the values provided by the program and do not simply copy & paste what is here!

4. Edit the Virtual host file to something like this:
   <VirtualHost *>
ServerName redmine.mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /var/redmine/1.0-stable/public
RailsEnv production
</VirtualHost>

   Note: The document root cannot be a softlink, because the dispatch script of rails will change directory using “../”

5. Restart Apache and all should be good:
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
    
6. Test by going to http://redmine.mydomain.com