Rafael Bugajewski

HTTPS Everywhere

2017-09-26T14:51:20+02:00

This site has served content over HTTPS for a couple of years now. Not long ago I also enforced HTTPS everywhere instead of allowing HTTP in parallel (all old URLs get redirected to its new, encrypted counterpart). There were some small, but obvious omissions though.

The search form at the bottom of every page was set up to send data to an unencrypted version of the most popular search engine. The form is also encrypted now and all major browser should display a lock now. In addition to that I also changed the search engine to DuckDuckGo.

If you have your own website and still haven’t enforced HTTPS everywhere I would strongly suggest so. Domain-validated certificates are basically free now and in the worst case you’ll just get the benefit of increased privacy for you and your visitors.

Another Setup With Dropbox and Jekyll

2012-01-04T22:37:26+01:00

Tyler Hall:

I survived a few high traffic moments from Hacker News and was thrilled to see the site stay up even when I managed to break MySQL on the server.

Another benefit of static sites compared to dynamically generated pages is speed and reduced server load. Tyler Hall has a similar setup to this site, but he uses incron instead of a normal cronjob. This should reduce the server load even further if your hosting provider gives you enough access or you have complete control over your server. Once you install and configure everything posting new articles is even easier than with bookmarklets, e.g. for Tumblr or WordPress.

Custom Static Site Generator

2012-01-04T21:31:18+01:00

David Kendal:

The PHP generator script runs on the server. The entire blog is kept in Dropbox, and through a dummy account linked to my server synchs automatically with the server whenever I make a change. Most iPhone and iPad text editors work with Dropbox, so I can write and publish wherever I am.

I always used WordPress for all of my sites. I also recommended the publishing platform to a lot of clients and friends who wanted to run a website that wasn’t necessary a blog. During the last couple of months I begun switching more and more sites to static sites that are automatically generated on the command line. This has not only the benefit of a much better performance, it is also more secure. There are no scripts that could potentially give an attacker the chance to take over the server or at least your user account.

I started with this site and migrated it to Jekyll. My publishing workflow was rather tedious. I had to manually create a text file, and then commit it to the server. An update hook on the server automatically updated the published site. Inspired by David’s article I got rid of the Git part and replaced it with Dropbox. The server instance runs as a separate user. It has only access to the raw website and not my whole personal Dropbox folder. I’ve written a small server-side script that checks every two minutes if there are any changes inside Jekyll’s post folder. When I modify an article or create a new one, the site is regenerated. I wanted to use incron, but this server doesn’t have inotify and there’s no chance to install it. Additionally I created a Keyboard Maestro script that takes the current selection from Safari, creates a new text file in the drafts folder and optionally opens BBEdit with a new article and the quote.

The best thing about this setup is that I can write articles and publish them from almost everywhere. I wanted to share all scripts, but they’re tightly coupled to installation and deployment paths. It needs a lot more work to clean everything up and make it usable for everyone.

Fix TextExpander in MacVim

2011-05-29T00:00:00+02:00

2015-05-24 Update: I was contacted by the awesome folks at Smile Software. The workaround described in this article no longer applies for TextExpander 4.x and newer:

Unfortunately TextExpander expects that key to hold an array value, not a string value as you suggest. Making the described change makes the Settings.textexpander file unreadable by the application. The correct instruction would be to insert

<key>forcePasteBundleIDs</key>

<array><string>org.vim.MacVim</string></array>

Of course, that only makes a difference with TextExpander from the 3.x vintage, and on OS X prior to 10.7, so overall the instructions really aren’t applicable at all for TextExpander 4.x and current OS X’s.

TextExpander is the tool you need to install on your Mac. It works flawlessly in the background and substitutes all of your abbreviations with meaningful snippets. Newer versions of TextExpander support smart replacement which basically means that they don’t use the clipboard anymore. Instead they detect that you work inside a Cocoa text view and try to replace the abbreviations in a smarter and much faster way. Unfortunately MacVim uses its own implementation of Cocoa’s text view which misses some functionality. TextExpander doesn’t detect this and inserts strange characters into MacVim.

One workaround is to activate „Always use clipboard to insert snippet“ in the „Expansion“ tab of TextExpander’s preferences. This has the huge drawback that replacing abbreviations works slower than it should—everywhere on your Mac.

Fortunately Smile’s support ninjas mailed me a solution within a couple of hours. In three easy steps you can get the best of both worlds: the old clipboard replacement in MacVim and the new and blazingly fast replacement method in other applications without manually changing preferences.

Quit TextExpander.
Open /Users/rafael/Library/Application Support/TextExpander/Settings.textexpander (preferably with Xcode 4 or the Property List Editor).
Add the key forcePasteBundleIDs with the string value org.vim.MacVim to the property list and save it; don’t forget to restart TextExpander.

That’s really everything you need to do to enjoy your TextExpander snippets in MacVim without having to use the old replacement functionality.

My Backup Strategy: A Quick Summary

2011-04-15T00:00:00+02:00

Dr. Drang wrote and asked about backups. I have a simple 1-2-3 backup strategy:

Hourly backups to a Time Machine volume
Nightly backups to a SuperDuper! volume
Offsite backups to CrashPlan Central

In case either Time Machine or SuperDuper! will go nuts, I still have the warm and cozy feeling of having a second local backup. In case of a real catastrophe I can recover from the offsite backup. It took about a month to do the initial upload, but now everything is backed up. I started with the most important folders and incrementally added new ones in order of importance.

I also do the following, but it’s not part of my backup strategy and nothing I know I can rely on. It’s only for the worst of all cases and sometimes a convenience for recovery of working files:

Daily backup of Address Book, Application preferences, iCal, iTunes playlists, Keychain and Safari settings with Apple’s Backup application to the iDisk (which I don’t use at all).
A lot of stuff under 1. and even more is already in the cloud thanks to MobileMe sync.
I have a secure sparse bundle that holds my DEVONthink database. I sync the sparse bundle once every couple of weeks to one of our servers with Unison.
Text files, my VoodooPad database and other “working files” are on my Dropbox; I don’t consider this a real backup, but in the worst case it could rescue my data.

DEVONthink Pro Pinboard Bookmarks Importer v0.2

2011-04-03T00:00:00+02:00

A couple of days ago Andreas Zeitler joined Pinboard after I gave him access to my account and he could try out some of the features. Like me he is a user and fan of DEVONthink Pro Office. Conincidentally he uses my script for importing Pinboard bookmarks into DTPO.

Andreas discovered a couple of bugs, fixed them and submitted an updated version of the script. He added some user feedback when finished and changed keychain scripting to match more cases. He also fixed the title of the password window. Thanks!

Update: There was a minor issue with v0.2, so I just uploaded v0.3 and updated the link. Thanks again, Andreas.

Second Update: There are some encoding issues when you have special characters in your password. If the script exits with an error number, try to change your password so that it only contains alphanumeric characters. For more information read the whole thread in the DEVONtechnologies user forum.

Download DEVONthink Pro Pinboard Importer Script 0.3.

The installation instructions are still in the first post.

Import Your Pinboard Bookmarks to DEVONthink Pro

2010-12-19T00:00:00+01:00

Update: Please read the description for the newer version 0.2.

After Yahoo!’s announcement to get rid of Delicious (rbugajewski) I switched to Pinboard (chiefsucker). My last bookmark on Delicious points to my new Pinboard account. I also exported all of my Delicious bookmarks into a HTML file, but I like to keep a separate backup copy in my DEVONthink database.

I didn’t find a Pinboard importer script, so I modified the original Delicious script which is included in every DEVONthink installation. The modifications were straight-forward, because Pinboard uses a Delicious compatible API.

Once downloaded you have to place the script in ~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink Pro 2/Scripts/Import and update the scripts menu or restart the application.

Feel free to download, modify and use the DEVONthink Pro Pinboard Importer Script 0.2.

Redeem Promo Codes – Do It The Easy Way

2009-10-30T00:00:00+01:00

tap tap tap:

There’s a little-known iTunes Store URL that enables you to easily provide promo codes that can simply be clicked or tapped to be redeemed (replace “REPLACEWITHPROMOCODE” with the actual promo code):

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/freeProductCodeWizard?code=REPLACEWITHPROMOCODE

And the great thing is that these URLs work in both in iTunes on the user’s computers and on their iPhone/iPod touch devices. Help make life for people just a tad easier by using these links in the future.

I haven’t tested it yet, but this seems like a really great tip. Reviewers of your application(s) no longer have to go trough the – in my eyes too complicated – redeem process. Just click on a link and you’re ready to go.

Awesome.

Better Localization

2009-10-21T00:00:00+02:00

Wil Shipley:

In this post I’m going to explain to you what internationalization and localization are, how Apple’s tools handle them by default, and the huge flaws in Apple’s approach. Then I’m going to provide you with the code and tools to do localization in a much, much easier way.

Both of these topics are often very painful and a lot of work if you don’t do it the right way. Shipley provides a nice solution. If someone will ask me about localization I’ll point him to this article and tell him it’s a must-read.

Cocoa and Objective-C Book

2009-09-28T00:00:00+02:00

The book is called Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running. It’s a ground-level introduction to everything you need to write Cocoa apps. I don’t assume you know C or compilers, or anything other other how to use a Mac. It’s available now from O’Reilly Rough Cuts. More content will be added before it goes into production later this year.

Scott Stevenson writes a book about Cocoa and Objective-C and I’m sure this will be a good one. You can take a look into the current version at O’Reilly’s Rough Cuts site (the book’s website is located at CocoaBook.com). The best thing is that a lot of tutorials will find its way back to Cocoa Dev Central, an excellent place to start learning everything about Cocoa.

iPhone’s Misplaced Decline Button?

2009-03-02T00:00:00+01:00

There is one thing that I still have not gotten used to: the location of the “Decline” and “Answer” buttons when there’s an incoming call and the phone’s screen is not locked. This throws me off every single time.

Shawn’s write-up is great, although I think he’s overcomplicating things. On almost every phone I know and have owned over the past couple of years – even my crappy handset phone at home – the decline button was and still is on the right side while the accept button stays at the left. In Mac OS X the default actions like Save or OK are always on the right side, but I think it’s plain wrong to transfer this design decision to a complete new device with a different user interface like the iPhone.

In my opinion Apple should stick to the common model and place every decline button in the interface on the right side of the phone.

[via Shawn Blanc]

Subscribe to Comments Babe

2009-01-10T00:00:00+01:00

I’m probably four or five times less likely to post a comment when there’s no “Subscribe to Comments” functionality.

Full ACK. But in the last couple of weeks I try to comment on my blog instead of using the comment functionality of others. Blog entries are somehow easier discoverable than a normal comment.

[via [NSLog()](http://nslog.com/2009/01/09/subscribe_to_comments-2 “Subscribe to Comments

NSLog();”)]

iPhone Tethering Isn’t Necessary

2009-01-09T00:00:00+01:00

Tethering is a niche need with a much smaller constituency than Microsoft Exchange support. And if we’re looking for “gee wiz” features to be added to the iPhone, they’ll probably be things that the a large percentage of iPhone users will at least try.

Dave makes some points about the iPhone’s target market. I think that technology savvy people never were the primary market Apple wanted and still wants to reach. The mass market with the average John and Jessica is one of the most profitable markets for companies.

What’s up with tethering? I don’t really think it’s so important. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – pointless. The iPhone is a great device with huge capabilities, at least enough for over 90% of its users. It’s far better to use a separate USB stick. The iPhone doesn’t have the best battery and I still want to use the device as a phone. All day long.

[via Inside iPhone]

Writing Apple Help Books With Less Pain

2008-10-03T00:00:00+02:00

Over the years I have been building a Python tool that turns specially-formatted OmniOutliner 3 files into proper help books, which can then be dropped into an app. This is pretty useful for “single-sourcing” our help and manuals.

Writing in Apple Help Book format is really painful, but often necessary. I really love the idea of writing everything in OmniOutliner and converting the data into the Apple Help Book format. William has created a very useful tool for us developers out there. Thank you very much. Now you really don’t have an excuse why your app has no built-in help.

Google Blog Search Shows Most Popular Topics

2008-10-02T00:00:00+02:00

Google modified the Google Blog Search interface so everyone can track what’s hot in the blogosphere. It’s a very nice addition that comes from their own Google News Search. Just give us a feed and we will be on top of the hottest current subjects.

What 3G Device Adoption Really Means

2008-09-30T00:00:00+02:00

After a slow start, the U.S. has caught up with Western Europe in the adoption of 3G. According to data-research firm comScore, 28.4 percent of American mobile subscribers now have 3G devices versus 28.3 percent in the largest countries in Europe.

Very bad interpretation. It isn’t important how many people buy a device with 3G capabilities, but, in fact, it is important how widespread the network coverage is. As far as I know Europe’s 3G coverage has the highest density worldwide.

[via [Macworld](http://www.macworld.com/article/135808/2008/09/3gadoption.html “Macworld

iPhone Central

U.S. catches Europe in 3G mobile device adoption”)]

Macworld Reviews Instapaper for iPhone

2008-09-30T00:00:00+02:00

Instapaper is a fabulous application for the iPhone or iPod touch truly first rate. As one who reads a lot online and off, I’ve quickly come to appreciate Instapaper as one of my favorite apps. It’s so easy to use, in fact, it’s tough to resist saving articles for later as just for excuse to whip out the phone and read something. Drives my wife and kids crazy.

Ben Boychuck wrote [a very nice and positive review about Instapaper for the iPhone](http://www.macworld.com/article/135803/2008/09/instapaper.html “Macworld

iPhone Central

Review: Instapaper for iPhone”). I love this app and it is my favorite offline reader on the device. Marco is very kind and responsive, too.

1Password For The iPhone

2008-09-18T00:00:00+02:00

Agile Web Solution’s 1Password did the job, but I was a bit frustrated by the way it opens up links within the application. I prefer to use mobile Safari. I actually think I liked the first iteration of 1Password (the web-based solution) more than I do the full-scale iPhone app, simply because I often surf to a site in Safari, then realize I need a password. In such a case, it’s inconvenient to have to exit Safari, start up 1Password, then load the page again within 1Password.

That’s exactly what I think all the time. Since 1Password officially only supports the synchronization with their own iPhone application I don’t use it at all. I try to make new tasks in OmniFocus for iPhone which I process later on one of my Macs. The way you have to work with 1Password on the iPhone is a real bummer.

[via [View from the Dock](http://www.viewfromthedock.com/2008/09/17/catching-up-lessons-learned/ “Catching Up, Lessons Learned

View from the Dock”)]

Improvements in The Podcast Interface Are The Second Most Important Update

2008-09-13T00:00:00+02:00

In the iTunes 8 new features listing, a couple of tweaks may have been overlooked. Podcast subscribers have long yearned for more granular control over downloading and retention in iTunes

After the various bug fixes and speed improvements the updated podcast interface on the iPhone and in iTunes is the second most important change at all. Before this update you only had the possibility to change the behavior for keeping or deleting episodes for a podcast, but it was an all or nothing switch. Now you have fine grained control over every podcast you subscribed to.

The interface on the iPhone and iPod touch has also seen a lot improvements. You can see how many minutes are left for every episode you’ve already listened to. There is also a neat little bubble on the left which shows you how many percent of the episode you haven’t listened to and does this in a very convenient way. In addition to these changes there are also some more details in the list view. The information doesn’t overwhelm the user because it’s very clear designed and the supplemental data like the episode length or the release data has a smaller grey font.

I really love these improvements.

[via TUAW]

iPhone Corrections Aren’t so Bad

2008-09-11T00:00:00+02:00

Normally, the little corrections made by the iPhone are more frustrating than anything else

I somehow disagree with this statement. Through my extensive iPhone usage during the last couple of months I discovered that the corrections function learns more and more depending on how often you use and correct the words it thinks you have misspelled. It somehow correlates to the early days of spam filters which had also a higher amount of false positives compared to the modern improved implementations. The first days of typing are the pure horror, but it gets better and better. However, I discovered that the function works better for native English than other languages like Polish or German.

[via TUAW]

Sync Services Without Core Data Demystified

2008-09-06T00:00:00+02:00

If you have read the Sync Services documentation then you know it is complex. Let me dispel an illusion right away. It is hard. It is not poor documentation, syncing is very hard and very few people get it right.

Sync Services are really hard and messy to implement, but it’s really worth it. If I buy a new shareware application I always look if the app provides some syncing capabilities. I think this is an important functionality, especially in these days where you have more than one device you use.

[via Cocoa Is My Girlfriend]

Effective Bug Reports for a Mac OS X Application

2008-09-06T00:00:00+02:00

Bugs happen. It’s a fact of life. Although you may not be in the mood at the exact moment they strike, the best possible thing you can do is file a bug report with the developer. You may not get an immediate solution, but you will provide extremely valuable forensic information that should help the developer fix the problem over the long term. Here’s how to report a bug effectively.

Steven Frank from Panic fame provides a very sophisticated list for filing bug reports. I wish everybody could follow these rules and send complete descriptions, but it would be already enough if everybody would be polite.

[via ~stevenf]