Server downtime

October 30, 2009 - Filed in Inside the company by Felix

Our server's hardware began to fail this morning at 7am. At least Linux decided at that point, that it'd be a good idea to remount the server's root filesystem read-only to prevent data corruption.

Now lacking the ability to write to disk, the website's database was no longer able to save incoming support inquiries and contact form messages and the mail server couldn't store any new emails, either.

Therefore, please resubmit any support inquiry and resend any mails you sent between October 30th 2009 07:00 GMT+1 and October 30th 2009 15:30 GMT+1, if you don't receive a reply within the next few days.

If you accessed the IOSPIRIT website during the downtime, you got to see a static HTML page informing you about the reason and linking to @IOSPIRIT for more information. Yes, IOSPIRIT is using Twitter and you can follow me here.

Last but not least, I'd like to send a huge THANK YOU to our hosting partner Hetzner Online, who have replaced the server hardware in record time. Their service has been truly exceptional over the past years and they haven proven it once more this time. If you're looking for a dedicated server in Germany, I can strongly recommend them.

Fixing the Apple® Remote under Snow Leopard

October 23, 2009 - Filed in Status updates, Mac Development by Felix

As mentioned previously, Snow Leopard broke the built-in Apple® Remote support of most applications, whereas Remote Buddy, using its own driver architecture, was completely unaffected by this issue.

In the past few weeks, I've been receiving emails from many developers who were searching for a solution. Much to my regret, there was no simple solution to the issue. So I went to create one and - while I was at it - decided to also offer a solution to other open issues in the remote control support of many Mac® applications.

Today, I'm proud and happy to share the result of the past few weeks of work with you. It comes in the form of three releases:

Candelair

Remote Buddy's driver architecture let's it do wonderful things. One of these is the ability to emulate an internal Apple® Remote IR Receiver. In a nutshell, it allows Remote Buddy users (who know this emulation as "Virtual Remote") to use any hardware supported by Remote Buddy (f.ex. an iPhone™ or Wii™ Remote) and make it look like a real Apple® Remote to the system.

Using this emulation as a foundation, I built a clean, global fix for the Apple® Remote issues of OS 10.6 and 10.6.1 right into the latest version of Remote Buddy's driver. Once the driver is installed, applications can reliably access the Apple® Remote again like they used to - without any code changes (that doesn't mean, however, that developers shouldn't make changes - but more on that later).

Accommodating the relevance of this global fix for everyone with an Apple® Remote, I decided to make the driver available separately. Packaged in a preference pane for changing options and installing, updating and uninstalling the driver, it is now available as Candelair and can be downloaded for free.

I'd like to point out that Candelair's only purpose is to fix Apple® Remote issues in Snow Leopard. It works only with built-in Apple® IR Receivers and doesn't add support for additional hardware to your system. Candelair is not a free or lite version of Remote Buddy in any way.

For more information on Candelair, please see the new Candelair website.

HIDRemote (Objective-C class)

Most applications supporting the Apple® Remote today use code with a rather complex dependency: they rely on the particular internal layout of the HID descriptor of the Apple® IR Receiver driver of particular OS releases. This usage pattern has a number of disadvantages for developers and users, with the most significant one probably being that Apple® Remote support in these applications easily breaks with new OS releases.

Since this dependency and its effects are avoidable and there were more issues that I wanted to see addressed, I created the new HIDRemote Objective-C class for accessing the Apple® Remote under OS 10.4/10.5/10.6. The main goal during the development of this class was to maximize compatibility with past, current and future OS releases, emulators, remote control solutions, etc.

You can find the sourcecode, sample code, a list of features, a guide and developer documentation on the HIDRemote pages.

Remote Buddy 1.15

Last but not least, Remote Buddy 1.15 has also been released today. It includes the new version of the Remote Buddy driver and utilizes HIDRemote metadata to control applications for which a Behaviour doesn't exist, yet. For more info on the changes in this release, please see the release notes.

New Macs and new, aluminium Apple® Remote

October 20, 2009 - Filed in Shared thoughts by Felix

It's become a habit for me to check the tech specs of new Mac® models to see whether there have been any changes with regards to the Apple® Remote.

While, for the past few years, no changes have been made by Apple® in this area, they made two with the most recent updates:

The new MacBook®

The new, white MacBook® is no longer equipped with a built-in IR Receiver. It's not listed on the tech specs page (not even as optional accessory) and also not listed as an option in the Online Store.

The new iMac®

The new iMac® still has a built-in IR Receiver, but no longer comes with an Apple® Remote.

The new Apple® Remote

The new Apple® Remote has an entirely new design. Its enclosure is made of aluminium and - from what I can see on the pictures - it's thinner than its plastic predecessor. Another change is the button layout. The Play/Pause button moved from the middle of the navigation cross down into one line with the Menu button.

My first assessment (from just looking at the pictures) is that this button layout change will make using the Apple® Remote less intuitive and will produce more user errors because the Play/Pause and Menu buttons can now be easily confused. And not having the Play/Pause button in the middle of the navigation cross just doesn't feel right.

I'll buy one of the new Apple® Remotes as soon as they're available for separate purchase in Germany and may have to share some more thoughts on its design then.