What's it all about, Alfie?

This morning I saw that Camino 1.6.10 was released. It's not my favorite browser, it's Mac-like, sure, but it's not as Mac-like as Safari. Also, it's going to be hard to beat the Safari experience on Snow Leopard, and they need to build it for multiple Mac OS versions. Still, I use it probably once a week, and when I do, it's nice to know I'm up to date and have the latest security fixes, etc.

Not quite the best browser, but it's nice to have around when I need it.

This morning I saw that Acorn 2.0.3 is out with a nice list of bug fixes. I like the ability for Acorn to take a "dragged" image from Safari and automatically open it up. It's not like it was hard to right-click, copy the image, and then in Acorn create a new from the clipboard, but it's cleaner and more intuitive for the new Mac user.

Great app, getting even better. Super.

Today I realized something that's been bothering me for weeks. It's all about management's perceived need to rush something through the process, and what actually the business need is. Specifically, when you're not building a fix, or a critical feature that's time-dependent, then what's the bloody rush? Why should I find 30 mins right now to show something to a group of users when I'm in the middle of fixing something in the code and tomorrow will do?

This is all about management's need to set it's own, self-imposed goals, and has nothing to do with reality or the development process. In fact, it's counter to that process as a whole. I've been told to show something that I know is wrong in spots because management doesn't want to wait until it's fixed in an hour or so, worrying that we'll loose an entire day. So what?

This isn't business critical. This isn't time-critical. This isn't something they have been clamoring for. This is something that is an enhancement to the existing functionality and because the QA process is very lengthy, management doesn't want to wait an hour it doesn't have to.

Can you say Crack Monkey? Yes, I knew you could.

This makes me exceptionally angry about some management decisions, such as these. If you think I'm the one that can get the job done, and if you trust me to do it right, and quickly, why on earth are you so "ants in the pants" about a release? This is in-house development, folks. This isn't releasing the next version of the OS, or meeting a hard deadline. This is a simple matter of a manager losing touch with what's the best way to manage people.

I've got to remember that I'm angry at the decision, not the person. It's been happening for several weeks, and it's only just now that I've realized it. I need to say "No" more. Just plain "No".

I'm as angry at myself as I am at him.

This morning Apple released updates to iWork '09 on Software Updates. There were several things fixed and updates to iWork.com as well. I still think this is my alternative to Microsoft Office, as it's much better for all that I do. While I know it's not a complete replacement for all the macros and scripting, it's more than good enough for me.

This morning I noticed that Growl 1.2 is finally released, and had to update. This is one of the big things that didn't work well with Snow Leopard, and I'm glad the developers stuck with it to get everything fixed up as soon as they could. Things take time.

I was looking at a few git-related things this morning and noticed that the open source Mac OS X git GUI client, GitX, was now at version 0.7.1 which was a nice jump from the last version I'd gotten. In this version, it's picking up the user's images from Address Book, like Mail.app, which is really neat - nothing fancy, but neat.

Also, there are a lot of fixes and features in this new version. Very nice indeed.

Yeah, it was a little bit of work, but as promised, AT&T delivered a new carrier file for it's US customers today and I just needed to "update" the software on my iPhone and it picked it up. Then, a simple restart of the phone and it was sending and receiving pictures and video messages on the SMS stream. Quite nice.

Now all I need is legal tethering!

UPDATE: the AT&T cell towers are all having a lot of trouble with this upgrade. It seems from about 3pm to 6pm it's nearly impossible to send and receive TXTs. I'm sure this is a surge of the MMS usage, but still. They could have planned for it. They have been collecting money for the capability, so they should get it going. Well... hopefully, it'll settle out soon.

Once again, the Growl team has published another beta, this time 1.2b5. The list of remaining issues is shrinking rapidly, and I've got to believe in a few more weeks they'll have them all worked out. But for now, it's nice to see that progress is being made.

While I can certainly deal with the installation of Mac OS X apps, I have to say that when I see an Installer package, I cringe slightly. You never know what they are doing, and if it's not from Apple, the reasons for putting things outside the app bundle are really minimal. Sure, utilities, web add-ons, they make sense. But apps shouldn't. Period.

Then the problem is the delivery mechanism. Is it a DMG file and then the user has to drag it out of the mounted disk image into the usable drive space someplace? Sure, symlinks on the DMG make this a little easier to drag it into the Applications folder, but still, that's a pain.

Then there's the Zip file where the application is unpacked into the Downloads folder. Not bad, but again, it has to be manually moved to a better place. Better, but still not ideal.

Then there's the Move on Startup idea. Delicious Library (among others, I'm sure) has this feature where if the application is launched from a DMG image or the Downloads folder, it asks the user if they want to move the app to the Applications folder. This one-time step, along with Sparkle, is about the most fool-proof way to deliver an application. Make it a Zip, let them move it or launch it right from the Downloads folder, and then move it into it's final spot. Sweet.

It gets even better because there's a GitHub project for this behavior so anyone can make use of it: LetsMove. I haven't dug into it, but it's probably not all that hard to detect the location and the tricky part will be the move. But still... there it is. I'll have to make use of that (and Sparkle) in my projects that I take public.

Well, as promised, NetNewsWire 3.2 has shipped and with it, an ad 'panel' at the bottom of the list of feeds. Thankfully, for a mere $9.95 you can purchase a license for NetNewsWire and get those ads removed. Very reasonable cost.

There's a lot there that I don't take advantage of, but what's there is incredibly valuable to me each morning. Great application.