September 2009
4 posts
EventBox Update (703)
The Return of the Services
We’re happy to return the following services with this build:
Digg
Identi.ca
Digg has gained a feature and lost one - we identified that the upcoming view in Digg was of limited utility, so it’s now gone. We have added the ability to perform searches in Digg using Digg’s search engine.
Application Move
You might have noticed that some applications...
Content Limitation Details
I’d like to explain a few details about how content limitation works in EventBox.
Event Ownership
Each event can have multiple “owners” (folders / containers). It’s important to distinguish between ownership and aggregation. Just because you see an event in a folder / container, it doesn’t mean it’s owned by it. I’ll give a few examples to clarify the...
Main App Progress
As explained in one of my previous posts, I’m currently working on getting a build out that can be tested (“main app” vs “services”). I’ve got a long list of tasks that need to be completed before we can release some sort of build to the public. Some notable work in the past few days:
The Heads-Up Display has now been ported and works as normal.
I’ve...
Quick Status Improvements
There has been been a problem with the quick status view (the text area which you use to tweet, etc) - it does not make it clear what exactly you’re doing and where you are posting to. At the moment, it can cause confusion in the following case:
Posting a tweet / FB status update in a mixed container (e.g., Unread)
Another potential issue is that when you have selected a tweet and post an...
August 2009
4 posts
Google Reader Update [2]
Google Reader has almost been ported. The features that work:
General feed syncing (i.e., whatever is in the currently available public build)
Friends’ shared posts (new feature)
Starred folder (new feature)
Shared folder (new feature)
Bonus Screenshot
It’s fast. I’ve benchmarked it against a few other Google Reader clients and we’re by far the most efficient. A delta...
Google Reader Update
Following up on my previous post, today was a quite a productive day. As mentioned, I’m porting Google Reader at the moment. I made a screencast to show you some of the improvements.
Speed
Here are the raw numbers:
Full sync, improved build: 4s
Full sync, current build: 13s
That’s a saving of 9s, a whopping 70% improvement in sync time.
Favicons
Notice how all favicons load...
1 tag
EventBox Progress Update
It’s time for another progress update. It has been very busy over the last few weeks.
As I have explained previously, I’m currently rewriting the core of EventBox which forces an almost full rewrite of any parts affected (which is almost everything). The rewrite goes along the lines of:
Fix the core
Rewrite all services / plugins to use the new core
Rewrite the interface bits to...
EventBox's Notification Center
As part of the EventBox rewrite, we took the chance to introduce a centralized notification center. It will give you more granular control over what notifications get sent. For example, you will be able to say that you only want to be notified about mentions and DMs (for Twitter). Check out the screencast for a demo.
July 2009
6 posts
EventBox - Multiple Accounts Update
I’d like to say a few words about how work has been going recently.
Multiple Accounts
As you may know, I’ve been solidly working on getting multiple accounts into EventBox (it should have been there from day one but we made a mistake, retrospectively). Supporting multiple accounts in EventBox requires a lot of work due to the internal structural changes. I just got the new...
2 tags
EventBox Update - OneRiot
We’re very happy to release another update to EventBox (while working on multiple accounts) and it brings a new service, OneRiot! OneRiot indexes the social web in realtime and now you will be able to use their search right within EventBox. All you have to do is setup several searches and then keep an eye on them - check out the screenshot.
We’ve also fixed some minor bugs like the...
1 tag
EventBox - Towards 1.0
I would like to take a few minutes to talk about our future plans and what that means for our users.
So Far
Just a quick recap of what has happened so far. We launched our public beta on the 7th November 2008 and we developed EventBox for a few months before that in stealth mode. I have to say, this has been a life changing experience, for me personally.
Towards 1.0
We’ve been nearing the...
EventBox Update (581) Quick Notes
We’ve pushed a small update to bleeding edge which contains the following changes:
TwitPic / Mobypicture / yfrog picture links are now opened using the internal photo viewer. You can turn the option off if you prefer to use your web browser (it’s under the URLs tab in General).
We’ve now support Su.pr
We’ve fixed a major crasher bug which caused about 50% of the crashes...
EventBox Update (580)
We’re releasing another update to bleeding edge. The two major changes are:
Picture uploading using TwitPic / yfrog / Mobypicture. You have to enable it in the preferences and provide a username / password (your Twitter username and password works with all of those providers). To upload pictures, just drag & drop them on the main events view. There’s also a menu item you can use...
EventBox Update (576+577+578+579)
Here we are again with another update! Let’s get down to business and see what’s new:
Facebook Comments - you can now view and comments on status updates, straight from EventBox! We think that’s going to save you a lot of time and make you more productive (or less if you like commenting a lot!). WARNING: when you apply the update, all your current Facebook statuses will get...
June 2009
1 post
EventBox Update (575)
Alright, we’ve pushed 575 to Bleeding Edge. You probably want to know what’s new.
We’re officially supporting Identi.ca now. Na drew some really nice icons for it too! Enjoy.
TweaK
We’re supporting a new URL shortening service. You might ask why yet another one? This one has the interesting property that the shortened links are domains!
Memory Usage
We totally...
May 2009
5 posts
2 tags
Progress Update
We’ve been actively working on some interesting stuff recently and I would like share a few bits of information about what’s going on behind the scenes.
Identi.ca
We’re pleased to be able to offer support for Identi.ca starting from the next update. You can go and checkout the screencast if you have some spare time.
Sidenote: I’ve just recently switched to using...
Performance Update
I’ve been working around the clock for the last few days to get our performance problems fixed, starting with the high memory usage. I’m extremely happy at the results so far and want to share some demos with you (for background information regarding the performance problems, see my previous post).
I’ve recorded two screencasts - one showing the current performance (~20MB,...
EventBox Update (574)
The newest build in Bleeding Edge contains 13 bug fixes - it’s recommended that you update to improve the stability of EventBox. You can also take a look at the release notes.
EventBox Update (573)
We’ve just pushed build 573 of EventBox (only to Bleeding Edge, to give it some testing first). The major change is that we’ve returned the Digg service! If you haven’t seen the Digg plugin in action, check out the screencast.
My next task is to completely rewrite the data model and fix the underlying performance problems over the next week or so. After that’s done (and...
EventBox Update (571)
We’ve just pushed build 571 to all users. We’ve been informed that Apple made a change in the latest beta of 10.5.7 which affects the networking stack and thus might result in crashes. We’ve updated both bleeding edge and stable.
The MacHeist edition is unaffected because it uses the old networking.
How To Update
You can either get the update automatically or manually. Get it...
April 2009
5 posts
EventBox Update (570)
We’ve just released updates to the Bleeding Edge & Stable branches which fix the memory ballooning issue described previously. These builds have no other changes.
How To Update From Stable
If you’re running the Stable branch of EventBox, you have two options:
Switch to Bleeding Edge from the Update preference pane and check for updates. You can switch back to Stable after the...
EventBox's Performance Issues
I feel that some of those issues need explaining. There are three problems at hand which manifest themselves in different but similar ways. So, here they are:
Slow startup / hangs during refresh
Memory ballooning over time
High memory usage
I’ll try to shed some light on those. Firstly though, a word on memory leaks.
Memory Leaks
Users normally associate high memory usage with memory...
EventBox Update (569) Quick Notes
We’ve just released a small update which includes the following changes:
Shortcuts to submit to Instapaper
Shortcut to see a Twitter Conversations
HUD & Quick Send windows now open in the current space and are floating windows
Some RSS feeds started including ads which automatically opened when previewed
Twitter Conversation API bug fix
EventBox Update (568) Quick Notes
The new update packs the following new user-visible features:
Conversations (H.264 QuickTime movie) Note that Conversations will only be available for new tweets fetched after you update to 568.
Editing of Smart Folders
Quick Send
The update is available from the bleeding edge branch of EventBox.
EventBox Twitter Aftermath
What happened today? Well, I woke up and found loads of messages that Twitter wasn’t working. So I launch EventBox and indeed something is wrong - no new messages although I can see about 25 unread events in the top level container. I scroll down and see messages dated 1-2 years ago that were sent a few hours ago. Bug.
I fire up the debugger while talking to Chris on the phone and looking...
March 2009
7 posts
EventBox MacHeist
You might have noticed that we’re featured on MacHeist and it’s a free download. I expect many people to ask the question why buy it then? Here’s the short answer: the MacHeist Edition of EventBox is not the same as regular EventBox. Here are the reasons:
The MacHeist edition includes no official support whatsoever. If you’re having a problem or want to request a feature,...
Hidden EventBox Settings
We’ve put some hidden settings in EventBox so people don’t play around with them too much. I’ll share some of these settings with you so you can experiment and adjust them if you find the defaults not right. The commands which follow need to be executed in Terminal (an application, spotlight it if you haven’t used it before).
Note: you need to relaunch EventBox for any of...
1 tag
Quick Send
We’ve been working on a new feature for EventBox which has been somewhat lacking.
Introducing Quick Send. What is a Quick Send? It’s just a simple window that allows you to post a message to any service which supports status broadcasting. So what’s special about it?
It’s super lightweight
Its only purpose is to quickly send a message
It’s activated by a global...
Mac OS X Developer Wanted
Due to some internal changes, we might be in the need of another developer in 1-2 months. If you’re interested, drop me a line (milen at our domain) including relevant skills / experience.
Back to Basics
I would like to talk about a few things which have been on mind recently which are affecting me and EventBox.
When we started The Cosmic Machine, there was one thing I was absolutely sure about - there should be complete transparency of what’s going on. I’m a believer that every relationship should be built upon truth, trust and communication, no matter the nature of the said...
2 tags
EventBox - What's New (March Update)
The new update ships with a ton of new stuff. Many improvements, several new features and a dozen bug fixes. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Custom and Smart Folders
You can now create custom and smart folders at the main level (Twitter is the only plugin for the moment which supports folders within itself. We plan to bring this to all plugins in an update).
Sharing of Google Reader...
3 tags
Progress Update
It’s been almost two weeks since two additional developers joined. I would like to take the time and explain our long and short term plans.
Next Update
We have finished working on the next update. All the features have been implemented and it’s currently being tested. We haven’t identified about any major issues and a public release should happen in the next 7 days if...
February 2009
5 posts
3 tags
Syncing EventBox using Dropbox
I got asked by a couple of people to write about how you can sync EventBox using Dropbox.
Syncing
When you’re using multiple machines and would like EventBox to know what you’ve already read, you can sync its database over Dropbox (until we implement built-in syncing). In order to sync EventBox, you will have to copy:
one file
one folder
Before We Start
I assume that:
Your Dropbox...
1 tag
Release Timing
I’ve always been wondering how to best time software releases. It sounds like a simple question but it can have a big impact on how software gets developed, how fast it grows and many other aspects.
The Two Camps
Generally, there are two basic ways to time your releases:
Schedule-based releases
Feature-based releases
They both have their advantages and disadvantages, so let’s take...
1 tag
New Release Process
We’ve been giving thought to changing our release process a little bit. We realize that some of our users like to always use the latest-and-greatest build even if it has some instabilities. On the other hand, some people prefer a stable build which just works even if it doesn’t have the latest and greatest feature set.
Changes
Starting from the next update (559), we will be...
Expansion Plans
You might have noticed that the frequency of updates in the recent months has declined. There are two basic reasons for this:
We’ve implemented most of the superficial improvements / adjustments so any new features require a bit more work and under the hood changes (which translates into time essentially)
We’ve been way too busy and we did not anticipate such a high workload
Changes
...
2 tags
EventBox - The Past, Present and Future
It has been quite a long time since we started the development of EventBox and we’ve learned several important lessons along our way. It is time to step back and take a look at the big picture.
The Past
Development of EventBox in its current form began around the beginning of 2008. The idea came from fusing two demo apps - one for Digg and another for Flickr. It became apparent that we were...