Just a note about how happy I am with the latest OS X release (10.9 a.k.a., Mavericks.) My computer is fairly old now (2008 MacBook Pro), and it's been really struggling under my usage scenario (Safari open with at least 20 tabs - and sometimes 50 or more! - along with TextMate open with at least dozens of files, plus at least Mail.app, iPhoto, and probably iTunes hanging around in the background.) Safari was the main culprit, eating up huge amounts of RAM (I only have 4 GB which is the max for this old machine,) and beachballing frequently. Very annoying. Mavericks has almost completley elliminated this problem. It's like getting a brand new machine. And the upgrade is free from any Mac running at least 10.6.8. Very cool.
But a word to the wise: backup before you update. Mine went smoothly, but I had a total meltdown updating b.'s machine. Ended up having to completely wipe the disc and reinstall (thank god I had the 10.6 DVD!) If I hadn't had the Time Machine backup I might well be looking for somewhere to sleep tonight. Also: RAM is cheap! If you have a Mac with less than 4GB of RAM you really should upgrade it. 8GB (2 x 4GB sticks) costs $88. Totally worth it. If you only have 2 GB it's really not enough.
Almost six moths later, and I'm getting ready to launch the next version of Geneva. Some big gaps have been filled in under the hood, and almost all of the front end has been rewritten. The front end interface (how you interact with it in your web browser) was obviously in need of vast changes after the overwhelming response to the initial release of "huh?" Things should be much more clear this time around. Still won't be perfectly slick, but once again, the best way to learn what is needed is to have people try to use it. Should at least get beyond "huh?" this time.
And while I'm keeping the name Geneva internally, and I may still refer to the underlying technology (what might be called the engine) that way, the website is now going to be flatrock.io. I'm still not totally happy with this name, but I think it's the best yet. It's fairly short. I like the .io top level domain (a lot of tech companies are using it because of the obviously geeky I/O - input/output - connotation.) Flatrock is the name of our road in the country, and even without knowing that sounds geography (or geologically) based. 'Rock' has a solid connotation, while hopefully being hitched to 'Flat' allows it to escape the lame obviousness of "RockSolidServers!" or something like that. It's a solid foundation on which to build a website. A clean slate. A flat rock.
Or so I'm telling myself.
Cool enhanced credit card input form control.
Basic guide to initially securing a server.
Setting up postfix + dovecot email server.
Super long and detailed article on mobile web app performance (or lack thereof): Why mobile apps are slow.
Need to remember this: Selectivize.js
Seems like a slightly better version of Choosen.
Well, I haven't done enough testing to really say this is ready to go (at even a beta level), but Geneva seems to be minimally ready. A lot is working, and it will come up to speed fast, but there may well still be little bugs that might stop your progress. Still, I'd love if people give it a try. Should at least be much better if you've tried before. So if you'd like to make a site just go here:
genevawebsites.com/createsite/
I made the change this week from NetNewsWire (backed by Google Reader for syncing) to the web based Feedly for RSS reading. It's always a little hard to change, but Feedly is good and I'm already pretty used to it. Google Reader closes down on Monday, so if you use an RSS reader that stores your info in Google Reader (many do) you need to change to something else soon. Feedly will import all your subscriptions from Google automatically.
Down to the wire before vacation, but I'm really happy with the progress I've made in the last couple of weeks on Geneva. Still lacking some templates (there is only one currently) but otherwise it is set to demo. I just need to update the new site database to match the dev database and then people can start rolling out sites and playing around.