A very quick note to say that Yasu has been updated to version 2.5.8/298, fixing a small error that I created in the Traditional Chinese localization that would cause the application to crash at launch when Sparkle would try to set the “Check for Update at Startup” preference. That’s it. Otherwise, nothing has changed.

• Yasu 2.5.7 Released
• Yasu v2.5.4 Released
• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b3 Released

Would you provide supportive services to someone for free so that person could make a living doing what they do? Say, if someone ran a clothing store, would you sew all the garments and set them on the curb with a free sign so that shop owner could take your work and sell it without paying you a penny for it? What about a deli? Would you bake bread to give away for free so they could use it to sell sandwiches to make money?

I’m sure the answer would be no to both cases. Then why is it that some people who run Wordpress sites seem to think that they can take themes which have very specific copyright restrictions on them, change those themes as they please, remove all credit to the original author (who put their personal time and effort into the work), and then present it as their own on a commercial blog?

I don’t know why either, but that’s exactly what I found twice this week regarding my Bogart theme, which has a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License attached to it. The first was a site that made some alterations to Bogart by adding a few new class selectors, images, and changing the ordering of columns in the index template. All credit to me was removed from the theme template (except in the CSS file where no one would see it). The second didn’t change a thing, aside from removing my copyright in the footer.php file, and replacing it with their own.

In both cases, the sites are set up as commercial blogs using Google AdSense ads to generate income. In other words, they’re using my free bread to create sandwiches that are making them money. This isn’t right. When something’s not right, I fight.

I’m pleased to say that in the case of the first site, I was able to get the matter resolved the day I contacted them. As it was told, the original owner of the site changed my theme before selling the entire blog to another company. In this case, the new owner did the right thing, and we were able to agree on a fair license agreement to use my work. Even though he didn’t change my work himself, the new owner was still using my core code base, and recognized this fact. I have tremendous respect for this individual for doing the right thing without hesitation.

The second, which I just learned of this evening, has been notified of their infringement. I am still waiting to hear from someone. There was no way to contact anyone directly and emails sent to very generic accounts for the site have bounced back. The site appears to be a link-bait type of set up with tons of keywords and links to other spammy blogs. I may have to pull a DMCA take down on them if they don’t respond.

Update: The second site has responded, and have added my theme credit link back to the footer file.

The point of all this is simple. If you want a cool looking Wordpress theme for your site, especially if you’re hoping to make money from it — think before you start making changes to someone else’s work. Ask yourself “Did someone else put their own time in effort into this nice looking theme? And would they be pissed off if I removed their credit before I put it up on my site?” Your id would tell you yes in both cases.

Simply because something is available for download on the internet, that doesn’t mean it’s free. Just like music, poetry and art, code is owned by the person who created it (or whoever they wrote it for). So do the right thing. If that Wordpress theme has a credit link in the footer, and you want to use it for free — then leave the link right where it is. By putting that little link where we do, we theme authors are simply asking to be paid for our work in recognition via clicks back to our sites. And if you don’t want the link, then contact the author to work something out. Even if it’s just a little scratch in their Paypal account, getting a few bucks for their labor of love will make the day for most theme authors.

The moral of my rant? That Wordpress theme was made public for a reason — because somebody with talent wanted to share it with you and the rest of the world. If it has some restrictions and a copyright notice attached, then honor it… Because that’s the right thing to do — both morally and legally.

• Bogart Wordpress Theme Gets a Bump
• Abrupt Logout in Leopard 10.5.2
• Server Move Completed

A new version of Yasu is finally released. Yay! This version addresses the following…

• changed “done” sound to aiff from wav since it was freaking out some machines
• made done sound toggleable via “defaults write” (see below)
• changed doNSTask() routines to doShellScript() (see previous post for what this means)
• fixed French localization (missing/incorrect strings)
• added additional DARWIN cache paths
• fixed archived log removal paths where OS applicable
• changed references of “jimmitchell.org” to “jim mitchell design” in help (identity move in progress)
• added routine to change name of “com.jmo.yasu.plist” to “com.jimmitchelldesign.yasu.plist”
• changed links in software of “jimmitchell.org” to “jimmitchelldesign.com”
• added Sparkle.framework for better update checking
• removed home baked “curl” based application update checking
• disabled user preferences related to disabled curl based update checks

A couple of things to note…

First, I’ve turned off the “done” ping by default. More people disliked it than did. However, there is a way to turn it on if you’re one of the minority. Simply open a terminal session after making sure Yasu is not running, and type the following at the prompt to turn the sound on or off respectively…

defaults write com.jimmitchelldesign.yasu PlaySound -int 1
defaults write com.jimmitchelldesign.yasu PlaySound -int 0

Second is that I’ve added the Sparkle application update engine to Yasu for a better user experience, and to make updates far easier. That means the first time you launch this new version, it’s going to ask if you want to enable version checking — EVEN IF you had it enabled in prior versions. It’s just a minor inconvenience…

So there you have it. Head on over to the Yasu page to get yours today.

• Yasu 2.5.8 Released
• Yasu 2.5.5 Public Beta Released
• Yasu v2.5.4 Released

An updated version of the Yasu 2.5.5 beta (b2) has been released, and is downloadable from here (or on the Yasu page). This version fixes some archived log removal issues for Leopard. Go get your copy now!

• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b3 Released
• Yasu 2.5.2 Released
• Yasu 2.5.5 Public Beta Released

Okay, so it’s been a little quiet on the ranch lately. There’s been lots of stuff going on with the day job (an awesome change of positions), band (gigs galore, personnel changes) and family (very important stuff, that). Besides, there’s just been nothing worth saying on the Apple front since it’s all about the iPhone anymore (I’m a Blackberry user myself).

Anyway… Here’s some good news for those who’ve been having troubles with Yasu. A new public beta (2.5.5 v285) is available for download here (and on the Yasu page itself).

This version addresses the following:

• The French localization was totally borked somehow (for the last few releases). It’s fixed now and should work properly.

• The finish “ping” sound was extremely distorted on some machines (Intel only?) when it played. Changed the format from .wav to .aiff. It seems to play much better — at least on my MacBook Pro.

• Speaking of the ping — I’ve turned it off by default. It can be enabled manually by launching the Terminal.app and typing defaults write com.jimmitchelldesign.yasu PlaySound -int 1 at the prompt, and it can be turned back off by replacing the “1″ (one) with a “0″ (zero). This will be a preference in v3 (yes, there will be a version 3 eventually).

• Added some extra Leopard specific cache cleaning paths, also known as the “Darwin” paths, for Safari as well as the other major Apple apps (thanks to Artie Hall for pointing this one out).

• And this is a big one. I’ve changed the long running processes back to running inside of shell scripts, rather than trying to be clever and run them in spawned NSTask processes. Some of you are saying “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Basically, it means that if you click out of the Yasu window when it starts, for instance, the Repair Permissions step, you won’t be able to click back into the window until it moves to the next routine. I have a sneaking hunch this has something to do with the sporadic keychain corruption issues — since it never happened until v2 when I introduced this “feature”. Yes, it’s an inconvenience, but it’s just something we’ll all have to live with.

So give it a try if you’re a daring soul. Remember - it’s a public beta release. There could be issues lurking. It shouldn’t be used in a mission critical setting. Oh, and please - don’t do me the favor of announcing the public beta on VersionTracker or MacUpdate. That will only steal the thunder when I release it for real sometime next week. Thanks.

As always, huge thanks go out to everyone who’ve been supportive and donated over the past few months while my life has been crazy as all heck and I’ve not been able to provide the type of support I’d like to give. We’ll see if we can fix that moving forward.

• So Much For a Private Beta
• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b3 Released
• Yasu 2.5.7 Released

Yasu v2.5.4 has been released to the public. Head on over to the Yasu page to get yours. Be sure to check out the release notes to see what’s changed too.

This release fixes the following since the last stable release of 2.5.2:

• Update reset launch services option for Leopard.
• Added/changed many cache paths that were Tiger/Leopard specific.
• Locks all keychains before a restart/shutdown to prevent corruption.
• Other code optimizations.

• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b3 Released
• So Much For a Private Beta
• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b2 Released

Some time ago, I had set up my Gmail account in Apple Mail in order to copy over messages that were missing in my online jimmitchell.org IMAP account. I’m one of those guys who likes to have everything all in one place at my finger tips when I want it.

After copying over the messages I wanted, I completely removed the Gmail IMAP account from Mail and when about my business. Soon after, when I went searching for a specific email, I experienced the phenomenon of ghost emails in the search results (see image below). These are messages that Mail once new about, but no longer know where they exist. The ghost emails were all from the since removed Gmail account.

If you’re experiencing the same problem, here’s a very simple fix for it. First, quit Apple Mail if it’s running, then navigate your way to “~/Library/Mail/” (where “~” is your home folder) in the Finder. Once you’re in the Mail folder, you’ll see a file named “Envelope Index” which keeps track of where all messages are located. Rename “Envelope Index” to “Envelope Index Backup” (We don’t want to trash the file just yet).

Then, relaunch Apple Mail. You’ll be presented with a daunting “Message Import” dialog that looks like your email account was wiped out and you’re starting all over. Fear not. You’re simply rebuilding the Envelope Index at this point.

Click “Continue” to rebuild the index. Once it’s done, all those pesky phantom messages will be gone the next time you perform a search in Mail (Yay!). You can then go back to the “~/Library/Mail/” folder in the Finder and move the file you renamed to “Envelope Index Backup” to the Trash.

And there you have it. A very simple solution to a problem that has baffled some of the best Mac users.

• Possible Fix for Leopard Mail Freeze
• More On Leopard Mail.app Freezes
• Regarding Wordpress Theme Thievery

Okay this so totally sucks that I have to let the world know about it!

While in the middle of my work, Leopard 10.5.2 just logged me out on its own without any kind of warning. It didn’t let me save any open documents or anything — it just logged me out, and so totally hosed a FileMaker 6 file I was working on in the process that it can’t be recovered or anything. Thank god I have a back up — but DAMNIT Apple, you just cost me two hours worth of painfully tedious work on that file with this little inconvenience. I’m pissed in a very big way right now. Thank you so much.

First it was the external monitor debacle that bit me, now this! Has anyone else had this happen to them? How did you deal with it? Is there something I don’t know about going on here?

[update] It would seem the WindowServer crashing was the culprit according to my crash logs. It could be that there’s a tremendous memory leak in FileMaker 6 (a PPC application which has to run in Rosetta) windowing code. Unfortunately, I don’t have much choice here as the day job is unwilling to upgrade — other than developing FM6 solutions in Windows, which I may have to do now. At any rate, I’ve calmed down somewhat, but I’m still quite annoyed that I lost the 2 hours of work.

• Possible Fix for Leopard Mail Freeze
• Yasu 2.5.8 Released
• Regarding Wordpress Theme Thievery

A quick note…

As of yet I’ve gotten no reports of trouble from any user regarding the recent Yasu betas that were released last week. So, I’m going to start getting ready to build the final release sometime this week. That means if you’ve had anything to report, now is the time to do it.

If you have something to share, please use my contact form to do it.

• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b2 Released
• Yasu 2.5.2 Released
• So Much For a Private Beta

A new beta release of Yasu has been made available. For those who are curious, the following changes have been made in the beta releases since v2.5.2:

• v2.5.3b1 (276)
• update reset launch services for Leopard
• changed/updated many paths that were shared, Tiger only, and/or Leopard only
• locks all keychains before restart, shut down and log out to hopefully prevent corruption
• v2.5.3b2 (277)
• added cache & temp file removal to system domain for /private/var/folders/ specific to Leopard
• v2.5.3b3 (278)
• added DNS cache flush to browser history

You can view the full Yasu release history at this link.

• Yasu 2.5.2 Released
• So Much For a Private Beta
• Yasu Public Beta v2.5.3b2 Released