Yasu Makes Editor's Pick on VT

I’ve been a fan of VersionTracker for so many years I can’t even remember. I’m pretty sure it’s been since they started, or at least very shortly thereafter. I’ve always thought they provided an awesome service to the Mac community and I can remember checking the site several times a day finding cool new applications. In fact, VT helped introduce me to many of the apps I use today — several of which I may not have heard about had it not been for them.

Now, I’m honored (and so totally blown away) to share the fact that an application I’ve created is listed as an Editor’s Pick on that same site which I’ve watched for so long. That’s right. As of version 2.0.3, Yasu is listed as a VersionTracker Editor’s Pick.

Cool…

A big thanks to friend and Yasu supporter Gregor Rittinger for letting me know about it. I’m absolutely positive that I would have never noticed the fact if he hadn’t pointed it out.

Oh, By the Way…

Yasu version 2.0.3 has been released to fix a nasty swap file bug which would rear its ugly head in very (and I mean very) rare instances, as well as correct the reset launch services task to make it actually do something. Um, yeah… don’t even ask on this one. The release was available yesterday mid-day, but I wasn’t going to list it on VT & MU until this morning.

So imagine my surprise when someone else beat me to the punch and did it for me. Who ever you are, thanks for doing so. I know your intentions were good, but I had my reasons for not quite doing it yet, namely bandwidth. With so many updates in a row, I’ve nearly blown through my monthly allotment and may need to buy a little extra. I wanted to work things out with my host before buying too much. It’s worked out now, so all is good. Thanks again for saving me the work of having to do it.

So, with this version released, I’m 99.99% sure that any code ugliness lurking under the pretty interface has been eradicated. I plan to take the weekend off (except for generating reg codes, naturally), and then come back fresh early next week to fix some stuff in COX, and then start work on the new features for Yasu 2.1.

Yasu 2.0.2 Released

Man… There’s nothing worse than an ugly bug rearing its head in your software. Here’s the down-low regarding the keychain issue…

As best as I can tell, if an entry was made, and then removed for some reason, it would confuse the application that was recently bundled in version 2.0.1 for the purpose of retrieving keychain entries quicker than the standard “Keychain Scripting” application in AppleScript. I’d made the change due to the fact that Keychain Scripting is a piece of unusable code that chokes on itself when dealing with more than just a few keychain entries. I could go into a long diatribe about it, but won’t. I just wish Apple would do something about it…

So, to completely resolve all keychain problems, I’ve removed every single line of keychain related code from Yasu. For those who were overjoyed that it was added, I’m sorry to have to take the candy away from you. But fear not. I will be working on a proper implementation of keychain storage in a future version.

To be completely honest though, I feel really good about removing the option. It was the one area of the application that I never felt very comfortable with, and always thought it had the potential for the unreliability it proved itself to have. Now that it’s gone, Yasu is much faster at authenticating, due to the fact it doesn’t have to search through every keychain key before putting up the authentication dialog.

The moral of the story? Go with your gut. That, and test the heck out of your application, then test the heck out of it again, and finally test it a few more times before testing it again a few more times…

Possible Bug – Keychain Issues?

It would appear there may be some keychain issues going on with Yasu. I’ve not been able to track them down or reproduce them myself, but if Yasu is to blame, that’s just plain bad.

To alleviate the problem, I plan to update Yasu this evening to remove all keychain interaction, thus solving the problem entirely. For those of you that were so happy about having the ability to save to the keychain – so sorry to take it away, but it’s not worth the trouble it seems to be causing.

Keep an eye out for an update soon. For those who this may have been affected, my sincere apologies.

[UPDATE] – I have been able to reproduce the issue on my own machine (Don Fraser – sorry for not believing you sooner), and I know what the problem is. A fix will be out shortly…

Yasu 2.0.1 Released

A minor update that addresses the known issues (see previous post) has been released, and is available for download on the Yasu page. This version adds the following:

• Fixed a keychain retrieval performance issue
• Addressed a log directory missing error for new accounts
• Added Italian localization

Enjoy!

Yasu – Known Issues

What full version release wouldn’t be complete without a list of issues? Fortunately, with Yasu v2, there have only been a couple of discovered items, which are;

• Authenticating on an older (slower) machine in an account that has a crazy huge number of keychain items may cause Yasu to choke up. This isn’t really a bug in Yasu, it’s a shortcoming in Keychain Scripting. I’ve already signed a deal to license an alternative solution which fixes this. It’ll be part of the next release.
• Running Yasu under a brand new, fresh out of the box account will result in a log file missing error. This goes away once Yasu has been run once. It’ll be fixed in the next point release.

So there you have it, the “known issues” list. Two items for a full version release. Not too shabby, eh? Of course, I’ll add to this list if more are found.

OMG – I've Been Dugg!

I know it won’t make the front page, but still… Simply awesome.

Yasu v2 Released

The moment we’ve all been waiting for…

The new version of Yasu has been released to the general public. Both the team of testers and I have been hard at work the past two weeks ironing out the kinks getting ready for this day. I’m so happy to be able to finally announce it! I’d like to personally thank Faisal Jawdat and Ronald Leroux for their go get ‘em attitude. They really helped make Yasu what it is for this release.

Here are some of the details that you should know about;

• It’s a 10.4 (Tiger) only release. It won’t run on earlier systems
• It’s shareware now. The cost is a whopping $3.50 (payments through Paypal)
• Several new, and one “returning” task
• You finally get the restart, shutdown, etc., so many have asked for
• Admins can authenticate when run under a regular user account
• Admins can save their password to the keychain for easier operation
• Version checking is built in now. No more missing an update
• Other applications can automatically be quit when you start a task run (handy!)
• Securely remove internet related files
• Brand new icon by Yoram Blumenburg
• Better look and feel overall – easier operation
• Too many other enhancements to mention!

Get it! Use it! Tell a friend about it!