Ste Packaging

As you may know, I now have sponsors who are paying for the servers and bandwidth needed to keep the site running. Without them, the site would go away. They are paying a lot of money to provide this service to you, and they have requested acknowledgment of this, which I think is fair.

What I have done to accommodate that request, works, but not optimally. If you open your Installer.app, and go into any category, you will see that I added mention of the bandwidth sponsor to the start of every package’s description. In Category view, it kinda ruins any chance of seeing the first part of the package’s actual description. You may wonder why I didn’t add it to the end of the description. If I had, it would have been cut off, as the Description field is fixed length. Unfortunately, the way I have done it not only doesn’t work, in Category view, but it also robs the developers of precious space in the Description field.

I have proposed, to Nullriver, that they add another field to the package detail page. It would be called Sponsor and be located just under the Contact field and before the Description field. It would be a static display field, just like the Name field - pressing it would do nothing. Here’s a mock up of what it would look like:

This is meant to provide an unobtrusive acknowledgment of the folks who are paying the bills and a way to get their URL in front of you, in hopes that you’ll check them out. However, Nullriver has objected to this. It’s their position that this is nothing but advertising SPAM, and has no business in Installer.app. I tried to point out to them that without acknowledgment, there will be no sponsors. With no sponsors, there will be no big sites. No big sites makes it harder for people to get packages. No packages means no Installer.app. So, I suggested that I blog about it and see what you, the users and developers, think of this idea. Nullriver thought that would be an excellent idea.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments section. We look forward to hearing what you think of this.

-ste

UPDATE (2008-02-12 7:24 PM): I forgot to mention that this proposed field would be optional, in the XML file, like the “More Info” field is. If a site didn’t need to use it, they could omit it. Additionally, since it’s another point of view worth considering, I’d like to point out that two developers have told me that they object to any sponsor tag on their applications. They said, and I’m paraphrasing, here, “We donated to you and we don’t think it’s fair to have another company’s name on our package’s detail page.” My response, thus far, has been that developers who donate to me are donating for the work *I* do. Things like: cleaning up what they send me and making packages out of it; writing the XML plist files; setting up and maintaining the servers; setting up and maintaining the repository; setting up and maintaining this blog, etc. You get the idea. They are paying for my time and effort, in my opinion. The sponsors, on the other hand, are paying for the servers and the bandwidth required for the users to get access to, and download, the developer’s packages. The developers aren’t paying them to do that - no one is paying them to do that. Therefore, I think it *is* fair that they be afforded recognition on the detail pages of the apps that their hard-earned dollars are making available to everyone. -ste

UPDATE (2008-02-13 12:20 PM): Keep those comments coming in - they are all interesting and food for thought. Some people have suggested that “Sponsor” might be confusing, regarding just what it is that is being sponsored and suggested changes might be “Bandwidth” or “Hosting”. Personally, I like that idea, as it’s much clearer what is being provided. Someone suggested moving it to the “Source” section. I’m not sure if they meant the “Source” section at the bottom of every package detail page (did you even know that if you scroll that page up, that there is a “Source” section there?), or if they meant adding it to each source’s detail page found by going to Installer.app’s “Sources” page and pressing on a source’s entry. In any case, I don’t think either is the right place, for a couple of reasons: 1) no one will see them there - it’s that simple, and 2) while the argument can be, and has been, made that they are sponsoring the repository, not the developers, I think that is not entirely correct. They *are* sponsoring the developers, in that they are directly providing the servers and bandwidth those developer’s need for their users to get access to and to download their packages. The truth is, they are providing the service to both the repository *and* the developer’s. -ste

Back on January 19th, I told you that my site was in trouble and was in danger of being shut down. Things went from bad to worse, as the days went on, but I managed to keep the site going, in spite of the problems. Yes, there were troubles with refreshing my site and downloading packages, but while lots of people encountered those issues, just as many didn’t.

Then, Freeit4Less.com and Polar Bear Farm Ltd stepped up to provide me the resources I needed to not only save the site, but make it faster and better than ever. They had the technology. I could rebuild it. (+10 if you get the reference) They each provided me with a dedicated server (no shared hosting, no VPS) and oodles of bandwidth. I have spent the past week setting them up, configuring them, testing them and putting them into service. As of about two and a half hours ago, I finally finished. They are done. Yay!

They are fast. They share the load (via round-robin DNS). Each is capable of carrying 100% of the current traffic, by itself, should the other server go down. (Note: there would be issues (about 50% of refreshes and downloads would fail) because of the down server, but as soon as I knew it was down, and likely to stay that way for more than a few minutes, I would remove its entry from DNS. Within 30 minutes of my doing so, service would be back to normal, and coming entirely from the other server.)

One thing I have noticed, as my site has moved around in the past, is that huge numbers of people refuse to update their Installer.app and Community Sources packages, so that they point to and can use the new location. I have had to accommodate those people by putting redirects on the old sites, that point to the new sites, so that things still work for people. No more. I have gone to all the old servers and deliberately broken their configurations so that they will no longer work. You must upgrade to at least Installer.app 3.0 and Community Sources 3.4, to get access to the new site and to be able to use it. Yes, people paying attention will note that, technically, Installer.app needn’t be at 3.0, but since more and more packages will use features only found in that version, you’d be wise to upgrade to it if you haven’t yet. Additionally, just as I broke my old sites, I may configure the new one to ignore requests from versions of Installer.app that are less than 3.0.

It didn’t make sense to put out package updates while the site was having so many issues. Consequently, there is a huge backlog of them, some of which have been waiting since January 26th. Now that the servers are done, all that’s left to do is get these packages out the door to all of you. It’s late here (nearly midnight), so I am not going to start them tonight. I’m tired and I don’t want to mess them up. So, when I get up in the morning, I’ll start in on them and will work all day and into the evening, if need be, to get them all released. If I run into any problems with a package, I’ll email the developer right away. As soon as we resolve the issue, their package will get done. I apologize to all of them - they have been patiently waiting for me to get to this point. Once caught up, I’ll get back to the daily (or nearly so) updates of the past.

Be sure to check out the sites of my sponsors, please. Between them, they are paying $1,200.00 a month to keep this repository alive. When you are at their sites, check out their products. If you think they might be useful (hell, even if you don’t, heh), buy them. And don’t forget to donate to me, too - I’m still out of work and perilously close to being out of money. Your donations go directly towards keeping a roof over my and my three cats’ heads, and food in our stomachs. Many of the developers, whose apps I host, also take donations. Try to spread a little love their way too, so they keep writing and updating these apps we all love. Every little bit helps, and no amount is too small.

Let the fun recommence! :)

-ste

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the URL to the RSS feed for my packages changed. If you were subscribed to it, you should unsubscribe and resubscribe . -ste

UPDATE: There *is* another way that you can help, besides donations, but since I’m not allowed to even talk about it, I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out. -ste

It’s important that everyone switch to the repository’s new home. That means you must update your “Community Sources” package, so that you can access it.

To force everyone to do so, I have just deliberately broken every one of my old repo sites - only the new one works. If that doesn’t make people switch, nothing will.

-ste

UPDATE: Nullriver has updated the “Community Sources” package. Just install that and skip what’s below. 

I have emailed Nullriver and asked them to update the “Community Sources” package with the new URL for my repository, but they don’t seem to be around today.

If you’d like to switch to the new repository now, you can do so by:

1. Going to the “Sources” page in Installer.app and deleting the current entry for “Ste Packaging”.
2. Add the new repo URL of: http://repo.smxy.org/iphone-apps/ (Make sure you include that final slash! Also make sure that your iPhone doesn’t capitalize the “p” in “iphone”. Going to that URL with your browser won’t work BTW - you’ll just get redirected to this blog site.)
3. You will know you have the new repo, as the tagline for it is “New, and Improved!”

You may need to manually refresh it once, after Installer.app adds the repo and does it’s own refresh. The site will show up as “Uncategorized” (at least, it does for me), but that’s ok.

When Nullriver updates the “Community Sources” package, and you update to it, I don’t know if it will just move my repo to the “Community Sources” category, or if you will wind up with it listed twice. If it does get listed twice, and one is in the “Uncategorized” category, then just delete that one. If you wind up with two of them in the “Community Sources” category, then just pick one and delete it.

If you decide not to do this, please know that the site repo you currently point to will be down for 3-5 hours (or more), tomorrow morning, while the electric company repairs several transformers in the building that server is in.

-ste

The second server was handed over to me this morning. I’m working fast and furiously to get it set up to take over serving the entire repository - both XML and zip files - before the other server’s scheduled downtime of 3-5 hours, tomorrow morning. As soon as I finish that, I will switch all the traffic to this server, and then start getting those long-delayed package updates out.

I’m not happy with the setup of the first server (the one that will be down tomorrow morning), so after it comes back up I plan to have the hosting company re-OS it, whereupon I will set it back up and then split the traffic between it and the second server, with round-robin DNS.

At that point, I believe all of the recent issues with the repository should be totally resolved. Then I’ll finish getting out any remaining, delayed updates.

Only then, will I relax. :)

-ste