I just thought I’d share a few a my favorite books on software development (or related to doing well in the industry somehow.)
Lately, a customer of mine has had problems with a single person’s Macintosh in the office being disconnected from FileMaker server several times a day. It was pretty much looking like this would be one for the books as they had already tried a huge number of things to fix the problem, including:
- different computers at this person’s desk (including the IT guy’s own laptop)
- different IP addresses on the computers
- different ports in the switch
- different ethernet cables
- different power sources for the computers
- different UPS boxes for the different power sources
- deleting FileMaker Pro preference files on the workstation
- changes to the FileMaker Server settings
All of these things failed to stop the worker from being disconnected. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve had trouble lately with XCode crashing immediately after an error trying to communicate with Apple’s servers.
I don’t know quite what’s happening, but i have Little Snitch installed on my Mac and I often work in Starbucks or bookstores where paid WiFi is available. Somehow, being denied its chat with Apple makes XCode crash.
Little Snitch is a cool piece of software. I bought it in one of those bundle deals from MacHeist or MacUpdate. But its alert every time an unexpected communication attempt is made can be quite eye-opening. However, I learned quickly to not deny XCode when it tries to talk to Apple. The first time I did that, XCode crashed immediately and took my text changes with it. (Not much work lost thankfully.)
I still make Little Snitch ask for permission for all XCode communications so I can see when they happen. If I don’t press the “Allow” button before the attempt times out, XCode may or may not crash. I give permission as fast as possible so it won’t crash.
In the past few days though, XCode has still crashed, even with permission given in under 5 seconds. I’ve begun to wonder if it might be a problem with router used by stores to get logins before allowing traffic out to the internet. If XCode is denied at that point, will it still crash? I don’t know yet. But since such WiFi spots allow the computer to connect, it may look like you are on the internet when you aren’t. Communications will fail.
Thankfully, it doesn’t try very frequently. If it did, it would be too frustrating to deal with all the crashes. I also note that the XCode Console output shows a crash report submitted to Apple, so I assume they don’t need another bug report on it.