ModBusApps announces ModBusProbe 1.0.0

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | Company News | Comments Off

Calgary, Canada – Matthew Butch of Volitans Software and Rudy Boonstra of R Engineering Inc. are pleased to announce ModbusProbe, an application for Mac OS X to poll ModBus(R) enabled control system devices. ModbusProbe is an application for the Apple OS X operating system to poll ModBus enabled control system devices. The application can poll either serially via a USB adapter or via TCP, and includes the ability to poll all four types of registers and display the results in decimal, hexadecimal, binary, or integer format. The data can then be printed out for recordkeeping. In addition to reading registers, two register types can be written to. The raw data stream to and from a device can also be viewed.

In addition to this application, the cocoa framework will be offered under the GNU License as a free download to allow other Cocoa programmers the basic tools to develop ModBus applications for Mac OS X. The framework may be downloaded from the ModBusApps website.

Features:
* TCP and serial communication protocols supported
* Reading of Coils, Discrete Inputs, Holding Registers, and Input Registers supported, writing of Discrete Inputs and Input Registers
* Uses a connection list with name, type, and device ID (IP address or serial port) for maintaining connections, and list is saved with every quit
* Can poll data with a time interval set in the preferences
* Displays data in integer, hexadecimal, decimal, with binary coming soon
* Displays number of polls and successful responses
* Displays register prefix (10000x etc)
* Displays raw data stream between application and device, including color highlights per connection
* Prints out register data of open connections
* Checks for updates via Sparke Framework
* Basic application help book
* Application icon designed by Jordan Langille of OneToad

Pricing and Availability:
ModBus Probe is available as a free download in demo mode (30 day or 5 launch trial, whichever comes later). A ModBus Probe license can be purchased for $100 (USD), directly from the application or via the ModBusApps website.

ModBusApps is a partnership between Volitans Software and R Engineering. It was founded in March 2008 for the purpose of creating and released ModBus Probe and ModBusKit.

AP- Completely Misguided

Friday, July 24th, 2009 | Opinion | Comments Off

The news organizations continue to miss the point. The AP thinks that they will get revenue even by people linking to their stories. However, they completely miss the point of the web- to communicate between people. Charging for even link will only mean that less people will link to the story(whether because they refuse to give into such extortion, or because they simply can’t afford it), and hence that the AP will become increasingly irrelevant. They are shooting themselves in the foot.

A Better App Store

Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | Opinion | Comments Off

The iPhone App Store insanity continues to amaze me. First, there are the inane rejections over stupid little things- like the fact that is possible to download the Kama Sutra in a book reader app. Then Apple fixes that by requiring 17+ rating for any app that can access the internet. Yet Safari has no such warning.

This “let’s protect the children” junk annoys me to know end. It doesn’t actually protect the children- because they will always find a way around it anyway. But it does frustrate normal users and developers. Apple needs to stop being so overbearing in the App Store approval process, as well as the functioning of the iPhone rating system itself.

But this gets back to a bigger problem- reviewing and approving apps in the first place. Craig Hockenberry points out many of the problems with the App Store. Now, there is no doubt the iPhone environment is great, as he shows as well, but I believe the problems outweigh the good. Problems such as too slow approvals affecting bug fixes, no paid upgrades, unclear rules for submissions, and product evaluations inaccurate.

Craig also offers solutions to such problems, including a $999 premium service to help speed approvals along (which Manton Reese rightly derides). However, this is all completely ignoring the root of the problem- only allow Apple approved apps on the iPhone. All of these other solutions are like trying to put a new coat of paint on house whose foundation is sinking.

Apple needs to rethink the entire iPhone application ecosystem. By requiring approvals for all apps on the iPhone, Apple is waiting time and money on those approvals. They need to hire hundreds of approval employees. They waste the time and money of the developers as well, as instead of selling when they are ready, they have to wait an unknown time until its ready, and they don’t even know if it will be. This is not to mention all the problems with iTunes Connect and ensuring certificates are working correctly.

All of the complaints by developers would go away instantly if Apple stopped requiring approval before apps were allowed on the iPhone. Developers could just offer an .ipa package that iTunes could install. Apple of course could still only offer apps on their App Store that they approved of. They could also pull any apps that were malicious, such as viruses or trojans. It would also pretty much kill the jailbreak community, except for the purposes of unlocking.

This environment works great on the Mac, and there is no good reason it couldn’t work great on the iPhone. Hopefully Apple and Steve will wake up and realize this has all been a huge waste of time.

Until then, the iPhone App Store will be a source of complaints, and will not live up to its potential.

Another Example of Bad Customer Service

Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Opinion | Comments Off

Volitans Software holds Customer Service in high regard. We take care of our customers whenever they have a complaint. If they need a discount or a refund, we process that quickly. I make sure of that because without customers there would be no Volitans Software. I’m also a customer as well, so I know the other side too.

So when I come across something like this it gets my blood boiling. The jist of it is that flypenfly was sold defective RAM from OWC that did not work properly in his MacBook Pro. It only worked in 9600 mode, but not 9400 mode. He contacted Customer Service, they identified the issue, and sent him new RAM.

But then they charged him $30 for the new RAM, because it was an “upgrade”- except it wasn’t, because the old RAM was defective. They will not budge, and that is outrageous. I was planning on upgrading my MacBook’s HD from OWC, but there is no way that is going to happen now. I will just buy it from NewEgg now.

Its sad, since OWC had some nice products. But Customer Service shows me what type of company a business is, and OWC doesn’t seem like a good one.

Rest assured that Volitans Software will always communicate you in a profession manner, will listen to all complaints, suggestions, and other comments, and will never charge anything the customer does not want.

Update: This is a little late, but if you followed the forum thread, OWC finally fixed the issue to their customer’s satisfaction. I’m happy to say that everything worked out like it should. They also emailed me and said “but issue just should never have happened. And as you can tell from actions both past and present, we take our reputation and our commitment to the customer pretty seriously from the very top.”

Given that they resolved everything perfectly, I actually ordered a new HD and a RAM upgrade for my MacBook last month. As usual, everything came quick and correct. I have always been happy with OWC, and I would highly recommend ordering from them.