I just wanted to say things are still happening around here! A new release (3.1.3) will be out soon, which should fix the MacBook Air SSD issue. Plans are in place for 3.2. The new website is still being worked on- as always I’ve changed it a few times. And there may be an exciting announcement in the new year!
Just a little notice, in the next few weeks, I’ll be switching over to a new server with a newly designed website. I’m hoping its going to be a pretty fancy and eye-pleasing design. I’m switching from a shared host to a VPS, partly for cost and performance, but also because I like to mess with that stuff.
Old URLs will be redirected, including the RSS feed for the blog.
I’m excited about a new update- it will be only the third website design in company history, and the first since 2008!
Two years ago Volitans Software joined the internet wide protest against SOPA and PIPA. Today, we are joining another internet wide protest against the NSA. The NSA threatens the security and openness of the internet, as well as the liberties of all Americans. They must be reigned in. Call or write your legislators today.
To find out more, go to the Today We Fight Back site.
A fascinating study done by Backblaze on the lifetimes of hard drives. After four years of running 25,000 drives, they analyzed all of their data. Based on that, they found that 95% last just 1 year, 94% last 2 years, 90% last 3 years, 80% last 4 years, and just 50% last 5 years.
My conclusion from this is make sure you check the drive at least once a day with SMART Utility, but even more importantly- always have backups.
Check out some more discussion, or check out the original study.
Here is a brief update on SMART Utility. 3.1.2 will be out soon, which will fix some bugs as well as add better SSD support. Its possible this version will also modify the algorithm for SSDs to better indicate failures.
After that, 3.2 will be out with some additional features that will help performance and prepare for version 4.0. That version will introduce a brand new UI. Its been a while since the UI was update, and it needs to be modernized. It was written back in 10.4 days, and has largely remained the same. While it still is okay looking and is functional, there have been a lot of advances in UI design, and its time to take advantage of that. There are already some sketches for the new UI, and I’m excited to begin design on it.
SMART Utility already works with 10.9 Mavericks, and the future of SMART Utility is bright.
SMART Utility 3.1.1 has been released, which brings a few new features as well as bug enhancements.
Note that 3.1.x will be the final versions that will support 10.5 and 10.6.
Download for 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion). and 10.8 (Moutain Lion)
Here’s the full release notes:
Its been awhile since this has been updated- too long in fact. So I wanted to fill everybody in on the company.
SMART Utility 3.1.1 is well under development, and should be released next Tuesday Determinations about 3.2 are still a bit up in the air, but its mostly settled. It will probably be out in a month or two. (There may be a 3.1.2 in between). There are some great ideas for 3.3/4.0 which I’m very excited about- including an iPhone app!
There are some other products under considerations, but nothing solid as of yet. I’d love to have a second and third app to not only expand the company, but provide protection in case the market for SMART Utility shrinks.
That’s it for now!
Its always difficult to step back and re-evaluate a project after working many hours on it. You don’t want to think you wasted all of that time, to throw it away. But sometimes you must think hard about what you are doing, and whether its for the best.
I reached that point over the weekend. SMART Utility hasn’t been updated in nearly a year, and that was not my plan. I had some contract work that took me six months, which ended in January. I began work on version 3.1 of SMART Utility, which had some major work required. I had a few medium features completed, when I started work on the major feature in April- a rewritten operation of the main window.
I wanted to have a version out by now, so that I could begin work on a Mountain Lion compatible version. And with the release less than a month away, I was stressing out about completing it on time. The new major feature was taking too long. And while it is going to be nice to have, its not a necessity. Getting SMART Utility working on ML is, however.
So I made a hard decision to stop work on the new feature. I branched off the code to version 3.2. I reverted the 3.1 code to the point prior to the work on the main window. (I love git BTW!) It wasn’t easy to decide to do that, but I felt relieved about doing so.
So I hope to have 3.1 out in the next week or so. Its a nice upgrade, but not what I imagined. But that’s okay, I know my customers will be happy to have a new version (with email notifications!!). And I can start work on getting it fully supported under Mountain Lion. I don’t know if 3.1 will be compatible with 10.8, or if it will require 3.2. That really depends on how much work is required. However, 3.1 will be the last version supported under 10.5. Version 3.2 will require 10.6.
So stay turned for more news!
With the impending sandbox deadline coming up (FOR REAL THIS TIME, YO!), I thought I re-visit my decision to keep SMART Utility out of the App Store, when it was announced. This was both a political and technical decision. The technical part was simple- it would take a fair amount of work to rewrite SMART Utility to meet the App Store rules. There would be features left out, or features that would be restricted (the menu item for example). And even with all of that, it still may not have been approved. I found all of that completely unacceptable. The sandbox restrictions are just the icing on the cake.
The political part was a little more complex. I do not like the idea of somebody else approving apps and deciding what my customers are allowed to see. I feel that curated apps can be a good idea- but I entirely disagree with Apple’s rules for curation. I believe that they should put every app submitted up, except for ones designed to cause damage (i.e. trojans). They should not restrict based on APIs or ideas. I would love to use the App Store’s features (Software Updates for example), but not at the expense of features. That is bad for my product and my customers. I will not stand for that. I also do not like the lack of trials, as well as paid upgrades for apps.
The sandboxing issue has also lead to some developers pulling apps. Manton Reese has decided to pull Clipstart. He has a followup about the lock in with the App Store, which helps reaffirm my decision to stay out of the App Store. Atlassian (who helped prompt Manton to pull his app) has also decided to pull SourceTree. He documents many, many issues with sandboxing. And check out the comments for more complaints (hey comments can be good, surprise!!).
And not only are good apps not available in the App Store (which is big problem for Apple), but as Brent Simmons says, it has a chilling effect by stopping developers from even thinking or developing apps for the App Store. As Michael Tsai, you don’t know what the costs will be ahead of time. You could develop a great app, only to have Apple change the rules.
This is bad for customers and bad for developers. Apple needs new way.
This is an update on a post I did about a year ago, regarding SMART Utility and 10.4 support. As the Apple OS landscape has changed, I have solidified the roadmap going forward. I wanted to share my thoughts on that roadmap.
First, let me start with some numbers. SMART Utility collects anonymous system information on an opt in basis. I looked at the OS that SMART Utility was running for users that reported in the last month. Less than 1% were on 10.4. Only 8% were on 10.5. The overwhelming majority(91%) was running 10.6 (42%) or 10.7(49%). Because all development work is trade-offs, I had to decide where to spend the majority of the work. Anything below 10.6 seems like lost time due to the small numbers remaining.
There is also the issue of the development tools. Apple stopped support 10.5 in Xcode 4, and Xcode 3 doesn’t run that well on 10.7. With the release on 10.8, and its requirement to use Xcode 4 to use app signing, that makes the ability to support 10.5 even harder. I want to upgrade to using Xcode 4, especially since Xcode 3 probably won’t even run on 10.8.
So, with those two issues in mind, here is the support roadmap:
I hope that all makes sense, and please feel free to contact me with comments and suggestions at [email protected].
SMART Utility is fully compatible with Intel Macs running Monterey. This includes the external driver! However, for M1 Macs running Monterey, it should be compatible but not the external driver.
Continue readingThis information is way later than it should have been! SMART Utility is fully compatible with Intel Macs running Big Sur. This includes the external driver! It was fully compatible by Beta 10, and the initial release (11.0) was the same. Both SMART Utility and the external driver were also tested on 11.1, 11.2, and […]
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