Maxprog @ Blogger

This week we have finished porting all our products to 64-bits. We also updated the App Store versions accordingly following Apple new requirements regarding Entitlements and SandBoxing. But do you actually know what Entitlements and SandBoxing are? Even if you are not a programmer it is always interesting to have a small idea about security concepts since we are talking about security. macOS has supported Sandboxing since OS X Lion, which was released in 2011. The Mac App Store has required apps to be sandboxed since March 2012. Windows does not natively provide app sandboxing, but some apps (such as Microsoft Office programs) can be run in a sandboxed mode. Additionally, several Windows utilities allow you to run apps in a sandbox, preventing them from affecting the system or other applications. Sandboxing restricts an application’s access to only system resources, including the file system, for which it’s explicitly given access. A sandboxed application is given a code si...

iCash is a personal finance software intended to keep track of your incomes, expenses, credits, debts and Banks transactions for you. But what does 'Personal finance' actually mean? Personal finance is the application of the principles of financial economics to an individual's (or a family's) financial decisions. It asks, "How much money will you need at various points in the future?" and "How do you go about getting that money?". It deals with questions like: • What is my annual income? • How can I increase my income? • What are my annual expenses? • How can I reduce my expenses? • How do I best budget my available income each year? • How much money can I save each year? • How much will I accumulate over my working lifetime? • Will this be enough to support me after I retire? • How much will it cost each year after I retire? • How many years will I be retired? • How do I pay for large expenses (like children's educatio...

A program that doesn't start, crashes often or is not performing as expected even in term of speed may be a sign of a system issue, either Hardware or Software. Before spending time looking for the source of the problem and if your computer has not been rebooted recently, make sure to reboot it before following. You will very likelly save time since a simple reboot use to fix most problems. If it is not the case, continue reading, below are steps for macOS and MS Windows users that can help fix problems and speed up the software or even the whole System. • Background programs: One of the most common reasons for a slow computer are programs running in the background. Remove or disable any useless background applications and startup programs that automatically start each time the computer boots. To see what programs are running in the background and how much memory and CPU they are using, open Activity Monitor on macOS or Task Manager on Windows (note that if you are running Window...

Most modern operating systems like Apple macOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux are all 64-bits operating systems. For that reason we have been working on 64-bit versions of all our products for months. At WWDC 2017, Apple announced new apps submitted to the Mac App Store must support 64-bit starting January 2018, and Mac app updates and existing apps must support 64-bit starting June 2018. macOS High Sierra will be the last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromise. The next release of macOS after High Sierra will begin to restrict 32-bit apps and will feature "aggressive" warnings about the coming change. Apple has not said at exactly which point support will be phased out completely. For Windows, Microsoft still ships both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. So we’ll have to also have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of our apps available. Customers that are running a 64-bit version of Windows can run either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of our apps. But customers on a 32...

I wrote eMail Verifier and I have been using and developing the tool for years. As a developer and also a user I was very worried about deleting valid emails. So I created a system that only flags bad emails, I mean, when there is absolutely no doubts. If eMail Verifier is not 100% sure then the address is mark as 'Looks Good' or 'Looks Bad' and the user decides what to do. The software tries to clean the list its best but without taking any risk of deleting valid emails. Yesterday, steveb-ci, an eMail Verifier customer posts a very interesting comment in our forum about eMail Verifier compared to online solutions. This is what its says: I've been on a big test recently, comparing how well the various email cleaning services compare to each other. I started with a list of 1500 emails that hadn't been used in several years. Email verifier reduced the list to 1275 addresses marked as OK, or looks OK. I then ran the list of 1500 through some of the most popular ...

Every year the Maxprog company closes its doors for a month or so. It is the time for enjoying life a bit, far from the internet and all the technologies alike. Last year we were closed almost during all March. This year it will be from June 6 to July 9 both inclusive, please take note! During that time I will do support as usual BUT I will connect to the internet from time to time, maybe twice a week. You can't really enjoy holidays if you are working as the rest of the year. The ideal would be not connecting at all. Actually in the last 16 years I have never been able to get really disconnected more than 2 or 3 days, I envy the people that can do that, really, you know, on the beach, reading a book, spending all the time with your family. Well that's not really my case since half of my brain always remain in Maxprog. I am sure you understand what I am talking about. I am in charge of a department, it is my duty and I can't really stop thinking about it. Each time I go for...

MaxBulk Mailer fully supports attachments but except in very particular cases I would recommend not to send attachments as part of a bulk email campaign. I mean all of them, whatever they are, PDFs, Word files, Excel files and even pictures. There are several reasons for that but I will talk about the most important ones (in my opinion) for you and your recipients: - Message size and delivery speed: If you add attachments to your message you have to be very careful about the total size of the files, especially when sending individual messages (default) because you will send as many times that size during the delivery. That means sending a 250 KB attachment to 1,000 recipients will generate 250 MB traffic! As SMTP servers use to give around 2KB/s bandwidth per client, your delivery will take up to 35 hours to complete! - Security: If you are like me, you are getting more and more spam with attachments. There is a real proliferation of such messages. If you don't know the person sen...

eMail Verifier really requires full access to port 25 in order to work, don't waste your time trying with other "alternative" ports, that doesn't work. eMail Verifier is not an email client, it doesn't connect to your SMTP server. eMail Verifier actually connects to other's mail servers and this type of connection is done exclusively thru the port 25. Why this? Well, "Port 25" is just a network connection channel. Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) intercept port 25 so it is not possible to use eMail Verifier nor any software using port 25. Some independent SMTP servers support an additional port other than 25 (26, 587, 2525...) to allow users with authenticated access to connect to them even if port 25 is blocked. Unfortunately eMail Verifier can't use such alternative port as it needs to connect to each address SMTP relay server, not only your server. Relay servers (MTA) only work on port 25. In fact, all e-mail sent via the Internet is ro...

Believe it or not I have heard people complaining about the ugliness of there messages sent with MaxBulk Mailer as if it were the software fault. MaxBulk Mailer is only a software to send messages, it sends what you write in the message field just as is. Of course, if you send ugly stuff it will be ugly for your receivers as well but if you send complex messages they may conflict with the recipient software especially webmail systems and your receiver may not receive exactly the same as what you sent. MaxBulk Mailer supports several formats, Plain Text, Styled Text and HTML. Plain Text format will never produce unexpected results since it is a format that doesn't use any kind of formatting, it is just text. The Styled Text format lets you apply styles to your text like bold, italic and underline, change the text color, insert pictures etc. It even lets you insert HTML code directly so you can add a table for example. The Styled Text format very rarely produces unexpected results,...

Maxprog just turned 16 years old last monday. Believe me or not, it has been a quite pleasant journey. That's very likely because I do what I always wanted. I am a self-taught vocational software developer, I started programming when I was around twelve. In my place computers were like UFOs so no one could help you or even understand you. I have always been fascinated by algoritms (and spinning things), I started very early and never stopped however, being fascinated by something and creating a company are two different things that require very different skill sets. Indeed, in order to be successful creating a company you have to learn about business, you have to create real products, market them, handle payments and after-sales support. Later you may need to hire people, outsource stuff, learn basic accounting etc. Finally you have to fight against your competitors, maintain a good visibility on the internet and take the right decisions in order to continue in business. Most peopl...

Maxprog has released new versions of all its products. Those versions work on macOS 10.9 and higher and MS Windows 7 and higher. If you need a version for a previous operating system you can download it here . You will find below the release note of each product: MaxBulk Mailer 8.6.2 MaxBulk Mailer is a bulk mailer software and an e-mailmerge tool for Macintosh and Windows that allows anyone to send out customized offers, press releases, price lists or any kind of text or HTML message to a list of subscribers, friends or customers. What's new in this release: - Custom attachments support. - The attachment panel has been fully redesigned and simplified. - The preview panel now displays the attachment list. - It is now possible to drag-reorder recipient in the list and save the new order. - Sorting by column now enables the save button so user can save the list once sorted. - The preference custom header panel has been redesigned and now allows the activation/deactivation of he...

You have heard that sentence often for sure but did you know that there are people that blindly believe in this idea? Actually this sentence is about respect and politeness, nothing more and nothing else. And yes, by default, a customer deserves respect, no doubt about that but what if a customer doesn't respect you, do you really have to maintain that respect? In my pinion, there is a limit nobody should cross. I have been working doing support uninterruptedly for 27 years, mostly by phone and by email. I have been doing support worldwide in English, French and Spanish. After all those years I can affirm the following: - The very large majority of my customers are great and really respectful. - The very large majority of my customers are really patient with me. - The very large majority of my customers are helpful when reporting issues. I would say that 99.9% of maxprog customers are nice people. But what about that remainder 0.1%, those un-respectful, impatient and unhelpful p...

The iCash manual starts with the following: "The first step in getting your finances under control is keeping records!", I wrote that sentence a long time ago, actually before entering 16 years of data into iCash! Now I am the happy owner of information, 3 lustrums of data at my fingertips. All about my economy, incomes, expense habits, loan and mortgages repayments, etc. I believe January is the Personal Finance month. It is the time for budgetting. It is when you see what you did the previous year and what your goals are for the next one. It is also when you look at your spendings, especially the fixed ones. Since you entered everything in iCash you can easily find out what your money was used for, how much you really earned and what's left. Do you remember the formula: Wealth (what's left) = Incomes - Expenses ? Well, if W (Wealth) is low you have two solutions, you either increase I (Incomes) or decrease E (Expenses). Not everybody can increase its incomes but a...

The iCash development was projected in the late eighties but actually began in the early nineties. The very first version was released by the end of 1991. At the time, it was built to run on Microsoft Windows 3.1 and IBM OS/2. It was coded using the Pascal language. The development of the application continued up to the release of version 2.0 on May 1995. The application wasn't known as iCash but as 'Peggy Première'. Peggy because of the Muppet Show character and the analogy with a piggy bank. And 'Première' refers to the shooting of the first scene of a movie (it means 'First' in french). Peggy Première was supposed to be the best Personal Finance software at that time. Well at least in Spain, where I was leaving. The software was only available in Spanish, not even in french my mother tongue nor English. There were no international sales projected. I spent a decade selling Peggy Première, sending 3'5 floppy disks by mail with cash on delivery as t...

Regularly I get asked about the maxprog store , specially about how to buy without creating an account. By default we use the Paypal checkout system in order to process cards. There is a wrong assumption that Paypal requires the buyer to open an account in order to make a payment. That's not true at all! Opening a Paypal account is completely optional however, in my opinion, it is better to get a Paypal account and use it as often as posible. Paypal is accepted almost everywhere on the internet and it is much better and secure to share your card data with only one processor, pure logic don't you think? The internet is a quite hostil place where gangs of angry delinquents will do everything to steal others money. The less you share your data the best! As I wrote above, Paypal handles our store checkout by default. This is because we trust Paypal, it is actually the payment processor service we have been using successfully for years to sell and to get paid for our products world...

Last week I talked about the Apple Stores and not only what I think about them but what they really are, everything but stores selling computers. Today was the last straw! Apple has made there new iMac Pro available for orders thru the internet with prices starting at $6’000 and up to $15’000 for full equipped configs. Uh? Really? Sorry all but I am flipping out. What can that be possible? An iMac for $5’500! Wow, I hope you will become an Apple VIP member with such a price. I have been using Macs for 3 decades, they have always been somewhat pricy, but I believe it's gone beyond the limits, Apple is completely out of control. Oh yes, maybe the processor and the graphic card are expensive, in such case I would expect a very different type of computer, something modular, not a all-in-one computer like the iMac. In case of a failure of the screen or the graphic card you need to rush to an Apple Service and pray they will attend you right away. My nearest Apple Service i...

Marc Zeedar 2006 interview for the xDev Magazine Tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? Despite my name sounds English I was born and grew up in France. Actually my great grandfather was american so my parents decided to name me after him. Perhaps it was premonitory as nowadays most of my customers are american. I left France when I finished studying electronic engineering and moved to Spain where I reside since then. How did you get interested in computers and programming? My first contact with programming was when I was 12. A math teacher were giving free programming classes at lunch time. I enrolled and later found out I was the youngest of the classroom. We were Using Texas Instruments calculators, the TI-30 if I remember well. That was in 1979/1980. Later I purchased a Casio calculator and made a lot more programming. A few years later I went to Phoenix for holidays. I saw a ZX-81 for the first time. Once back home I bought one a...

A few days ago I went to an Apple Store. I spent quite a lot of time without the opportunity to do so but you know what? I got out in less that a minute. Apple Stores are no longer computer stores, they mostly sell phones, luxury watches and iPads. I only saw a couple of notebooks and 3 desktop computers on a solitary table far away from the entrance. I found out Apple has no interest in computers anymore, well, I actually checked it out. Remember, Apple removed the word 'Computer' from its name. Since Apple has no real interest in computers anymore I just wonder why they don't license their system so anybody with a PC could run macOS. Apple computers are expensive PCs after all, closed expensive boxes to say the true. It is really demotivating to see how Apple is dedicating 100% of its resources to things that has nothing to do with its primary business. Believe me I love iPhones, they are great but despite they carry a processor, they are not Laptops nor desktop comput...

As you may know MaxBulk Mailer is one of the products we develop and market. It is a Bulk Email Software (and emailmerge tool actually) for both Macintosh and Windows that allows anyone to send out customized offers, press releases, price lists or any kind of text or HTML message to a list of subscribers, friends or customers. Basically you can create, manage and send your own powerful, personalized marketing message to small to medium lists. The good thing is that MaxBulk Mailer is a software tool that you purchase once, no need to pay on a per-email basis to submission services. You know that Email Marketing is spreading around the whole world because of its high effectiveness, speed and low cost. If you want to introduce and sell your product or service, the best way is to use e-mail to contact your targeted customer. We created MaxBulk Mailer with that in mind. Email Marketing Email marketing is indeed one of the bes...