Wyatt Says...

A new version of InstantUpdate was released earlier this week: Beta 4, Refresh 0. The version number may strike you as excessively verbose, but it’s just a way of keeping things reasonable in the following weeks. Let me explain. Every other Saturday, until the stable v1.0 Final, I’ll release a new version of InstantUpdate with bug fixes and feature additions. So, to keep from having 10 or more “betas”, you’ll instead see this one beta (Beta 4) with multiple “refreshes.” Semantics aside, this means more updates and faster response to bug reports and feature suggestions.

What is InstantUpdate’s future and will it remain free?

InstantUpdate is taking a split path: the updater client will be open source, while the designer will remain proprietary. As soon as InstantUpdate is stable (namely, when I call it v1.0 Final) I’ll release the source code of the updater client alongside the normal, compiled, installable version.

Why open source?

Updater software is a dime a dozen – in the sense that it’s so plentiful as to be valueless – but shoddy companies charge anywhere from $200-$700. Yes, that’s right, people are charging that much for glorified downloaders with glaring security problems. I’ll back up my claims of the security issues in a future blog post, but for now I’ll just say they make my buggy Beta 4 look as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China. So, by opening up the InstantUpdate client source code I can both develop securer software while assuring the longevity of InstantUpdate, even if I happen to fall off a cliff Wile-E.-Coyote-style.

Who are you, what do you do, and what are your motives?

I’m Wyatt O’Day and I’ve personally written every sentence, designed every pixel, and programmed (almost) every line of code on wyDay.com, InstantUpdate, and CueSharp. There is no layer of management to maneuver around, and no Pointy-Haired Boss to report to. I’m my own boss, for better or worse. My motive is to eventually make a profit from this humble little website, though the exact means to this end isn’t clear. However, you can be comforted in the fact that my aim isn’t to screw over my users, which brings me to my final point:

The forum is up!

Over the last year I’ve gotten a bucket full of great suggestions and bug-fixes, most of which I’ve implemented. The only problem is that these comments have all been through e-mail; the world is missing out. I did have a forum up briefly, but the spam-to-comment ratio was about 60:1, forcing me to disable it until last week. To make a long story short, I found a better way to transparently manage the endless torrent of spam, and I’ve reinstated the forum.

Head on over and report some bugs or ask some questions; I’m here to serve you. Plus, the more input I get the faster InstantUpdate will hit v1.0 final, and the sooner the source code will be released.

CueSharp v0.4.6 corrects a minor issue with the end lines on Unix machines vs. Windows machines. I’ve opted to change ‘\r\n’ (the windows type endline) to the more general C# function ‘Environment.NewLine.’ This will allow for correct output whether you’re using CueSharp with Mono on Linux or the vanilla .NET framework on Windows.

In other news, the site has undergone some minor performance and graphical tweaks in preparation for the (long-delayed) forum. If all goes to plans, the forum will be up this weekend (Feb. 24-25).

Lastly, my Water World article drew some interesting responses from people. Mostly negative, in fact. I wonder if these people realized that it wasn’t an exposition on the cons of water conservation, but rather a damnation of a misguided fool. Probably not. These people likely also think the caricature I painted of myself is reality, and not lifted straight from the pages of Charles Dickens. Patrick Stewart would be disappointed.

CueSharp v0.4.5 comes with a slew of minor changes including, but not limited to:

• XML documentation now included with the binaries.
• Updated example project to demonstrate how to manipulate tracks.
• A new CueSheet constructor that parses a passed string.

The last little change comes in handy when manipulating cuesheets embedded in FLAC and OGG files.

Until next time, as always, keep your comments coming.