DevGypsy

Quick Feb 2026 Update

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:45:00 +0200

Well, it’s been a long time since i posted. I havnt really felt like putting anything up here. 🙂 But the past couple months i’ve been going through and updating the look of a bunch of sites see here and and here. When I finally got around to updating the theme on this blog, I realised just how long it’s been since i wrote anything. Which is not such a bad thing, I’m pretty sure no one even reads this. haha. I pretty much just use the blog to save some ideas and document some things ive struggled with, to re-reference them if i need them.

Quick Look with NStableView and Swift

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 21:15:00 +0200

So, I have a macOS project I’m currently working on where I wanted to add some polish to the app in the form of Quick Look file previews. Im building the app with Swift, and couldn’t find any nice examples of doing this. All of the samples I found online are written in Objective-C. The implementation is not at all difficult, but I figured, since I hadn’t posted in a while - I thought write a quick blog post. So here we are. 🙂

Open Source software

Sat, 02 Jul 2022 16:58:00 +0200

I’m a big fan of Open Source software, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I have bills to pay - I would likely open source all my apps.

Background

So I actually had my first taste of programming in New Zealand way back in the early 1980’s. Mum was a very forward thinking women and spent way too much money buying an Apple II clone, from the local Tech chain Dick Smith. Dick Smith is still going strong by the way, but has evolved into more of an electronics retailer than the hobby store it used to be.

Updating PostgreSQL with Homebrew on macOS Big Sur

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 08:24:00 +0100

I recently updated my install of PostgreSQL to v14 with Homebrew, and thought this small tutorial might help others. And it will obviously help me when it comes time to update again!

Introduction

If you’re running macOS and are doing any kind of development work, and aren’t using Homebrew - you really should take a look. It’s a package manager which allows for quick and easy installation and updating of many common packages. It’s super easy to install:

Updating PostgreSQL on Plesk Obsidian

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:46:00 +0100

I’ve wanted to update Postgres for some time now, as Plesk Obsidian currently only installs version 10 by default. I also thought this would be a whole lot more difficult than it actually was. And with the release of Postgres v14, I figured this was as good a time as any to get stuck in.

Berlin Marathon

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 09:46:00 +0100

I first had the idea that it would be kinda cool to do a marathon around 4 years ago. Not seriously, but it was just one of those thing sitting in the back of my mind. I did a little research, and saw the very next marathon coming up was a night marathon in India. It seemed like a good idea, it was only a week away, so I looked into tickets and flights. Luckily before i payed for anything, I discovered I didn’t actually have enough time to get visas sorted in time. So I shelved the idea, and didn’t really think much more of it.

Ambidexterity

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 08:25:00 +0100

This may seem like an odd skill to pursue… But as an avid juggler - it makes total sense.

Brushing my teeth

For the last 24 years I have been brushing my teeth my my left hand. Thinking back, I can’t exactly remember why I started, but it was totally most likely juggling related. I remember it took about 6 months for it to feel natural, and I guess my teeth suffered a little because of it. But the interesting thing is, it now feels weird to brush my teeth my my right hand. I can still do it obviously, but it feels a little off.

Reverse Engineering Safari's Cookies.binaryCookies file format

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 05:58:00 +0100

An Indie Developer’s short tale in overcoming one of MANY problems developing for the macOS platform

Building products for the Apple ecosystem, while a very rewarding experience can be stressful… especially around the dates for the Worldwide Developers Conference. This is when Apple give us Devs just a few months to prepare for the next macOS release, with all the deprecations and outright course changes that come with it.

Installing Listmonk Newsletter manager

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 17:16:00 +0100

Up until recently i was using Mailtrain, a fantastic opensource newsletter manager built in Node.js. I never had any problems with it, but… it hasn’t seen an update since Sep 2018, the system requirements for the upcoming v2 release seem a little steep. The setup is a little funky to get just right, and the templating system always bothered me how cumbersome it was. Ive had mye eye on migrating away for some time, but never could find the right project to jump ship too.

New Tattoo

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 09:45:00 +0200

To anyone that knows me, it’s no surprise that I like tattoos. For a while there, I even had my own tattoo gun which I bought on ebay for around 40€… You can imagine the quality of that great machine. 😁 Over the years, I have been tattooed around 50x, so Im no stranger to the experience, and actually quite enjoy the whole ritual of being tatttooed. The sound, the smell and even the pain - is all something I look forward to.

Intermittent Fasting

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 07:15:00 +0100

I’ve been interested in my health since I was a teenager, and have always looked at ways of improving my diet and workout regime. I remember as a teenager - being asked by a friend of one of my first girlfriend’s to talk to her about her diet. They were worried about her total lack of awareness on what she was consuming. It’s not like I had a super crazy diet, but back in the mid nineties I was snacking on muesli bars and carrots instead of chocolate bars and potato chips. I had also already started avoiding sugary drinks and most processed sugars.

Making Kefir

Sun, 10 May 2020 12:15:00 +0100

The past couple of years i’ve been noticing i’ve had some small stomach and digestion problems. Nothing major, but as I have a natural tendency to always try and improve and fix things… I have become more and more interested in the gut biome.

Migrating away from Mailgun to Amazon SES

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 09:14:27 +0100

So, Ive been a relatively happy user of Mailgun for all my transactional store and support emails and also for my newsletter blasts. When I say relatively happy, it was not without issue. I run my rails/node apps on subdomains. And with this setup, it was just not possible to configure Mailgun to send the transactional emails from the base domain. As an example, the licenses from my store were being sent with headers showing as coming from licensing.sweetpproductions.com, rather than sweetpproductions.com. This was causing issues with gmail putting license emails into users spam folders, as the mail server didn’t match correctly… While this was annoying to deal with, as an indie dev, its hard to argue with free emails… which is what Mailgun were offering. 10,000 free emails per month to be exact. So, I added a note to my store, to let users know they should check their spam folders for any misplaced emails from me…

Cold weather and app updates

Mon, 13 May 2019 20:37:27 +0200

Well, I spent the better part of 6 months in Hamburg, and it was super nice! until it wasnt. After living in australia for the past 20 years, I forgot that i just dont like the cold. And while it’s not exactly arctic cold, when it gets below around 15 degrees celcius, my body and mind just dont work. No problem I figured, Its only a few months, and I can get a whole lot of work done when im stuck inside… If only it were that easy. Luckily I had a 6 week performing contract in Macao through January - surely that would alleviate some of the winter blues. I had a super great time there, and didnt really want to go home once the contract was up. Initially i figured it was because I didnt want to leave my new friends behind. But once I arrive back in Hamburg, I remembeed the real reason I have been following the summer for the majority of my life.

Updating to SpamAssassin 3.4.2 on Plesk Onyx running on Centos 7

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 14:58:27 +0100

So, SpamAssassin was just recently updated to v3.4.2 after a number of years of no updates. And, as I like new things - of course i would update. But after digging around in Plesk, and then also dropping down to the command line - I discovered it was not going to be a simple update. So of course I jump on DuckDuckGo to look for a solution. this is the thread I found, which was almost exactly what I needed: https://talk.plesk.com/threads/spamassassin-update-from-3-3-1-to-3-4-1.337266/.

Restarting NodeBB after a crash and at login

Sat, 10 Nov 2018 12:27:27 +0100

I ran in to a minor issue the other day with my NobeBB install, and woke up to find it had crashed. Not really a big deal, as it is super easy to restart. But restarting it manually after a crash, or system reboot is not ideal - there must be a better way. And of course there is, and its super easy using systemd. There’s official docs on how to set this up. But, it took me a little trial and error to get my setup working, so i’ll post my solution.

Migrating away from Wordpress to Hugo

Mon, 05 Nov 2018 20:47:27 +0100

In my quest to remove all php code from my site, it was time to get rid of Wordpress. don’t get me wrong, Wordpress is a great platform and is extremely useful for many different applications, but does feel very heavy for how I use it - as a simple blog. I use minimal plugins, and really only wanted a secure platform to share my thoughts and interests quickly.

Migrating from myBB to NodeBB postgreSQL

Sun, 04 Nov 2018 10:01:27 +0100

Ok, so I’ve recently upgraded my support forum from myBB to a NodeBB install. I’d like to stay it was easy - well it kinda was, but there were many steps, so I thought I’d quickly outline what i did.

The migration was a couple of weeks ago now - and not super fresh in my mind, so this is not a complete migration tutorial - more of an overview

macOS Mojave and Mac App Store review purgatory

Sun, 28 Oct 2018 11:01:27 +0100

So, here we are again… stuck at the mercy of an opaque review system.
Cookie (and also Privatus) have both been stuck in review now for close to a month.
😕

At first I was given reasons why review was failing, and while a few days earlier this was not a problem - I quickly fixed the given issues. That was the last time i heard back from Apple review… Both apps have been sitting in review now for weeks. There is not even an option to question why there is a hold up, as the usual *Resolution Center form is disabled.

Germany - relocating to Hamburg

Wed, 30 May 2018 10:35:27 +0000

So, I sold up everything I owned (which wasn’t much…) and moved to Germany around 2 weeks ago. I found an apartment relatively easily, but the getting the money from the US to Germany to pay for the apartment has been a major sore point.

Resending dropped emails in Mailgun

Sat, 05 May 2018 09:13:08 +0000

I use a custom setup of Mailgun and Mailtrain to send out my newsletters. Recently I had an issue with sending out my latest newsletter, and came up with a solution I figured I would like to share.

My small issue with Mailgun & Mailtrain

Now don’t get me wrong, Mailgun + Mailtrain is a fantastic combo and saves me hundreds of dollars when sending out newsletters. If your’e not using it - you should be! I have encountered a small issue with it though…

The biggest problem with the Mac App Store

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 22:35:28 +0000

So, I’m in the midst of a Mac App Store related support nightmare right now…
I uploaded an important update to Cookie yesterday (v5.8.1), and in my haste (it was a long day, and I uploaded it around 2am) it had a receipt checking bug.

#deletefacebook - privacy issues and deleting facebook

Sat, 24 Mar 2018 01:28:39 +0000

Its been a long time coming, and i’ve thought about it often. But seeing Elon Musk delete his companies facebook accounts finally gave me the push I needed to do the same. I deleted fb off my iPhone months ago, and haven’t missed it. Just recently I’ve found myself wasting more time on their platform on my desktop though… something which I don’t like. So after hearing the news on Musk was all I needed to make the leap.

Creating EDM in GarageBand

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 01:31:52 +0000

So I was a little bored yesterday, and figured I’d really like to try making some edm (electronic dance music). I watched a couple of youtube tutorials, updated Garageband - and dove right in.

EDM

My favourite style of music is Electronic music, and within this genre, I really like progressive and dark house. I find this really nice to workout and just generally zone out too. It was natural then that I was always going to make something which included all these elements. I spent a total of maybe 5hrs playing around with loops and twiddling knobs.

Email marketing with MailTrain in Plesk Onyx

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:39:59 +0000

So I ran in to a few small issues getting an email marketing solution based on MailTrain running in Plesk Onyx. Nothing show stopping - but I figured I’d archive this here, so no one else has to waste a full day getting it all configured just right. 🙂

Rails - access a subdomain app via the root domain in Plesk Onyx

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 06:26:11 +0000

I ran into just this problem the other day. Migrating my Rails store from a CPanel VPS over to the current Plesk Onyx VPS proved to be a little tricky. It took me a while to figure out a solution. So I figured I’d write a blog outlining the steps I took to get my desired result.

App Store review macOS and iOS review nightmares

Sat, 14 Oct 2017 02:09:42 +0000

So for the past 3 weeks I have been literally banging my head against a wall with the App Store review process and the cryptic illogical rejection reasons.

App Store review

I am normally quite happy with the App Store review process, and my apps are normally all reviewed and available within 24hrs. However just recently I have had the mis-fortune of feeling the pain many other iOS/macOS devs speak of. Two of my apps; Cookie 5 and Bitcoin Convert have both taken 3 weeks to be approved and ready for sale. Although both for entirely different reasons, both updates were delayed for what seemed like an eternity….

Street performing and the use of a LIMO

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 09:48:20 +0000

So, I like street performing and have been doing so now for a number of years. Its taken me a long time to accept this, and I have battled against it for years… but crowds really like LIMO’s.

Whats a LIMO?

In street performer circles - this is a “Large Impressive Metal Object”. my LIMO of choice is the giraffe Unicycle.

Goodbye Google - I value my privacy too much

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 20:18:26 +0000

So I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine on macOS and iOS now for at least 2 years. I am also at the point, where I find myself having to use Google as a backup search less and less. Chrome was never interesting to me. And I stopped using calendar years ago. I do however still have a personal gmail account which I use sporadically. But mainly only so I don’t get spam in my more important accounts. I tried to setup an Adsense account for Cookie around a year ago. But it kept being cancelled because it was against policie… Analytics was also removed from all my sites a couple of years ago!