TODOIST For Android — Some development updates and screenshots
by Drew Dahl on Jul.11, 2010, under Uncategorized
Well, the first beta release is looking like it’ll be today or tomorrow. It will incorporate only a 7-day view (with overdue tasks as well) and at current, you won’t be able to “complete” tasks with it, but if you’re lucky, I’ll be able to squeeze that in before I release it 
There are just a few bugs here and there to fix, but I don’t foresee any major issues. As always, here is a current screen shot of the app in action:
TODOIST for Android Screenshot
If you have any suggestions on the current interface, please be sure to let me know! I’m thinking a little vertical spacing is needed and the project listings on the right should have a bit of padding, but that’s all I can say for sure.
Anyway, on to development updates! We’ve switched repositories from a locally hosted Mercurial repo to a github hosted Git repository. You can see the repository here.
And the final update! We’ve moved from our trac installation to using bugzilla to handle all of our issue tracking. That said, once the application is out, if you notice any issues with it, feel free to submit a bug report through the interface, or create an account on our bugzilla installation and report it! You can find out bugzilla installation here.
That’s all for today! If you don’t see our first beta release tonight, expect one on Monday (Tuesday at the latest!)
TODOIST For Android Update
by Drew Dahl on Jul.07, 2010, under Projects, Todoist for Android
Well, it’s been a little while, but I’ve been making some slow progress towards my goal. Right now, I have log-ins working (it also stores your API key if you want it to be stored, thus never needing to login again). There’s a “Report” feature in the event you find bugs. And, as of right now, I have a fairly dirty interface that it opens up to (shows you a 7 day listing and overdue tasks). In the images below, I hacked the times together, so it’s actually showing you a week in the past, but it’s all good. I also don’t have the overdue tasks feature built-in quite yet, but that shouldn’t take more than an hour to write.
My goal? A beta release by this weekend.
Here are some screen shots. They’re kind of poor, but it happens. Also, the number on the app is the number of the project it’s related to (I need get a lookup working):
So, where do I go from here? Well, I’m going to try to spiff up the interface a tiny bit, so it’s not so crappy looking (More TODOIST like). Then after the Beta release, I’m going to move on to Project listing (viewing only) and probably do another beta release once that’s complete. After that, I’ll add the ability to add tasks to projects and release another beta. And after that, fix a few bugs, add local storage of data (until then, it will look-up data from the Internet for each request and will be slower), and release it on the Market. Once it’s up on the Market, I’ll keep adding features to it (and if you think of any features you’d love to see, let me know and I’ll make note!)
Let me know what you think and I’ll post again with the beta this weekend *fingers crossed*
Todoist for Android Update — Feedback Appreciated!
by Drew Dahl on Jun.16, 2010, under Projects, Todoist for Android
Well, this has been a fairly slow process due to work and a laundry list of other things. But, in any case… I’m writing this for multiple reasons. The first is to let everyone know that someone has beaten me to releasing a Todoist application for the Android. Now, while I was slightly disheartened to find this out, I’m also glad to hear this since mine was taking so long. The name of this app is TodoistDroid and you can find their app on the Market. You can also find their site here.
Now, while I urge you all to go and check it out, I also hope that you all return to check out my app once it is completed. Better yet, I’d love it to hear your feedback once beta testing starts. I also hope that you all share the same feelings as I when I say that I’m not a fan for paying for apps. The TodoistDroid app has a “Lite” version and a “Regular” version. The latter of course costs money.
Now, while paying the money is surely justified, I don’t believe in it. This is why I will be releasing my application with only one version, which will be free. Their list of features and planned features are mostly composed of ideas that I’ve already had for my app (as well as a few they haven’t listed yet ). And lastly, I can’t say I liked their interface all that much. Now, while mine probably wont’ be 100% different (for the most part at least), I was planning to design everything around querying (main screen giving you your weekly list and that sort of thing).
That is why, I would love for you all to comment on how YOU use TODOIST. I would rather not design this for how I use it, as that may not be how everyone uses it. So please, in the comments section below, tell me about how you use it!
Now, on to the app. I’m running short on time at current, so I don’t have any screenshots for you today (Sorry! 
). The login is working great, I have a support page where you can easily file bugs working, and the main section is able to display tasks. My first beta release will come before the end of the month and will show you a query of overdue items as well as items due in the next seven (7) days.
That is all for today, and please, tell me how you use TODOIST so I can design it around what you want to see 
HowTo Setup Authenticated Postfix
by Drew Dahl on May.15, 2010, under HowTo, Linux, Mail
I recently had the experience of setting up Postfix. It works really well, in my opinion; however, setting it up wasn’t the simplest for what I wanted. But, at least it was simpler than sendmail
Reading through several articles on the Internet, everyone was giving steps on how to setup postfix to handle e-mail for any FQDN (Fully-Qualified Domain Name). Well, we don’t want to be handling someone else’s e-mail, so we decided to set it up with authentication. All of the guides on setting up Postfix with SASL authentication are great and all; however, they don’t address the issue of, what if you want to receive mail as well. That’s a simple fix, but moreover, what if you have a service like mailman running? Mailman isn’t easily configured to authenticate against the SMTP server to send mail. So, the following are the configurations that I’ve come up with to solve all of these problems:
For the file /etc/postfix/main.cf
queue_directory = /var/spool/postfix
command_directory = /usr/sbin
daemon_directory = /usr/libexec/postfix
data_directory = /var/lib/postfix
mail_owner = postfix
myhostname = hostname.domain.tld
mydomain = domain.tld
myorigin = $mydomain
inet_interfaces = all
inet_protocols = all
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost, localhost.localdomain, $mydomain
unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550
mynetworks = 192.168.0.0/24, 127.0.0.1/32
relay_domains = $mydestination
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destination
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/mailman/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
recipient_delimiter = +
debug_peer_level = 2
debugger_command =
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
ddd $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 5
sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
newaliases_path = /usr/bin/newaliases.postfix
mailq_path = /usr/bin/mailq.postfix
setgid_group = postdrop
html_directory = no
manpage_directory = /usr/share/man
sample_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.6.5/samples
readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.6.5/README_FILES
Now keep in mind, your values for some of the above WILL be different. This configuration is on a machine that’s running mailman as well (thus the /etc/mailman/aliases file).
And lastly, for SASL auth, edit the file: /usr/lib64/sasl2/smtpd.conf
pwcheck_method: saslauthd
mech_list: plain login
Your lib64 directory may just be lib, depending on the architecture of your box. All of these edits were made a 64-bit Fedora 12 machine, but they should work for every machine.
And last note. After all of the edits have been made, make sure to restart postfix and restart saslauthd with the following:
/etc/init.d/postfix restart
/etc/init.d/saslauthd restart
For questions on what some of the postfix settings mean, you can check out one of the following:
postconf man-page by running “man postconf” or visit http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html
Postfix Documentation at: http://www.postfix.org/documentation.html
Postfix HowTo’s at: http://www.postfix.org/docs.html
Postfix is definition the easiest MTA I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, as far as configuration goes. I hope this helps
Forefront Client Security – MOM Installation Failure
by Drew Dahl on May.02, 2010, under Forefront, HowTo, Windows
Well, I’m working on installing Forefront Client Security at my work and after configuring all of the prerequisites, nobody could figure out why it wasn’t installing. So, I setup a test machine and started playing with it. After about an hour of searching google, it seems nobody really has an answer for why MOM fails to install… but, I just figured it out!
If you check the installation logs in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Forefront\Client Security\Logs\MOMDB.log, you should notice there’s a line in there about an error running a query that results in an ERROR 112. The error is something like “There is not enough space on disk.” Well, in my case I had 60GB free on the disk, so this can’t be right… The database to be created was only 1GB in size.
Well, turns out the Quota on the disk was preventing the file from being created. To change the Quota (or in my case, turn it off for the duration of the install) go to Computer -> Right click on the drive you’re installing on -> Select “Properties” -> Click on the “Quota” tab. Once here you can either uncheck “Enable Quota Management” to completely disable it, or just select the radio button that reads “Do not limit disk usage”.
This should hopefully solve the problem
ISP Change
by Drew Dahl on Apr.24, 2010, under Random, Rants, Site News
Well, come this Thursday, we will be going offline due to an ISP Change. Recently Midcontinent Communications start serving our area, and I must say I’ve been waiting for this for the last three years (Fargo’s out of luck though. Poor guys.) Anyway, I’m switching from Cable One who’s been throttling the connection
Comparison:
Cable One vs. Midcontinent
Contracts?
Yes vs No
Throttling?
Yes vs No
Price?
$56.99 vs $56.99
Down Speed?
5Mb vs 25Mb
Up Speed?
0.5Mb vs 2Mb
Personally, I hope they give Cable One a run for their money. Their television and phone is way better for the price, but we won’t get into that here ^_-
Anyway, what does this mean for us? Well, they’re running new cables starting at 5pm CST, and as long as everything goes well, we’re looking at a 2-3hr downtime, so we should be back up and on-line by 8pm CST with a much faster speed . Should really notice it on your ends! Enjoy!
Todoist For Android – Update
by Drew Dahl on Apr.05, 2010, under Projects, Todoist for Android
Well, I’m about 50% complete with the API Handler and I just created the login page. Granted, it doesn’t truly do anything just yet, but it still looks snazzy :3
Login Page of Todoist For Android
Anyway, the login page is displayed to the right. Also, I’ve setup a trac installation. I encourage anyone who is interested to create an account and follow along. As soon as I have a working release, I’m going to put it up on there for beta testing purposes.
My plan as of right now, is to release Version 0.1 sometime in late April/early May. Version 0.1 will be a “read-only” version, and most likely not be very pretty. You’ll be able to log-in, view your projects, and view your tasks associated with those projects. Thus far, that’s my goal.
I think once summer starts, I should have no trouble rolling a lot of this code out, so I’m hoping for late May/early June as a possible release date for a “mostly” working app. Although, it’s probably too early to start throwing dates out. We’ll see ^_^
Anyway, the trac website is at: http://todoist.drewdahl.com/trac/
And finally, what you’ve all been waiting for… the latest image of Todoist For Android:
Todoist Android App Update
by Drew Dahl on Apr.04, 2010, under Projects, Todoist for Android
Well, I’ve finally found some time to sit down and get working on this app again. I’m currently working on a class that will take care of the interfacing between the Todoist API and the actual application.
Below are some screen shots of the application (left) and my actual Todoist Project List (right). Enjoy!
Note: Keep in mind, the data isn’t formatted at this time. I’m just trying to get all of the functionality there, and then worry about getting it pretty. ^_^
Todoist Application - Unformatted Project List View
Actual Todoist Project Listing
Downtime
by Drew Dahl on Mar.15, 2010, under Site News
Well, there’s been a LOT of downtime. We were doing some routine maintenance and a lot went wrong. I’ve got some new parts coming this week sometime (hopefully), so at current I’m planning on drewdahl.com going down sometime on Friday and will hopefully be up by Saturday in the AM.
If things change, I’ll post, but I’m currently taking steps to prevent any more downtime than is required.
Setup sendmail to use Gmail’s SMTP server
by Drew Dahl on Feb.18, 2010, under HowTo, Linux, Mail
Well, I did this on Fedora 12, so I’ll be basing everything off of Fedora packages and yum; however, this should work on any distro.
Things you’ll need: sendmail, sendmail-cf, cyrus-sasl
Might need something more, but if so, I’ve overlooked it…
The first thing we’re going to do is setup our authinfo. Do the following:
mkdir /etc/mail/auth/
cd /etc/mail/auth/
vim client-info
In the client-info file you’ve open in your text editor, insert the following line:
AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com “U:root” “I:username@gmail.com” “P:password” “M:PLAIN”
AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:587 “U:root” “I:username@gmail.com” “P:password” “M:PLAIN”
Now, save it, quit your editor, and run the following in the same directory.
makemap -r hash client-info.db < client-info
chmod 600 *
cd ../
chmod 700 auth
Now, let's move on to making our certs. Do the following:
mkdir /etc/mail/certs/
cd /etc/mail/certs/
openssl req -new -x509 -keyout cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 3650
openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout sendmail.pem -out sendmail.pem -days 3650
cp /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt /etc/mail/certs
And finally, let’s edit our sendmail.mc. Do the following:
cd /etc/mail/
vim sendmail.mc
And, add the following to sendmail.mc:
FEATURE(`authinfo’,`hash /etc/mail/auth/client-info.db’)dnl
define(`SMART_HOST’,`smtp.gmail.com’)dnl
define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS’, `TCP $h 587′)
define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS’, `TCP $h 587′)
define(`CERT_DIR’, `/etc/mail/certs’)
define(`confCACERT_PATH’, `CERT_DIR’)
define(`confCACERT’, `CERT_DIR/ca-bundle.crt’)
define(`confCRL’, `CERT_DIR/ca-bundle.crt’)
define(`confSERVER_CERT’, `CERT_DIR/sendmail.pem’)
define(`confSERVER_KEY’, `CERT_DIR/sendmail.pem’)
define(`confCLIENT_CERT’, `CERT_DIR/sendmail.pem’)
define(`confCLIENT_KEY’, `CERT_DIR/sendmail.pem’)
define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS’, `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN’)
TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN’)
Now run:
m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf
/etc/init.d/sendmail restart
I think it’s all self explanatory for the most part. Happy mailing
-=EDIT=-06/02/2010
In the above configuration files, a user reported having issues while copying the above information into their config files. The issue was regarding the quotes around various options. So, if you experience any trouble, please try replacing the quotes. (e.g. delete the ones that are there and add them back within your text editor)
