Well, the crunch time is now coming and the real server move is about to happen this week (at the end of the March the old server will go offline forever, so the move has to happen this week, ready or not). So this will most likely be my last post ever to this weblog.

The forums are already in read-only mode, and I'm about to shut down the bug tracker too shortly so that I can do the final export of all the records and move them into the database on the new server. If you had an account on the old server you'll automatically have one on the new server too, although you will need to reset your password (I couldn't transfer across any passwords because none of them were stored in plain text, and rightly so of course).

At some point during this week email might temporarily go down, hopefully only for about an hour (delivery failures should be temporary), and the wincent.com domain itself will go down at roughly the same time too. When it comes back up we'll be running on the new server. If you make a purchase during that time you might have to wait an hour or two for your license information, but we'll soon be back to immediate automated delivery.

Keep your eye on my Twitter account if you'd like to be kept posted with updates; it will be my only avenue of communication during my brief stint in limbo:

• http://twitter.com/wincent

Just in case there is any interruption during the move, I've just opened a twitter account where I'll be posting updates along the way:

• http://twitter.com/wincent

Not really a twitter fan myself — I've always felt that the best place to post that kind of info is on my own weblog — but in a case like this it makes sense to have an offsite feed.

They're currently registered with joker.com, and the renewal price for each domain is $12.00. Last time I made this request help was quick in coming, so I am hoping that the same will be true in this case.

If you'd like to help with the renewal you can send your donation to me via PayPal using this link. My priority will be to keep the dot-org domain alive; the others will follow suit if I receive enough donations. You can contact me at win@wincent.com if you have any questions or comments.

As was the case last time, the project will continue to survive even if I can't renew the domains, but I'd like to keep providing them if I can.

I'll be doing everything I can to minimize downtime, and hopefully come close to eliminating it entirely as there will be a one week overlap period in which both the old and the new servers are simultaneously online. But in the spirit of keeping people informed, this post is about the first step in the process: the DNS changes. The old server will continue to run, the IP addresses won't change (yet), but the authoritative DNS servers will be changed from my old to my new host.

The DNS is currently provided by Rackspace, but my new provider, INetU already has their DNS configured and ready to take over. Throughout the following week I'll be gradually "flipping switches". The first domains to be flipped over will be bansshee.com, bansshee.net and bansshee.org, on Monday. If that goes well then I'll continue switching the other domains (13 of them) to the INetU DNS servers in the course of the week.

If you notice any problems please get in touch with me (win@wincent.com). wincent.com itself will probably be the last domain to get switched over.

The 3.5 series, on the other hand, is a total rewrite in Objective-C 2.0 which will run only on Leopard and as such it is somewhat experimental in nature. If you want stability then I recommend that you stick with 3.2 for now, but if you like to live on the edge and see the latest then by all means try out the 3.5 series. This release fixes some minor issues found in the last alpha; the sporadic crashes caused by using NSAppleScript under Garbage Collection are still being investigated.

A full changelog appears here.

You can download the new release from here and purchase a license using this page. The 3.2 series can still be downloaded from here. Once the 3.5 series goes final it will be a free upgrade to all users who have purchased a license for Synergy 3.0 or higher (that is, if you purchased on or after 5 September 2006 then 3.5 will be a free upgrade for you).

REnamer is a file renaming utility based on three design principles: power, simplicity, and elegance.

Simple because it uses the familiar metaphor of "Find and Replace" which we all know from word processing. Even a beginner can rename large batches of files in mere seconds.

Powerful because through Regular Expressions (the "RE" in REnamer) it allows you to transform your filenames in complex ways with a minimum of effort.

Elegant because its thoughtful design combines all this into an attractive, uncluttered and expressive interface which shows you a live preview of what changes will be made to your filesystem.

Please head on over to the product page and check out the sneak preview screencast which shows a small part of REnamer in action. Sign up to the beta testing mailing list while you're there too.

I'm currently planning on releasing a public beta at the beginning of February, with a view to releasing version 1.0 by the middle of the month. Licenses will cost 9.95€ (Euros).

The 3.5 series, on the other hand, is a total rewrite in Objective-C 2.0 which will run only on Leopard and as such it is somewhat experimental in nature. If you want stability then I recommend that you stick with 3.2 for now, but if you like to live on the edge and see the latest then by all means try out the 3.5 series. This new alpha fixes a large number of issues reported for the previous alpha and should prove to be much more polished. There are still some minor issues being investigated, but this is now much closer to what the final 3.5 release will look like.

A full changelog appears here.

You can download the new release from here and purchase a license using this page. The 3.2 series can still be downloaded from here. Once the 3.5 series goes final it will be a free upgrade to all users who have purchased a license for Synergy 3.0 or higher (that is, if you purchased on or after 5 September 2006 then 3.5 will be a free upgrade for you).

The 3.5 series, on the other hand, is a total rewrite in Objective-C 2.0 which will run only on Leopard and as such it is somewhat experimental in nature. If you want stability then I recommend that you stick with 3.2 for now, but if you like to live on the edge and see the latest then by all means try out the 3.5 series. This new alpha fixes a large number of issues reported for the previous alpha and should prove to be much more polished. There are still some minor issues being investigated, but this is now much closer to what the final 3.5 release will look like.

A full changelog appears here.

You can download the new release from here and purchase a license using this page. The 3.2 series can still be downloaded from here. Once the 3.5 series goes final it will be a free upgrade to all users who have purchased a license for Synergy 3.0 or higher (that is, if you purchased on or after 5 September 2006 then 3.5 will be a free upgrade for you).

It's free software released under a GPL license, downloadable in both source and executable forms, donations are welcomed.

You can download the updated release from here and purchase a license using this page. The 3.2-series can still be downloaded from here. This is a free upgrade for users who already hold a valid Synergy license.

Today marks the availability of the first release in the 3.5 series, a total rewrite in Objective-C 2.0 which will run only on Leopard. This is a conservative migration — I've attempted to make all the changes while exactly preserving the existing behaviour and performance — but due to the invasive nature of this (almost every source file touched) this build is labelled as 3.5a (alpha), which means it is of experimental status. As we move forward more Leopard-specific enhancements will be made.

A full changelog appears here.

You can download the new release from here and purchase a license using this page. The 3.2-series can still be downloaded from here. This is a free upgrade for users who already hold a valid Synergy license.

If you sent me email in the last few hours there is a small chance that I might not have received it. If you're expecting a reply from me but haven't received one please get in touch with me (win@wincent.com).

As a result, I'll soon be delivering updates to my products including changes for compatibility with the final version of Leopard, and I'll be able to get started on final testing considerably sooner than expected.

Leopard-ready

The following products have received extensive testing on pre-release versions of Leopard and are expected to work with a high degree of compatibility. When Apple ships the final version to developers further testing will be performed to see if any further changes are required:

• Synergy: the lightweight, robust, and feature-packed iTunes controller.
• Install: simple and dependable installation solution for developers.
• WOTest: open source Objective-C unit testing framework.
• Wincent Strings Utility: open source localization helper tool for developers.

Beta-status

This product hasn't been heavily tested with Leopard but conflicting reports have been received that it continues to work under the new operating system; others report that they've been unable to install it. When the Leopard final arrives further investigation will be undertaken.

• WinSwitch: Fast User Switching menu replacement.

Coming soon

These products aren't yet Leopard-ready but work is well on the way to completion (about 90% done) and so I hope to release Leopard-compatible versions within the next two to three weeks:

• Synergy Advance: Plug-in based audio companion.
• Hextrapolate: Programmers number conversion tool.

Unknown

The status of the following product on Leopard is unknown:

• atosym: Address-to-symbol conversion aid for programmers.

All other products

There are a number of other products which aren't specifically tied to the Mac OS X platform, and so should work on Leopard just as they did under Tiger:

• Bansshee: protection against SSH dictionary attacks.
• Walrus: object-oriented templating system written in Ruby.