Shareware or Freeware?

I was taking a look at programs to go with my new Forerunner 405 and stumbled upon TrailRunner and am fairly impressed. The author says it is donation-ware as he doesn't have time to support it and people would expect support. That's fine and dandy, but if you don't donate, you get a reminder when you launch the app to donate. So what is the difference between shareware and donation-ware that nags you? In my opinion, there is no difference. The author wants 25 Euros for the app to get rid of the screen.

While the application looks well done, I have a problem with what the author is doing. He should either make it free without a nag (and accept donations) or make it shareware. It is misleading, in my opinion, to say it's free, but nag you at every startup to donate. Will this prevent me from buying (let's face it, it is not a donation), I'm not sure. I like how it presents the data and like the mapping, but this really irks me.

Hey author, wake up and make your app shareware. You'd actually be surprised how much well written software can earn you and then you can stop making excuses on why you can't support the software.

What not to include in a Mac application

I just got a Garmin Forerunner 405 and will be posting a review in the near future. However, I just had to post about the Garmin ANT Agent software. After seeing an erroneous dialog about a new network interface and thinking that the developers need a lesson in Mac development (I can't connect to the Internet with the GPS unit!), I decided to poke around in the application.

I found files called DefaultGarminDebugSettings.xcconfig and DefaultGarminReleaseSettings.xcconfig. These files are used by developers to build the application, but should NEVER be shipped with an application. To me, this shows a development team that isn't all that familiar with Xcode and Macintosh development. While it might have just been a mistake, this is kind of the icing on the cake to me of a poorly written application. Since the Garmin ANT application has to run in order to transfer data, there was really no need to install a kernel extension as all the USB communications should be doable via userspace calls. Anyone that has ever dealt with a kernel extension knows that they're hard to develop, hard to debug, and could make a computer less stable.

While Garmin has made great strides in supporting the Mac, I'd like to see Garmin invest a little money on developing quality Mac software.

End of Garmin Forerunner 305

Today, I got all my gear ready to go for a run and found that my trusted Garmin Forerunner 305 failed to turn on. I put it back in the charger and it went from Charging in Progress to Charging Completed. The device turned on when connected to the charger, but when I removed it, it died. So, the battery on it is toast.

My options are:

1. Get a replacement battery by sending to to Garmin. Cost unknown.
2. Get a new Forerunner 305
   . About $150 from Amazon.
3. Get a Forerunner 405
   . About $350 from Amazon (-$50 rebate).
4. Don't use anything.

My Forerunner 305 lasted almost 4 years, so I'm pretty pleased with how long the battery lasted. While a replacement battery would probably be the cheapest option, I've been having problems with the speaker on it, so I have no idea when that will go out. A replacement is the second, least attractive option. As I've been wanting to get the 405 for a number of reasions, I'm using this as an excuse to upgrade (like I need an excuse)!

Once I get the device and start using it, I'll write a review. I'm sure the review won't be as popular as my Forerunner 305 review that still gets comments almost 4 years later, but I'll write something.

Hey Garmin, if you want to send me something to review, I won't send it back!

Useless Time Capsule Feature

I finally got around to backing up my Time Capsule last weekend as I needed an offsite backup for it. While I have an offsite backup for my MacBook Pro, I didn't have an offsite backup for my Time Capsule which has my wife's backup on it as well as my own Time Machine backup. The AirPort utility has an option to archive the Time Capsule to a USB hard drive. There are 2 problems with this option; 1) it is all or nothing with no incremental option and 2) using it takes the Time Capsule off the network for the entire backup. When I did the backup (before I discovered #2), it took about 6 hours to backup.

So, using this option is obviously not geared towards people like me that want to do an offsite backup every week. I realize that I'm not the average user, but how hard would it have been to put an rsync-like feature so that incremental backups can be performed. So now I mount a backup drive on my media center machine and mount the Time Capsule volume; then I do an rsync and can do an incremental backup. Time Capsule stores backups as sparse disc images with bands that are about 8 MB, so the entire disc image "file" doesn't have to get backed up.

This is not as easy as it could be, but now I'll be able to store a backup offsite on a weekly basis.