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iAlertU Changelog

What's new in iAlertU 0.80 Beta

Apr 8, 2013
  • Replaced the obsolete use of whatismyip.com for a similar service. This in turn also fixed the sending of push notifi- cations to the iPhone.

New in iAlertU 0.79 Beta (Dec 5, 2012)

  • New alarm sounds have been contributed and the existing sound has been cleaned up.

New in iAlertU 0.78 Beta (Oct 8, 2012)

  • Fixed another issue whereby it was possible to arm without having set a password by closing the lid or putting the Macbook to sleep.
  • Fixed a number of issues related to the remote interface.
  • Updated project code to be more compatible with Mountain Lion.
  • Mountain Lion: Added several screen related devices to the default set of devices ignored so that when the Macbook is an alarm.
  • Fixed a number of device state monitoring issues that might have resulted in unnecessary alarms, or missed alarms.

New in iAlertU 0.77 Beta (Jan 26, 2012)

  • Prevent arming without a valid disarm password.
  • Optimise the interface to uAlertMe so that connections are quicker.
  • Fixed an intermittent problem that could prevent photos being included in emails or displayed on the Camera tab of the preferences panel.

New in iAlertU 0.76 Beta (Dec 1, 2011)

  • Added Norwegian translations, kindly contributed by Torkel Adrien Thibault Genet

New in iAlertU 0.75 Beta (Oct 10, 2011)

  • Bug fix to prevent auto arming if the disarm password has not been set.
  • Added support for Korean (thanks to Jeong)

New in iAlertU 0.74 Beta (Aug 22, 2011)

  • New feature: Push Notifications have been added so that people that have uAlertMe installed on their iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch can received a push notification whenever the alarm is triggered on the Macbook. With v1.1 of uAlertMe, all you need to do is connect to v0.74 of iAlertU (whilst the Macbook has an internet connection), and then after that alarms will be sent to the iPhone.
  • Bug fix: A problem with disarming after the macbook has been asleep has been fixed when the Macbook is configured to ask for a password after a sleep.
  • Bug fix: If a second or more display is connected when the Macbook is armed, the display is detected and locked.
  • The network interface for uAlertMe is restarted after a sleep to better facilitate new connections.
  • Bug fix: Device state changes were not triggering alarms every time.
  • Minor memory leaks plugged.
  • New feature: Animated GIF files may now be used for lock screens.
  • Improved handling of keystrokes when armed so that spurious alarms aren’t triggered when typing in your password.
  • For people wanting to try and get the latest code working on Leopard, I’ve reduced the dependencies on Snow Leopard functionality.
  • Bug fix: Message unpacking from uAlertMe could cause a crash, though very rarely.
  • Removed support for legacy (pre 0.70) password mechanism.
  • Added Macbook serial number and IP address to information sent to uAlertMe.

New in iAlertU 0.73 Beta (May 18, 2011)

  • Corrected an issue whereby it was possible for a fresh installation of iAlertU to enable arming from the menu without having set an arm/disarm password. Now, if no password has been set, and you attempt to enable the arm menu item, you will be required to enter a password.
  • This should prevent people from arming iAlertU without some way to disarm it.
  • Bug fix that corrected the encoding of emails which could cause problems on some installations if the system encoding was not US ASCII compatible.

New in iAlertU 0.72 Beta (Apr 22, 2011)

  • Bug fix for those people that enable “Remember password language” in the password dialog. This bug would cause iAlertU to crash when you attempt to arm.
  • Bug fix relating to iAlertU not behaving correctly after the Mac has been ‘asleep’.

New in iAlertU 0.71 Beta (Apr 12, 2011)

  • Bug fix to allow remote’s to work in a shared manner on latest OS X releases.
  • Bug fix to allow selection of a script file on a clean installation of iAlertU.
  • New feature; added a server that can listen on a TCP/IP socket, allowing an incoming connection from a remote
  • client, allowing that client to manipulate iAlertU, and be alerted when an alarm is triggered. See uAlertMe for more information.
  • A number of potential memory leaks have been addressed. None of these would have been high frequency leaks, so it’s not expected that they would have cause any serious problems.
  • The improvements to the French and Spanish localizations that were supposed to be in v0.70 have now actually been done.

New in iAlertU 0.70 Beta (Mar 14, 2011)

  • Bug fix to ensure that the motion sensor monitoring code is turned off when disabled.
  • Bug fix to correct the selected snapshot in the drop-down on the camera tab.
  • A number of corrections to the French translations were kindly contributed by Pierre Morin.
  • A number of corrections to the Spanish translations were kindly contributed by Jan Smite.
  • A new feature, allowing iAlertU to use Speech Synthesis to “say” something when the alarm goes off (thanks James Wheatley).
  • A new option to prevent the alarm sound from stopping if the Mac is still being moved (thanks James Wheatley).
  • Changed the way that iAlertU uses CoreLocation so that it
  • uses less network bandwidth. Several users reported high network bandwidth usage by iAlertU, and this was because CoreLocation was trying to locate the mac too accurately. This release should fix this by turning off CoreLocation unless it’s needed.
  • Dutch translations have been completed, thanks to Edgar de Graaff.
  • Bug fix that attempts to remedy an audio glitch at startup.
  • Bug fix to ensure that the display does not sleep if iAlertU’s
  • “disable idle sleep when armed” feature is enabled.
  • Added new option to allow the user to specify that the
  • screen should flash when the alarm is triggered, regardless
  • of whether the logo is used.
  • Added new option allowing the user to specify a different
  • logo image to be displayed when iAlertU is armed.
  • Added new options allowing the user to specify different
  • sound files to be played for arming, disarming, and when the alarm goes off.
  • New feature/bug fix whereby some users experience intermittent alarms are now able to configure/train iAlertU to ignore specific devices.
  • The mechanism used to encrypt the arm and email passwords has been changed. The reasons for is that I want to remove the dependency on SSCrypto which is not available on the iPhone/iPad platform. v0.70 will automatically update your existing passwords by decrypting with the old mechanism, and then re-encrypting them with the new. It should be an invisible change from the users perspective. If people have problems with passwords after updating, I recommend that they re-enter them manually to update the configuration manually.

New in iAlertU 0.68 Beta (Oct 12, 2010)

  • Corrected a number of issues preventing the latest version of iAlertU from working on Mac OS Leopard (10.5.8). Most of these showed as problems with email.
  • Corrected a bug in the generation of latitude/longitude values in the southern or western hemispheres where the degrees component was zero.
  • Disable the various controls on the “Camera” tab when the camera is not in use.
  • Corrected the formatting of the new HTML email in some cases when all information is not available.
  • Corrected issues relating to sending email when the sending of images is disabled.
  • Don’t try to override the default Java JVM for email. On some platforms (10.5.8) this caused problems.

New in iAlertU 0.66 Beta (Oct 4, 2010)

  • Corrected the application build setting so that it is no longer necessary for the CoreLocation framework to be present. This means that iAlertU should now work on OS/X Leopard 10.5.8.
  • Corrected the handling of password entry when armed and no logo is in use.

New in iAlertU 0.65 Beta (Sep 30, 2010)

  • Corrected (finally) the problem with validation of passwords which was causing most of the crashes on startup. This problem also caused off behaviour wih the email tab of the preferences window and the “Arm” menu item.
  • Corrected an issue whereby the mouse would not always reappear after disarming.
  • Allow iAlertU to continue to run on Mac’s running 10.5.x which does not support the CoreLocation framework. On these Mac’s, the location information in the email will not be filled in.

New in iAlertU 0.64 Beta (Sep 30, 2010)

  • Corrected the layout of the emails so that when no geographical location is available, the table is completed properly.
  • Corrected another error in the handling of uninitialized preferences.

New in iAlertU 0.63 Beta (Sep 29, 2010)

  • Corrected a bug that prevented new installations of iAlertU from starting. Upgraded installations should still have worked.
  • Corrected a bug whereby using the keyboard to disarm using a disarm password would trigger an alarm in error.

New in iAlertU 0.62 Beta (Sep 28, 2010)

  • Corrected a spelling error in the Dutch translation.
  • Corrected an issue with connecting to mail servers with non-default port numbers.
  • Corrected an issue with connecting to some mail servers such as hotmail.The ability to blank multiple screens has been fixed. I thought this had been done in 0.6, but without the required hardware I had no way of knowing.
  • The logo now fades to black as it used to and is displayed on each screen. In addition to this, the logo will reappear as soon as a key is pressed, or the mouse is moved.
  • A new preference has been added to allow some people to disable the fading of the logo.
  • iAlertU now interfaces with CoreLocation in an attempt to determine the geographic location of the mac when an alarm goes off. This information is included in the email, and is embedded in the images (both in the filenames, and internally in their metadata).
  • The preference allowing you to disable arm and disarm sounds has been split into two preferences so that the two sounds can be disabled independently.
  • iAlertU can now be installed as a login item from the preference window on the General tab. You can also optionally instruct iAlertU to automatically arm when it starts as a login item.
  • The layout of the General tab of the preference panel has been re-done in an attempt to group the preferences.
  • On the Alarm tab of the preferences window, if you move the Mac in a way that would normally trigger an alarm, an icon will flash just below the sensitivity slider, and a sound will be played. The purpose of this is to provide a means by which you can see how much movement a sensitivity setting will allow before triggering an alarm.
  • An old bug whereby the password dialog was not by default given keyboard focus has been fixed.
  • A new option has been added allowing you to cause iAlertU to automatically arm when the lid is closed. This is great if you are working on the mac when someone steals it. As soon as they close the lid, iAlertU will arm, and trigger when they reopen it.
  • A new option has been added allowing you to disable Idle sleep on the Mac. This means that whilst the display might sleep (and it will as of this version), the computer itself will remain awake unless you force it to sleep by closing the lid or using the Sleep menu item in the Apple menu. Setting this option on also has the effect of delaying the forced sleep by up to 30 seconds. The great thing about this is that if the thief closes the lid, and picks the Mac up, the sound should still play, even with the lid closed as long as the Mac is still awake. There have been a lot of people that have asked for iAlertU to disable forced sleep altogether. At this point in time, I don't intend to do this as there is arguably a risk of overheating.
  • The entire sleep management mechanism has been reworked so that the above two new options can work together. In doing so, the screen is no longer "captured" in the same way. The old method was effectively preventing the display(s) from ever being allowed to sleep.
  • An old bug whereby an attempt to take a photo after opening the lid caused iAlertU to freeze (which in turn meant that there was no way to wake up the computer without a reboot) has been fixed.
  • The Email tab on the preferences panel will now validate the various email settings. Those fields that have invalid values will be highlighted in red. If any fields are invalid, the test email button will be disabled, and iAlertU will be unable to send any emails out. When iAlertU is first started, if email is enabled, and any settings are invalid, then a warning dialog will be displayed requesting that you fix any errors.
  • Emails are now sent out in HTML format, so they look a bit nicer, and the information is easier to read.
  • All of the text in warnings, the email, etc that is currently English-only has been reworked to allow it to be translated easily in the future (if you have time to spare, please contact us).

New in iAlertU 0.61 Beta (Jul 14, 2010)

  • Fixed a problem with the default shortcut key.

New in iAlertU 0.60 Beta (Jul 14, 2010)

  • Fixed the bug where multiple displays were not being blanked when iAlertU is armed.
  • dded a new hot key feature that allows iAlertU to be armed by simply pressing a hotkey that you define in the General preferences.
  • Added a new preference that allows you to arm using a hotkey or the menu without requiring the entry of a password. Note: A password will still be required to disarm.
  • Added a new preference that allows you prevent the use of the Apple remote to arm/disarm iAlertU.
  • Added German translations, thanks to David Reitter.
  • Added Dutch translations, thanks to Edgar de Graaff.
  • New feature. A new command line argument is accepted that can be used to start iAlertU, take a photo, and email it. This new feature was requested so that people capable of establishing a remote connection to their Mac after it has been stolen can get iAlertU to send emails out without necessarily being armed.
  • New feature. iAlertU now takes a snapshot of the screen and includes this in the email.

New in iAlertU 0.57 Beta (May 31, 2010)

  • Note that this release is simply a bug fix release to help a few people that have had problems running on 10.5.8 (Leopard), or with French as the default language.
  • Users of 10.4.x (Tiger) "may" find that it works for them as well. Let us know if it does, as we have no Tiger platforms on which to test this.
  • Fixed a problem with the storage of mail passwords on Mac's using French as the default language.
  • Fixed a bug where the Send Test Email button would remain enabled for English users if "Email Alarms" is un-ticked.
  • Attempt to make iAlertU run on 10.5.8 by allow it to run without the CoreWLAN framework.

New in iAlertU 0.56 Beta (May 17, 2010)

  • Fixed a crash at startup if the Mac was configured to use Spanish as the default language.
  • Fixed a crash at startup if the Mac is running 10.5 or older.
  • Ensure that test emails can't be sent if the email config is incomplete.
  • Add ability to send emails without inclusion of photos.
  • Added "New folder" button of our own to the path selection panel so that the new folder dialog is no longer hidden underneath the preferences panel.
  • If the arm menu item is disabled, then the keyboard can't be used to disarm.
  • The arm menu is no longer enabled if there is no arm password set (it must not be blank).
  • Fixed a bug where the alarm sound would never stop if the arm/disarm sounds are disabled.

New in iAlertU 0.54 Beta (Apr 1, 2010)

  • Fixed an issue where iAlertU would trigger as a result of an AirPort event such as the local WLAN changing state. This is currently believed to be the reason behind unexpected trigger events.
  • Fixed the bug where iAlertU required a restart after having triggered once.
  • New preference added to allow the user to disable the arm and disarm sounds.
  • New preference added to allow the use of a "-arm" argument on the command line. This new argument, when used with a login item, will force iAlertU to automatically arm.