As part of a fix to the recent monitoring problem, please make sure to download and install the latest version of NotifyWire.  The application should prompt you with the update, so please make sure to accept the upgrade so we can get back to the high frequency monitoring that we love to provide.

I have a lot of new functionality update for NotifyWire that are not in the release because they couldn't be tested in time to be pushed out with this emergency release.  They should be done within two weeks.

Last night I released a major overhaul of the Peer2Peer Craigslist monitoring service backend.  Two days prior, NotifyWire became a victim of its own success and had more users than the service could handle. 

When I built NotifyWire I didn’t go nuts planning for scalability because there was no guarantee it would be successful enough to deem it necessary.  The changes I made to the service should support 10x – 50x more users.  After that, I’ll have to do more work to scale the system, but that will be a good problem to have.

Because of the scalability issues, you might have noticed NotifyWire was running slower or having connection problems.  As well, the monitoring engine really wasn’t working well for about 48 hours while I gutted it and re-coded it.  I’m sorry I wasn’t out in front of this issue before it happened.

One more thing to note:  NotifyWire is monitoring more of Craigslist than ever before and we need your help to keep the frequency high.  Here’s what you can do:

Write a tweet about NotifyWire.

If you like NotifyWire, tell your friends on Facebook or write them an email.

And, if you really love us, you can go to download sites and rate our app, here’s some links:

VersionTracker.com (Win) (Mac)

Download.com (Win) (Mac)

Softpedia.com (Win) (Mac)

A new release is available today.  Version 3.0.8 contains a few fixes and small improvements.

• Ad alert emails are now in a better format with the ad title in the subject.  I removed most non-essential info.
• Alerts can now be replied to directly to respond to the ad poster (assuming an email address was provided somewhere in the ad).
• Ripped out the fancy NotifyWire email relay system that prevented spam because Craigslist started blocking some emails from NotifyWire.com.  The "Reply to Ad" button now launches your default mail program like any other email link would.  I'm working on a feature to allow you launch email directly to your online email (gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail, etc...).
• On the server there was a bug in the search engine that monitors craigslist.  In a few scenarios this bug prevented many alerts (but not all) from being sent.  This has been fixed on our server.

I didn't get as much in this release as I would have liked.  There were a few unexpected bugs that I had to work on instead of adding features.  Not to worry, new features are coming soon.

Craigslist is like an abusive spouse.  The more you love it, the more it beats on you.  Today, thanks to a sharp user, I realized that Craigslist has started blocking all emails coming from NotifyWire.com.  That means the NotifyWire feature to respond to ads doesn’t work anymore, don’t use it.  Instead, click the button to open the ad in the default browser and reply to the ad as you normally would.

In hindsight, I should have seen this coming.  Despite the fact that I made this feature in an attempt to eliminate scam ads set up to auto respond to anyone who replies, Craigslist, in their infinite and infallible wisdom has decided that people are better off being subjected to this kind of spam.  Really, Craigslist should set up a similar system to mine, but…ah, crap, I don’t want to go there.

So what now?  Now I’ll make it easy to reply to ads, but you’ll have to do it with your own email address, not one shielded by NotifyWire.  It will take a few days to rebuild this in a way that works well.  I could use a “mailto” type of link that will launch your default email client…but most people use online email and don’t know how to redirect their default mail client to the online one.

I could also ask for your email credentials, but then I have to worry about encryption, etc…  Most likely, I’ll go with the “mailto” with an easy setup option to redirect to major online email accounts like gmail and yahoo mail.

And there goes 40 hours of development time down the drain.  Thanks Craigslist, may I have another.

So, I just fixed the Mac problem…for real this time.  I’m sorry I didn’t test this better on a Mac before, but I don’t have one, and frankly, I can’t afford one.  Luckily, my buddy told me the problem I was having didn’t go away.  So for the 100+ Mac users who installed NotifyWire in the last few days, I’m not sure why one of you didn’t email me with a bug report?  I didn’t think Mac users were a shy bunch…

Anyway, if you’re a Mac user and you still have NotifyWire installed it will auto update to the new working version.  If you uninstalled it because it didn’t work for you, please give it another go.  I’ve been told it really works this time.

A new version was released tonight.  The fixes included the bug in the Mac that I previously blogged about.  Here's a complete list:

• Fixed - Monitored searches missing ads - due to improperly keeping track of dates.
• Fixed - Ads not loading on the Mac - due to Apple un-gzipping the network stream lower in the network stack
• Enhancement - Confusion over how many categories and locations the free version supported - Now upgrade message is displayed when the user adds more than the free version allows and it changes the displayed list of locations and categories to reflect those limits.
• Enhancement - Monitored searches now shut off for searches if more than 1,000 ads are found in 24 hours.  Some users saved searches to be monitored in a way that generated more alerts than possibly necessary.
• Enhancement - Tracking agent version and OS.  This will help us debug any future problem you might encounter.

There are more fixes and important features on the way.  This release was needed ASAP because of the Mac and search monitoring issues.

I hope everyone had a great holiday, I sure did, but now it's back to work.  I have a couple outstanding questions and bug reports to follow up with and a few fixes to release this week.

Apple Bug

I was able to borrow an iBook (thanks Matt) to debug the issue NotifyWire has on Macs.  The fix will be included in this week’s release.  If you're a geek like me, read on...

First, let me say that I don't know my way around a Mac, so this was difficult for me, but I got the Adobe Air SDK on the machine and managed to get the ADL debugging my code.  In NotifyWire, I specify that gzip is an acceptable encoding type for network requests and if the server responds in gzip format, I used code I converted from actionscript to javascript to un-gzip the server response.  This works great on Windows.  It looks like the network stack works different on a Mac because even through the server's encoding type is gzip, the response is already un-gzipped by the time NotifyWire get's it.

Today at about 7PM EST the NotifyWire website and service was down for approximately 2 hours.  I'm working with the hosting company to find out what the problem was.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

There is a problem running NotifyWire on some versions of the Mac.  You can install and search, but the individual search results fail to load properly.  Despite following the cross platform recommendations provided for Adobe AIR (the framework NotifyWire runs on).  I guess I can't really rely on the framework's cross platform capability without testing on each individual platform.  Of course, Apple doesn’t make this easy.

As a software developer, I'm barely able to hold back an anti-apple rant at this point…  If Microsoft is sooo evil and Apple is such a corporate saint, why must I buy overpriced apple hardware just so I can run OSX?  Why can’t I virtualize OSX on Windows?  Oh, that’s right, because Apple makes you pay a premium for their Apple branded commodity hardware so they can pretend Microsoft charges too much for Windows.

I guess I couldn’t hold it back after all.  Hey, I love my iPhone, but I have no delusions about what type of company Apple really is.  End rant.

In any case, NotifyWire to the rescue!  I’ve been using NotifyWire to find a used Mac on Craigslist so I can fix a problem NotifyWire has when running on a Mac.  Whoa, I just totally blew my own mind.  I think the universe might collapse on itself if I succeed.

NEW! - NotifyWire’s Craigslist Search Tool has been totally rebuilt.  Please uninstall the old version and then visit http://www.NotifyWire.com/Download/ to install the new and improved search tool.

Here’s what’s new:

Licensing is now easier to understand and more affordable

There are now only two versions, Free and Pro.  Free is limited to searching five locations per search and your can only save one search at a time.  The Pro version is now just 29.95/year and subscriptions don’t automatically renew.  Current subscribers will automatically be granted a one year subscription from today’s date.

Better navigation and easier to use

Earlier versions on NotifyWire have been difficult to navigate which caused confusion to many users.  The new navigation features allow you to zip through Craigslist even faster than before and with less frustration.

New features

• Reply to ads using NotifyWire.  We’ll keep your email hidden from sellers and host a private discussion between you and the seller, at the same time we also geo-locate the seller based on their IP address.  Not only is this safer, but it makes it easier for you to organize your correspondence with sellers.
• Save ads you want to follow up on, rate your saved ads to track your interest level, take notes to keep track of thoughts or communications, and tag ads for easy grouping and sorting.
• Send interesting ads to friends directly.  We’ve made it extremely easy to share ads while you’re searching.
• Launch ads in your default browser with one click.
• Auto updating.  From now on, new updates will be pushed to your desktop automatically.  This allows us to add more features faster.

Coming Soon

• View housing search results on Google Maps.
• Sell using NotifyWire.com’s Ad Widget.  We’ll host images, track hits, notify you if your ad is flagged or ghosted, and organize responses from buyers.
• Down the road…mobile apps for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android.

I hope you enjoy the new version.  If you have any questions, comments, or feedback please let me know.