This is a maintenance release, with mostly bug fixes and performance improvements, and since it's been a while since the last release, the support period for the paid versions has been extended. So, if you purchased (or renewed to) version 3.2, you'll be eligible for this version.
It's been a while since the last release, but the first release candidate for the next version of Awasu is available here.
This is a maintenance release, with mostly bug fixes and performance improvements, and since it's been a while since the last release, the support period for the paid versions has been extended. So, if you purchased (or renewed to) version 3.2, you'll be eligible for this version.
Another year, another Awasu Day, and it's with great pleasure I can release the latest and greatest in the long line of Awasu releases: Awasu v3.2.
This release is faster, slicker and just damn prettier than ever before, with numerous improvements, in particular, to the search engine[1]Many thanks to Jacek for prodding me into action on this..
Check it out, not least of all because there will be, yet again, no price increase , and if you purchased in the last 2 years, this release will be included as part of that i.e. completely free.
And once you're up and running, don't forget about one of the key features of Awasu, it's extensibility, with many free plugins here (e.g. skins, Office integration, geo-location and translation tools), as well as a bunch of paid ones e.g. monitoring:
One thing that was quietly introduced in the recent 3.2.rc1 release was support for running on Linux, under Wine. This is something that I've been looking at for quite a while already, and Awasu has run reasonably well like this, but I've finally bit the bullet and made some changes to the code to help with the process.
Most of the issues relate to the embedded browser. They seem to have included a version of Gecko, tricked out to look like Internet Explorer, which mostly works, but Awasu has some sophisticated interactions with its embedded browser, which may or may not work. All the issues I came across have been documented in the wiki, along with work-arounds and other notes.
I'm one of those people who have become increasingly disillusioned with the direction Windows has taken recently, and while I've used Linux on the server for many years[1]And UNIX before that , it's never been much fun on the desktop. However, Gnome on Fedora is not bad these days, and given that my recent foray into the iUniverse has left me scarred for life, it looks like Linux might it, and so this version of Awasu will be getting a lot more dog-fooding in the near future...
Awasu 3.2.rc1 has been released here. This is a release candidate for 3.2, so it comes as an installer, and all you need to do is run it and it will auto-magically upgrade your installation[1]You must be running Awasu 3.0 or later..
This release contains numerous optimizations and performance improvements to speed up all operations, and... nah, just kidding , all that work's been done already. This release contains a few bug fixes and UI tweaks, but there is one change of note: the Personal Edition now allows SSL feeds i.e. feeds that use the more secure https:// URL's (instead of http://).
There's been a big push over the past year or two to get people to use SSL, in particular with the major browsers slowly starting to flag web sites that don't use it as potentially insecure. SSL feeds had previously been available only in paid versions of Awasu, but can now be used even in the free Personal Edition, as well. It's a small thing, in the grand scheme of things, but it's our contribution to helping make the web a safer place
Have fun, and if all goes well, this will become the final 3.2 release.
Lots of Awasu goodness in this release, with numerous changes to speed up the search engine, and also to optimize the shutdown process, which is much quicker and snappier now.
This release cycle will be shorter than the others, so get yourself set up with this one; the 3.2 release candidate is just around the corner...
Just a quick alpha release to tie up some loose ends from the rather extensive work done in the previous release. Nothing earth-shattering to report, just more of the Awasu goodness we all know and love , and the 3.1.1 beta will be hot on its heels in the new year...
And the Awasu juggernaut just keeps on a-rollin' on...
If we were ever to adopt the WordPress practice of naming releases after people, the 3.1.1.alpha1 release would surely be called "Jacek". He's a data analyst in Europe who has been pushing Awasu into territories far beyond where it had gone before, particularly wrt its search engine. To be honest, I was impressed that Awasu held up as well as it did, but even I would have to admit that it was a bit sluggish and crashy when under load, and so we've been working closely together over the past few months, sorting all these issues out.
A lot of the improvements relate to search, both in how the search index gets updated, as well as how search results are generated. In one case, I managed to speed up the code by 50 times, which made preparing search results significantly faster It's rare to get this kind of a win, so yes, I was definitely jumping around the room, pumping my fist in the air And since that bit of code is used elsewhere in Awasu, those operations will be noticeably snappier as well.
The other area that received attention was shutting down Awasu, which was prone to stalling or crashing. You might think that this is a funny thing to be focusing on, but startup and shutdown are often the fiddliest parts of a program. Large programs are split up into separate modules that do different things, and so while the program is starting and module A is coming up, it might need a service provided by module B, so you need to bring that up before module A. Except that module B needs a service provided by module A , so you need to partially bring up module A, just enough so that module B can start, then go back and finish bringing up module A. Sigh...
At least during startup, you're in a known state i.e. nothing. During shutdown, literally anything could be happening at that time e.g. the part of Awasu that updates channels finishes updating a feed at just the wrong time, and it wants to notify the database module that it needs to store some new content, except that the database module has already shutdown, or is half-way through shutdown, and Awasu gets confused. It's very easy to have problems with this kind of thing going on, and it's very difficult to debug since it's so dependent on what's happening at that exact moment
But things are much better now - I haven't received a crash report for, oh, at least a few days now (joking!) - and Awasu shuts down much quicker and much more reliably now.
Not that you would ever want to shut Awasu down, of course...
The first translation of Awasu 3.1 has been baking for a while, and is now ready to step out. Cláudio Mantovani Vieira was kind enough to do the translation, and it looks great There's just something about seeing Awasu running in a different language that is way cool; you shoulda seen the Arabic one, that was seriously freaky
If you'd like to translate Awasu into your favorite language, drop us a line, and if you happen to speak German or Russian, since we have translations for Awasu 3.0, the job's already half-done!
Awasu listens on port 2604 for HTTP API requests, and while I realize y'all in the USA write your dates backwards, here in Australia, today is 26/04, and so it's insanely appropriate to announce the release of Awasu 3.1 here.
It's better, faster, sexier than ever before - check out the features here and here - and even better, no price increase!
So, grab it while it's hot, and I'm off to the pub...
Awasu and the stylized Japanese character in the orange box are trademarks of Awasu Pty. Ltd. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Awasu Pty. Ltd. believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. Such information is subject to change without notice. Awasu Pty. Ltd. is not responsible for inadvertent errors.
, and if you purchased in the last 2 years, this release will be included as part of that i.e. completely free.
, so you need to partially bring up module A, just enough so that module B can start, then go back and finish bringing up module A. Sigh...
I am a 
