Blogs

How to select a non-Apple screensaver under MacOS Sonoma v14

In MacOS Sonoma v14 the screen savers settings are still under the "System settings" but Apple promoted their screen savers, leaving the 3rd part screensavers under an "Other" category.

To select a non-Apple screensaver for your Mac, go to System settings and on the left menu scroll down until you find the "Screen Saver" item and click on it.

On the right part, click on "Show all".

how to select a screensaver on MacOS Sonoma step 1

Create and configure a GA4 Google analytics property for SoftMeter

SoftMeter is a Google Analytics client for desktop software (Windows and macOS) that does not rely on the Google Analytics SDKs. With SoftMeter you can monitor the usage of your software application, in the same way as you monitor the visitors to your website.

Google is stopping the Universal analytics properties in July 2023. So you will need to create a GA4 new type of property.

How to compile your MacOS desktop application for ARM64, Apple silicon M1 CPU chip

Apple silicom M1 chip, ARM64 RISC CPU

The new generation of Apple Macs and Macbooks come with a major change in the CPU. They have an Apple processor, the M1 Apple silicon chip, a RISC / ARM64 architecture.

Old intel based applications will continue to run under the Rosetta2 emulator. Applications compiled for ARM64 will run natively.

Software Usage Analytics for free with SoftMeter + Google analytics

Google Analytics is the most popular platform for website statistics.

If we imagine our desktop or mobile software as a website, shouldn't we be using the same successful analytics platform also for our software usage analytics?

This is the idea that sparked the creation of SoftMeter, our software usage analytics library for Windows, MacOS and IOS.

Installation analytics for shareware and desktop software applications

Installation analytics chart for shareware and desktop software applications

Installation analytics is the technique of gathering installation statistics directly from the distributed software installers.

The developers can see even in real-time the stream of installations and uninstalls of their software, understand the impact of their advertising, detect remote problems immediately after the release.

Having installation analytics in your software is essential for your success in this brutally competitive internet.

Website VS Mobile App Google Analytics reporting views and the Google measurement protocol

Website vs Mobile App types of reporting views in Google Analytics, and the measurement protocol.

The Google measurement protocol can send PageViews, ScreenViews and Events to your Google Analytics account.

See a comparison listing the similarities and differences between the two types of reporting views: Website vs Mobile App.

Announcement: See your shareware usage statistics with SoftMeter and Google Analytics

Shareware developers can now monitor the usage of their programs via Google Analytics, in the same way they monitor their website traffic.

This is the announcement of v0.5.2 of SoftMeter (former libAppTelemetry) that brings this capability to indie programmers (Windows, MacOS X).

Google analytics reporting examples for tracking software/shareware desktop applications

By using SoftMeter in your shareware/software application you can see runtime statistics of your desktop program via the Google Analytics platform.

As a shareware developer, you are probably already using Google analytics for your website traffic as it is a free and reliable solution. With our SoftMeter library, you can now also monitor the usage of your software program.

In this article, you can see examples of the reports that you will get.

Checkist: How to transfer a domain name from Godaddy to Namecheap, in 50 minutes (15 steps)

This procedure to transfer your domain name from one registrar to another requires less than 10 minutes of your time. Together with the waiting time for the servers to update, the domain switch takes from 50 minutes to few hours to complete. As this is completed in less than a day, you can perform the transfer just a few days before the renewal date your domain.