Pythoneer - Mac stuff

Install PHP+MySQL vs. Compiling it

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 11:23:28 +0200

I used to like to compile PHP myself, that just felt geeky. It made me feel special, just as if I was almost a real geek, nerd or whatever. I liked to torture myself and install other packages and dependencies before. But only the right version please! I liked to find out that the order of the --with config-switches made a difference. I liked to watch the configure process running for quite a while to finally see that another error occured again! I liked to watch the make and see it fail with some missing dependency or some library it could not link because the exported symbols didn't match.

NO, I didn't!

It was always an aweful waste of time. But somehow it made me understand better, what happens underneath. And sometimes it also made you look into the source code, which definitely was not bad. But at the current level of specialization that people have, it might need to be avoidable.

What am I saying here? I needed to have PHP and MySQL running on my Mac - quickly. The Apache fortunately is already running by default (just switch it on in the System Preferences/Sharing). So I started to compile PHP, which was taking too long in my eyes. After two or three errors because of missing deps I knew that was going to take longer. Back to the web and search for a .dmg! But a certain version of PHP, as the customer requires it! That was really easy. Thanks to Marc Liyanage you can find a lot of different binary versions of PHP at entropy.ch. And installing MySQL is not a problem either. There are enough different binary versions of MySQL. Now I only had to modify the /etc/httpd.conf and/or /private/etc/httpd/users/<username>.conf and set the proper DocumentRoot and Options I needed and I was done. Cool! That's what I call usability, very nice.

Less pain - more spare time :-)

Keyboard strikes III

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 01:24:34 +0200

As already mentioned twice my keyboard strikes. Even now after the reinstall of Mac OS X. What is this, heeelp ... does nobody else have the same problem? The keyboard just reacts on nothing anymore, I open TextEdit and mostly it starts to work again.

Ubuntu is running in VirtualPC on Mac OS X

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:30:07 +0200

It took very long to get all Ubuntu installed, but for running inside a Virtual PC on my Mac I was not expecting it to be really fast and I don't care.

When it was done the graphics card seemed to be configured badly, but with the help of this site I knew what to do. Watch out when you are using Ubuntu 5.04 (or above I guess too) read the help until the end, or do it as I describe here.

By default the X11 window is visible, any normal user that sees this and the graphics is screwed up, won't know what to do, I guess. I didn't know either, until I remembered that there was some key shortcut to jump to a console, yes CTRL+ALT+Fx where x is 1-6, 7 is the graphical screen (X11). On a Mac this is not all that easy :-) But CTRL+ALT+FN+F1 works, just a bit slower, but it does!

Then I needed to become root in ubuntu, simply type "sudo bash" and your password and you have a root shell.
There you have to edit "/etc/X11/xorg.conf", I used vi.
Change the value for "DefaultDepth" from 24 to 16.

Make sure to reboot (type "reboot" as root) and your X should run smoothly after the restart. Good luck ...

System files

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:05:59 +0200

This page gives a nice overview of what the files and directories on your disk are for.

Mac OS X Reinstall - done

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:48:40 +0200

I am a little bit surprised, positively. Last night at around 8 I started backing up my home directory and just two or three other directories in order to reinstall Mac OS X. The backup was quick, less than an hour for about 10GB, that's ok.

Then I inserted the Tiger disk and told it to reinstall, despite all my fear to have forgotten to backup something important. It didn't bother me with much asking. I told it to empty the disk and install a clean copy. And then I went to watch TV for a while. One hour later I came back and it was done. Cool.

But the big surprise came later. I started setting up stuff and installing the programs I needed and tuning the settings as I am used to it. But what was really cool, is that almost all applications are that civilized that the really only store their data in the ~/Library directory. So copying the old configuration data from the backup back into the new system was just all I had to do. Way cool!!! And that works for all the programs: Mail, Safari, iCal, Addressbook, Colloquy, Adium, Skype, etc.

It was less a pain than I thought ... know it only has to run smoother than before, to "vale la pena"

Reinstall Mac OS X

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:16:51 +0200

After reading some tiger reinstall articles I think I need that too ... And as if my Tiger could feel that it started to behave strangely. The only thing that I feel could be my fault is that I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 2GB, mainly for Virtual PC, but after that Virtual PC crashed much more often. The current symptoms why I need and will reinstall are the following:

Safari crashes sometimes, even when I am not doing anything, sometimes I am just reading and tssst it's gone
sometimes the system reaches the state that no application can be started anymore, they all crash and bring up this "do you want to restart" shitty screen ... I have to reboot
I even got a you-must-reboot-screen once when I wanted to log on after the computer woke up
QuickSilver crashes lately, without a reason
Virtual PC crashes without a reason, it never did before
my wife's little (12") PowerBook (also with a Tiger-over-Panther installation) turns on the fan too often, even when nothing special is going on

Actually I am quite disappointed by Mac OS X for that. I really had thought: "how cool, I can simply install Tiger over Pather and it works", it kind of did for a while.

So this weekend - reinstall. It can only get better ... I just need to get over this week :-)

High capacity battery?

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 21:48:01 +0200

Now that I am traveling more frequent I realize that the battery of my PowerBook is not really what I expect from a mobile computer. Two hours is the absolute maximum for my current battery and that can not be it (lately only 1,5 hours)!

Is there some really high capacity battery for my PowerBook Aluminum 15"? I learned that there is one from newer technology, but honestly: 11% more power is not what I am looking for. I want much more! Is there anything, just let me know. Thanks.

Enter openfirmware at boot up

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:02:09 +0200

Just a note, so I don't forget it again. You need to enter openfirmware: when the chime sounds, at the same time pressing APPLE+ALT+O+F.

Resources on Mac OS X

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:36:34 +0200

I am thinking of getting 2GB instead of the 1GB I have in my PowerBook now. And I am rather scared that I am not a normal user, after reading this. This 1GB seems just way too little I think as opposed to what all the people in the forum said. It might also be the processor which is so slow, I actually don't want to analyze it. But I have all the applications opened that I might use, seven virtual screens are packed and sometimes I start VirtualPC (that only runs when needed!) too. And I have to say I am rather disappointed by the over all performance. It happens sometimes that I am just slowed down because the computer just needs his time to catch up with the actions I demand it to do and that sucks.

But the system is just the most usable one I ever had, and I am sure I save a lot of time (a hell lot of time) that I spent before on other things like fixing or repairing the system or trying out things. ... It's never enough!

Continue reading "Resources on Mac OS X"

Keyboard strikes II

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 11:12:28 +0200

Still, it strikes. That is some OS thing.
The desktop manager always reacts to key strokes, I guess it is located at a very close level to the keyboard driver. Also the task switching via APPLE+TAB works. It seems that this state is reached when I switch to an editor task, such as WingIDE. I can not really determine when it happens, because it doesn't happen all the time.

But I know how to quickly get the keyboard working again! I simply have a TextEdit opened all the time, I task switch there and it works again. Strange but true ...

Keyboard strikes

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:19:08 +0200

Strange thing: sometimes, I can't say exactly when the keyboard simply does not react anymore. I can type things and nothing appears. Today I found out that opening TextEdit and closing it again (using the mouse) fixes the problem. But the ALT+APPLE+RIGHT/LEFT for switching the desktop keeps working.
Does anyone know this problem?

Mac OS X: scratching the surface

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Sat, 07 May 2005 09:06:30 +0200

On mtn I have just read about the QuartzExtreme 2D, which made me investigate more about the defaults command. And looking through the /Library/Preferences directory using

defaults read /Library/Preferences/...

is interesting to see. And on the search for a tool, which shows me all those settings nicely I came across this page, which doesn't offer such a tool, but seems the right page when you want to know how to screw up your system :-).
A must read is also the entire Tiger article on ars technica!

Oh man, my article/link ratio is increasing, dangerously high, hehe.

Tiger: QuickSilver vs. Spotlight

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Wed, 04 May 2005 07:24:32 +0200

First: I really learned to like QuickSilver, it just makes work so much faster and since I am a guy, that doesn't like to waste a single click I right away was convinced by using it. So now the long awaited Tiger has brought me Spotlight. The QuickSilver guys will have a hard time now, I guess. But after using Tiger's Spotlight for a couple of days (and QuickSIiver less) I am not convinced, that the Apple guys have done it better! There are quite a couple of things that are annoying and simply worse in Spotlight.

QuickSilver is much faster finding things. I am using it mainly to launch applications, to search contacts ... simply for all the things it is made for :-). And the search result (mostly exactly the one I want) appears within the first 3-4 letters I entered. I.e. starting Firefox just costs me 3 clicks. I used to click CTRL (which doesn't work since Tiger, grrr) now I click ALT+SPACE, type "Fi" and the Firefox icon and the action "start application" appears, I hit Return and Firefox is on it's way. Easy, cool guys!!!

Now using Spotlight. I hit the keys APPLE+SPACE (why the heck don't they allow to only use the CTRL key?) I start typing way more letters than in QuickSilver, for multiple reasons. First because it is much slower showing any search result at all, second because the Firefox icon doesn't appear within two clicks, and that simply is tempting to help the search by giving it more letters. Even when Firefox appears, it still takes me one click DOWN to get to the "top search result", which finally is my Firefox application, and click Return. This takes much more time than using QuickSilver. Spotlight doesn't seem as intelligent yet. When Spotlight starts the "Firefox"-search it first always shows a file "firefox.info", what the heck do I care about such a file (I don't even know what it is good for). QuickSilver (seemingly) shows most relevant results first, like applications you can launch. And I noticed too that QuickSilver also optimizes the order and the first result that it shows, according to the action you triggered last time when you searched the same or alikes. As far as I understand QuickSilver it ranks the results by usage. If you search for Firefox and click "launch" every time, you can be sure the action "launch" is shown first.

Since the Tiger installation I can't use the CTRL key for opening QuickSilver anymore I don't know why but the CTRL key is not useable with QuickSilver anymore :-(. Yes, I remember I updated to the newest version (in the about dialog it says "2A75", don't know if that is the version number) and if I remember right, this version way Tiger compatible/optimized. And since that and the Tiger install the CTRL key doesn't work anymore for launching QuickSilver. Sad thing!

QuickSilver speaks more languages. My system is in German, sometimes I happen to search for something using the english or the german word, like i.e. "screensaver" or "Bildschirmschoner". Using QuickSilver both languages work fine and they both find the system preferences panel. Spotlight only finds it when I type the german word. Another plus for QuickSilver.

So what is there good to say about Spotlight? Mmmmmh. Don't know. I hope, that it is more investigative when it comes to search text that is inside of documents, like OpenOffice files, PDF's etc. But I can't tell, even though I have the feeling that it is better. What I noticed, is that it passes the search phrase onto the application "Preview" when you open a PDF file from Spotlights search result list.

Spotlight also allows to search in the system preferences, which is really a great feature. You can "search" for example for "screensaver" and you get to the panel where you can modify it. But I just realized, that QuickSilver does too, just didn't use it yet :-).

QuickSilver is in my eyes still the better tool. Faster in searching and finding and it also needs less clicks to get work done. If the CTRL key would just work for launching QuickSilver, I would almost be tempted to search for an uninstall option of Spotlight, since I wouldn't need it.

Update:
Some interesting links
Apple's Spotlight hints
Another new Tiger feature compared: Dashboard vs. Konfabulator

Spring-loaded folders

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:45:49 +0200

I know I had seen it sometime, and I had even used it, but why doesn't it work now?

I simply want to move a folder from some place to another only dragging it with the mouse, but the destination folder is somewhere deep inside of another folder. I remember that you could drag something onto a folder (don't release the mouse) and the folder opens, if you want to keep digging deeper down into the directory structure keep going. But why the heck does that not work with my Finder? As I supposed I didn't active the spring loaded folders, dooooh! Googling brought me quickly to a page that describes spring-loaded folders nicely (otherwise I wouldn't have known that they are called that way). Thanks!

Safari is cool, but Firefox sometimes cooler

nospam@example.com (Wolfram) — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:28:49 +0200

I really like the nice integration of Safari into the system, i.e. when downloading a .dmg and automatically activating the image.

But when it comes to search I really catch myself everytime that I want to type "/" (slash) which starts the search in Firefox. And I can't configure the keyboard shortcut for switching between tabs, I have trimmed all my other apps to use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to go forward and backwards through the tabs, but I can't set those for Safari.
I don't want to start complaining about the very bad support for JavaScript, there is no such things as a JS Console not to mention a JS Debugger or a DOM inspector, which are tools in Firefox that I loved to learn when hacking JS.
I am sure there are many more things, but that was what was bothering me right now.

I am sure there are plugins for Safari, please let me know about them. Thanks.