The Author – Bart Busschots
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Dec
21
Some Silliness for the Silly-Season
Filed Under Computers & Tech on December 21, 2006 | 2 Comments
If you’re the serious kind who wouldn’t dream of wasting their precious CPU cycles on pointless fluff or if you can’t stand kitsch then you should probably just stop reading now, this won’t be of any interest to you what so ever. If you on the other hand, you have an over-abundance of festive spirit and some spare CPU cyles (and you run OS X) then MacLampX is just the thing for you.
Nov
28
The Easy Way to Completely Remove an App on OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration on November 28, 2006 | 4 Comments
There are two ways of dealing with the configuration details that applications need to store. You have the Windows model, throw the lot into the Registry, and the Linux/Unix model, use text files in people’s home directories. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but on balance, I prefer the Linux/Unix model. Apple have taken the Linux/Unix approach but rather than storing the configuration files in straight in your home directory OS X stores them in the Library folder within your home directory. Although 99% of an application is gone when you drag it to the trash can, the configuration files in your Library are left behind. These take up very little room and don’t really get in your way but you might still like to get rid of them. If you’re the kind of person who is constantly installing and removing applications to test and play them you probably should look into tools for completely removing applications.
On the Mac there are two tools for this that I am aware of, AppZapper and AppDelete. It was Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast that put me on to AppDelete. Like Allison I’ve played with both and agree that AppDelete is the better App of the two. It’s UI is the hight of simplicity, but perhaps so simple it may confuse people (more on this later). It also allows you to see what will be deleted and to un-do the deletion so there should be no nasty surprises! This is the perfect example of a tool that solves one problem very well. Basically, it does exactly what it says on the tin!
Nov
26
arRsync – an Rsync GUI for Mac OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on November 26, 2006 | 48 Comments
When it comes to efficiently synchronizing data between hard-drives there is a great Unix/Linux command-line tool, rsync, which is installed on OS X Tiger (and perhaps previous versions too) by default. OS X only contains the command-line tool though, not a GUI to provide easy access to it. This is where arRsync comes in. All it does is provide a simple GUI and the ability to store profiles, but that’s all that’s needed to make rsync available to regular users. You might wonder why you would need to efficiently synchronize data between two hard-disks? The answer, backups! I use rsync (via arRsync) to backup all my important data to external hard-drives. The nice thing about rsync is that it only replaces files that have changed, so even if you have hundreds of GigaBytes of data, you’ll still be able to update your backup in a reasonable time. Oh, and arRsync is both free and open-source!
[tags]Backup, arRsync, Rsync, OS X[/tags]
Nov
14
Installing mod_jk for Apache 1.3 on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration on November 14, 2006 | 8 Comments
I’ve done a few previous articles on Apache Tomcat (one for installing it on Linux and one for installing it on OS X), but I haven’t yet mentioned installing the JK Connector (mod_jk) in any environment. For those who are wondering what on earth I’m on about, mod_jk allows the Apache web server to serve your Tomcat web apps so they appear on port 80. There are a number of reasons why you might want to do this. Firstly, it provides a simple and secure way to get Tomcat to respond to requests on port 80 without having to have it run as root. Apache is more efficient at serving static pages so it can help increase the efficiency of your web app, and finally it allows you leverage all the power of Apache’s many features for your Java web app.
[tags]Tomcat, Apache, OS X, Mac, mod_jk, Tomcat Connectors[/tags]
Oct
9
CrossOver Mac Beta 2 – Problematic Upgrade but Worth It
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 9, 2006 | 1 Comment
CodeWeavers recently sent round a mailing about the release of the second beta version of CrossOver Mac. I didn’t have time to play with it straight away but over the weekend I gave it a go. The upgrade was not problem free but it did fix one of my problems with CrossOver, IE now seems to work properly.
[tags]Apple, CrossOver, CrossOverMac, OS X, IE[/tags]
Oct
3
Creating an OS X Application from a Java JAR
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on October 3, 2006 | 8 Comments
On OS X you can run a JARed Java App by simply double clicking the .jar file. This works but it has a few downsides. For a start you can’t keep the app in your dock so you can launch it easily and you also can’t easily launch it with things like HimmelBar. Secondly it will always have the Java JAR icon and if you’re running a few Java JARs this can get very confusing. What you really want is the same Java App but wrapped inside an OS X App. Examples of this would be the OS X version of jEdit. If you have the Developer Tools (XCode) installed on OS X this is trivial to do. If you don’t have the developer tools installed you’ll find and installer for them on your OS X DVD.
[tags]OS X, Java, Application[/tags] Read more
Sep
25
The Easy Way To Join PDFs on OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 25, 2006 | 8 Comments
Something you have to do from time to time is assemble a PDF out of pages from other PDFs or images. I had to do this today. I was writing a report in Open Office. I exported the report to PDF to send it but then wanted to attach a few appendices to that PDF file so I would only have to email one file rather than a collection of files. TBH I expected to be able to do this kind of thing very easily with Preview by just dragging and dropping things around but no, not happening. So, off to Google I went and I found a simply excellent freeware App that lets you do this in a really simple and easy way.
[tags]OS X, PDF, Freeware[/tags] Read more
Sep
16
iTunes 7 – Solutions to Audio Book and Download Problems
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 16, 2006 | 2 Comments
This is a follow-on to the article iTunes 7 – Not The Success It Could and SHOULD Have Been
I’ve spent quite a big of time trying to solve my iTunes 7 problems and a lot of time on the Apple discussion boards and I’ve now got solutions to most (obviously no movement on the reverse-sync thing).
First, an update on album art which is a reply to Des’ comment that they have too few covers. They seem to have added many more over the last day or so, because I just got covers for about 20 albums which they didn’t have covers for on the first day iTunes 7 came out.
Now, on to the meat and bones, my most serious problem, not being able to download my purchased items, has been solved. Though not by Apple support. As well as lodging a support call I also started a thread on their forms and that’s where the solution came from: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=643636&tstart=0. I did get a response from Apple but it was massively disappointing. It was a stock answer that simply ignored the information I had given in my message to them pointing out that I had already tried what they just gave me as a ‘solution’. They got a very grumpy reply from me!
Next, onto not being able to move items from Music to Audiobooks. I mentioned that I had tried iTunify and that it had not worked. Well it had sort of worked. What the program did not tell you what that you have to remove the items from your library (being sure to click ‘keep files’ when asked) and then re-add them. When you re-add them they will go into the right place. Again this solution is courtesy of the Apple forums: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=640125&tstart=0
Just one more follow-up, my problems with iTunes 7 constantly re-starting itself when I closed it have not come back. I guess it was just a glitch that was sorted out by a reboot (how Windows like!).
Although my big problems with iTunes 7 have now been solved I shouldn’t have to spend hours getting up and going when I update a program. Apple took their eye off the ball on this one. Lets hope this is not the way things will be from now on with Apple software updates.
[tags]iTunes, iTunes 7, Apple, Audiobooks[/tags]
Sep
15
iTunes 7 – Not The Success It Could and SHOULD Have Been
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 15, 2006 | 11 Comments
The recent Apple event to launch the new iPods, and new iTunes & store, was up to Apple's normal high standard. It all looked great and Steve even managed to get not just one but two "oh and one more thing …" bits in (obviously making up for not including one at the WWDC this year). Also, for the first time in my life I'm actaully tempted by an iPod Shuffle! The preview of iTV also looked very interesting, though in this neck of the woods ITV means something else!
Upon installing iTunes7 my first impressions were also very good. Sure, I think the new blue logo is a step backwards, and the new colour scheme has gone a bit too goth for my tastes, but no one can deny that the new interface is very slick. The promise of reverse-syncing also appealed to me. But then it all just went a bit pear-shaped!
[tags]iTunes, iTunes 7, Apple[/tags] Read more
Sep
10
Free Astronomy Software on Mac OS X – Installing KStars
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Science & Astronomy on September 10, 2006 | 19 Comments
If you run Windows the question as to which free sky mapping software to install is trivial, install Cartes du Ciel. If you run Linux, the question is equally as trivial, use KStars. However, if you run Mac OS X things have traditionally not been so good. I have not found a single good free sky mapping program for OS X. So, instead I have switched my attention to getting either the Linux option or the Windows option working on the Mac.
I had hopped that CrossOver Mac would run Cartes du Ciel but it does not. I tried both V2.7 and the version 3.0 beta but, although both installed, neither worked. 2.7 did run better than 3.0 but failed to render the actual maps so it was still useless! That leaves us with just KStars. This does work on OS X but installing it is not as straightforward as one would hope.
[tags]Astronomy, OS X, Mac, KStars[/tags] Read more