OSX OSX: Inkscape not working with multiple monitors I recently noticed that under OSX Inkscape behaves strangely with multiple monitors. I thought I'd broken the installation as when launching Inkscape it opened and then the window immediately disappears. Fortunately there's a bug that's been filed here: XQuartz on OS X 10.9
Apple OSX: Remove scrollbars that appear when using a mouse I've just switched to using a mouse instead of a trackpad on the mac as I get pain in an old broken finger from using the trackpad especially if I've been using the laptop's trackpad directly. What was odd was the second I switched
bash OSX: Toggle hidden files in Finder Here's a little shell script I knocked up for toggling hidden files in finder. Running from the Finder toolbar To have this to hand from within finder you can create an application in Automater. Just select run shell script and paste the contents of this script. Save it
video OSX: No Connected Camera This is really just a note to self. But when you're trying to use an app that uses your built-in video camera on osx, sometimes you see the message "No Connected camera". I just had that and rather than reboot I did a bit of googling
mavericks Creating a Mavericks OSX VM on an OSX Host In case you want to try out some things on OSX without doing it for real then being able to create a VM of OSX can be appealing. Apple allow you to do this if you're runnning Apple hardware. The biggest challenge is finding a way to access
OSX OSX: Fixing Python + Virtualbox after upgrading to Mavericks {<1>} I've just done the upgrade to Mavericks on my work machine. All went pretty well but there were a couple of hitches. Both Python and Virtualbox had some issues. Fixing Python Fortunately my dev env are all safely tucked away inside an Ubuntu VM however
OSX From OSX to Ubuntu I've recently switched to using Ubuntu full-time as my primary operating system having previously used Macs for the last 4+ years. Moving over to ubuntu has been easy enough, I bought a lenovo R61 which has extremely good compatibility with Ubuntu out of the box. I've
OSX Mac OSX: Visor Development on Github I've been using Visor (the drop-down Quake style terminal) for a little while and recently discovered the development of the project has moved to github from it's original home at blacktree [http://www.blacktree.com/projects/visor.html]. The latest versions of the app fix a
OSX OSX Mysql app: Sequel Pro Generally these days I'm tending to access mysql from the CLI but when writing a data importer script I needed to be able to see what tables I was accessing from two different dbs. Initially I was looking for an ERD tool but I stumbled across the successor
OSX Lineform: Vector Graphics App for Mac I've been noodling around with a few vector based designs this weekend (makes a nice change from coding). When if comes to vector I've never ever got on with illustrator as it's alway seemed a million miles away from the the photoshop interface. A
OSX Leopard Bug - Screensaver causes coreservicesd to crash I've just found a fix to an annoying issue. I have a keystroke set to activate the screensaver and the lock the screen of my work MacBook Pro via an applescript. I was recently finding when I came back from lunch the system is pretty much dying on
OSX No Interfaces Available Using Wireshark on Mac OSX On my previous Macbook Pro I'd used Ethereal and I don't remember having many issues with it as I was able to run it as sudo so that I had privileges for sniffing packets. Since then Ethereal has become Wireshark [http://www.wireshark.org/] and it&
OSX Standalone mac battery charger Got a spare mac battery? I've often wondered why up until now no-one's produced a standalone charger so that you can charge batteries without having to plug them into the mac. Fortunately Fastmac.com have produced a standalone charger that allows you to do just that.
OSX Scrolling issue in Leopard cured with PRAM reset Having got a shiny new MacBook Pro to work on at my new workplace I've had a couple of strange problems with Leopard. The main issue was that when scrolling the graphics was suffering what appeared to be a strange redraw problem when scrolling. After googling I found
OSX mac tip: Lock screen and pause iTunes In the past I've used a specific app that allowed configuration of a keystroke to lock my screen but in setting up a new machine I thought I really want to add the ability to pause iTunes as well as locking the screen. The locking part is caused
OSX Mac OSX tip: ls command color output If you have OSX tiger simply grab the fileutils from fink with fink install fileutils Then add the following to your .profile: export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto' eval "`/sw/bin/dircolors`" alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS' alias ll='ls $LS_OPTIONS -lah'
OSX Nokia Multimedia Transfer for Mac This is totally awesome and far nicer than using bluetooth file transfer to put python files for pys60 onto your Nokia phone. Nokia Multimedia Transfer [http://europe.nokia.com/A4423134] Works via bluetooth or the data cable and provides a drag and drop interface similar to finder.
OSX BASH: Open FileMerge from CLI Here's a quick tip. If you want to open FileMerge (Apples graphical diff utility available in developer tools) from the CLI you can use the command opendiff e.g: opendiff file1 file2 This save lots of hassle when you are trying to resolve versioning conflicts, as I always
OSX Sneaky hfs_fsck post reboot Just thought I'd mention this, unlike linux and windows if your mac crashes you aren't told that the filesystem integrity needs to be checked when you reboot. Now this is probably a good thing up to a point, as macs do a good job of hiding
Browsers Before you go and install Safari 3.0 on your mac You'll be interested to know Safari 3.0 beta replaces the webkit framework thus borking safari 2.0 + everything else that relies on webkit. If it's too late for you check this out: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/11/more-on-rolling-back-from-safari-3-beta/
OSX Mark all mail as read in mail.app Being a habitual user of NetNewsWire I find it quite annoying that mail.app doesn't have a mark all as read button. However there is a context menu that you can use mark all mail in the selected mailbox as read. Trouble with that is that it'
OSX Quicktip for mac: turning capslock into control I am hoping to get my hands on a happy hackers keyboard for mac [http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/26/happy-hacking-keyboard-lite-2-for-mac-touts-apple-key-demotes-c/] in the not too distant future. In preparation I have modified caps lock to act as the control key as this is the position on the Happy hackers
security Encrypt your homedir on your mac without FileVault I used FileVault [http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/filevault/] for about a month and I found it really degraded the overall experience of using my mac. Basically using filevault caused a huge slowdown in performance. In addition I quickly found the repeated prompting to compact the filevault every time
OSX MacFUSE: sshfs for your mac MacFUSE [http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/] is a implementation of FUSE (File-system in USErspace) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace] that is provided via a kernel extension. So what is FUSE? FUSE provides a easy way for anyone to create their own filesystem through providing hooks into
Apple Disco Beta Review There's not been that much in the world of software that I've as eagerly anticipated as the release of the beta for Disco [http://discoapp.com]. Made by the same people that made appZapper disco is a CD/DVD burning app like no other. The interface