Software Notes

pwyky

pwyky edit bookmarklet // pwyky edit (customised)

@meta/about

Original pwyky

Modified pwyky version Notes on modified pwyky version

Modified Pwyky Formatting

"to pwyky link" bookmarklet (based on "Copy Title, URL, and Selected Text into Text Field" bookmarklet) :

javascript:(function(s){try{ s=document.selection.createRange().text}catch(_){s=document.getSelection()}prompt('','{'+location + ' '+s + '}')})()

pyblosxom

importing advogato entries to pyblosxom

django

Wiki implementations: One Two

Image Processing

Creating Images with Numpy

AppleScript

If APP_PATH contains a Unix-style path name (e.g. "/Applications/TextEdit.app" then the following should work from a bash shell script to launch an OS X application ( run could be used instead of launch as they each do slightly different things):

osascript -e "launch application ((POSIX file \"${APP_PATH}\") as string)"

When I didn't have the above application launch working correcting I got this error:

 syntax error: Can't get application ... (-1728)

Original source for How to convert a Unix path to a Mac OS X path, and the other way.

Further information on Applescript, Mac OS X file paths and Unix/POSIX file paths.

Much verbiage on osascript, shebang, and unicode arguments.

KiCad

Learning About KiCad -- my notes

Notes on KiCad -- by someone else

Cinepaint

Tried to get MacCinePaint-0.21-2.nativ running on Mac OS X 10.2.8 whose README states "This version requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later." But on launch it crashes with:

gtk_init
GTKMacSetup()
dyld: <path>/CinePaint.app/Contents/Resources/usr/local/bin/cinepaint
Undefined symbols: "_CFLocaleCopyCurrent"

"Making Carbon code compatible with earlier versions of OSX" -- Refers to CFLocaleCopyCurrent as "defined in CoreService 10.3 or later but not in earlier versions".

Mozilla Firefox

As of 20-November-2007 / Firefox 2.0 the file sessionstore.js is not fully JSON-compatible despite what people say. It's almost JSON-compatible and you may get some instances which are compatible but it's also possible to get instances of the file that aren't. Related pages: sessionstore.js python and demjson, Session Restore, nsSessionStore.js, [SessionStore] Correctly JSON-ify the API, Native JSON support, convert session store to JSON, Reference to #1= JavaScript syntax

Ubuntu

UbuntuNotes

SVN

Supply username like this:

svn --username <username> ....

I compiled SVN 1.0.9 successfully on Mac OS X 10.2 using Subversion Unix source from here. At this stage I have successfully checked out and committed to a http svn URL. I haven't tried compiling any later versions.

To create and populate (with blank directory) a new local repository:

# Create respository
svnadmin create /Users/<username>/_svn

# Import empty directory
mkdir <modulename>
cd <modulename>
# Imports current directory
svn import -m "<message>" . file:///Users/<username>/_svn/

# Move to new location (and/or remove the initial imported directory)
# and then checkout the module...
svn checkout file:///Users/<username>/_svn/ <modulename>

Blender

See: Learning About Blender

Thunderbird

VirtualBox

See: Learning About VirtualBox

AVR MacPack

(AVRMacPack-20080716) Attempting to run avrdude produces the following:

 $ avrdude -p atmega3290 -c avrisp -P /dev/ttyS0 -t -v -F

  dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libusb-0.1.4.dylib
    Referenced from: /usr/local/AVRMacPack/bin/avrdude
    Reason: image not found
  Trace/BPT trap

This seems to result from libusb not being installed as expected. I fixed this by installing from source: libusb-0.1.12.tar.gz. I don't see mentioned anywhere else that 0.1.12 actually produces binaries named libusb-0.1.4.dylib and the like.

iTunes

iTunes is completely stupid. When moving between versions if it can't find songs it assumes they're 1.64GB in size. It also does this for podcasts except by default you can't see the size of them.

S5

Glossdeck Presentation Theme for S5

pilot-link

I managed to get pilot-link 0.12.3 installed on Mac OS X 10.5 and here are some notes:

# If you don't '--enable-conduits' you won't get the "userland" tools like 'pilot-xfer'
./configure --enable-conduits

# Note: If you don't build the conduits (and even if you do?)
# the contactdb test will throw an error due to
# a lack of popt--if you don't have it.
# (So you'll need to remove it from 'noinst_PROGRAMS' in the tests Makefile.)
make
sudo make install

To back up my Treo 180 I used:

# Run this first, then press the HotSync button
/usr/local/bin/pilot-xfer --port usb: -b <backup directory path>

To back up my Treo 650 over Bluetooth I used:

$ /usr/local/bin/pilot-xfer --port /dev/tty.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync -b <backup directory path>

# If you get the following error, try disabling HotSync in the desktop HotSync Manager:
#   Unable to bind to port: /dev/tty.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync

Palm Desktop 4.0 for Macintosh

This fails to install from the installer "Palm Desktop Installer" contained in MacDesktop_40_TV.sit out of the box on Mac OS X 10.5 on an Intel machine.

I found an article Palm Desktop Won't Install? You're Not Root which has some suggestions. I didn't want to muck around with changing the user account I was using so I made use of sudo instead.

Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure what combination produces the entirely correct result (even currently there's no icon showing for the "HotSync Manager" even though at one stage there was). Still, some combination of these commands seemed to work:

# Run the "Palm Desktop Installer" as a normal user and do a normal install

# Then...
sudo Palm\ Desktop\ Installer/Contents/Resources/Install\ Utility/Contents/MacOS/InstallerWrapper
sudo open Palm\ Desktop\ Installer/Contents/MacOSClassic/Installer
sudo open Palm\ Desktop\ Installer/Contents/Resources/Install\ Utility/Contents/Resources/IM_Installer # Maybe not?

One commenter on the above article suggested using the 4.2 application even though it doesn't supposedly support older model devices.

Some other comments: HotSync Manager problem

There may be better ways to run the GUI application as a root/administrator—I may even have used them at one time...

avarice and Mac OS X

Mac OS X and DNS: hangs or slow SSH, curl etc

I had noticed that on certain networks connecting via SSH to an external server seemed extremely slow (for me under OS 10.5.2) i.e. the connection seemed to hang / freeze for a period before finally connecting. It turns out it's not related to IPv6 in this situation but DNS. It seems the problem is likely to be a dodgy DNS-handling router between you and the net and/or the destination DNS server.

The solution for me was to add an OpenDNS server to the list of DNS servers in the TCP/IP configuration for that network interface.

You might notice sampling of the hung application in the Activity Monitor includes these functions in the stack: libinfoDSmig_Query, LI_DSLookupQuery

Key details found here: SSH Slow on 10.5 / Leopard

Buildbot

Learning About BuildBot

Google SketchUp

SketchUp won't draw small spheres (at least in SketchUp 7 (7.1.6859)). If you follow the (IMO, convoluted) instructions given in the How do I draw a sphere? answer it will only work for spheres with a radius greater than about 10mm. With a radius between 5mm and 10mm a "chopped" sphere will result and once the radius gets small enough the second circle will just disappear when you click on and nothing else will appear to happen. The recommendation here is to create a larger sphere and scale it down to the correct size. I have not tried to see if generating the sphere programmaticly with Ruby for sphere bypasses the issue.