September 30th, 2006
Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) had an minor update (version 10.4.8) not long ago and while the changelog seemed pretty uninteresting on the most part, there was one unannounced feature that’s pretty cool - Zoom Using Scroll Wheel. If you’ve already updated to 10.4.8, you can try it out for yourself now by holding the Ctrl key and scrolling up the mousewheel. Cool, yeah? You can still do whatever you want in the magnified view (I took a screenshot) so it’s not simply a cheap static magnification (just as Expose windows aren’t static screen captures of your open windows).
September 30th, 2006
When my dad asked me to duplicate a video CD, I decided I’d try to get it done on my new Mac (to, you know, get wow-ed by how easy it is on a Mac compared to the old way I used to do things on Windows). As it turns out, I was rather disappointed by the default Mac OS X burning functionality provided via Finder and Disk Utility, though I’d say it’s still way ahead of the default disc burning in Windows XP. Burn folders? Dig them. Creating and customizing .dmg files (disk images) and then burning them? Love the UNIX toolbox-y goodness of how all this is done in Disk Utility.app. Duplicating CDs or DVDs? Not that great.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I couldn’t get the “create image from CD, then burn the image” method to work with Disk Utility - it created a .dmg file without my files in it and I didn’t burn it because I didn’t want to risk getting a coaster.
I asked a couple of Mac users and they didn’t know how to duplicate CDs easily as well (one of them copied the files to disc and then burn them onto the blank disc). Some Googling turned up this thread which, while rather old, seems to show that there’s no easy way to duplicate a disc with Mac OS X.
Hmm, this just feels wrong to me, or more likely, Apple decided to intentionally leave disc duplication out (probably for digital rights issues or the like). I’m really missing the functionaliy that Nero provides with an easy “Duplicate disc” function. Does anyone know how to easily duplicate a disc in Mac OS X or can recommend a good application that does so?
September 28th, 2006
Spent some time tinkering with Eclipse’s preferences today as I was really missing the Vibrant Ink theme for TextMate and Eclipse is looking pretty now…
The only thing that I still couldn’t figure out was how to change the color of the folding/breakpoint bar next to the gutter. And I’m really starting to like the Monaco font that seems to be the default programmer’s font on Macs (I found a Windows version of Monaco but haven’t tried it).
I guess TextMate envy still exists even when you are on a Mac with a registered version of TextMate heh.
Here’s my Eclipse preferences (I just did a File -> Export -> Preferences). It seems Eclipse only allows a full export/import so you may want to be careful to backup your existing preferences before importing mine.
September 22nd, 2006
No I didn’t “die” again… Here’s what’s been happening lately:
- I got a MacBook Pro. I’ve been rather blown away by the whole Mac OS X experience. Yes, I do have some gripes, but it’s one hell of a nice OS. I hope to write up on my whole “Switch” experience sometime soon.
- I threw up a quick redesign of the blog… As you can tell (unless you’re reading the RSS feed) it’s been “in progress” for over a week - this coincides with the purchase of my MacBook Pro (*wink*). In any case, I wanted to get Windows running on the MacBook so I could test the site in Internet Explorer - to that end, I’ve setup Parallels (see Lifehacker article on Parallels) but it’s way too slow on 512MB of RAM. Hopefully the 2GB RAM upgrade that’s been out of stock happens soon.
- I’ve also been working on a Rails project with Jon Tirsen and Michael Lee (who happen to work at ThoughtWorks). Jon has been busy lately (doing some really exciting stuff!), so I’ve only had the pleasure of working closely with Mike.
We‘re on the lookout for a Java Web Developer (ad on Craigslist). I managed to get “Ruby on Rails” into the ad copy somewhere heh - it gets kinda lonely working in a development team of Java heads. Anyway, we’re looking for a great Java developer to work with us in Singapore - if you’re up for it, send us your resume. I would really like to get someone with some interest in Rails development to work together with on some upcoming (Rails) projects (you know, like after all the real work is done). (0)
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