redemption in a blog

So what exactly is new in Safari 3 (other than the big OMGWTFBBQ over Safari for Windows)? TUAW has the best writeup (with screenshots of course) of the new features in Safari 3 I’ve seen so far. Check it out if you’re lazy to try it out - I did install the beta and took it for a test drive, but was never much of a Safari user to recognize what exactly did change in Safari 3 beta, so this helped. I must say the new Find interface is really slick and the draggable tabs has been a long time coming (one of my biggest annoyances with Safari and Camino). (0)

ImageMagick port “broken” temporarily

May 29th, 2007

Just in case anyone runs into this problem (which, I might add, would probably go away when either the portfile is updated or the source mirror fixes the problem) while installing ImageMagick via MacPorts…

While trying to install Rmagick on my spanking, new, glossy, kakkoii MacBook, MacPorts reported a checksum error with the ImageMagick source tarball:

Target com.apple.checksum returned: Unable to verify file checksums

At first, I thought it was an outdated portfile but even after a sudo port selfupdate and sudo port -d sync, the checksum error was still occurring (checksum of the file: 4bcb4264c2170fe562b10a732f43e7af, expected checksum in the portfile: 9469ce1b1b645f8c728158cc434b0ff8).

Turns out, the first listed master site (where MacPorts gets its source files from), http://imagemagick.linux-mirror.org/download/ is hosting a source tarball with a bad checksum. Digging around the man page for port a bit, and switching the order of the master source sites solved it, so it was just a case of a bad file on one of the mirror sites.

sudo port edit imagemagick to edit the portfile and change the source mirror to a legit one. You should see something like this:

master_sites \
  http://imagemagick.linux-mirror.org/download/ \
  http://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/ImageMagick/ \
  sourceforge:imagemagick \
  ftp://ftp.imagemagick.net/pub/${name}/ \
  ftp://ftp.fifi.org/pub/ImageMagick/ \
  ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/${name}/

Just move an alternative master_site to the top of the list (I used the SourceForge one). There probably is a way to specify the master_site on the command line with port install but I’ve had just about enough of reading man pages and the now nearly unfindable MacPorts documentation (whatever happened to the old Darwin Ports site that had great documentation?)

Anyway, I’ve written to the webmaster of the mirror site linux-mirror.org, so this would probably be fixed for all two of you who are gonna be installing ImageMagick via MacPorts within these few days or so. Still, it was a good exercise in debugging bad port installations.

Posted by Chu Yeow at May 29, 2007 SGT | Permalink | Comments and TrackBacks (2) | Category: Applications, Mac, Open Source

IMAP-IDLE plugin for Apple Mail

February 25th, 2007

Yup I switched to Apple Mail from Thunderbird a few months back, primary reason being back then I was barely able to run my developer applications on 512MB of RAM (Apple Mail runs lighter than Thunderbird, unfortunately). It’s comforting to find that there is an IMAP-IDLE plugin for Apple Mail (Thunderbird got its IDLE support way back in 2004.)

What’s IDLE? Well, quoting myself:

Simply put, IDLE is a command that allows IMAP email servers to transmit updates to the client in real time. This saves the client from having to continuously poll the server to achieve the effect of new mail appearing immediately. All in all, an exceptionally useful command that saves Thunderbird the work of polling IMAP servers continuously.

So anyway, it’s really simple to install and use (just simple checkboxes for enabling IDLE for your IMAP accounts).

Remember to configure Mail to stop polling these mail accounts every X minutes or so now. Enjoy the geeky feeling of knowing you’ve just saved several CPU cycles and a few kilobytes of bandwidth.

Posted by Chu Yeow at February 25, 2007 SGT | Permalink | Comments and TrackBacks (2) | Category: Applications, Mac, Mozilla

VLC 0.8.6 - full screen controller panel

December 26th, 2006

VLC media player 0.8.6 (changelog) was released a few weeks ago so this may be old news, but I am clearing my backlog of drafts.

Mac OS X users, if you watch videos in full screen mode (like I do most of the time), you’d be delighted to know that they added a full screen controller à la the video player in iTunes:

That was one of my pet peeves with VLC when I was still using Windows as my main desktop OS, and I’d stayed true to Media Player Classic right to the point where I switched to OS X. Media Player Classic is Windows-only, so I had to switch to VLC as well (QuickTime player never impressed me and I wasn’t willing to pay for the Pro version). The lack of a full controller in full screen mode and the inability to move to specific spots in the video timeline with sufficient granularity seems to have been fixed with this new full screen controller panel.

And while they still haven’t made it possible to pause a video by clicking on the video output (which was the case in Media Player Classic), I’ve mostly compensated for it by hitting the space bar. Now that they’ve added a right-click context menu to the video output screen, the same can be done but in 2 clicks with just the mouse - not optimal but it does feel better to see a context menu pop up when right-clicking. I guess that’s the Windows user in me talking - I still feel that almost everything I see should have a context menu or it just feels wrong.

Oh and they added support for the Apple Remote Control. Works great, I just have to remember to take out my remote control and use it next time I’m sitting back watching a movie or anime.

Posted by Chu Yeow at December 26, 2006 SGT | Permalink | Comments and TrackBacks (4) | Category: Applications, Mac, Open Source

MacHeist Mission One 101

November 14th, 2006

Update: seems like several people are coming into this thread after searching for “MacHeist combination” - this post is for last year’s MacHeist. For spoilers and solutions, I suggest you go to the MacHeist Backroom forum.

If you are a Mac user you’d probably have heard of the much-hyped MacHeist. (I bet non-Mac users were probably annoyed with the coverage of MacHeist at some point on sites like Digg.) Even I was late to join up with MacHeist because of its “I’m not gonna tell you what it’s about but it’s gonna rock your world” press and the oh-so-exclusive invite system (which is surprisingly rather effective despite being probably the most used viral “marketing technique”) - I got into the whole MacHeist thing courtesy of the registration link posted over at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog). (Oh and yes, I do know that by blogging about it I’ve fallen prey to the MacHeist hype, but I can’t help myself. Or maybe I just need to blog something that’s easy to write about.)

And so I signed up, and after being completely muddled about what this MacHeist thing is all about, came upon a mission briefing with a very well-done voiceover (love that voice, sounds just right). Turns out MacHeist is a detective (or insert snooping, heist-related adjective here) game where you (try to) accomplish missions and get “loot” in return.

Not what I’d expected, and I almost didn’t play along until I checked out the MacHeist forums (requires a MacHeist account) and saw that the sheer volume of activity. A few thousand posts in a couple of hundred topics may not look like a lot, but it’s pretty amazing for what I assume is a small user base (invite-only system) and you always have to remember MacHeist is really only a week old or so.

Now that got my attention again. Lurking around the forums a bit, I found general praise of the “loot” from completing Mission One. And turns out the “loot” is a bunch of free Mac software, which I really should have guessed. “Free”, “legitimate”, “Mac software” - ze Mac lover in me cannot resist! I went back, re-read Mission One, and sent out an email to what I hoped was an automated email bot (it would be disturbing if someone was actually replying to all the MacHeist emails) in an attempt to dig out what I was told were much-coveted iPhone specs. It was fun for a while trying to convince the email bot to send me what I needed, but it got old when I had to, you know, get the damn answer without running in circles (with circular email).

Lurking around the forums more when I got stuck, I came across this stickied Official Mission #1 Thread and it was all easy mode from there. So yes, the answers are all there if you’re lazy or impatient (I am both).

After completing the mission, you get the combination code to your safe, where you can find the fruits of your labor, loot! Well, about the reward, I have to say I was disappointed - perhaps I was expecting something like free licenses of TextMate or Parallels, or even Disco (though I have actually purchased licenses for all 3 - this Mac thing is turning me into someone who actually buys software - the horror!). Anyway, the rewards were full copies of Chat Transcript Manager, Assignment Planner, and Soulver. Two out of three applications for students… I got Soulver to play with its gimmicky maths functionality, didn’t bother with the rest (not to put them down, but personally don’t have any use for Chat Transcript Manager being a full-time Adium user nor for Assignment Planner).

Despite the anti-climax, I really think the MacHeist guys have done an awesome job (they got me for sure - I’m already anticipating the next heist and more loot!). It’s an excellent way to promote Mac software (some of the lesser known products as well), and to get people talking. I can imagine they aren’t doing too shabby with ad placements and sponsorship. And really, that’s a damn polished setup they have there with the missions. Oh and before I end this post, if you need an invite, let me know (just leave a comment), still have 4 to give out. Well, if the registration link posted over at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) no longer works that is.

Posted by Chu Yeow at November 14, 2006 SGT | Permalink | Comments and TrackBacks (1) | Category: Applications, Fun, Mac