So, this was annoying, but upon a recent upgrade to 10.4.9 that blasted kerberos related error returned – this time I noticed effecting my ability to mount my iBook over AFP, and it also gave me the same ssh segmentation error I wrote about earlier this month.
The same fix worked, only this time I used pacifist on the 10.4.9 combo update. Which, makes this so frustrating because clearly the correct files are there in the update yet somehow they don’t get written out write by the installer. At least I knew how to fix it.
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If you have any issues getting IDL to properly record/recognize the cursor position or mouse clicks, you may want to try this command in the terminal
defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_click_through -bool true
Frank Varosi here at UF gave me this tip, which he found at this french site. What this command does is it changes a window manager preference in Apple’s X11. This probably only effects the so-called “Quartz VM” which is the default window manager. If you switched to the enlightenment or some other window manager, my guess is this click-through preference has no effect, but I can’t say for sure.
Personally, I’ve yet to write IDL programs that look for the cursor location, but I figure this may be helpful to others.
Update As a commenter noted, you will have to restart X11 for this to do anything, since it’s changing a preference in Apple’s quartz-vm window manager.
Update II As commenter Josh Shiode noted, the Macosforge X11 (and possibly any X11 with Leopard) requires a slightly different command:
defaults write org.x.x11 wmclickthrough -bool true
Tags: apple, IDL, Leopard, x11 — .
If you’re using IDL on a Mac, and also have the IDL license server running on the same Mac, it’s apparently necessary to set HOSTNAME in /etc/hostconfig. In the old days of OS X this was set by default in hostconfig with a line
HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC-
but this is no longer the case in Tiger, and maybe Panther. Your hostname should be something like mycoolmac.myschool.edu. I would think using -AUTOMATIC- would work as well, since that should grab your hostname from your DNS.
Thanks to Jessica Lair for this info.
FYI, I’m now trying out MarsEdit for my posts, which I think I may like more than ecto.
Tags: IDL — .
You may already know about this, but there are some useful Applescripts that Apple includes with OS X. You can enable the script menu (if it’s not there already), by using the Applescript Utility, which is in /Applications/Applescript/. Also, be sure to check “Use Library Scripts.”
Once enabled, you’ll see a variety of scripts for several programs in the Script menu. It’s the Finder scripts where the case script is located. Just select one or more items in the Finder, and pick the “Change Case of Item Names” script. You’ll be prompted for upper or lower case. Then, the Finder does it thing. Pretty handy.
If you’re interested in writing your own Applescripts, looking at all the included examples, including this one, is a good place to start. Also, check out the pdf of the Applescript Language guide which is a handy reference. Or if you’re really hardcore, check out “AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition” (Amazon link).
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ecto for MacOSX 2.4.2 is a blogging application that works with WordPress blogs and many others. As you probably know, this site is run on WordPress. So, I’m just testing it out, and this is sort of a test post.
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This may be common knowledge among some IRAF users, but I came across this in the IRAF.net forums and its news to me. You can make shell scripts that call the CL, to use IRAF tasks from outside of IRAF. Check out the details here.
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Hmm, so first we had this post about 42 reason why people might switch to the Mac. (Hooray!). Then later we got this response of nine reasons people should stick with PCs. It’s a doozy. Let’s go over it.
- Cost:PCs are cheaper
Well, there are PCs that are much cheaper than the cheapest Mac but they are also much, well ,cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Slower, with less features. If you compare similarly equipped Macs and PCs, the Mac is even or ahead. This shocked people when the Mac pro came out, but it’s true.
2: Operating System: yes, some may laugh, but with a PC you’ve got choices.
You’ve got Windows, which is precisely why people would want to flee the PC, and Linux . Linux runs on Macs too, but OS X has all the goodness of Linux anyway. If you’re sticking with the PC for Windows, well, God help you. Plus with Parallels you can run all these other OSes anyway, should you want, including Windows.
3: Software: The is a huge smorgesboard of software available for PC’s. Mac on the other hand suffer from a serious lack of options.
There may be a few situations where some specific application is unavailable or lacks a counterpart for MacOS X. But these are rare situations that will not effect 95% of PC Users. People don’t want 20 different programs that do the same thing poorly, they want one or two that does it well. Plus, you can run Windows within Parallels or boot camp if need be.
Gaming
This is a legitimate advantage for PCs. If you want to play the latest games, and that’s your priority, a PC is for you. You can Boot Camp it with a Mac and play them at good speeds, but you’ll have to drop some serious dough for Windows. Blizzard is awesome about Mac support, and Aspyr and others do some great ports, but gaming (due to people programming for DirectX) is something better done in Windows.
Servicability: something gone wrong with your Mac? not a problem, if you’re lucky enough to live near a Apple shop they’ll fix it for you…. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, Apple doesn’t like you tinkering under the hood so you can fix it yourself. Something with my PC goes wrong, I flip the lid and have a look, or I take it to any number of PC shops that do repairs all within close driving range.
If you live far from an Apple authorized service provider, this might be a problem. If under warranty, Apple will overnight you a box which you can overnight a Mac back in.. at least, they do this for laptops. For heavier equipment this may be a problem indeed. For Mac Pros, they are quite serviceable by the user for something like a HD replacement. Most “regular” PC users aren’t going to want to perform surgery on their PC anyway, I thought this list for was “regular” computer users?
Parts/ Upgrading
I somehow doubt most 59 year old mothers are going to want to open up a PC and perform an upgrade. I thought this was about “regular users.” Anyway, the Mac Pro is the easiest computer to upgrade on the planet, with an awesome case design that allows for easy hard drive upgrades and access to all the PCI slots. The iMacs and Macbooks… not so much. All laptops are typically a real pain to open up, but the MacBook has a very simple hard drive bay, and RAM is easy on both the MacBook and Macbook Pro. The MBP has an express card slot. Most Macs have things built in like wireless networking and firewire that upgrades aren’t that neccesary. The biggest problem would be hard drive upgrades on an iMac. You’re sort of stuck with firewire or usb drives. Nor can you upgrade the video card on an iMac (that is lame). But, the notion that all peripherals work with PCs because of “extensive driver support” must be a joke. I’ve seen PC users struggle with getting hardware to work more times than I can count. (Let’s not even talk about Linux’s hardware support).
Peripherals: …Sure you can plug something into a Mac the same way as a PC, but will it work with a Mac? Believe it or not theres more to peripherals than digital cameras, which all work with a PC anyway.
Is this a joke? It’s often a driver install fest on PCs to get perihperals to work most things work on Macs that don’t even say they support OS X. What peripherals is this guy talking about anyway? USB memory cards work, no drivers. USB Printers work with the gimp-print drivers, or the driver from the manufacturer. USB Mice work, just plug in and go. External hard drives, plug in and go. Macs probably support a smaller set of hardware in totem, but it’s much more likely to work.
Better Peripherals: more choice and no stupid 1 button mouse. PC mice also come with a scroll wheel for scrolling, a Mac Mouse…well a weirdish rubber button thingy.
It’s fast becoming obvious this guy has never used a Mac. All USB 3 button / scroll wheel mice just work on Macs. I bought a $20 USB Kennsington mouse with 2 buttons and a scroll wheel and both the scroll wheel and all 3 buttons are recognized and used by OS X; I didn’t even install a driver. Mac Pros and iMacs have come with the 3 button “mighty mouse” for almost a year now. (not 100% sure about that time frame, but the mighty mouse is standard issue.) A legitimate critique would be say, force feedback joysticks and such; a Mac won’t know what to do with them. But, this goes back to the gaming thing, which I already conceded.
Usability: for the average person who doesn’t live in Silicon Valley, PC’s are actually more usable, after all, not only do you hardly ever find a Mac in an average (ie non-tech firm) business, very few other places run them, where as PC’s are everywhere and virtually everyone has exposure to Windows.
Yes, you’ll have to adapt from your Windows-entrained ways to use a Mac. Because the Windows-way is usually so complex and confusing that it may shock you when something is much simpler on the Mac. There is always inertia when moving to a different platform, but just because you use Windows at work is not a reason to tolerate it at home.
All in all, a very unimpressive list. Other than for gaming, I can’t imagine why I personally would ever want to deal with Windows.
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Well, I’m not sure what did it, perhaps the recent Quicktime 7.1.5 update or maybe one before then, but recently I found myself unable to use ssh. I’d get segmentation fault errors whenever I tried, and this would effect scp and sftp as well. I found the solution in this thread on Apple Support discussions, which requires using Pacifist to extract the Kerberos.framework from the 10.4.8 combo update and put it in /System/Library/Frameworks..
It worked, ssh is up and running again. Kind of an annoying bug though.
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Wow, this tip really works. Probably more so on slower machines (like my iBook G4) than newer ones (like the Mac Pro in my office.)
Via Daring Fireball, it’s on the Hawk Wings web site. You use sql lite to do something to the Envelope Index file. There’s no period once you get into sql lite. The only suggestion I have is that there’s no period on the vacuum command of course, so once at the sqlite> prompt just type:
vacuum subjects;
and then wait for a bit while it vacuums. Afterwards, Mail really is significantly snappier at loading folders.
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I discovered MPFIT for tweaking parameters and optimizing curve fits. I had never used curvefit (and when I tried, it didn’t go that well.) MPFIT takes a bit of time to get the hang of, and I had to tweak my curve-generating code to make it play nice with MPFIT…. and the initial parameters you guess have to be close or it won’t converge. But, all said and done, I’m pretty happy with it.
Tags: fitting, IDL, MPFIT — .