Posted by Doug
Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:33:48 GMT
I’ve been a big fan of Darwin Ports for a while. It’s a relatively painless way to install open source software on your Mac. It borrows heavily from the FreeBSD ports. Gentoo is also based on this type of a system. Basically, rather than packing up binaries and offering them for download and distribution, Darwin Ports packages up instructions on how to download and compile applications nicely for the Mac.
I was able to successfully migrate my /opt tree with all my custom built ports in them over to my new Macbook Pro. However, all those binaries are PowerPC binaries. They all run under Rosetta emulation. So my blindingly 4x faster Macbook Pro runs all my Ruby on Rails tests at the same speed as my 1.33Ghz G4.
The solution appears to be mv /opt /opt.ppc and rebuild all the ports from scratch. I’ll post more when that’s all done.
Posted in Software, Mac OS X, Hardware | 1 comment
Posted by Doug
Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:52:20 GMT
My hot company, Rosetta Stone, has bought me a gorgeous Samsung t809. The display on this phone is stunning. I like the size and weight. I like the auto-lock keypad. What I don’t like is that it doesn’t support the syncML Bluetooth profile. This means it’s incapable of working with Mac OS X’s iSync.
I was just about to throw in the towel and swap the phone out for an uglier Motorola V360 when David Nanian (of Super Duper! fame) gave me an idea. I had just gotten off the phone with Samsung’s tech support. The end of that conversation was, “We have no phones for T-Mobile that work with a Mac.” When I told that to David he reminded me that any GSM phone will work with T-mobile if you just plug in your SIM card.
That got me thinking. I still have my Sony Ericsson T637 that has always worked marvelously with iSync. Why not simply use my SE T637 as a very clumsy conduit between my Mac and my t809? It works pretty well. Here’s my steps:
- Power down t809, remove T-Mobile SIM card.
- Power down SE T637, insert T-Mobile SIM card, power back up.
- Use iSync to load phone numbers onto SE T637.
- Use the T637 to copy phonebook out to the SIM card.
- Power down SE T637, remove T-Mobile SIM card
- Replace SIM card back into t809
- Power up t809 and feel the love!
There are two things that make this work fairly nicely. The first is props to Sony Ericsson for first-off working with iSync; second for nicely allowing me to copy all my phone numbers out to the SIM card. Second, while I can copy the numbers from my SIM card into the t809’s memory it easily allows me to use the numbers directly off the card.
Besides the umpteen steps needed to complete this process, all is not a bed of roses. The biggest limitation of this process is the extremely simplified phonebook on the SIM card. It’s basically one name, one number. So instead of getting one contact with both a cell phone and a home phone, I get “Joe Somebody/Home” and “Joe Somebody/Cell” and “Joe Somebody/Work”.... I may grow tired of that, we’ll see. For the time being, I’m happy enough with this hackery.
Posted in Mac OS X, Hardware | Tags Ericsson, iSync, phone, Samsung, Sony, T637, t809 | no comments
Posted by Doug
Mon, 13 Feb 2006 13:30:50 GMT
I am totally dependent on Quicksilver. For the uninitiated, QS claims to be “a unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.”
It’s hard to describe the QS jive. Using a single hot key combination, you can easily access nearly all of the data on your system without actually taking a context switch hit. That’s really the goal: a minimal amount of key strokes to access your data without having to leave the application you’re already in.
Before I forget, Quicksilver is free software.
Here’s a good example of hotness that really turned me on this morning. Imagine this scenario: you’re reading some web site forum/user comments/whatever. One of the comments has a url you think you’d like to visit but the site hasn’t automatically converted the url into a link. It’s just text. How do you handle that? Here’s some options:
- This is the “old way”:
- Highlight text with mouse,
- Command-C to copy the url,
- (assuming you’re in a decent browser) Command-T to open a new tab,
- Command-v to paste the url,
- Return to actually load the url
- The “Mac OS X” way:
- Highlight the text with mouse,
- Choose “Services” under the application menu
- Choose “Open URL in Camino” (or Chift-Command-U if you have a good memory)
- The Quicksilver way:
- Highlight the text with the mouse,
- Command-Escape is the key combination to open QS with the selection
- Hit return. QS is smart enough to recognize that the selected text is a URL and the logical action to take on a URL is to open it.
Why is the QS way better than using the Services menu? Both take a nominal three steps. The advantage of QS is that it uses a common hot key with everything. So you’re already in the habit of using Command-Escape to act on selections. You don’t have to train your fingers for one more key combination. You don’t have to remember the Services menu has different options for “Open URL” or “Open URL in Camino”. There are lots and lots of ways to use Quicksilver to simplify common tasks. This one just made me happy enough I thought I should write about it.
Posted in Software, Mac OS X | Tags Quicksilver | 7 comments
