Showing the desktop with OS X Lion

Have you been frustrated with how to clear away your open applications in OS X Lion (and now Mountain Lion) so you can see the desktop? I used to have a key mapped on my keyboard to do just that with earlier versions of OS X but it changed with the king of the kitties. However, it is still possible to do just that with the following handy key combination:

CMD + F3

Watch as your applications fly into the corners of the screen :)

Keyboard shortcut to turn on Mirroring of displays

I got a projector as a christmas pressie this year and I love it! I found this useful little tip in my travels which is very convenient when you have settled yourself in with a wireless keyboard only to realise that you haven't turned on mirroring of your displays, doh! You can easily turn on the mirroring of displays in OS X by using the following command:

cmd + f1

(this assumes you haven't changed the configuration of your fnumber keys, in which case, i imagine the command would be):

cmd + fn + f1

However, i don't know about that last one!

Viewing EXIF Data in iPhoto '09

I was tearing my hair out, trying to find where I could see the EXIF Information (Shooting Data) about pictures in iPhoto - thanks to this blog post by Kevin Carter on the MacCreate website, i found it (http://iphoto.maccreate.com/2009/10/24/how-to-reveal-exif-data-in-iphoto-09/)

1. Choose a photo in iPhoto
2. Go to Photos -> Show Extended Photo Info

I had been rummaging in the get info menu with no luck but it is available - just not where I expected it :)

Hash key on an Apple a UK Mac Keyboard when using Bootcamp

The most successful post I've ever posted on a technical subject concerned where the heck to find the hash (#) key on a UK Mac keyboard - for some reason, Apple UK must have thought us Mac users in Blighty don't code or use Twitter ^_^

I worked it out in the end but encountered a similar problem when I started using my Mac via Bootcamp - the keystroke proved not to be the same, doh! So, having done some digging, I found that to create a # sign on a UK Mac keyboard that is running Windows via bootcamp, use the following keystroke:

Ctrl+Alt+3

Hope that helps!

Taking screenshots using a Mac running Windows via Bootcamp

I've recently switched jobs and now find that i need to use Windows 7 regularly via a Bootcamp partition on my shiny '09 Macbook Pro – it is a great little setup but i did find a small snag when trying to take screenshots using a Mac keyboard via Bootcamp. Mac keyboards don't' have a print screen key but i have learned that you can get the same effect by using the following key combinations:

Take a screenshot of the entire screen:

FN+SHIFT+F11

Take a screenshot of the active Window:

FN+ALT+SHIFT+F11

Hope that helps make y'all happy 'campers ^_^

Dreamweaver on the Mac: JavaScript problems

I encountered a problem with Dreamweaver today - when I started the program I was met with the following errors:

"...ColdFusion.htm has configuration information that is invalid"

"...DWScriptsExtData.js dwscripts is not defined"

After a moment of panic, I did some google searching and found that the problems can be due to a variety of things, as specified by the troubleshooting link (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_19105#site_cache). For me, I was able to solve the problem by doing the following things:

1) Reinstalling Dreamweaver
2) Delete the filecache.dat file in Mac HD/Users//Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Dreamweaver 8/
3) Delete the MacFileCache-BFE7CE2E.dat (example) in Mac HD/Users//Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Dreamweaver 8/Configuration/

Taking screenshots on a Mac

Just a quick post about taking screenshots on a Mac. Other Windows switchers may lament the loss of their old 'print screen' button but fear not! There are 2 options to replace this Windows feature. The first in the following key combination: shift-command-3 - this will output a png image file to your desktop. The second is the 'Grab' feature, which in an Application sitting in the 'Utilities' folder. This little program offers you the capacity to grab single Windows and entire screenshots, depending on what you need.

MacWorld KeyNote 2007

Before my introduction into the cult of Apple, I never quite understood the salivation that followed Steve Jobs' Keynote speeches. However, over the last year I have found myself going further down the rabbit hole of Mac fandom and now find myself, like many others of the Apple Legion, waiting with baited breath for Mr. Jobs' announcement. It still amazes me how well Apple plays these things - as consumers, we are just dying to know about the new toys Apple are going to offer us - I can't say I've felt that way about Microsoft since I was 11 and Windows 95 was just on the Horizon.

Anyway, I thought I'd give my 2 cents about this years coming Keynote speech. I am in two minds as to the rumored iPhone - it could be the greatest gizmo since Bread with Bluetooth functionality or it could be just an iPod Nano with a GSM chip. As a Pocket PC user, I would like to see Apple produce a PDA phone with a touch screen, a streamlined UNIX based OS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPs functionality (ideally with TomTom producing a port of their software for it). However, this is a lot to ask of an item on release 1.0. While it is possible that an iDA (or something of a similar name) will appear later today, I think it is far more likely that we will see an iPod Nano with GSM functionality. Most phone on the market at the moment are aimed at 'flash & trash' with very little movement on the functional technology front since 2004. The iPod has since become the killer item to own and I think that mixing up a non-smartphone with a Nano and giving it a GUI similar to that of the iPod would hit it off with the majority of consumers.

Leopard is another item we are all awaiting. I have to say though, I don't see there being an enormous amount for me in it. I'm sure I will upgrade but it isn't an enormous leap forward for OS X (the server functionality does look VERY good though - wiki's and ZFS on the horizon).

iTV could be a big deal depending on what is inside the package. I have spent a lot of time and money on my Windows Media Center so I don't know if I will be upgrading anytime soon, but if it comes with a Hard Disk and a free EPG then I can see Microsoft being booted out of my Living Room within the next 3-4 years.

Finally, iWork and iLife. I don't use iWork so I can't really comment on it - from what I've seen of it, it is a good package but I live in an MS Office-based world so I don't see my picking up a new suite any time soon (unless it has seemless integration with the new version of Office (think: new Office XML formats). In terms of iLife, I am waiting with baited breath for the new version of my favourite program, GarageBand. It would be very cool if we could be given time/key changes in the new version.

Anyway, the keynote starts in 2 hours, 2 minutes and 36 seconds (time courtesy of a dashboard widget another cultist put together :D) - we'll know the toys of tomorrow soon!

CSS Heaven on a Mac

First off, Happy New Year. I hope you had a great time at the holidays. This is just a quick blog to bring your attention to a cool little app I found in my travels. It is called 'Style Master' and it is a WYSIWYG CSS editor for the Mac and PC. It is available free for 30 days and then costs 60 bucks there after. If you work with CSS on a Mac, it's worth checking out - I found it made amending one of my CSS sheets a doodle.

The link is: http://www.westciv.com/style_master/index.html

Windows Vista: A Switcher's Perspective

Today Windows Vista has offically been released to the wild - or at least to businesses. This will be the first time that I witness the release of a new Windows Operating System without Windows being my primary, day-to-day OS and it has got me thinking.

I try my best not to be a Mac Zealot (although I'm sure that I am) - Windows did me well for many years but having seen the Mac way of living in the computing world - I'm not looking back.

I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 (Ultimate Edition) on one of my old desktops to get a taste for what was coming out of Redmond these days and found the experience a mixed bag. the first thing to strike me about the new Windows is that it is rather pretty - the transparencies look nice and the black coloured look and feel to the UI is far more stylish than the freaking TeleTubbie blue/green mess of Windows XP. However, this is nothing new - pretty transparencies are available in Linux distributions and, of course OS X.

Pretty pictures and colour schemes are worth nothing without an intuitive user interface. This is a difficult issue to be objective about - I've used Windows all my life and switched to using OS X as my primary OS earlier this year so I know how things work under XP and OSX. Any new OS takes a while to get used to (especially if you were adept at using the previous release). However, I can draw on my experience of how easy it was to switch from Windows XP to OS X. Switching to OS X was a doddle and, even fun, experience - it was cool to learn how Apple viewed the world. From the perspective of a OS X/Windows XP power user, I found found Vista a bit difficult. The paths of use that I am accustomed to with Windows XP are not there, but the OS is sufficiently similar for me to expect them to be. My absolute biggest gripe with the new UI is the lack of the 'List' view when looking at your filesystem - this alone is enough to put me off switching to Vista. I just don't understand why this has been removed (and if it exists in the newer releases, someone please tell me!).

Onto my next observation - Vista wants a lot of juice to run pretty. Fair enough, I was using the Ultimate Edition on a machine that is about 2 years old but the processing overhead needed to run these pretty transparencies is a bit of a joke. I can run Ubuntu on the same machine (with similar GUI prettys enabled) and the machine runs very fast. I just don't know where the extra processor power is going. Even my very old iMac G3 is able to handle most of OS X at a reasonable speed. I guess this could be due to my version being the Beta release but, having seen the system specs needed to run full Vista, I don't think that is the whole story.

I had some other teething problems but I put these down to the Beta nature of the release I was using - vista didn't recognise my Wireless Card. Also, the software Update feature had a tendency to bomb out. I can't really hold this against them though...unless I have the same problems on the production release.

The one thing I do still use Windows a lot for is as a living room PC - I think XP Media Center edition is a very tasty lil' program. However, I will not be upgrading my living room PC to Ultimate Vista for the simple reason that the new version of the Media Center software is not compatible with XP-based Media Center extenders. Having fought long and hard to get a U.S. Xbox and the U.S. Media Center software, I will not be decommissioning it to the bin for Vista. This does kinda grill me a bit, I can't believe that keeping a compatibility layer in Vista MCE could have been so difficult?

So, having played with Vista for a while, I guess my big question is - why should I upgrade? Besides the improved graphics, I couldn't see much here for me. Microsoft have touted security as being a good reason to switch but, when using my Mac, I've yet to encounter any security problems. Short of the pretty pictures, I don't see what is on offer (even to non-Mac users). Despite having taken 5 years to make, this seems more like a facelift rather than a new OS - it certainly not like the switch from 98 to XP (where MS-DOS was finally sent down stream) or the Apple switch from OS 9 to OS X. From what I can see,a similar comment can be made about OS X Leopard - there just doesn't appear to be that much new on offer. However, Leopard is going to be a darn sight cheaper than Vista and hasn't taken 5 years to make.

I have been quite hard on Vista - don't get me wrong, I don't think it is a step BACK from XP (an OS which I'm happy to work with) but it only seems to be a small shuffle forward...a small shuffle that will cost up to £224.99*

*price from amazon.co.uk

Using Apple X11 to access CDE/GNOME/KDE/etc. on a remote machine

I've been playing around with solaris servers in the office this last week and came up against a problem when I wanted to access one of our machines remotely. I installed Apple X11 onto my machine (see earlier posts) and was found myself with an Xterminal command line and the question: How do access my remote machine? I know nothing about Xterminals so the following info. maybe ovbious to a frequesnt *nix user but I didn't know what to do. After much digging on the internet I found the answer.

1)Open X11.app (in Applications/Utilities)
2) In the Xterminal command window that appears, type the following:

Xnest :1 -query (hostname/ip address)

So, for example:

Xnest :1 -query 192.168.0.37

i'm sure there are other ways of doing this that give you more options but this should definately get you started if you're having trouble getting it to work.

If you want to set up a shortcut to this command, go to 'Applications' in the X11 app and choose 'Customize...'. From here, you can add the command line to open any X11 application. A word of advice though, if your remote connection isn't working properly, open up an Xterm window and type the command direct into there rather than using an application shortcut. this is because when you run Xcommand from the Xterminal command line, the terminal command line window acts as a log so you can determine where your X11 is experiencing problems.

Installing a Media Wiki on Mac OS X Server (Panther)

I decided it would be cool to set up a Media Wiki (ala Wikipedia) for a project I'm involved in at work and set about installing it on my OS X Server. I tried installing version 1.8.2 only to find that the PHP it needs to run is version 5. Seeing as Panther is distributed with PHP4, I went on a long crusade to try and install the new PHP5 module into my OS X Server so I could run the new Wiki version.

My advice? Use an older version of the Wiki!

I went through hell and high water trying to install PHP5. An installer has been made to install PHP5 into standard OS X pain free. The URL is:

http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/

HOWEVER, I found that it didn't install happily on my Panther Server. I tried a whole host of other methods as well, spent a good 3 hours on it and then started fuming with defeat. I went back to the Media Wiki page and found that there is actually a relatively recent version of the Media Wiki that can be install pain free on a Panther OS X Server:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.6.8.tar.gz?download

Media Wiki 1.6.8 will install happily provided you've got your Web Server & MySQL server running (and have created a database & user for the Wiki to install into).

Installing Apple X11 from Tiger install disks

Simple thing but I found installing this little puppy a pain in the behind for 5 minutes. On the disks that came with my Macbook, the installer is contained in the package contents on disk 1. I found the installer by typing 'X11' into spotlight and it came up as 'X11user' in the applications section.

Dreamweaver for Mac won't allow 'Web Services' Components

Just a small annoyance - I recently installed Dreamweaver 8 on my MacBook only to find that it doesn't support Web Service-based components. The Windows version of the same software does, grrrrrrr. I have resolved this problem by installing Dreamweaver 8 (Windows Version) in my Parallels installation of Windows.

Mac OS X Server: Apache Web Service won't start

My Panther OS X Server-running iMac (long blog to come) was working wonderfully until I started playing around with the Aliases for my one and only site. After I did this, I noticed that it seemed to randomly create additional Aliases. I next noticed that my website was unavailable in Safari so I went back to the Server Admin app and found that the Apache Web Service wasn't running! I clicked 'Start Service' and it thought about for a moment and then simply brought up the 'Start Service' button again. I couldn't get my web server to run and I was starting to get a bit peeved. I rummaged the Internet and found someone suggesting that I try unchecking my website from the 'Sites' list in the Web Service config pane - I did this and tried loading the Web Service and it worked! Of course, with the website unchecked, it wasn't getting me very far in practical terms :) I chose to create a new site in the 'Sites' panel (with the same config as the old site, minus the Aliases) and clicked 'Start Webservice' - hey presto, I was back online!

FTP in Finder is Read-Only

Just a quick post. I've been battling with FTP via the Finder interface for the last 2 hours only to find that Finder will only ever be able to open FTP sites in Read-Only mode:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107415

There are FTP clients out there on the Mac, personally, I recommend Fetch

P.S. I am writing a long article on eresurrecting old G3 iMacs into servers...should be finished soon.

Changing MIDI transmission channels in Garageband

While I have focused this blog on using the Mac in the world of work, I thought I'd write a quick post on a problem I experienced (and was able to resolve) with Garageband. I write music and had a little ditty that I had started demoing in Garageband. I wanted to put some drums to the piece and thought that it would be nice to write the drum track in MIDI and then output it to a sound module once the drum part was written. I have a Roland TD-3 VDrum set which has some great built-in drum sounds so I wanted to use them in my recording but still have the freedom to edit the MIDI in Garageband. I recorded my drum part and then tried to play it back through the sound module. Nothing happened :(

I checked my setup and the MIDI out of the Mac was plugged into the MIDI in of the TD-3. I did a quick try in Logic Express (a more powerful tool but one I don't understand as well as Garageband... plus I don't have the universal binary for it) and it worked! Why then was there a problem?

The problem was due to the MIDI transmission. the TD-3 will ONLY receive MIDI sent to channel 10 (the traditional MIDI channel for drums). However, from reading on the internet, I discovered that Garageband (by default) transmits on Channel 1. I sighed and moped that I wouldn't be able to get the setup I wanted and then found a cool little plug-in for Garageband called 'midiO' by Retroware (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23227) that allows you to set MIDI transmission channels for MIDI tracks in Garageband. It isn't perfect but it's definitely worth investigating if this is a problem that you are encountering.

Accessing Databases on a Mac

One of the first tasks I faced when setting up a Mac in our workplace for the first time was to get it to access a number of Oracle 9i databases that we use. I investigated the Oracle website to find an official client and came away with my head spinning - they appeared to have one but it seemed incredibly complicated to set up and without a clean installer - I wasn't very impressed. My colleague suggested I try a DBMS called 'Aqua Data Studio' (www.aquafold.com) which is open source, available for a whole host of platforms and provides access to a variety of different databases.

I really can't say enough nice things about this program - plain and simple, it rocks. In a few minutes I had this guy's Mac accessing the Oracle databases. I was astounded by the number of databases you could interact with using Aqua. We use a home-grown test-case management system that we built in PostGres and I was able to get access to that easily as well. The program also has a lot of nice features like 'Pretty Printing' (Function-B) and excellent display options (Grids, Text Files - all of which can be exported to a variety of different file types). I was also very impressed with it's predictive code-writer.

My only complaints are that it is written in Java which means that it is a bit slow and it doesn't completely conform to the standard Apple interface (e.g. Preferences are under 'File' like in Windows rather than the title menu option) but these are small things that don't bother me much (My MacBook handles the performance issue pretty well)

All in all, I thoroughly suggest you check out Aqua - an essential for Mac users and a very nice option for Windows users as well.

XML Editing on a Mac

My job requires that I analyse and edit XML documents frequently. I thought I'd share a couple of things I've learnt about XML editing on the Mac.

1- Software: First thing is XML editing software. With my old VAIO, I would use XMLSpy Free Edition - a Windows only program that allows you to validate and 'pretty-print' XML among a whole host of other features for free. Unfortunately, I have not found an equivalent program for free on the Mac. However, I did find a good XML editor called 'oXygen' (http://www.oxygenxml.com/) which has a Mac port. Again, it allows validation and 'pretty-printing' but expires after about 14 days.

2- Browsers: To test the XML is create, I submit XML text to a website which then returns a response in an ASPX wrapper. I found that Apple Safari tends to reformat the ASPX response returned by then system so that I can't see the tags relating to the data in the response. As a result, I have found Apple Safari was not particularly good for my line of work and switched to using Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/) for my XML tasks.

Remote Desktop Connection for Macs

today I discovered a cool tool available from Microsoft. As 'The only Mac in the village' it is important that I can interact with Windows users and wondered if there was any way of me being bale to make a remote desktop connection to a Windows machine without going through Parallels (which, as cool as it is, does put a strain on system resources). I found that I can using a piece of software that is free on Microsoft's 'Mactopia' site:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

In 5 minutes, I was able to be maintaining the Windows server on the other side of the room. The only downside is that the colours are in a low resolution but it doesn't matter if it allows you the ability to make some important config change remotely.

Hats off to Microsoft on this one!