Mac OS X Lion

snowzone — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:19:29 +0000

So, i have Lion on my 17″ MacBook pro. It came pre-installed so i didn’t have the hassle of downloading and installing it. One thing i noticed was that there was no install disk in the box. I thought this meant that i was out of luck with that pre-lion install trick of saving the files from the lion.app directory.

Checking the little white manual that comes with the mbp and it say you can boot to an installation screen even if you can’t boot normally. Hopefully i’ll never have to do that (i keep both a time machine and superduper backups up to date. I’ll google around to see about the success people are having with it.) Although OS X is stable enough that i’ve never had boot problems in the three years i’ve been using a Mac.

Anyway, Lion. After watching that guy’s YouTube rant i thought i’d have some major productivity issues. Specifically with mission control and launchpad.

Launchpad. Yeah it’s iPad like but to me it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist on a mac. ie. launching applications. There’s already a few ways to native ways to launch apps on the Mac and a ton more for free or pay easily available. Having said that i find myself using it all the time. And to address that guys rant (re: alphabetical order) Just move the friggin’ icons around. it’s not rocket science you already do that on the iPad.

Mission Control. I admit i miss spaces the way it used to work. I had a space for the different workflows and used a program called “Docks” (which mostly works on Lion but seems to have disappeared from the weeb, so no Lion update from the googling i did) that let you assign a different dock for each space. For me mission control makes the process a little more freeform.

Oh, one more thing the scrolling reversal. Using the trackpad it’s fairly intuitive especially if you already use an iPad.

Use a mouse though and it’s mind numbingly stoopid [sic].

Tecnology on the road

snowzone — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:40:14 +0000

Took a trip to the east coast. Up here in the gwn that’s nova scotia, p.e.i, or newfoundland/labradour. I decided that the only technology i was going to take with me was my ipod touch. My phone is an iPhone so i had to take that anyway.

It really turned out to be a toss up between my 13″ MacBook pro and my iPad. Given the amount of space we had to work with for carry on luggage i opted for the two smaller devices and my Nikon D5000.

I used my iPhone the most though.

I bought the “trip journal” app for it to document my vacation. You can send updates to Facebook along the way. I could connect with facebook exactly once with it, so it was a waste of $0.99. The Facebook app on the iphone turned out to be a better way of documenting the trip.

Google server +1

snowzone — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:02:06 +0000

I guess I only had to wait a day or so for google to add another server just for me. Using google+ and liking it so far. Not sure using a clone of the Facebook interface is smart. Google could design a much better one.

Google runs out of servers

snowzone — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 23:40:15 +0000

I think I got my google+ invite. I think. When clicking on the link I got the dreaded “exceeded capacity” message from google.

Google.

Really?

Google+ scams

snowzone — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:25:54 +0000

So I decided to try for a google+ invite. Went to one site that said to post and ask for an invite and users on the site who have them will send you one. Seems to me I did this at the same website when I got my gmail invite. Couldn’t post. Page errored out. numerous times.

Some other page made you jump through hoops, ‘course they were just link bait. Thanks d-bags. I’ve already removed all the hoops. Feeping d-bags.

Postal strike

snowzone — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:09:40 +0000

We’re about to have a postal strike up here in the great white north. Apparently people working for then postal service haven’t figured out that you can’t ask for more ANYTHING, when the only way to pay for it is to raise the cost of your services. Services that people just aren’t using as often anymore.

iPad arrow keys

snowzone — Thu, 26 May 2011 22:31:39 +0000

For those of you missing arrow keys on your iPad check out the “Ext Keyboard” app or the iPad. Typing this using it now. It’s a separate app but a good solution until Steve jobs decides the iPad keyboard really does need them.

Opera mini

snowzone — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:39:17 +0000

Opera mini finally approved by apple. Opera submitted it ages ago.

And yes it’s better than safari, just like it is on the iPhone and Mac.

Long time, no post

snowzone — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:44:49 +0000

Ooh, didn’t think it had been that long since i’d posted.

As for Internet stupidity, here’s one for you: the vote on net neutrality.

Nobody’s really suprised at the outcome are they?

Activestate, tcl/tk, and snow leopard

snowzone — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:57:12 +0000

I was talking to another programmer last week about text editors for programming. I mentioned the sad state of editors for the Mac.

I’ve known about BBEdit for the Mac for ages and I was considering it when looking for a good text editor. Glad I didn’t. I ended up with Textmate but it falls short (more in a bit). I probably use vim more than Textmate.

I decided I want to give Tcl/Tk coding another shot on the Mac again.

First, time to hit the Activestate site again. ActiveTcl is the package to get (for windows or the Mac). Took way too many clicks to get it but that’s just poor website design.

Second, the part I was dreading. Finding a text editor that had at least syntax hilighting for Tcl/Tk and code folding. No Textmate bundle for the language and I didn’t really want to spend the time to create one (and I shouldn’t have to). I took another look at BBEdit but it didn’t what I needed either.

Back to the Activestate sit again because I know that they have an editor specifically geared for the language (and perl also). And the personal version is a great price, included a debugger also.

Much to my surprise they no longer have that version of Komodo. They now call it “Komodo Edit” and it’s free. They removed the debugger but not a big deal. I can always spend close to $300 to upgrade to “Komodo IDE”.

Anyway too many clicks later and I have that downloaded and installed.

Worth the time to download, it’s a really good editor for Tcl/Tk.

Now the part that really makes me grit my teeth. You cannot double-click on a Tcl/Tk script ie. a fully GUI script, to run it. WTF!?

I had to google to find out if/how it can be done. I think this something the ActiveTcl installer should have set up already. As I type this I still haven’t got it working yet.

Here we have a gui based os with probably the easiest language to write a GUI app in… and it can’t be done. What’s wrong with this picture?