Better Living Through Thinking

Installing X11 on Tiger

Wed, 14 Feb 2007

My new MacBook Pro didn't come with X11 pre-installed (it's probably not widely used), but I had a nearly impossible time trying to find out where X11 comes from.

There's a copy on Apple's website for Panther (10.3.x), but nothing for 10.4.x for download. The forums suggest that the package is found on the install DVDs, but I couldn't find it anywhere as a separate install (the archives seemed to indicate that you had to do a full installation again to get it, or at least a reboot, etc., which I ...

(read more...)

iTerm

Thu, 25 Jan 2007

<http://iterm.sourceforge.net/>

I've used iTerm for OS X for a couple of years (since 0.8.1). I tolerated iTerm's baroque UI because of its great terminal emulation, but today I decided to check for an upgrade.

Wow. 0.9.4 is a fantastic improvement over previous major revisions. Finally all of the UI looks like it actually belongs in an OS X application. Here's one of the preference tabs: ...

(read more...)

iMac Sleep Problems

Wed, 01 Mar 2006

My iMac began awaking just after I tell it to sleep (from the Apple menu or from the login window, etc.). This problem began after I installed the all-in-one HP printer software.

It appears that the HP software messes with the fax settings, even when I didn't ask it to do so.

The solution was simple:

...

(read more...)

osx2x - control a remote X server from OS X

Thu, 12 Jan 2006

I use a FreeBSD 5 desktop at work next to my Powerbook (running OS X). Sometimes I wanted to share something between the two computers, but was limited to saving whatever it was as a file and scp'ing the file to and fro. Yuk.

Anyway, I finally stopped being lazy and started looking for what I knew had to be out there: a way to share a mouse and keyboard between OS X and a normal X installation.

...

(read more...)

Printing to a Windows 98 Shared Printer

Mon, 02 Jan 2006

After upgrading to Tiger, my shared Windows 98 printer disappeared. Today I buckled down to see where it had gone. It turns out there were a few factors that needed adjustment.

* I had changed my Windows workgroup name from 'Workgroup' to
  'House'.

In order for the Samba browser to find it, I needed to change my default workgroup: ...

(read more...)

Handbrake Overhead

Fri, 16 Dec 2005

*updated*

Originally posted: Jul 24 20:58:10 2005

I'm encoding a 2:08:42 DVD using Handbrake 0.7.0-beta3. Once it completes on the task bar (reaches 100%), it takes an additional 50 minutes to finish writing parts of the file. I thought it was hanging when I first did a long DVD, but it just needs time to write the rest of the file I guess. ...

(read more...)

Mail Problems in OSX

Wed, 07 Sep 2005

Once I needed an email to go out immediately, but I wasn't connected to the Internet. The OSX (Panther) mail queue happily accepted the mail, but didn't really send it.

I reconnected but couldn't figure out how to flush the queue (or how often postfix tries. I've since learned that you can send another mail and it will flush, or reboot the system).

These commands should be run as 'root': ...

(read more...)

Importing vCalendar announcements from Outlook

Tue, 22 Mar 2005

I just received my third announcement/meeting request from an Outlook use (the first two I just deleted because I didn't know what to do with them).

I bounce the mail where I could fetch it with my Powerbook (running mutt). I saved the attachment, and after a little trial and error, determined that naming it .ics, iCal would open it happily and import it. Strangely, iCal would not open the same file with any other extension.