Blog on Charlie's Server » Mac

WideMail for Snow Leopard, Finally

Hasan — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:16:06 +0000

Yes, Apple’s Mail finally looks like it should again now that Dane Harnett et al. have released a WideMail beta for Snow Leopard. So far, pretty stable for me. Go grab it.

SafariStand and Safari 4: Still Working!

Hasan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:21:32 +0000

I’m happy to report that in my short experience with Safari 4 (released as a public beta at time of writing), the tab sidebar at least seems to work beautifully still. ‘Top Sites’ tabs show a black thumbnail but everything else with regards to the tab sidebar seems to be in perfect working order.

Unfortunately, I have noticed that separator bookmarks (-:-) do not appear as menu item separators within the bookmark menu anymore. I have no doubt that this functionality will return soon in a future update.

iPatch and NuclearMouse Incompatible

Hasan — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:39:22 +0000

When trying to install some software updates deployed using iPatch, I found that the updater(s) would display their license/readme sheet and then exit as soon as the sheet was closed, presenting only for a second the usual ’select application’ dialog that we’re all used to. It turns out that NuclearMouse was to blame – as soon as I disabled it, iPatch applications worked again!

So, a hint to those with similar issues: disable (or uninstall) NuclearMouse before running iPatch update programs. To do so, simply drag the NuclearMouse.bundle out of your SIMBL plugins directory.

Update (2009.10.20): By popular request, I’ve uploaded a copy of NuclearMouse sent to me by Peter C. of Genie Logic. If the original author is out there and would like me to remove it, I will; until then, it will remain available here. Please note that it’s not compatible with 64-bit applications, so it’s pretty much useless to anyone with a modern mac on Mac OS 10.6 or later. Download NuclearMouse

SafariStand + Safari 3.0 Beta = Love? (Updated x 3)

Hasan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:32:05 +0000

Yup, SafariStand is (somewhat) compatible with Safari 3.0! But since there are tons of SafariStand features that I don’t use, your milage may vary. To be honest, the #1 reason I use SafariStand is for the tab sidebar, which works flawlessly save for the close buttons within. More importantly, SafariStand does not seem to impede upon any of Safari 3’s built-in features. A full detail of working and non-working portions of SafariStand follows.

Feature	Works	Notes/Exceptions
Sidebar		Tab close buttons do nothing.
Bookmark Menu Labels/Spacers		Instead of showing up as spacers or grayed labels, a ‘functional’ menu item is displayed, and when clicked, Safari attempts to open the -:- bogus URL.
Workspaces		Restoring workspaces causes Safari to crash. Other Workspace functionality causes sporadic crashes.
Stand Search
Site Alteration		Causes crashes, according to Mac OS X Hints.
Open '_blank' Links in New Tab		Links with the target attribute set to '_blank' do not open at all. Simply disable this feature to revert to normal behavior.

I will update this list with my continued findings throughout the near future. Feel free to leave comments below detailing your own experiences!

So Into Inquisitor

Hasan — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:40:17 +0000

I generally tend to stay away from buying software, but once in a while a truly amazing piece of software arises to break that trend. I recently decided to put in the cash for Inquisitor. A product of David Watanabe, Inquisitor is an excellent example of the spectacular quality of his software. Since I started using Inquisitor earlier on in its product cycle, I was instantly hooked. I find now that I use Inquisitor more than I use the address bar! Inquisitor was definitely worth my 5€. For any frequent user of Safari (or Camino), I strongly recommend checking it out.

Mail.app and Gentoo IMAPS Have Issues No More

Hasan — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:06:57 +0000

Looks like I’ve finally rooted out the cause of Gentoo’s IMAPS servers returning ‘SSL errors’ in Apple’s Mail.app. It turns out that the way I had configured Mail to check for new messages every minute was not so friendly to Gentoo’s IMAPS server. Increasing said configuration value to every five minutes seems to have fixed the problem.

This problem had been bugging me for a while. Generally, all that was needed to fix it was to force a new connection attempt, and everything would work for a few seconds afterwards. Oddly enough, none of the other IMAPS servers that I use had this problem (even though my own server uses the same courier-imap software as Gentoo’s).

Seems like everything is in working order now. I just thought I might get my ’solution’ up on the web for anyone else that’s having the same issue.

Slowly Securing the Legacy

Hasan — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 02:56:17 +0000

Our newest Gentoo for Mac OS X developer, Fabian Groffen, is finally official. Congratulations, Fabian! It looks like the Gentoo for Mac OS X project is finally starting to get some more ‘permanent’ members.

For those of you who aren’t up on all of the associated history, we had a flood of new developers as soon as an installer was released. This ended in pain, and most of the new developers left the project shortly afterwards. Since then, we’ve been very careful about the recruitment/selection process. We don’t want to repeat mistakes.

Although our recruitment process is slow and limited, we are indeed still recruiting. Lina and I know all too well that the Gentoo for Mac OS X project is in dire need of more (wo)manpower. There’s a large tree to tackle and only a few active developers.

Hopefully in the future we can do more than just limp along.

No Time for FlipCount

Hasan — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 04:34:35 +0000

There has been a whole lot of feedback about FlipCount recently. Sadly, I just haven’t had the time to get through all of it yet. What with summer school exams and labs and quizzes, and work deadlines and urgent bug fixes, on top of being home and doing (or avoiding) the whole family thing, I just haven’t been able to do all of the things that I want to do.

Nonetheless, I was able to get through some mail today.

I think the most demanding piece of backlogged mail [regarding FlipCount] was from Steve, my official alpha tester. I must apologize, to Steve and all the rest whom I haven’t gotten back to in a timely manner, for being so rude. You are not forgotten!

I had the pleasure of actually receiving a patch for FlipCount today. Okay, okay. It wasn’t a patch. A ‘David’ sent me a modified FlipCount bundle, based upon the current latest release. He said he’d wanted FlipCount to be able to count upwards from a given date, assuming the date has passed. He added a checkbox to the back of the widget, and provided for the functionality. The patch was simple and straightforward. I will provide said functionality in a FlipCount release in the near future.

In short, things are looking up for FlipCount. I plan to make a new release rather soon, including sound support and optimized animation algorithms. Stay tuned for more.

FlipCount Flipped Out

Hasan — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 04:49:07 +0000

I Spent some time today on one of my pet projects, FlipCount. Felt like I might reward myself since summer session 1 finals finished this afternoon, and kill an outstanding bug in the process. Mission: Accomplished.

All in all I think that the widget is doing fairly well for itself. Ratings sky-rocketed once I cleared out a major standing bug on it’s second release, 0.91b. I had almost 400 downloads just 10 hours after its announcement on DashboardWidgets.com, where it currently remains exclusively available.

After scratching my head for a bit at the following error, the cause finally hit me.

(event handler):Object (result of expression enterflip) does not allow calls. 2005-07-07 20:30:27.056 DashboardClient[22020] (com.no-ip.charlies-server.flipcount) file:///Users/gongloo/Library/Widgets/FlipCount.wdgt/FlipCount.html: Object (result of expression enterflip) does not allow calls. (line: 44) (event handler):Object (result of expression exitflip) does not allow calls. 2005-07-07 20:30:27.774 DashboardClient[22020] (com.no-ip.charlies-server.flipcount) file:///Users/gongloo/Library/Widgets/FlipCount.wdgt/FlipCount.html: Object (result of expression exitflip) does not allow calls. (line: 44)

I had simply forgotten to copy in the necessary enterflip() and exitflip() functions from sample widgets and reference. Bug exterminated.

Code commenting is always fun as well, and I was able to go though and do a bit of that to the FlipCount source. I’m currently in the alpha-test phase for the next version, 0.93b, which will feature per-instance preferences in addition to the aforementioned code commenting, and even some aesthetic bug fixes with the ‘i’ flip button. Basically, the major change is that multiple instances of FlipCount will be able to run simultaneously without overwriting each others’ preferences.

My official alpha tester, who goes by the alias ’sprindle’, has been most helpful and kind. We both have a good number of ideas for the coming versions of FlipCount; they will be revealed here during the development process in due time.

Gentoo for Mac OS X more Gentoo-like

Hasan — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:33:44 +0000

Joe Jezak has been putting in a great deal of work on sys-apps/coreutils-darwin and sys-apps/baselayout-darwin. With Kito’s advice and my pushes, shoves, and testing, we were able to put together a working coreutils package, as well as a preliminary baselayout. So far, the baselayout consists only of env.d stuff, but will grow with time. This is a great step forward for Gentoo for Mac OS X. Time for me to go celebrate in some more code.