BeatnikPad

He has his mother's sense of humour

Me: Hey, let’s get a card for mommy.
The Boy: Sure!
Me: Okay, you pick one.
The Boy: (grabbing a card) Daddy, this one!
Me: ….

Alec is indoctrinated into the murky world of merchandising

(4265 KB)
Watch on posterous

He (okay, we) love Yo Gabba Gabba, but the massive Toys R Us shelf of assorted YGG crap was still unnerving. The hug was cute, though.

Activate Mac OS X's Terminal using a keyboard shortcut

Word on the street is that those little hacky but oh-so-useful tidbits known as InputManagers do not work in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”). Apple has been threatening to remove support for these since Mac OS X 10.5 was announced so it’s no surprise that this day may have finally come.

Unfortunately, if this is true it means the death of a lot of really useful add-ons, such as Ecamm’s iSight plugin iGlasses, hetima’s insanely useful Safari enhancement SafariStand, and Mike Solomon’s application patching mechanism SIMBL (which in itself allows developers to “hijack” applications to add more functionality as a kind of hack-enabler).

A SIMBL plugin I use all the time is Visor, developed by Nicholas Jitkoff. Visor patches Apple’s Terminal to make it available system-wide via a hotkey (ala Quake’s console window). With Visor, you hit a pre-determined keyboard shortcut and voila, a Terminal window slides into view.

I use the shit out of this all the time, and if Mac OS X 10.6 truly does kill InputManager support my muscle memory will be downright achy-breaky. So I set out to roughly duplicate this functionality using a method that should continue to work in future OS updates.

Luckily, Applescript seems to be a usable solution, albeit just slightly less responsive than Visor was (and without the slick “slide out” effect). That said, this script still works well enough for my purposes and may fit your workflow as well.

Download the Open Terminal Window script (posted June 9, 2009, version 1.0)

Download the disk image from the link above and mount it.
Move the resulting Open Terminal Window.scpt file into your home library’s Scripts folder (/Users/username/Library/Scripts/). There’s a shortcut in the disk image that should work.
Now we need some freeware assistance to assign a keyboard shortcut to run the script. Download Red Sweater’s free Fastscripts Lite application (direct download link), mount the disk image, and copy the FastScripts Lite application into your applications folder.
Launch the FastScripts Lite application. It’ll appear in your menu bar (the icon looks like a scroll). Click on the FastScripts Lite icon and select Preferences from the FastScripts Lite submenu:
Select the Script Shortcuts tab and double-click the (None) text beside the Open Terminal Window.scpt item. Now you can set a quick key that will run this script. I use control+option+command+0 (zero).
That’s it! Now you can close the FastScripts Lite window and try out your quick key. Assuming you didn’t choose one that conflicts with an existing system-wide keyboard short cut you should see the Terminal application launch and a new window activate. You also will probably want to add FastScripts Lite to your startup items so it launches when you log in.

This script should be smart enough to detect if there is a Terminal window currently open and will reuse it if the window isn’t busy doing something (running top, viewing a man page, etc.). If the current window is busy, the script will open a new tab.

I haven’t tested this that much but it works perfectly for me. Leave feedback in the comments if you run into issues, or if it’s working for you.

Firefox 3.0.8 optimized build for Mac Intel

The eighth Firefox 3 security / maintenance release is now available and I have an optimized build available for Intel macs.

Check out the official Mozilla Firefox web site to see what’s new in Firefox 3.0.8.

G4/G5 macfolk: At the moment I do not have reliable access to G4 or G5 machines to do builds, so I’m at least temporarily discontinuing builds for these two CPUs. I don’t want to leave old, insecure versions up for download and at the same time I don’t want to have such long periods between updates, so discontinuing them seems like the best option at the moment. I do plan to post comprehensive “how to build” steps, but for now the Mozilla developer centre simple build instructions are pretty good place to start. Also check this post’s comments for other optimized build sources.

Downloads and caveats

Confused why this download is called “Minefield” and has a different icon? See below.

If you really aren’t a big fan of the new redesigned theme, I highly recommend aronnax’s lovely GrApple Firefox themes which basically make Firefox look a heck of a lot like Safari. Not a bad thing in my book, but your mileage may vary.

Without further ado:

Download Minefield (Firefox) 3.0.8 for Intel

»Mirror » Mirror

Totally not required, but if you feel like donating to help with bandwidth costs, etc., I’d be most grateful. Any excess money raised will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders). Thanks!

What the hell is Minefield?

So for those of you who have followed my Firefox builds, you all know the drill - those builds used the Mozilla development codename “BonEcho” because it was against the Firefox trademark to distribute non-official builds using that name or icon. With Firefox 3 the development name has changed from BonEcho to Minefield, so all of the Firefox 3 builds available from this site will be called that instead of Firefox.

As for the icon, in the past I either used the default development icon (the blue earth) or a slightly tweaked version. Minefield’s development icon changed, though, and it’s just… grotesque. Sorry, I can’t mince words here - basically someone took the blue earth icon from BonEcho and tacked on a fuse to it. Get it? Minefield? Bomb? Ahem.

With these builds I’ve reverted back to the blue globe icon instead of using the default development icon, partially for consistency’s sake, and partially because it’s still a heck of a lot better than the bomb icon.

Moving forward there will no longer be more Firefox 2.x builds - as far as I’m concerned it’s obsolete and in the past. That said, I am still chipping away at complete instructions on how to build your own optimized Firefox builds from the comfort of your own home; watch for those in the coming weeks.

As usual, please post feedback and other effluvia in the comments. Enjoy, folks!

Block Retweets in Twitterrific (and Twitter in general)

Here’s the thing: for the most part I really enjoy and get a lot of personal value out of Twitter. But besides the annoying (but easily ignored) infiltration of Twitter by the PR/marketing webcockerati the one thing that’s harder to ignore is the “retweet”.

Retweeting (or simply “RT”) is when someone reposts someone else’s tweet. It’s really that simple. And it drives me nuts, for a few reasons:

Chances are if I was interested in the person being retweeted I probably follow them already, so the retweet just ends up being duplication and noise.
If there’s something Big and Momentous going on (see: sporting events, political brouhahas, Apple announcements, etc.), many people often retweet the same tweet, which is like #1 but even more annoying.
Many retweets often consist of links to “cool stuff”. For the most part I’m not really that interested as I already have enough sources for cool links (delicious, digg, my newsreader, Tumblr, etc.), and the value of Twitter for me is more in stalking staying in touch with friends than in any so-called “viral messaging”.
I just gave myself gas typing those two words. The things I do for this web site.
If you absolutely had to retweet something, common courtesy would be to link to that person’s tweet rather than regurgitate the text wholesale. The same courtesy already exists for weblogs, so why not microblogs like Twitter?

So, fuck ‘em. For those of you who use Twitterrific, here’s a little application that sets up retweet blocking.

Download the Block Retweets application (posted March 14, 2009, version 1.1)

(Looking for the source code? It’s available from the project page on Github.)

Instructions on how to use this and how it works are included, but don’t worry: this is completely safe and 100% reversible. Basically, download, decompress, run, click “Block”, and enjoy your retweet-free Twitterrific.

How do I block retweets on the Twitter web site?

For those of you using the Twitter web site with Firefox or Safari there’s still hope. With the Firefox Greasemonkey add-on or the GreaseKit plugin (which works in Safari, OmniWeb, Fluid, or any other WebKit-based browser) you can block retweets with “beejaminBoy’s” No Retweets userscript. I just installed it and it’s working for me, but I didn’t write this so your mileage may vary.

IR_Black theme for Espresso

Just because I have so much extra time I don’t know what to do with myself (ahem), here’s a version of Todd Werth’s TextMate theme IR_Black for MacRabbit’s new all-in-one (and as of this moment still in public beta) web development editor Espresso. For those of you who haven’t seen what IR_Black looks like, here’s a screenshot:

To install the theme, download the file below, decompress the zip file, and copy the IR_Black.css file to /Users/Your Username/Library/Application Support/Espresso/Themes

Download the IR_Black theme for Espresso (posted March 14, 2009)

Those of you using The Other Mac OS X All-In-One Web Development Editor (Panic’s Coda) aren’t left out of the dark theme er, party either: check out my version of IR_Black for Coda.

Feel like editing these themes? Head on over to the Github public repositories and go nuts:

The tear-inducing irony in all of this is I’m still mostly a TextMate man. I really need better hobbies.

Things I will not miss at all come this Saturday

…when I finally complete nine months of slowly coming off a very high, prolonged dosage of prednisone, which was prescribed to beat down sarcoidosis, which was diagnosed back in 2001 and decided to come out of remission and kick the mother-trucking shit out of my kidneys last summer:

Feeling completely and utterly exhausted nearly all the time, contrasted with…
… bursts of manic energy that seemingly came out of nowhere, most often in the middle of the night, resulting in hour upon hour doing something completely ridiculous like organizing my CD collection based on genre, in alphabetical order by composer, by the colour of the spine, etc.
Dealing with the jaunty show tune called “systemic fat redistribution”, where all of the fat from all over my body decide to migrate to and hold some kind of lipids-only Burning Man in my stomach region
Massive, uncontrollable mood swings that would last for hours, which would find me one moment sitting at my desk feeling like I just swallowed a dozen “I’m so freaking happy” pills, the next hiding in a washroom stall bawling my eyes out for absolutely no reason whatsoever, the next utterly depressed and despondent, then OMG I’M SO HAPPY again, etc.
Prolonged, intense crankiness and anger, probably caused in part by the above and by insomnia that would last for days
Not feeling in control of myself whatsoever, and isolating myself from others to avoid unleashing a mood on an innocent bystander
Being on a sodium-free, fat-free, seemingly flavour-free diet to stave off prednisone’s legendary ability to cause shocking weight gain (successful, thank jersey)
Gut issues. The less said, the better.
A skin complexion that looked like I had been dropped in a deep fryer filled with five-week old lard
Countless visits to multiple doctors, tests out the wazoo (thankfully not IN the wazoo), enduring the WTF experience of being dipped into an MRI machine and massive complications from a seemingly botched biopsy, etc.
Subjecting my family to all of the above

Things that this experience makes me thankful for:

Getting sick finally got me off my ass and exercising (again, to try and prevent major weight gain)
Learning to eat healthy, and actually starting to enjoy aspects of the ascetic diet
Having the love and seemingly endless patience of a damn fine woman who was on the receiving end of much of the crankiness and mood swings and frothing at the mouth
For the most part avoiding most of the worst side effects of prednisone (especially the weight gain, and the infamous moon face, cf. Jerry Lewis)

It’s been a rough nine months, but so far (crosses fingers, toes, antenna) it looks like my sarcoidosis is in remission again, which is probably the thing I’m the most thankful for at the moment. The crankiness and moodiness is starting to (finally) abate, and I’m slowly starting to feel like myself again. More importantly, I’m starting to feel like I’m in control of myself again, both physically and emotionally, which feels like, no shit, a kind of freedom.

I look forward to eating potato chips again, socializing with other human beings like a regular, non-sociopathic person does, and treating my family to extended periods of me being happy.

How to run Safari 4 beta and Safari 3 on the same mac

Apple dropped the first public beta release of Safari 4 today, and installing it overwrites the old version of Safari as well as the system Webkit frameworks. This means it’s not possible to run the current Safari 3 release and the beta on the same system. That is, not possible without some fiddling.

Here’s a quick how-to get both Safari 3 and 4 beta running on the same system. You will need to use the terminal for part of this, and we will download an older copy of Webkit, which is Apple’s development builds of Safari.

(It’s a bit confusing, but there are Webkit frameworks, which Safari uses to render web pages, and a Webkit application, which is what Apple uses to test development versions of the Webkit frameworks.)

I am not responsible if this blows up your computer, causes your pants to spontaneously fall to your ankles causing you to flash your junk to the world, provokes fire to shoot out of your fingertips, etc.. Caveat nerd!

Download and install the Safari 4 beta. You’ll need to reboot after the install because of the system framework changes.
After rebooting, rename the new Safari.app in your Applications folder to Safari4.app.
Download the Webkit build from 11/22/2008.
Safari 3.2.1 was released on 11/24/2008 so I’m guessing this build is very close to that version.
Mount the Webkit disk image and copy the Webkit.app application to your desktop.
Rename Webkit.app to Safari3.app and move it to your Applications folder. In your Applications folder you should now have Safari3.app and Safari4.app.
The Safari 4 installer backs up the previous version as an invisible file located at /Library/Application Support/Apple/.Safari4PreviewArchive.tar.gz. We need the original Safari.app bundle as the old version of Webkit we downloaded will not work with the new Safari 4 bundle.
Launch the terminal and change directories:
cd "/Library/Application Support/Apple/"
Expand the backed up archive: tar -zxvf .Safari4PreviewArchive.tar.gz. This creates a few new folders in the current directory: Applications, System, and usr.
You can now copy the old Safari.app which is now available the the newly created Applications folder to the top-level /Applications folder. You can either use the terminal (running the command cp -R "/Library/Application Support/Apple/Applications/Safari.app" /Applications/) or by navigating to Library » Application Support » Apple » Applications in the Finder and copying the Safari application bundle that way.

After all of this, you should have Safari.app, Safari3.app, and Safari4.app in your top-level Applications folder. To run the Safari 4 beta launch Safari4.app, and to run the original Safari 3 launch Safari3.app. You may be able to run Safari.app as well (I was able to launch it and it identifies itself as Safari 3.2.1) but I wouldn’t recommend this as it uses the system webkit frameworks, which were replaced when Safari 4 was installed.

Les petites obsessions

Diced oranges, apples, and yogurt with a touch of brown sugar. Listening to my son say the words “octopus”, “worm”, and “geek”. The Planet Money podcast. Ginger snap cookies. The Minimalist. Learning how to be a good Mozillian. Eye magazine. Planning stuff with the Wishingline crew and James. The loud whooshing sound that the air makes as the east/west trains pull into Keele station. Radio Lab. Feeling healthy. Hanging out in IRC with my Canadian Mozilla peeps. Having dreams about places with exotic names like Gaborone, Maseru, and Kigali. This American Life. The Flip Mino HD. Wholphin. Learning JQuery (and actually feeling like I know what I doing). Pondering the (lack of) cartography of the PATH. Allowing my productivity to be interrupted by fiddling with Things / The Hit List / Remember The Milk and many others. Politician hair helmets. Reminding myself daily that whereever I go, there I am.

This is what happens when you work with people who "get the web": they meme you.

You would think that having to listen to me talk on and on and ON all day in IRC (mostly about lame trivia involving, well, me) would be enough, but no, not for my co-worker robcee. He’s gone and infected memed me.

The Rules

Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged.

I thought long and hard about writing 7 incredibly uncomfortable things you didn’t want to know about me so I’d stop getting these memed memes (like how I was the photographer behind that GOATSE photo; really, that guy is just so misunderstood) but I actually quite enjoy my job and working with these people so…

Seven things you probably don’t know about me (but might, if you’ve read this web site at all in the past nine years)

I don’t drive. I don’t even possess or have ever had a full driver’s license. There’s a lot of good reasons for this lost in the fog of a vicious Fabergé egg habit and too many drags off of the nitrous oxide hookah in high school, but the main chestnut is this: I hate the person I become when I drive, and instead of dealing with that issue, I’ve just eschewed driving altogether. Win-win, for the most part.
I used to think I was the oldest person I knew who had never gotten their driver’s license until I met James, who I will most definitely meme when this is all said and done so we can hear about that unfortunate teabag incident of ‘01. Er, maybe.
I have no schoolin’. I tried a number of times but I failed university. I first tried sciences and spent most of that time sitting in the campus radio station smoking and drinking coffee. Later attempts at English and Film studies were crushed by a massive disagreement with a professor on the merits of Michael Douglas’ Falling Down (aka “Huge Steaming Pile of Shit”). Consequently, I have no degrees to speak of, except for a trades diploma in “Automation and Robotic Technology” that I used one in 1988 and then have never thought about since.
This is a source of vague discomfort as I am constantly surrounded by incredibly smart, learned people, but I’ve cultivated an impressive ability to fling bullshit, so I’ve learned to manage.
I still can’t believe I make my living with a computer. From 1989 until approximately 1999 I didn’t touch, think about, or interact with computers except a few times as a glorified typewriter. Considering my dad introduced me to electronics when I was 10 (thanks to Heathkit and my dad’s indulgent purchase of an Apple II+ in 1980) one would think a career in computers was completely obvious. But it wasn’t until I was unemployed and on the dole that getting retrained for this new world wide web thing seemed to be a no brainer.
Some days I wake up and wish I was out working on a farm growing lima beans and actually doing something of tangible value, but then I drink a coffee and the moment passes.
I have had way too many jobs. I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of this, but since my first job (Smitty’s Pancake House at 15) I’ve had at least 40 jobs, and at least five distinct careers. The reasons for this are many, but ultimately it comes down to a lack of direction, a number of years supplementing an attempt to make a living from music (and almost doing it, for a while), and some borderline ADD. There’s a small sampling of the jobs I’ve had on the FAQ page, if you’re curious.
As for what I’ve learned from a lifetime of job jumping, I could say that this school of life experience might make up for my lack of education (see #2 above). But really, I’m just kidding myself, right?
I still know how to play Journey’s Open Arms on the piano. Like any good Chinese boy, I took piano lessons for many years in an ultimately futile attempt to become a concert pianist and make my parents proud. One of my teachers thought I should have some more “modern” pieces in my repertoire, and after a trip down to JJH Maclean’s in Winnipeg I had a songbook chock full of modern classics.
Some other pieces from this era that I learned includes the Hill Street Blues theme, The Stray Cat Strut, Hargood Hardy’s The Homecoming, and most embarrassingly, the theme from Joanie loves Chachi.
Hairfarmer! During my time as a musician in a dark and confusing period known as “The Mullet Years” I used to have hair 3/4 of the way down my back. I mistakenly thought this would make me seem cooler and more intensely sexual but it mostly ended up with me being called “ma’am” a lot and having to spend 45 minutes washing and drying my hair in the morning. After the umpteenth time hearing someone exclaim, “holy shit, you’re one of the guys from Death Angel!” I cut it all off and started dying it instead.
I then spent a few years enduring, “hey, you’re James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins!” You can’t win.
For me, the smell of popcorn is like getting my nose stuck between the buttocks of a gassy senior citizen. One of my many jobs was working as a movie critic / entertainment writer, and having to see 1-3 movies a week, every week for around 3 years turned the smell of popcorn from the innocent, er, scent that it is for most to one of pure aromatic agony. Now whenever I smell popcorn all I can think about is trying to put as much distance between my nose and its airborne molecules as quickly as possible.
Obviously I’ve learned to deal with this or I’d never see a movie in the theatres again, but it’s high up on my cringe list. Because hey, when you smell something you’re basically tasting it. Think about that the next time you use a public washroom.

Spreading the STD (“socially transmitted disease”)

As for whom I’m going to infect with this meme, here are the lucky contestants:

The aforementioned James, grand-pooh-bah behind the Supernerds Local 154 and fellow SXSW veteran.
Gord, the interweb’s master of ceremonies and Toronto’s first living pop culturist.
Scott, he of the fine facial hair and wicked design sense.
Lana, who recently had her first child and has an excuse if she doesn’t get to this quickly.
Magda, who can dish advice like there’s no tomorrow, but can she meme it up equally as well?
ChrisP, my man in Winnipeg. Three-plus years since he last posted anything writerish is just too damn long.
Renée, because four years is even longer, and because she needs a kick in the ass to start writing again.