protagonist

Fever Share to Pinboard

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:11:45 +0000

With the shutdown of Google Reader, I've been making the switch to Fever as an alternative RSS backend. Fever has some handy sharing features, but doesn't have Pinboard built in. But it's pretty simple to add via Pinboard's API.

First, you will need your Pinboard API token. You can find this at here where it says API Token. It will look something like username:9A999999A99A9, where username is your Pinboard username.

Second, pop over to your Fever install and press the 'p' key for preferences, then click on the 'Sharing' tab. You can then either replace the Delicious entry or create a new key with this Service url:

https://api.pinboard.in/v1/posts/add?auth_token=username:9A999999A99A9&url=%u&description=%t&tags=from_fever

And remember to replace the 'username:9A999999A99A9' with your real Pinboard user token. This string also adds the tag 'from_fever' which you could also replace with something else. Now whenever you're reading something you want to share to Pinboard, it's just a keystroke away.

osx server mountain lion VPN and SSH

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 04:06:26 +0000

I've been making the upgrade to Mountain Lion server after getting one of the new shiny Mac Mini computers and ran across a couple of oddities to share:

VPN

When working on setting up the Mountain Lion VPN Service, I ran across a curious problem: I could connect fine with another OS X machine but not with iOS. The iOS device failed with the error:

os x server vpn authentication failed

If you see this error, check to see whether your shared secret has a double quote (") symbol in it. I know it sounds strange but removing that symbol makes iOS VPN usage work straight away. Odd, huh?

Passwordless SSH

By default, the ssh daemon on OS X Server looks for your public key in

.ssh/authorized_keys

not

.ssh/authorized_keys2

So there you go - a couple of little irritations gone away.

greylisting server private policy error

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:01:56 +0000

I run OSX Server on a mac mini and was perusing /var/log/system.log and saw this odd error:

warning: problem talking to server private/policy: Undefined error: 0

postfix/spawn[10254]: warning: command /usr/bin/perl killed by signal 10

Just in case anyone else runs into this problem, I thought a little post here might save someone time. After some hunting around it turns out to be a corruption problem in the greylisting database. The private/policy is the call from the postfix main.cf to the greylisting script.

The fix is quite simple once you've tracked down the problem. First, turn off the mail service in Server app then open up a terminal window and type:

sudo rm /library/server/mail/data/mta/greylist.db

sudo rm /library/server/mail/data/mta/whitelist.db

And finally restart your mail service. The two files you just deleted store information for the greylist service and are recreated when not present. Now you shouldn't have all those errors in your log files and greylisting should be happy again.

tubul a static blogging system

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:53:01 +0000

All the cool kids are doing it so I thought, why not? I have been happily using WordPress for a couple of years and have no problem with it. However, I like building my own tools and in this case, my own printing press.

There is a growing trend in static systems. Static has many advantages: easy to deploy, low server requirements and working with plain text files.

This post shows the first very early version of Tubul (0.1) with basic functionality in place. At the moment, Tubul can create multiple content types (blog posts, pages and nested pages) and automatically deploy them in relation to the template structure. In the future, tagging will be added. And of course, much refactoring and some error checking - of which there is currently none - so I better not make any mistakes!

To find out more information, the project page is currently located here: Tubul

osx lion samba and windows file sharing problems

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:30:17 +0000

lion no longer has samba. the pain, the pain. due to the samba group switching to gplv3 apple now has their own windows file sharing technology. unfortunately it doesn't seem quite there yet. but thanks to the joys of open source, it's quite easy to install it yourself. here is a little recipe for completing such a task. i have tested this to stream video files to a windows 7 based pc and to a wdtv live box. this comes mostly from the nice chaps at the boxee forums and requires you to be quite happy at the command line.

turn off windows file sharing in osx -
- system preferences/sharing/file sharing/options
turn off netbios in osx -
- sudo launchctl stop com.apple.netbiosd
- sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.netbiosd.plist
using macports install samba -
- sudo port install samba3
create and edit smb.conf -
- either copy the example file (/opt/local/etc/samba3/smb.conf.sample) or use this one.
- you will need to change the netbios name, what you want the share called and the path. this is noted in the comments
create the two plists to automatically load at start up. when in position, check ownership is set to root:wheel
- org.samba.smbd.plist should be put in /Library/LaunchDaemons
- org.samba.nmbd.plist should be put in /Library/LaunchDaemons
- sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.samba.smbd.plist
- sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.samba.nmbd.plist

hope that helps someone out there

a tale of two customer support instances drobo vs amazon

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:07:59 +0000

After hearing tales of RAID without the hassle on the Twit network, and the ever increasing need for large amounts of storage, I happily plumped down my credit card and took receipt of a shiny new Drobo S. I push in some drives, formatted and away I went in redundant storage happiness.

Four happy months go by.

Then one day, I wake up to a dead Drobo. Stuck in what is colloquially know as a 'reboot loop'. After panicking a little, then remembering I had all the data backed up, I started hunting through the Drobo forums looking for a solution. No joy. I contacted customer support - 12 hours later I get a form letter telling me to stick a paper clip in the back of the Drobo in order to generate a system diagnostic. After submitting this diagnostic, 7 hours later I am told that the Drobo is formatted incorrectly. This is after I had of course used the Drobo software to format it. I am now to remove all the data and reformat. I start this process, however the Drobo fails and goes into 'reboot loop' again. I resuscitate the Drobo and take another diagnostic and submit this. I am then told:

Drobo is bad also

Joy. I am then passed on to another support person to deal with returning the unit. It is at this point that things really take an interesting turn. I am told that due to my unit being four months old I either need to pay to return their faulty unit to Germany (I am in the UK and the unit was purchased in the UK) or to purchase their DroboCare support package which costs 100 pounds. Let me get this right, your product failed and this is the moment you try and upsell me? Interesting strategy.

The process from Drobo failing to being given RMA information took 96 hours. And at no point did Datarobotics apologise for the early failure of their product.

Data storage, particularly one which is built upon redundancy and security, is all about trust. If you don't trust the company, you don't trust the product and will look elsewhere. A product failure, which is inevitable in computer technology when one is cranking out thousands of units, is a fantastic opportunity to build a stronger bond with your customer. Let's take a look at how Amazon faired.

As I was getting a little desperate at this point, I tried Amazon support. In my support email I detailed that I had contacted Drobo customer support and that they had identified a faulty unit. Less than one hour after sending my support request amazon took two very important steps:

Amazon apologised - even though they didn't make the product
Amazon shipped me a new unit and even upgraded me to expedited shipping

I now have my new Drobo unit and it's working great.

Lessons that DataRobotics could learn: * Apologise for your product failing * Do not take a product failure as an opportunity to upsell your customer * If your product is less than a year old, fix it * Hire more support people to reduce your support wait time

What Amazon taught me: Always use Amazon

In an online consumer shopping world, the only factor a retailer really has is customer service. I was already a devoted Amazon customer. With this incident, where Amazon went above and beyond I have been motivated to document the stark difference between Amazon support and DataRobotics. Drobo is promising product, on the assumption it doesn't fail again, now if only DataRobotics could put some revitalised effort into their customer service, imagine what a difference that could make.

gpg snow leopard mail happiness

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:37:33 +0000

a new operating system, new requirements for encryption. so you have snow leopard and you still want your gpg goodness. it's pretty easy - and you only need three bits of software. download these three things:

install macgpg - this is the backend framework for all your gpg action. now if you've already created your gpg keys you don't need GPG Keychain - you can check by looking for your .gpugpg folder in your home directory. if you don't have that, run GPG Keychain and it will prompt you to create your public private pair. make sure you pick a good strong password. you can always use gibson's password generator.

you're almost there, now you just need the mail plugin, that was your third download. just drop that in ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ and you should be good to go. if you never activated plugins for mail before you need to active that - you can use the terminal or just use the Secrets application. restart mail and you're done.

for extra geek points you can import new keys by:

> gpg --import friends_key.gpg

isn't encryption the greatest?

applescript from the keyboard

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:48:17 +0000

matthew asked:

"I really like NNWInstaPost - two great tastes, how do i add a keyboard shortcut?"

well there are a couple of ways. the one i like best is with an application called Spark. there is a nice write up on how to do this on Daniel Schneller's blog

the other method is via system preferences keyboard settings. a write up on this can be found at Doug's AppleScripts great site.

hope that helps matthew

english spelling and osx

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:13:14 +0000

how irritating - osx insists that american spelling is best. we can prevail. this all came to light in pages (iwork) insisting that color was the correct spelling of colour. wrong, wrong, wrong.

easy fix:

system preferences
international
language
edit list
check the british english option
click ok
drag the british english right to the top (where it should be obviously ;)

now when you next start apps, english (not american english) will be the default.

phew.

taildash 16

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:48:23 +0000

another day, another bit of software. finally tailDash has proper leopard support. plus the main feature requests i get for tailDash are more customisation features and they all tend to be different. i guess with this kind of tool everybody's opinion is likely to be different :)

so in this release, pretty much everything is configurable from a settings file. all conveniently stored in JSON format for quick and easy editing pleasure. other highlights include:

all settings are dynamically loaded from an external file (JSON structured data)
complete flexibility for arbitrary number of log files, colours, fonts etc...
leopard improvements
can now read xml files
supports multiple instances

go grab it while it's hot:

download tailDash

nnwinstapost follow up

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:48:26 +0000

Hmmmm couple of people have reported a strange path issue with NNWInstaPost. So here is version 1.01 that seems to be helping that odd issue. Do let me know if that's still not working

NNWInstaPost version 1.01

Update: So that seems to have fixed things for people with the issue. It appeared to be some odd caching issue that I can't consistently repeat - you know, the kind of bug that is very irritating ;)

Thanks to: Michael L, Arthur M, Woody G, Andrew J, Matthew D, Joshua B, Rich M and others for their help tracking this one down.

nnwinstapost

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:55:34 +0000

Gosh, a new blog post, will wonders never cease?

I've been getting into Instapaper and just had to add NetNewsWire support to it:

NNWInstaPost

NNWInstaPost looks at what you are reading in NetNewsWire whether in the regular or tab view, sorts out your username/password stuff so you don't have to worry, and does a Growl post when it's all over. Nice and easy. You could even trigger NNWInstaPost from a keyboard shortcut if you were feeling very brave

Go check it out if you are into that sort of thing - it makes my life much easier

iphone fuzzygrainy images on 3g o2 uk

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:31:24 +0000

got an iphone and are using O2 in the UK? irritated by the fact that images look overly compressed and grainy? easy fix:

settings -> general -> network -> cellular data network
change: vertigo
to: bypass

as the username and full images will be restored. you may have to switch to flight mode and back (or power cycle if you are so inclined)

engadget autorefresh macworld hack

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:46:03 +0000

happy keynote day. we love the engadget content, hate having to refresh the page all the time. so, simple hack to get around that - embed with an autorefresh.

save out this code, put it in a text file and load it in a webbrowser. simple. enjoy. <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60"> <title>engadget apple keynote coverage 2008</title> </meta></head> <body> <frameset> <frame src="http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/live-from-macworld-2008-steve-jobs-keynote/"> </frame></frameset> </body> </html>

leopard and mail bundles quickie

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:12:36 +0000

just a quickie for all those in leopard land (grrrrrrrroooowwwwwlllll) - you will have discovered that all your nice plugins for mail.app (gpg, mail act on etc) dunna work captain. however, this little terminal hack will enable them. (make sure to quit mail first)

defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles 1
defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion 3

that was all

window size follow up

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:30:08 +0000

so inspired was i by hacking window positions, i thought some more moving things around was in order. two more examples for you to all play with.

first, this little chap will move the top focused window to the top left hand corner of your screen. gosh, isn't that fun

--first get name of top most app
tell application "System Events" to set appList to name of application
    processes whose frontmost is true
set frontApp to item 1 of appList

--get size of the window we're going to move
tell application "System Events" to tell process frontApp
        to set {winWidth, winHeight} to size of front window

--move the window
tell application frontApp to set bounds of
    window 1 to {0, 0, winWidth, winHeight}

and this one will move the top window to the centre of the screen

tell application "System Events" to set appList
    to name of application processes whose frontmost is true
set frontApp to item 1 of appList

--calculate the dimensions of the desktop
tell application "Finder"
        set dimensions to bounds of window of desktop
        set screenWidth to item 3 of dimensions
        set screenHeight to item 4 of dimensions
end tell

--calculate the centre
tell application frontApp
        set fSize to bounds of window 1
        set wLeft to item 1 of fSize
        set wTop to item 2 of fSize
        set wRight to item 3 of fSize
        set wBottom to item 4 of fSize

        set windowWidth to wRight - wLeft
        set windowHeight to wBottom - wTop
        set windowTop to (screenHeight - windowHeight) / 2.0

set bounds of window 1 to
    {(screenWidth - windowWidth) / 2.0, windowTop,
    (screenWidth + windowWidth) / 2.0, windowTop + windowHeight}
end tell

move your windows with abandon!

preview and other resizing hacks

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:11:59 +0000

in order to make preview.app do cool applescript type stuff, it must be enabled for some odd reason. here is the code:

defaults write
    /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled -bool YES

now isn't that strange?

but what you're really asking is why do i care? well, with some applescript and quicksilver magic you can resize the front application to a preset size. i.e. when the preview window opens up too small, with one press of a keyboard trigger you can make it bigger, dude.

so, you'll need this bit of apple script (or something similar):

tell application "System Events" to set appList to name
    of application processes whose frontmost is true
set frontApp to item 1 of appList

tell application frontApp
set bounds of window 1 to {0, 0, 1200, 1200}
end tell

(change the window bounds to whatever you like) save that script, then assign it to a quicksilver trigger. now, whenever you need a quick bit of resize magic, just hit your trigger key and the front most window will do the resizing thing. neat, eh?

minimal screensaver

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:49:29 +0000

so you want a screensaver so you can have the handy "ask me for my password when i come back because i'm using a laptop and i'm paranoid" feature enabled. but you don't want all the wizzy lights using up all your precious (my precioussssss) laptop batteries....

fear not, faithful listener, er reader...

BlackenedPixels

go download this free handy screensaver, it's black and it turns the screen off not just black so you'll maximise your battery life and your natural paranoia!

we like the dark, dark for dark business

transmit and quicksilver making out

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:33:19 +0000

did you know that transmit and quicksilver totally, like, love each other?

if you have the right quicksilver plugins (proxy objects and transmit) they can make slow sweet love... well, ok you can do something pretty cool.

make a new trigger
select "current selection" proxy object
select "upload to site" in the second field
select your target upload site - it must be in your favourites (and you can select down to a specific folder)
assign a hotkey

so the practical upshot is, click once in the finder/path finder to select the file you want to upload, hit your key combination from step 5 and quicksilver will trigger transmit to upload to file to the right place all from one key press. now how cool is that?

enjoy, friends.

password protect a zip file

Wed, 09 May 2007 10:49:24 +0000

sometimes you need to. but the version of zip that comes with osx is a bit on the old side and doesn't have the necessary grunt.

fear not, friends - help is at hand. the handy, dandy darwin ports project already has the new version of zip ready for you.

sudo port install zip

/opt/local/bin/zip -re9 archive.zip yourstuff/

where the r means recursive, e means encrypt, the 9 means better compression.

easy, eh?

baadd speeling

Sun, 06 May 2007 11:10:54 +0000

suffer from the fine art of bad speeling? fear not, friends, google to the rescue. there is a cool services plugin (you all know about services, right? it's like unix pipe for a gui) that you can use the google "did you mean" thing in any osx program.

gSpell

and if you need to add the services menu to a right click (contextual menu), check out this little app:

OpenMenuX

so now you know.

quicksilver clipboard

Tue, 01 May 2007 04:24:21 +0000

quicksilver, oh how i love thee... and it has a dandy clipboard too. but it doesn't default to having a keyboard shortcut. friends, fear not. shortcuts are but a step away...

install the clipboard and shelf module within quicksilver
in clipboard preferences, enable capture history and set to a nice number of items (20 works)
set up a trigger

now you can just hit the trigger directly. now, i'm spent :)

syncing without mac

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:23:28 +0000

got two computers?
love having them in sync?
hate paying apple money for .mac because it's flakey?

if you have answered 'yes' to the above questions, then come over here, friend and all will be revealed...

syncTogether

syncTogether is a fantastic program that uses apple syncservices (same technology that powers .mac) to sync 2 or more computers. it does everything that .mac sync does except keychain syncing (this is due to an apple bug apparently). you set up one machine as the master and one as the slave (in a 2 computer set up) and then you're off. it works and it works well. significantly faster than syncing via apple as it all happens on your local network.

so there you have it, friends. no more .mac for me. bwahahahahha

two great tastes that go great together

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:49:05 +0000

we all love the flickr and you can't help but love quicksilver wouldn't it be great if they could play together?

fear not, oh intrepid internet explorer, there is a plugin. simply install the flickr quicksilver plugin plugin page then select the pic you want to upload in quicksilver by navigating to the file just the way you normally would. hit the tab key then look for your new flickr action and hit return.

first time out, flickr will ask for your permission to let quicksilver upload but after that it's plain sailing.

now isn't that cool? i knew you would love it.

eol

osx audio and strange formats

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 06:32:52 +0000

we've all been there... we downloaded some strange album from archive.org but it's in some weirdo format (flac or vob or ape or youwillneverbeabletoplaymeformat). what's a self respecting osx user to do? eh? riddle me that.

fear not askabetterquestion.net has the answer for you. well, two answers in fact. Max and XLD (X Lossless Decoder).

both deal with these problems. both work well. for my money (oh yes, did i mention they are free?) i would go with XLD. it's minimal, fast and gets out of your way. go for it.

download links: * XLD * Max

pandora with keys

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 10:32:13 +0000

pandora is that great music streaming thingie-a-ma-do-dad. but rather than just listen to it in a browser, you can use this new app called pandoraboy:

this uses (i assume) the embedded osx webkit engine to load the flash plugin to play the music but then it adds two bits of coolness on top:

growl support
hotkeys!

so it will tell you, via growl what's playing and you can skip, pause etc via user defined hotkeys. and it's available at the low, low price of free. cool, eh?

pandoboy

look at the passwords on that

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:47:32 +0000

yes, the keychain is cool. but i use many browsers. including ones (firefox) naming no names that don't support it. i don't want to have to keep remembering all my passwords in every different browser. enter 1passwd.

cool little util that has a plugin for all of the major browsers. it can access all your passwords in all your browsers. it can fill in forms for you automatically too. it will even make you a nice cup of coffee in the morning for you too (probably not)

share and enjoy

plain and simple

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:38:35 +0000

isn't it irritating how people use html to send emails? well, you can make it go away. and it's quick and easy too:

quit mail
type this into a terminal shell: defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
restart mail and you're all set

cool, eh?

quickie

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 10:47:22 +0000

so i only just found this out - in osx when you have a modal dialogue box (something with, for example a save or cancel) if you press the escape key, that triggers the cancel button. handy eh?

and yes, pressing return does the ok/save option - duh :)

itunes not deleting podcasts

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:47:17 +0000

me too. irritating isn't it? i tried the restart/updating/trashing/plists dance still to no avail.

however, help is at hand... it's not a preference setting - it's a hidden preference setting. oh the joy. all you have to do is in the podcast section of the main iTunes interface, right click (control click) on a podcast and select "allow auto delete". simple, yet irritating :)

share and enjoy

two things about wget

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:47:11 +0000

now, all the geeks in the crowd will be familiar with wget - very handy tool for downloading files / websites etc from the net. well, here's two handy options that you might not know about:

1. downloading a list of files: if there is a bunch of sequential files that you want, put the names of the files in a text file, one url on each line and save it. then do this:

wget --input-file=/pathtoyourfile.txt

then wget will sequentially get all of them

2. throttling: you've got the super fast net connection - but you don't want to hog all of it... well, throttling is your friend. you can limit the amount of bandwidth that wget will take. kinder to the webserver too:

--limit-rate=amount

ie wget http://apple.com/something.dmg --limit-rate=20k will limit to 20k/sec

so, there you go. isn't wget a great tool?

hmmm xvid for intel macs

Fri, 26 May 2006 10:47:03 +0000

so now you can have xvid goodness in frontrow - you just need a couple of codecs. basically, just download the latest intel builds (or ppc if you are on an older machine) put them in your /Library/Quicktime folder and you're all set. this will also enable xvid for quicktime (as frontrow is using quicktime for playback that kinda makes sense)

xvid component

ac3 component

how cool is that?

howto gpg and mailapp

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 11:15:00 +0000

gpg / pgp (pretty good privacy) is a great way to make sure no-one sniffs on your email. it's based on private key/public key encryption. the principle of this is you generate a public key and a private one. you give your public key to everybody and keep your private key secret. anyone who wants to email you will encrypt that message with your private key. then when the message arrives, only you have the private key with which to decrypt the message. good eh? for a more comprehensive overview of pgp read here

here are the three steps you need to do:

get the latest gpg privacy guard from here (currently 1.4.1 - yes, tiger compatible) this is just a double click install package type thing - but be warned - it takes a while.
get gpg keychain access here - this generates your pgp key - the installer even walks you through the generation process. the default settings are fine. just to warn you, there are several clicks to make at this step - but it's painless. promise. remember to pick a good password for your private key. ie 'password' would probably not be so hot ;)
get the mail.app plugin here (currently at 1.3) and install it (it comes with an installer)

well you have to give people your public key. couple of ways to do this:

in gpg keychain access, on the public tab click on the key that was generated, then in the bar above, click on the export option and enable ascii armour (this makes it easier to send via email). this will then give you your gpg public key block. copy this and send it to someone you want to have it.
put your key on a public key server. there are many servers that hold keys so anyone can find them. you can upload too. in gpg keychain access just select your public key and choose "send to keyserver" from the key menu.

well, that's about it. encrypt my friends and be quick about it.

ps another good link for more info http://codesorcery.net/mutt/mutt-gnupg-howto

passwordless ssh login

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 10:46:53 +0000

i know it's easy and everything, but i can never remember this - so here goes - no details, no nothing. just 4 steps to passwordless ssh login

ssh-keygen -t rsa || this generates the key
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub || this gets the key
ssh into remote server
add the output of the cat to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

so there you go. geeky

/me pauses briefly to add geeky to my spell check

enough for ya?

btw very bad from a security point of view - so don't do this on your laptops ;)

hello world

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 08:29:42 +0000

"oh goodie, another blog" i hear you all cry. and i'm with you. there are too many. and i'm just adding to the pain. so deal with it.

this being the first post and all, i guess i should lay out some sort of mission statement. then, we can all look back and see how completely i got it wrong in a couple of years/months/days.

mission statement: 1. no politics. well, unless it's funny 2. nothing terribly profound 3. no religion. unless it's funny 4. braindump for all the things i find interesting 5. geeky stuff - mainly focusing on osx, apple, unix, music and other randomness

well - so there we go. the first post. done. were you moved to various affections? i think not.