Apple IIgs Emulator August 18, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Review , 4comments
We all have our own bits of nostalgia when it comes to computers “back in the day.” OK, maybe you don’t, but I do. I have many fond memories of my Apple IIgs and all of its glory. I had a Woz edition with a TransWarp GS, the Hard Disk 20SC, and the good ol’ ImageWriter II. Why let the past go, when you can run old programs on your screaming fast modern hardware with an emulator? On the Mac, the best Apple IIgs emulator is Sweet16, which is still in active development (2011). It even supports printing (to the Mac’s Preview.app). (more…)
Writing Finder Comments from the Command Line August 7, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , add a commentI had some old (we’re talking Apple IIGS era old) files that I wanted to keep around, and I wanted Spotlight to show them if there was a valid hit. Many of the file formats I cannot read anymore, but even a raw dump of the file could at least reveal the information I needed. What I could not find online was a way to write Spotlight-findable data from the command line. My idea was to run the strings command and embed that as a comment. I finally figured it out on my own, and it involves embedding AppleScript in a shell script via osascript. (more…)
Run Snow Leopard in Virtual Machine to retain PowerPC Applications July 25, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 29commentsI finally discovered how to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in a virtual machine after I was caught off guard that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion no longer supports Rosetta, Apple’s technology for seamlessly running PowerPC applications on Intel processors. I have enough PowerPC applications (like The Print Shop, my old copy of PhotoShop, and my scanner driver) that I was not going to upgrade to Lion on my home computer, but since I have successfully installed Snow Leopard in a virtual machine, I think I will take the plunge after all (and thanks to this Front Row hack also). (more…)
Check for PowerPC Programs Before Upgrading to Lion July 24, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 3comments
I discovered too late that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion does not support PowerPC executables as Snow Leopard did with Rosetta. I cannot say how long that would have kept me away from Lion, but I definitely would have done some more homework before taking the plunge. If you have not already upgraded, you might want to do a check to see what you might be losing: old printer drivers, scanners, obscure utilities. I have finally lost my scanner, which required a PPC driver in an old copy of Photoshop. Run one of these scripts to generate a list of all PPC-only executables on your system. (more…)
“Ultrafast” video compression with x264 July 19, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 1 comment so far
The fastest video compression I have seen so far is using the x264 command line tool with its “ultrafast” preset. The resulting file has no audio, so it requires an extra step with QuickTime to finish the process. I recently review the compression software Elgato Turbo.264 HD Software Edition, and it was indeed faster than iTunes and QuickTime Player when converting to iPhone-compatible videos, but I noticed that x264 was faster still. Here are the steps you can take for “ultrafast” video compression.
(more…)
Deleting Yourself with Mac Directory Services dscl . -delete July 12, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 1 comment so far
In case it ever crossed your mind, when you are at the command line, never type
sudo dscl . -delete /Users/rob
when you mean to type
sudo dscl . -delete /Users/proxy
It will slow down your productivity. (more…)
Timeline 3D is Addicting April 29, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Review , add a comment
I reviewed Timeline 3D at SvenOnTech.com, and let me tell you: that’s addicting. I’m building all these beautiful timelines, and I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with them. Maybe I can work one into school somehow.
Here’s a timeline of America’s Involvement in Wars, starting with King Philip’s War in 1675 (from about.com), rendered in 3D and exported directly to YouTube: (more…)
Spotlight Searching at the Command Line April 5, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 2comments
If you know about the mdfind command that lets you perform Mac OS X Spotlight searches at the command line (The Power of mdfind, O’Reilly), then you know it’s a good start but ultimately unsatisfactory. I made up a shell script mdfindi that helps me interactively navigate the results of mdfind when I SSH into my home computer. Of course I keep the script on my Dropbox as mentioned in an earlier post so that it is available to all of my computers.
Bash Profile Sharing and Useful Scripts March 17, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 2commentsIf you live at the command line as I do, you probably have a number of aliases, functions, and status updates added to your ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, or similar file. With a little effort you can share the critical components across several computers either automatically (Dropbox or SugarSync) or manually. The key is to abstract away machine-specific references. The following are suggestions for useful additions to your command line lifestyle.
(more…)
ShieldsUP! Strange Results March 15, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , add a commentShieldsUP! from Steve Gibson is a great service that helps you assess your computer’s protection on the Internet. Debugging some recent router troubles, I tried turning on DMZ mode, which redirected all incoming traffic to a Mac (OS X 10.6.6) on my network. I was surprised to see the striped pattern below:
Now that’s weird. Could it be some kind of reactive firewall technique on the Mac? I don’t know, but it’s a pattern, and that certainly caught me off guard.