I’ve wrote up a script that might be useful for other people: a Boxee Box command line “remote control”. Right now you can use it to change the volume, skip tracks, play, pause and skip ahead in video/audio. It has two modes: regular and interactive. Regular takes in a command and exits upon completion. Interactive puts you in a shell where you can type commands.

Regular mode, set volume to 50%:

$ boxee vol 50

Interactive mode:

$ boxee

Get it on github.

Upgrading OS X from Leopard to Snow Leopard – How to Make it Not Suck

I realize I’m about 6 months late to the party, but I finally coughed up the $29 for OS X 10.6.  Frankly I never saw the need for it, but the newer XCode versions require it, so I went ahead and upgraded.

Well there’s not much to say, other than it’s about the least impressive upgrade possible.  Even with the downplayed feature list (even the box just says it’s just “the Mac you know and love”) and low price point I’m kinda mad that Apple even charged for this.

Oh yeah, and don’t bother doing an upgrade.  Do a fresh install.  You’ll end up having to reinstall everything anyway.  So far every app has mostly worked, but everything is slow.  Even Flash tripled the time it takes to load.  Here’s the kicker though: If you reinstall the exact same version again but on 10.6, it’s way faster.  Faster even than 10.5.  I don’t understand the reason, but a lot software you installed under 10.5 that is now slow under 10.6 will work much better if you just re-install it on 10.6.

Funny Spam

I get a ton of spam comments on this blog, which I diligently clear out.  However lately I’ve noticed the domains take a funny twist.  Here’s a sample from today’s comment queue:

- hellzyea.com
- makemeasammich.com
-  yourbabyisanasshole.com

Anyway I’m sure there’s some reason for it; maybe spammers figure people are less likely to flag “funny” domains as spam or something.

New Job

I don’t normally post too much about my regular work here, due to various NDAs and the fact that it’s often not of general interest, but today I started my career as a contractor.   Here’s my site: thomasgraft.com. I pulled out / fleshed out content from tomgraft.com and then re-designed tomgraft.com as well.

It’s been a while since I posted so I thought I’d share a useful tool for OS X that can make your programming life a bit easier.

Visor for OS X is a SIMBL plugin that lets you quickly access your Terminal by use of a hotkey (I prefer the “ctl + ctl” one).  If you’re like me you probably hit the command line very frequently while developing to push or pull a file, or need to quickly look at a `tail -f` output.   Once you hit the hotkey you define, a shallow terminal drops down from the top of your screen and takes focus.  Hitting the hotkey again hides the terminal and returns focus to whatever you were working on.

It’s not a revolutionary app, but I’ve only used it for half a day and I already love it.  Just as a side-note: it seems to “take over” your Terminal.app, so if you want to also have a CLI that acts like Terminal.app does now, try a third party one like iTerm.

Let me preface this post by saying: I rarely pay for software.  I use open source tools for the vast majority of my work, and in cases where I need commercial software, I usually find a way to have the company I’m working for provide it, borrow a friend’s copy, or in some rare cases, begrudgingly pay the license fee.  As a software developer, this may seem contradictory: after all, how can I expect to both be paid for my work, and receive free software? Well friends, that’s a discussion for a different time.

That being said, when I say that I gladly paid the $50 licence fee for TextMate, you understand the full meaning behind this statement. TextMate, as it’s tagline states, really is the Missing Editor for OS X.  I could spend a few paragraphs gushing about how much I love the shortcuts, shell integration, optional vi bindings, its lightweight footprint, but why take my word for it, go try it for free.

Here’s some recommendations to improve the experience:

• Install Proggy fonts and adjust your text size in TextMate as needed to make them look right.  I use ProggySquare, 11pt.
• Install the Dominion Day theme, or another more suitable theme.  I find the default ones a bit lacking.
• Read the Manual.  TextMade does a heck of a lot more than show pretty colored text.

That’s it!