Sep 10

Homebrew without Xcode – save 1,5 GB!

By leif.hanack development, mac-osx 2 Comments »

Homebrew is my favorite package manager. If you installed Xcode just for brew than this post might be interesting for you.

Kenneth Reitz created a GCC Installer for OSX without Xcode! Thank you. This package is about 500 MB. Compared to Xcode you save at least 1,5 GB on your SSD.

So let’s go to work:

  • Remove Xcode

    • [code]sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all[/code]
    This will delete Xcode. For more details see John’s post

  • Download and install GCC for Mac without Xcode

    • Currently 10.6 and 10.7 packages are available at https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/downloads

  • Install brew
    • /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"
  • You’re done

    • You can verify your success when you receive meaningful version by calling gcc --version and brew --version

Caution:
You don’t need Xcode for formulas like gradle, groovy, maven, tomcat etc. Nevertheless some formulas will require Xcode!

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May 12

AppleScript To Test If Application Is Not Running And How That Helps To Switch MarcoPolo Contexts

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

I’m looking for a way to identify if an application on my Mac stopped. I couldn’t find anything, so it was time to write my first AppleScript:

set network_connect_is_running to is_running("Network Connect")

if network_connect_is_running then
	repeat until network_connect_is_running is false
		delay 10 -- wait some seconds
		set network_connect_is_running to is_running("Network Connect")
	end repeat
	-- application stopped, so run a dummy app so that marcopolo can switch context
	tell application "NetworkConnectStopped" to activate
end if

on is_running(appName)
	tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end is_running

The code is quiet simple. Line 12-14 defines a function which checks if application appName is running. Line 01 calls this function and checks if the application “Network Connect” is running. The result is stored in the variable network_connect_is_running. Only if “Network Connect” is running (line 03) I want to start my listener. The listener (loop line 04-07) checks every 10 seconds if the application is still running. If not, the loop ends and I can start my trigger application “NetworkConnectStopped”.

So what is this all for?

I use MarcoPolo to switch my network connections. I use three contexts:
- home
- homeOffice (VPN)
- work
The contexts differ in things like proxy, printer, mounts.

The problem: MarcoPolo has no rule “Not Running Applications”

When I’m at home and start my VPN (Network Connect) I use this application to switch automatically to context “homeOffice”. When I finished my home office session and quit “Network Connect” I want to switch automatically to context “home” again. This can not be done with MarcoPolo so far. Now the above script comes into play. I stored this script as an application and start this listener when switching to context “homeOffice”. When I quit “Network Connect”, my listener recognizes this and starts the application “NetworkConnectStopped”. This application is created with the Automator and contains nothing but a “Pause” of 6 seconds. One more than the default MarcoPolo rule update interval. The last step is to add a rule “Running Application” to MarcoPolo which switches to context “home” when application “NetworkConnectStopped” is running.

Here are my MarcoPolo rules:

And here are my actions:

If you have suggestions or need more details feel free to comment.

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Mar 17

Homebrew and Maven

By leif.hanack development, mac-osx No Comments »

If you are using Homebrew and want to use the maven formular you have to delete the symbolic link /usr/bin/mvn.

Thereby you use your homebrew maven installation instead of the shipping version of OSX.

The executable is located at /usr/local/bin/ which should be part of your path already.
The maven package itself can be found at /usr/local/Cellar/maven/3.0.3/libexec. This will be interesting for your IDE, which often wants a pointer to your maven home directory. I created a symlink current so that I can change the version to use at the command line without the need to configure my IDE again.

[/usr/local/Cellar/maven] master@struggy$ sudo ln -s 3.0.3/libexec/ current

That’s it.

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Oct 11

Did You Know Fluid?

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

I found Fluid, a little helper that converts a URL into an application. E.g. I created an app for Gmail:

Oct 09

Do You Love IntelliJ IDEA’s Multi Clipboard Than Look At ClipMenu

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

One very useful IntelliJ IDEA feature is the Multi Clipboard (Cmd-Shift-V). Outside IDEA you can use Clipmenu.

Keep in mind to change it’s default Shortcut Cmd-Shift-V to e.g. Ctrl-Shift-V, so that you don’t overlay IDEA’s shortcut.

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Oct 05

Vienna Is My Friend For Private Feeds

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

I’m using Google Reader for my feeds. At work I want to access some private feeds. My plan was to have a reader that can handle private feeds and can sync with Google.

I tried Gruml and NetNewsWire that both sync with Google. Unfortunately both can’t handle private feeds. Gruml is beta and you see that. Don’t know what I have done wrong, but Gruml stop working. NetNewsWire is not very informative. I can create private feeds, but I don’t know if it is syncing or not. The refresh button didn’t work as expected. The shortest automatic sync interval is 30min!

My peers using Vienna, now I know why:) With Vienna I can easily add a private feed and see if it is syncing or not. It can’t sync with Google.

So I’m still looking for a tool that can handle my two use cases: Private Feeds and Google Reader Sync.

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Oct 03

There Is A Forward Delete On A MacBook Pro!

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

I have my MBP for more than 4 month and today I found out that there is a forward delete (⌦) :)

Symbol Key Description
⌫ delete This is the delete key at the upper right corner. It works like backspace in Windows and Linux. I’m a Mac-Newbie so I expected a forward delete first
⌦ Fn+⌫ ⌦ is not available on laptops. You can emulate it on a MacBook with Fn+⌫

Men, why it took me so long?

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Oct 03

I’ll Try Gruml – RSS Reader With Google Reader Sync

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

This time I’m looking for a RSS reader that can sync with Google reader. After some minutes I found NetNewsWire and Gruml. First I tried NNW because it is not Beta. Everything is fine, except that I can’t use the Google features like sharing items, following shared items of friends, star items, .. Next, I installed Gruml. Voila. All the Google features are available. It is Beta, so far no crash or other problems. I’ll try it.

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Sep 27

Using One Journler From Different Accounts

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

Here is an update to my last post about Journler. If you have two user accounts, e.g. one for work and one for private use, you can store your Journler directory at a shared resource. Now change the group of all files to staff and give the group write permissions.

[sourcecode language="text"]
admin$ mv ~/Documents/Journler /Users/Shared/pim
admin$ cd /Users/Shared/pim
admin$ chgrp -R staff .
admin$ chmod -R g+w .
[/sourcecode]

Tip: To prevent you from trouble, it is best to quit Journler before open it with another account again.

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Sep 25

Journler – Personal Information Manager For Mac

By leif.hanack mac-osx No Comments »

I’m searching a tool for collecting and organizing notes. This is better known as Personal Information Manager. I checked some personal wikis like VoodooPad and took a quick look at Yojimbo and Evernote. Finally I found Journler. The development of this software has ended, but the current features seem to be enough for my most important use cases:

  • Be able to tag content
  • Be able to search content by tags
  • Be able to use spotlight for search by tags
  • Be able to write rich text
  • Be able to export content (in case that this version won’t run with future OSX’s)

Why tagging? Our confluence wiki at work is a good example. Without tags the search is mostly a search and not a find.

So let’s take a tour of Journler.

Set Up

To enable the Spotlight Search you have to import the meta data of Journler (this requires admin permissions)

[code language="bash" gutter="false"]
mdimport /Applications/Journler.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/JournlerMetadataImporter.mdimporter
[/code]

Check with mdimport -L if the path is part of the importer list.

First launch

Starting Journler the first time gives you some entries to play with. To delete these, select them and press Command-Delete.

Journler at work

Create a new entry (Cmd-N), write your content. Ok, now tag your content. Press Ctrl-Shift-Tab to move from the editor to the Tag field. Enter your tags, separate them with a Comma or a Tab. Press Shift-Tab twice to go to the Title field. Your first note is entered.

Search content

If you’re insight Journler press Option-Cmd-F. Type what you’re looking for. The search starts immediately. If you want to use Spotlight press Cmd-Space and start typing.

To narrow down the result, it is good to add journler to your search: E.g. journ product should bring the Journler productivity notes up even if you have a lot of files that are named with productivity.

To walk through the search result press Cmd-7 and use the up and down arrows. Press Cmd-8 to go to the entry/editor.

A Goody – Smart Folder

One goody that I discovered already is the smart folder. You can create rules that will be applied to your entries. Here is a sample to create a folder with the recent entries:

Summary

The first hands on sessions are promising. My use cases are fulfilled.

Here are the shortcuts we used so fare:

Cmd-N : New Entry
Cmd-7 : Entries List
Cmd-8 : Goto Entry/Editor
Ctrl-Shift-Tab : Go from Editor to Tags
Shift-Tab : Go up
Tab : Go down
Option-Cmd-F : Find in Journal

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