Posts

Posted on

You now have 5 update tasks running…

Aargh! google chrome comes with it’s own ‘updater’ which runs in the background checking for updates to the browser (along with the updater for google gears, I presume).
Add in the Java updater (oh, lets check once a month for updates but run 24-7)
The apple software updater
Liveupdate (probably 3)
Each of them is probably doing the same thing.

  • Wait until some time on the clock
  • Check for a network connection
  • Check if there’s new code to download
  • Display an obnoxious dialog saying ‘Update available‘ with an Ok or possibly Maybe next time pair of buttons
  • Download the update
  • Install the update
  • Require a reboot because it’s changing a file that’s in use
  • repeat until you head explodes

Ok. Time fricking out here people! There has got to be a better way. If only there was a single update mechanism that all these tools could use… Unfortunately, it’s the built in update mechanism from Microsoft/Apple and it’s closed to outside developers
As it is, most applications on the Mac perform an automated check for updates when they’re launched. It’s relatively painless, and works most of the time. Mind you the notification dialogs leave a lot to be desired (version n+1 is available, download here!) as opposed to a list of version n+1 changes – especially security updates.
Hopefully, they’re secure and have built in mechanisms to make sure that they’re not taking in a corrupted/malicious application.

Posted on

Meh, lets leave Xgl out of Ibex

Not really stated anywhere obvious, but apparently Xgl isn’t the preferred mechanism for all the special effects in Xorg post 7.1, it’s AIGLX that you should be using. It’s integrated too 🙂
So after wasting a lot of time trying to get the nvidia driver working properly with XGL after the latest updates I just searched the docs here, there and everywhere and finally picked up on the ‘just use AIGLX’ vibe.
Maybe I should be reading the release notes… or are they in the release notes at all? I managed to survive gutsy and hardy without changing over to AIGLX and it still worked, so I may just have missed this in the notes somewhere.

Posted on

This entry is brought to you by intrepid ibex

Sitting in the Galway Hooker bar, having a pint waiting until my train starts boarding.
Using an Acer Aspire One laptop, running Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex and my USB 3g data dongle.
It’s actually usable. It may be small, but it’s cabable.
Oh, and it looks like my train is boarding. At least I have a seat reserved so I don’t need to queue with the other folks.

Posted on

Address book searching on the Mac

I don’t want to keep manually syncing my address book on Vodafone with that of my mac, so I use this script to pull out the phone numbers of people when I want to send them a text message using webtext (or my webtext script).
#!/bin/sh

search_for=name
return_val=phone

args=$(getopt s:r: $*)

set — $args

while :; do
    case $1 in
        -s) search_for=$2; shift;;
        -r) return_val=$2; shift;;
        —) shift; break;;
    esac
    shift
done

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
    echo 1>&2 "usage: $(basename $0) -s <search> -r <return> YOUR_SEARCH"
    exit 127
fi

search=
for i in $@; do
    if [[ -z $search ]]; then
        search="($search_for contains \"$i\")"
    else
        search="$search and ($search_for contains \"$i\")"
    fi
done

scriptcode="tell app \"Address Book\" to get (value of $return_val) of every person where $search"

osascript -s "s" -e "$scriptcode"

exit 0


You can get it Here.

Posted on

Your request could not be completed

Accursed iTunes regions Because, apparently it’s only available in the US. I’d love to buy the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along blog videos. Unfortunately I’m not in the US so I am denied. In fact when in Ireland there are a lot of things that stop being available to me. Like any of the TV shows. Drive me to other sources!
Thankfully Warner seem to have been sensible with most of their Blu-Ray dvds – they don’t have zone locking so I can watch the ones I bought in the US in Ireland without violating anyone’s TOS.

Posted on

The sensation is truly disturbing

This morning, following the standard dog walking to get the Sunday papers I found a dead blackbird (female) at the front door of the house – her poor neck had been broken from an impact with the window. We’ve had this problem before, but it’s generally from the low windows; the impact isn’t fatal and usually the bird shrugs it off in a few minutes and gets going. Today, however it was, unfortunately dead.
I picked it up to leave it in the back garden and it still felt warm. As I walked back to the end of the garden that warmth kept flowing into me.
It was truly disturbing to think that if I hadn’t been there all that heat would have just passed away without ever having had an impact on anything.

Posted on

Trust me…

Plaxo Assistant Cert It tells me to trust it. After all, it’s a certificate that’s signed by a CA that isn’t in the list of known certificate authorities.
I don’t trust certificates. There is a list of certificate authorities a mile long stored on my computer of groups who are to be trusted when a certificate is presented. I don’t know them from adam, and the certs from the Hong Kong post office are about as trusted as the ones from the Apple Root CA – get real people this is not security, this is just posturing. I trust them about as much as I trust the digital quicksand upon which they are based.
I’ve stopped caring anymore. The only thing that these certificates establish is a temporary private channel between me and the web server. The rest; it’s just smoke and mirrors.

Posted on

More features…

Address Book Sync Options It looks like we have a bunch more sync options for the address book now. I don’t believe it supported Exchange or Google prior to 10.5.4, now it does. Let the insanity of address book syncing continue.