Mac on Jackenhack

Use LTspice IV Windows Version on Mac OS X

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Running LTspice IV on Mac OS X

Before I start testing a new idea for an electronic circuit and building it on a breadboard, I usually want to check it with LTspice. It’s a fantastic piece of software for testing almost any kind of component. Nearly all manufacturers have a spice equivalent for most of their parts. But there’s a snag. The Mac version of LTspice is a piece of crap. Having to run a virtual PC or reboot using BootCamp feels unnecessarily slow and convoluted. But there’s a way of running it as a “normal” Mac application. Here’s how to do it.

Arq Backup for Mac OS X Now Supports Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There’s one thing that I fear when it comes to my storage and that is to lose all the pictures I’ve been taking for all these years. I have seen customers of mine that have lost all their images due to a hard disk crashing and seen the tears. I usually do my regular backup using TimeMachine on my Mac to an Apple Time Capsule. But my photo library in Adobe Lightroom is too big to fit on the SSD drive used in my MacBook Pro, and TimeMachine doesn’t do a backup of external drives. So I use rsync to make a backup to my NAS which uses RAID–1 for extra protection. But I don’t want to rely on a single backup. A fire, burglary or simple hardware failure makes me uneasy. So I also do an off-site backup using the excellent Arq backup program.

MultiMarkdown 4.7 Released

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

MultiMarkdown has just been updated to version 4.7. MultiMarkdown 4.7 Released. Unfortunately it looks like my biggest gripe with MultiMarkdown still isn’t fixed.

Next App for iPhone Expense Tracker

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve started to use the excellent iPhone app Next to keep track of my expenses. My bank has a utility that automatically tracks every purchase I make, but for me, being a notorious money spender, it’s kind of a therapeutic thing to be forced every time I buy something to actually acknowledge the expense and not just buying without thinking. It’s also a great way of keeping track of what kind of things I spend my money on.

Clearing the Icon Services cache in Yosemite

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

“furbo.org · Clearing the Icon Services cache in Yosemite”

After installing or updating a system to Yosemite, I have seen blank (missing) icons on several Macs. I have also seen cases where the desktop doesn’t get updated after a change to the document icons in the application itself (which happens as developers update their apps to use the new icon guidelines.)

Saving this link for later. Looks like a good thing to know.

Going Paperless With Evernote and Any Scanner On Your Mac

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_2704” align=“alignleft” width=“272”] Photo by phrawr[/caption]

Going paperless

Tired of drowning in stacks of papers? Want to go paperless? Here’s how I moved all my documents to the cloud and cleared up a lot of the clutter at home. I used my old trusty photo scanner, because when all the old papers are scanned and achieved, I only have to scan the new inflowing papers, not the insane stacks of paper I had previously.

Scanning Workflow

The easiest route is to buy an advanced duplexed document scanner like the highly regarded and award winning Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 duplex document scanner. It comes with all the software you need and you just put in a stack of papers, receipts or business cards and away it goes.

There’s also a small portable scanner called Doxie Go that looks interesting, with rechargeable batteries and a SD card slot.

But I don’t have the money to buy one now so my old flatbed scanner, the Canon CanoScan 8800f, now discontinued and replaced with the better Canon CanoScan 9000F have to do at least for now. It’s not really made for scanning large amount of papers, but it does the job. I’ve made what I think is a pretty good workflow so I’ll try to describe it. Maybe you can find some nuggets here.

Battery Draining Applications on Macbook Pro

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Better battery life Macbook Pro with gfxCardStatus

Update: Just installed Mac OS X 10.8.4 and now it works much better. Fantastical, Growler, Hardware Grower, Scrivener and Tweetbot now works without switching cards.
Later models of Macbook Pro computers comes with dual graphics card. This makes it possible to use a low performance card when not using graphics intense applications, and automatically switch to the faster, but less energy efficient card if needed. But how do you know which card is currently active? There is a great application available called gfxCardStatus that shows you when the computer switches, and even uses notifications.

If your on the move and on battery power, you can force the computer to use the Integrated less power draining graphics card. If you need full speed, just select the Discrete card. The third alternative is to have it in the normal Dynamic Switching Mode. But there’s a snag when using Switching Mode. A lot of applications forces the Macbook Pro into using the Descrete high performance battery draining card, for no apparent good reason. Let’s examine that.

SD-Card is read-only in Mac Macbook Pro card reader - solved

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

After getting my Raspberry Pi I used the one built-in on my MacBook Pro, but the SanDisk SDHC-card showed up as read-only in finder on my mac, and Disk Utility refused to format it. The write protection switch on the card was correctly set, so that made me a bit baffled. But it seems that the internal card reader on the MacBook Pro is a bit finicky.

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1Password Secures computer passwords on the web

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of having one favorite password that you use on every account you create on the web,making it very easy for someone that gets ahold of it to wreak havoc of you life. Wouldn’t it be great if you had different, impossible to guess passwords on each site? But you only had on password to remember? Well, 1Password can help you both generate random passwords and to help you log in automatically to those sites using just one master password.

Tactile Mac Clicky Keyboards for Typists

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Choosing an excellent keyboard for your Mac

Let’s face it, Apple produces some great products, but there are two things the past years that they aren’t that good at. They can’t make usable mouses, and the keyboard is less than stellar. The laptop keyboards are ok as far as laptop keyboards go, but after you’ve tried a “REAL” keyboard, you will become a keyboard snob. Thankfully Apple stopped using proprietary connectors many years back, so you can buy any mouse for PC and use that instead. Even USB keyboards made for PC works after changing a setting, by switching the alt-command keys. But you won’t get all the unique keys for controlling iTunes, volume and other settings. The funny thing is, that if you want to find a good keyboard, you see the most extensive selection of keyboards with good, tactile and clicky response among all the PC gamer keyboards. Most of them look horrible though.

I’ve been working with computers since 1979 and here’s my list of the best keyboards ever produced. And I’ll try to give some tips on getting your hands on a tremendous clicky keyboard.

Speed up MacBook Pro by installing a SSD disk

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

SSD drive and extra disk for more speed, instead of DVD drive in MacBook Pro

Changing out your hard disk in your MacBook Pro to an SSD disk is a great way of increase the speed of your machine. And I’m not talking about a little faster, where talking about the feeling of getting a new machine. But a SSD is still expensive and are limited when it comes to storage size. So it’s not going to be able to replace your big standard disk. The solution is simple. Replace your internal disk with a SSD disk, then remove your DVD drive and install a large 2.5" disk for your bigger files. Replace your DVD? Yes, do you use it anymore? I’m not. You need a special bracket to be able to install the extra disk, so you have to buy it. But many installation kits for replacing the DVD player also includes an external USB case to install the DVD into, so you still have access to one if you need. I bought my installation kit from Ebay for next to nothing, but didn’t include the case. As I said, I’m a modern Mac user and don’t use DVD. Hint, hint.

Disk never sleeps in Mac OS X - how to fix it - updated

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“448”] Image by DigaoSPBR[/caption]

My internal hard disk would continuously spin on my MacBook Pro and never goes to sleep. I replaced my internal drive on my MacBook Pro with an SSD disk, which made a massive difference in speed. At the same time, I removed the DVD unit and installed a new 500gb drive instead. The extra disk went to sleep when not in use, but then started within a couple of minutes or less. Here’s what I did to fix that problem.

Asus PA246Q ProArt Professional monitor review

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Asus PA246Q ProArt Professional monitor – Made for photographers

As a photographer you need to be able to really get the most out of your images, you need a color accurate monitor. You usually have to pay a lot of money to get a good monitor that’s factory calibrated and uses a IPS panel, a panel type that is better at showing correct colors than the more common (and cheaper) TN panels. But there are some reasonably priced monitors. One of them is the Asus PA246Q ProArt monitor. It’s factory calibrated and even ships with a printout of the calibration result from the factory. You can set the monitor to sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998 color space directly on the front controls of the monitor. It’s also has fairly high resolution with 24" size 1920x1200 pixels.

My favorite commands in .bash_profile on Mac OS X

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here are some additions to my .bash_profile for making life easier. I especially like that completion now ignores case. Makes navigating the file system so much faster. Give them a spin. [cc lang=“bash”]export HISTCONTROL=erasedups export HISTSIZE=10000 shopt -s histappend set completion-ignore-case on [/cc]

MAMP WordPress Error establishing a database connection

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve installed MAMP on my Mac to do some changes to my blog. I tried to set the WordPress wp-config.php file to connect to localhost:8889, but got an error that It could not connect to the database. After replacing localhost:8889 to 127.0.0.1:8889 it works. My quick guess is that permissions for the root user is set to allow connections 127.0.0.1, but not localhost. Anyway, it works now.

My wp-config.php file looks like this:

Yes, please apple, kill AppleScript

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Everytime (well, last night actually) when I need to do something with Applescript I shudder with horror. The syntax is actually something you forget all the time. There must be better alternatives for Apple to use as a scripting language. I agree with this article, but Python or Ruby would be a better alternative I think.

Mac OS X 10.5.2 hangs on wake from sleep

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have had this annoying problem with my Macbook Pro. Sometimes when waking the machine from sleep, the machine can not connect to the selected Airport network and then hangs with spinning pizza of death.

Apples next update to 10.5.3 looks like it will fix it. Hopfully Apple will release it soon…

From Fixed list of Mac OS X update 10.5.3 - Joining AirPort network after wake issue resolved

Fix for constantly running fan after 10.3.8 update

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_2955” align=“alignleft” width=“400”]©John Lillis[/caption] I got fed up with the fan that’s running constantly on my Powerbook 12" rev b 867mhz after installing the 10.3.8 Update. So here’s how you do it:

Download Update 10.2.8 and use Pacifist to extract /System/Library/ExtensionsAppleADM103x.kext from MacOSXUpdate10.2.8.pkg to the desktop.
Do a backup of AppleADM103x.kext from your startup disk at /System/Library/Extensions to your home folder.
Copy AppleADM103x.kext from your Desktop (the one you extracted from 10.2.8) to /System/Library/Extensions, you’ll need to enter the admin password to do that. Start Disk Utility and do a repair permissions on your start volume. Problem solved. Just for good measure, reset the parameter-RAM by holding down Command-Alt-P-R at startup. My machine now turns on the fans at 148 Fahrenheit instead of 125 Fahrenheit.

For some reason Apple choose to change the temperature when the fan starts on Rev.A Powerbook 12" after Mac OS X 10.2.8 from 148 Fahrenheit to 125 Fahrenheit. This gives the result that the fan runs almost constantly due to the fact that the powerbook operates normally at 125 Fahrenheit. I did this hack back when Apple changed stuff in the 10.3.2 update, and they haven’t updated AppleADM103x.kext until 10.3.8.

Usenet - The forgotten network

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_2418” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Photo by Paul Hammond[/caption]

It’s been awhile since I last logged on to Usenet to read some groups and to download stuff. I found this great application called Unison from a company called Panic. And it’s great. I even signed up for a Usenet account from them when buying the software. I now have a 10mbit line at home, and no Usenet provider has been able to provide a fast enough service to me, until now. Impressive stuff. The only downside with the account is that you only get 10gig of download. Now, that may sound like a lot, but I get through that fast.

Little Snitch makes sure Mac applications doesn't call home

Mon, 13 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Little Snitch keeps you covered

Use Little Snitch to monitor what developers of programs sends home. Then you can stop that specific traffic. More and more programs phone home with information to the software company. Sometimes it’s harmless, like checking if a newer version is available, but sometimes they also send data like serial numbers and your registration information. So is there a way for you to control what programs can do? Yes, there is! There’s an excellent program called Little Snitch that monitors all communication from applications on your Mac OS X machine and asks you if the information is allowed to be sent over the internet.