DVD backup tools

1. handbrake
2. mactheripper
3. fairmount
   

Macbook Uptime

$uptime
12:24 up 15 days, 4:54, 7 users, load averages: 0.37 0.34 0.37

The 7 users are merely me logged into different terminals...

The fonts

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

Unix 'touch' and directory modification times

'touch'-ing a file will change its last modified time, but NOT that of its super directory...

image to favicon

From parsed.org

convert myicon.png favicon.ico

Has to be 16x16 image

Eclipse workspaces

Eclipse allows you to place your files into projects and projects into a workspace. You can also create different workspaces, but be aware that you have to setup things for each workspace like setting the spelling dictionary and setting any external tools you may want to use. Eclipse generates a directory called .metadata in the folder you select as the workspace folder. It stores a bunch of information in the .metadata folder

Computer algebra resources

Opensource math program list.

Eclipse is awesome

A LOT of thought went into this IDE. I highly recommend it. I have NO complaints. Really.

Eclipse and mysterious commits

Take a look at line 127 and line 300. Either some hacker has gained access to my laptop and has corrected spelling errors in the comments in my code, or else eclipse makes automatic spelling corrections in comments when committing... this is a little hair raising. I can't remember making those changes...

Groceries in the Malden area

We haven't found something like Aldi's in Malden yet. We have tried Stop N Shop in Malden, Market Basket in Revere, Foodmaster in Melrose and Super 88 in Malden. Super 88 is perhaps the cheapest, but they lack a bit in variety - you can however get an amazing assortment of Chinese condiments.

Command line version of Unison on Mac OS X as regular user (not root)

1. From a hint here, go here and grab the appropriate console version of unison. Thank Shuly Wintner
2. Copy it to your user directory, say under YourUserName/bin
3. make sure this is on your path by modifying your .bashrc file (not .bash_profile) to include:
   PATH="~/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH
   Tip from a discussion here.
4. make sure all works by doing:
   ssh machines.address.edu unison -version [here]
5. run unison as usual
   

Yes, I'm a bad postdoc Jon.

Auto accident notes

1. Phone police. If no injuries police may not come
2. Get other car's license number
3. Get other drivers info:
   Name
   Address
   Phone Number
   Driver's license
   Insurance company name and phone number
   
4. Insurance co reccomends but does not require police report
5. Take photos of damage
   
6. Phone insurance company and report
7. If its the other guy's fault, go through their insurance co
8. Phone other insurance co and file claim. Do it soon
9. They will appraise the damage and give a check
10. Ask for rental car
    
11. Ask for diminished value compensation
12. Ask for body shop to check for other damage
    

The double click

Myself, I like the double click. I also like the left and right clicks. I was programming something using the QT frame work and I realized - hey waitaminuite: if I had a double click, its gonna first go through the single click process, there's got to be a way around this. Apparently not, double-clicks are supposed to be extensions of a single click. Oh, well, their house their rules...

UPDATE: This seems to be a common thing. The best answer I found was to use a timer to check for single vs double click. Chhobi will just not use double clicks - too much trouble... OK, OK, chhobi will toe the official line, single click selects, double click opens... sheesh.

Making a mix tape for the sweetie on a mac

Sometimes you need to make a mix-tape for the sweetie. Its the digital age now, surely there is a way to do it digitally. There is:

1. Soundflower - acts as a virtual audio patchboard, allows you to 'rewire' the output of an app from the speakers (i.e. soundcard) to some other app. GPL
   
2. Audacity - can record and edit sounds and save them as mp3, aiff, ogg whatever. GPL

Make way for video games sound effects + karaoke + background traffic sounds. What? Whaddyamean "Am I sure she will like it?"

Remove file from CVS on eclipse

From here: Just delete the file and then team->commit. If the file comes back (e.g. its an autogenerated file) right click to add it to .cvsignore.

I'm writing a QT project and there are all these moc_ and ui_ files that are autogenerated...

LCDs vs CRT

Its nice to work in a vision lab: you can do searches for things like 'best LCD monitor for gaming' and still claim to be working.

Two delays in LCD display chain

1. Input lag - time lag between the video card sending a frame to the LCD and it actually getting displayed on the screen.
   
2. Response time - time it takes for a pixel to flip on screen. Two figures are quoted BWB (Black White Black) and GTG (Grey to grey). BWB has a black and white definition - the time it takes for the pixel to go from 10% (Black) to 90% (White) ON [here]. GTG is more gray - basically manufacturers put in what they want.

Like in gaming, the response time is important in vision research, if you have a moving stimulus.

Unlike in gaming, input lag, as long as it is constant, is not a big problem - you just factor that into your latency data

Environment variables and aqua

Instead of making a proper *nix box, those bright fellas at apple had to go make this frankenfiend of mac and *nix called OS X. Anyhoo, when you launch a mac os x app it can't see the environment variables defined in .bash_profile or .cshrc . This came to my attention as I struggled with running Unison over dhcp (my local hostname kept changing, setting the UNISONLOCALHOSTNAME variable did not help - see thread).

From the apple's mouth we see that we can "...define the variables in a Terminal session and then launch the application from the same session. When launched from Terminal, the application inherits the session settings, including any environment variables defined there." which works on 10.5.4

10 odd linux commands

From bash cures cancer.

Safari, history and security

Safari has a 'private browsing' option which prevents any state information from being stored in the browser. If you don't, good lord, Safari keeps more tabs on where you've been and what you've done than the FBI agents on the train. You think you can hide your dark secrets by clicking on 'reset safari'. You THINK. Then you glibly type in something in your spotlight window and BOOM, there's your recent visit to your retirement fund.

Spotlight keeps track of where you've been and what you've done under ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History in a slew of .webhistory files and these are NOT cleared when you clear Safari.

Just so you know.

Not that you have anything to hide.

Nope.

Ethernet card won't grab new IP on new network

Occasional problem: when waking up computer at work after its been on the home network, the ethernet card will refuse to grab the new ip from the dns.

From here:

sudo ifconfig en0 down
sudo ifconfig en0 mtu 1500 up

Make sure of your mtu value by doing
ifconfig en0

Result will be of the form

en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500