Rubénerd :)

software

I'm passionate about Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Commander Keen and have started using Fedora as a netbook OS. I'm a Perl guy but am learning Python (and Java at university). I have a long standing restraining order against Windows and Flash.

Thursday 02nd September 2010

Restore iTunes 10 window controls

Fire up the Terminal and type this:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

I’m on tethered internet so I can’t (and don’t feel compelled) to download iTunes 10, so I can’t check if this works or not. If it makes your Mac explode, don’t come to me for a replacement. I would replace it for you, but I’ve got a lot to do right now you see.

Friday 27th August 2010

Okay okay, I’ll start using Ruby again!

With this huge move and all the unexpected problems we’ve had, I’ve had very little time these last couple of months to do much programming… or blogging! I can’t wait, I’m posting this from my phone.

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Friday 30th July 2010

Perl 6 Rakudo Star

So it looks as though Perl 6 might be coming soon… again!

#!/usr/bin/env perl -wT
use strict;

&sayWooHoo("again");

sub sayWooHoo {
    print ("Hey, 6 might be coming soon, $_[0]!");
}

My first job out of high school was writing Perl programs. Was the happiest time of my life, because university hadn’t crushed my spirit yet. Perl is awesome. CPAN is awesome! And don’t believe what they say, it is possible to write Perl programs that you and others can understand later, provided you follow the conventions :).

Thursday 29th July 2010

Make Firefox look spiffier with userChrome.css

Firefox may still be the best browser to use for its security and privacy extensions, but if you have Chrome or Safari user interface envy you can use the userChrome.css file to pare down the UI to something a bit more spiffy.

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Saturday 24th July 2010

FreeBSD 8.1 freshly toasted

Beastie!

The world’s greatest operating system (in my humble opinion!) has been updated. Grab your copy from their tracker, or check out the mirrors. And don’t forgot to follow @freebsd on Twitter.

FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE is now available. Please be sure to check the Release Notes and Release Errata before installation for any late-breaking news and/or issues with 8.1. More information about FreeBSD releases can be found on the Release Information page.

freebsd-update fetch install fun :)

Friday 23rd July 2010

Backing up Firefox bookmarks

I never knew you could do this!

  • In Firefox, click the Bookmarks menu and Organise Bookmarks…
  • In the Bookmarks Manager, click the toolbar button with a star
  • Click Export HTML… and choose a place to save the exported file

Now you have a tidy, one HTML file backup of all your Firefox bookmarks that you can even open and click links in, and reimport into another machine!

I’ve been a heavy Delicious user since 2003 (so was mum), but sometimes random links find their way into my Bookmarks toolbar. Not enough to warrant use of Mich Kapor’s FoxMarks, but its good to know I can back them up :)

Monday 19th July 2010

My latest project worked!

Icon from the Tango Desktop Project

With my dad, sis and I moving internationally again and with this latest project, I haven’t had much time for blogging or tweeting these last few days. I’m really excited though, because I just finished a really unconventional project for a client and it worked beautifully!

I’m not allowed to discuss the Five W’s, but suffice to say it used a lot of a certain flavour of Java and a really ancient database. I’m talking stone tablet ancient. And it worked! Yays! Alas for the sake of my anemic public resume/portfolio, this will be yet another thing I can’t add to it for NDA-like reasons. Oh well, I learned a heck of a lot and got lots of experience.

Now I’ll be taking a small sabbatical and helping my dad and sis move in and organise whatnot. Will be nice ToLiveWithoutLongCamelCase and dusty old manuals with yellowing pages that made me sneeze for a while ;).

Thursday 15th July 2010

Keeping volumes mounted when TrueCrypt quits

A quick tip for TrueCrypt users that I just figured out for myself: if you don’t want your volumes to be unmounted when you quit the TrueCrypt GUI application, go to the Preferences screen and uncheck "TrueCrypt quits" under "Dismount all volumes when".

Previous versions of TrueCrypt never used to unmount volumes unless you explicitly told it to. I can’t remember which version changed this default behaviour, but it used to really irritate me! I suppose it’s another case of erring on the side of security rather than convenience, the classic polar opposites.

Sunday 11th July 2010

Phantom package manager messages

I’m still getting used to using YUM and RPMs again after being a FreeBSD ports guy for so long. YUM certainly makes it much simpler and faster to update packages, but there are still a few little gotchas! I’m getting used to ;).

Saturday 03rd July 2010

The whole Beef Taco Firefox debate

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’d know I’m a huge fan of Taco for Firefox, the Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-out extension. Running an update yesterday I noticed there are now two different versions: the classic Taco and a new Beef Taco fork. Ugh, too many food puns.

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Dedicated to my groovy late mum Debra Schade.