Place said music on my samba file server (backed up, RAIDed, etc)
Mount the file server on my macbook
Run automator workflow that imports files into iTunes.
Crucially, “Import files into iTunes” adds the files to the iTunes database while leaving them the hell alone. My library is well organized based on my own needs. I don’t want iTunes to mess with it.
Unfortunately, with the recent upgrade to Lion, the “Find Finder items” action that used to feed data into the “Import Files into iTunes” action has stopped working for remote shares. Curse you Apple!
I’ve managed to duct tape a shell script snippet that works reliably, it’s saved below:
Mallory is an interesting tool – it’s a scriptable MITM proxy. Traffic is routed in such a way that it hits Mallory, and mallory can process the payload. It can be modified on the way there, or back. For instance in the demo linked below mallory is used to invert images. Even though the creators of mallory use it for penetration testing I see two other immediate usages:
application testing
check who phones home (iphone/mobile)
Applications
When talking about application testing, I primarily mean simulating network failures or a range conditions. Mallory includes a plugin that understand HTTP protocol. It should be possible to modify the plugin to simulate a range of network errors. Things like 404 errors, random 500 errors, perhaps mangled data or delayed response. I think all of this would be useful in exposing flaws in client-server applications.
I also played with Mallory to see what apps call home on my iPhone. I haven’t spent much time there but there’s certainly a lot to explore.
Configuration
Mallory creators recommend running Mallory in a stand alone Llinux distro inside a virtual machine. I followed their suggestion however I hit a snag while running VMWare Fusion on my Macbook. Turns out that WiFi interface for a reason I don’t understand is not eligible to run in bridged mode. I had to go wired to make sure bridging on VMWare worked. So remember that. I basically followed their guide and apart from the little networking snag everything worked right out of the box. The installation guide is here. They recommend routing everything through a PPTP interface which is handy because that’s what iPhone supports as well. You may need a separate PPTP guide, however the install/config for that is pretty trivial as well.
I have recently gotten a new computer and have begun customizing it to fit my usage patterns. This is a list of things that I had to install right away to feel at home. This list is applicable to the latest OS X (10.7.3). It’s in no particular order.
Geektool lets you place geeklets on the desktop. Geeklets can either be an image or text. Textual information can be output for a certain shell script (such as trending topics on twitter for example). Graphics can be anything you like. I have it displaying available space on my drive.
Growl is a popup notification system for Mac. It’s no longer free but still a useful addition. I have it turned on for things such as network connects/disconnects and various other changes.
SizeUp is essentially a window management utility. It has multiple keyboard shortcuts that force windows in certain locations on the screen. For example I can easily size current window to be half the screen, full screen or quarter of the screen and position it accordingly. I first encountered proper tiling in ion3. After using it traditional window management is a drag and feels like a waste of time.
MenuMeters display various system stats in the menu bar. I have it showing network and CPU activity. In the 90s, you could tell when the machine was doing something, modem lights would blink, hard drive or the floppy drive would screech. New hardware is almost silent so I find it’s useful to have some sort of visual indication of the activity going on down below..
Tweetdeck is a tweeter application. I find it has a useful column layout so I can monitor things I’m really interested in. I think it’s written in something like Adobe Air because occasionally it misbehaves.
Notational Velocity deserves a post of it’s own. It’s a lightweight note taking application with SimpleNote sync (so I can use it on the iPhone). I much prefer it over everything I’ve used in recent years (Evernote, TaskPaper, plain text).
SkypeObvious.
Vox (music player)iTunes is a library management software. Whenever I want to play a single file or a set of files I turn to vox. Latest version seems a bit buggy.
Quicksilver is a Spotlight replacement with some nice features. I like global shortcuts that let me execute scripts.
macvimProgrammers editor with Cocoa UI, for hardcore individuals like myself.
ngrepSimple command line network sniffer. Compile from source.
Finkbrings the world of open source to Mac. There are a number of options available (macports, brew) however for some reason I’ve stuck with fink. You need Xcode installed with the command line tools (Preferences -> Downloads from within Xcode).The two packages that matter to me most are
mc (midnight commander) and wget. Finder is good enough for light work however two pane keyboard driven file management is where it’s at. I know OS X includes curl, but I’m used to wget.
Chrome browser.I can’t get used to separate search bar in Safari, so I’m still using Chrome. Upon installation the extension I immediately install is AdBlock Plus, because internet is a dirty, dirty place.
What do you guys find to be a must have on a new machine?
I’ve been watching the original Bond movies. I’ve realized that I’ve never seen them. One particular aspect that’s quite intriguing is the fashion.
“Dr No” (1962) is the first Bond film. It’s rated quite highly on IMDB. James is in charge of determining the cause of harmful interference originating in Jamaica.
This is James wiping his hands with a handkerchief after a fight:
This is Mr Bond on the island of Crab Key. Today this would be known as “SpecOps“:
Finally, it seems that they only circumstance that may cause a wardrobe malfunction is crawling in superheated ventilation ducts:
The second movie in the series, “From Russia with Love” (1963) has James try and retrieve a Soviet encryption device from a defecting spy. Throughout the film Bond is wearing his signature suit, including this scene where he’s trying to outrun a soviet helicopter chasing him:
At some point last year, I decided that it was time to retire my old school WRT54GL and jump on the 802.11n band wagon. My media PC is a floor away from my file server and wireless is the best option. The thing with WRT54GL series though, it that it’s incredibly rock solid, especially compared to all the other consumer grade routers that suck. After brief research and on advice from Jeff Atwood I settled on Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.
After purchasing the router, I ended up removing the stock firmware and installing an appropriate version of DD-WRT. After a few months the router would stop responding to any wireless traffic while still broadcasting it’s SSID. It’s such a well known problem that there are two “fixes“ for it on the DD-WRT wiki. Basically, the solution is to restart the router every single day.
My attempt at fixing this problem was to blow away the DD-WRT and install Buffalo’s “professional firmware”1which is simply a rebranded and possibly forked version of DD-WRT. I installed it about two weeks ago. The result? The router now drops absolutely ALL wifi every 2 to 3 days. 3 times the improvement!
Bottom line, the router is nowhere near as reliable as the old WRT54 and I don’t recommend it.
Buffalo designates this firmware as “Alpha”, but the router is over a year old… ?
It seems like this book is everywhere. I succumbed to the pressure and listened to the audio book version from Audible. The narration by Simon Vance was really good. The story itself it’s quite gripping but surprisingly, I found myself enjoying small details about Sweden. I think the last (and only) swedish book I read was by Astrid Lindgren, Karlson on the roof, a popular children’s book in Russia. Anyhow, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, is a mystery-thriller type setup which I haven’t read in a while. There’s a swedish film as well as a hollywood one both of which I’m planning to check out. Stieg Larsson has two more books in the “Millenium Series” that I’ll consider reading.
Apparently while I was away ignoring Cocos2d they’ve gone and made a Mac port. So it’s somewhat simple to port an iOS game on to Mac. First screenshot, clearly there’s some work to be done still:
Interesting quotes below but the whole post is worth reading:
Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine (Heh. More like Waffle House and McDonalds) – they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them – we are wimps, even the strongest of us
And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all – always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later – which cuts any pussyfooting short.
The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other ‘incident’, the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.
This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.
Current everyday conventional boring ‘leg infantry’ units exceed the PT levels and training levels of most Special Forces during the Vietnam War. They exceed both of those as well as IQ and educational levels of: Waffen SS, WWII Rangers, WWII Airborne and British ‘Commando’ units during WWII. Their per-unit combat-functionality is essentially unmeasurable because it has to be compared to something and there’s nothing comparable in industrial period combat history.
This group is so much better than ‘The Greatest Generation’ at war that WWII vets who really get a close look at how good these kids are stand in absolute awe.
I’ve never heard about Louis CK until I watched his show Louie. Below is a clip from one of the episodes. Louie wakes up after a night of hardcore partying and:
That’s how I feel most days. I tried to find a clip from another episode, Subway/Pamela but no go. You’re gonna have to trust me that it’s another great episode.
What makes it so interesting to watch is the fact that in 1988 computerized special effects weren’t in full swing yet, so James Cameron actually filmed a lot of the movie underwater. The sets they built were quite amazing too, because they were built in an abandoned nuclear containment vessel:
After they finished the movie, they just left the set there. It’s still visible on Google Maps.
And since we’re talking about movies about movies, check out Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse about Apocalypse Now. Incredible documentary about an incredible movie. It was so intense, Martin Sheen had a heart attack. I can’t find the whole thing online, but here’s a taste on youtube:
