bioneural.net » Mac

Find which application is using a file

Bruce — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:44:15 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Not infrequently during my use of Apple's OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) I have been seeing a dialogue upon emptying the Trash telling me that 'This operation can't be completed because the item "xxx" is in use'. The culprit has been Mail.app, and the scenario seems to occur when I attempt to delete a file after having sent it as an attachment (and some time after the event at that). Here is the dialogue: Given that I know the file is not open, how do I find out what application thinks it is still in use? Thanks to a response on Apple Discussions, all you need to do is run the 'list open files' (lsof) command in Terminal.app: sudo lsof /path/to/file A shortcut to entering the file path correctly is to drag and drop the file from the Finder into the open Terminal window. In this example, Mail.app was refusing to let go of a Dilbert .gif file I had sent some hours previously: The solution was to quit Mail, empty the Trash, and relaunch Mail. Easily solved, but something Apple should be fixing, surely?

Air Sharing between iPhone and Mac

Bruce — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:14:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Air Sharing is a fab app for iPhone that lets you mount a file store on the device to the desktop as a wireless share. You can browse your files using any decent web browser, and even upload files to the phone—albeit one file at a time. This limitation can be overcome by mounting the iPhone as a network drive (on Mac from the Finder Go > Connect to Server... and enter the server address). Rather than have to visit this menu each time, wouldn't it be nice if there were a one-click way to mount iPhone? There's a app for that. Yep, there's an app for that if you're willing to make one. Fear not, this is very simple using Automator which brings AppleScripting to the Rest of Us. The iPhone supports Apple's Bonjour networking protocol, and can be recognised by either the assigned device name or IP address. If like me you use your iPhone on more than one WiFi network, it might be assigned a different IP address via DHCP. Because of this it makes sense to use the iPhone's Bonjour name rather than IP address, which you can identify from within Air Sharing by taping on the WiFi icon: My Air Sharing app is built with three Automator actions: Get Specified Servers, Connect to Servers, and Show Growl Notification (Growl is an essential OS X add-on). In Automator drag these actions to the right side of the window in the order shown: In the Get Specified Servers action click Add ...

Apple silence and secrecy

Bruce — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:10:45 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

This Dilbert strip may shed some light on why Apple engineers won't publicly acknowledge a defect that causes the 7200rpm Seagate drive upgrades in June 2009 MacBook Pros to make clicking and beeping noises associated with pauses in system responsiveness. Apple's cloak of corporate silence is becoming notorious, with the recent disclosure of an exploding iPod-related gagging order. Google returns many hits relating to Apple's culture of secrecy. It seems like a sure-fire way to alienate the traditionally loyal customer base.

The MacBeep Pause

Bruce — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:11:52 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Potential buyers of Apple's new (June 2009) MacBook Pro should be cautious about specifying a configure-to-order faster and larger hard drive 'upgrade'. The drive supplied by Apple, a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (model number ST9500420ASG) appears to be operating improperly, with some users experiencing random pauses in disk activity associated with disturbing clicks and beeps. Apple are telling some of us that their top-of-the-line laptop is supposed to lock up frequently, and that the beep is normal too (so I guess my previous Macs were all defective as they lacked such 'features'). Here is the content of my letter of complaint to Apple: 14 July 2009 Customer Relations Apple Operations Europe Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill Cork REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Dear Sir/Madam, Re: AppleCare no: supplied MacBook Pro serial: supplied Case reference: supplied Issue: Unacceptable performance of ST9500420ASG (Momentus 7200.4) On 30 June 2009 I reported to AppleCare a loud random beeping that I suspected was related to the hard drive in my MacBook Pro, with a configure-to-order 7200rpm 500GB drive 'upgrade' as above. As advised I took it to my nearest Apple Service Centre, who heard the beep and thought it was possibly related to drive calibration and of no concern so long as it was infrequent. Subsequently the beeping became more frequent (ranging from several times a minute to several times an hour) and more evidently associated with complete system pauses. This is demonstrated in a video posted to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsg84yqzvhs. Multiple users with the same drive are reporting this same issue at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659. Tier 2 Support then sent me an Apple app called Data Capture ...

PhotoLinker evolves geotagging on Mac

Bruce — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:32:35 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

PhotoLinker 2.0 ($US50, 30 day trial) is described by its developer as a 'pro geotagging and annotation tool'. Geotaggers who were familiar with GPSPhotoLinker will recognize the family resemblance, but will also appreciate the magnitude of changes this new app brings. It's no longer dependent upon use of a GPS track logger for a start, as integrated mapping now supports a manual geotagging mode (hence the dropping of 'GPS' from the name). There are improvements to workflow, a map viewer, a facility for track and waypoint management, and the pièce de résistance—EXIF metadata annotation. And yet it retains the incredible flexibility and the same precise control over automatic geotagging parameters that I appreciated in my review of GPSPhotoLonker. This post takes you on a visual walkthrough of the many new and refined features. Disclosure: A single user license for PhotoLinker was provided by Early Innovations for the purposes of this evaluation (v2.0.1). I have a personal interest in the success of the Geotag Icon. Offset When you first click on the Geotagging Console button a HUD prompts you for the time zone your camera was using when the photographs to be geotagged were taken. As a general rule this is easier if your camera is always set to UTC (GMT) which is what your track logger will also be recording. The HUD helpfully prompts you to use a date and time-shifting tool if the images and tracks you load don't appear to match. Adding tracks and photos You can add GPX tracks, single or multiple, ...

The dark art of AirPort networking

Bruce — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:29:23 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Until recently I was using the dodgy BeBox supplied by my Internet access provider as both a DSL modem and wireless router. The ST585v6 could create a wireless distribution system (WDS) to extend my home LAN to the attic iMac, but only over insecure WEP. So we bought a new dual-band (2.4 and 5GHz, 802.11b/g/n) Apple Time Capsule, thinking it would simplify connecting to an AirPort Express and at the same time provide wireless Time Machine backups with shared network-attached storage (NAS). In the event fully integrating this new device consumed hours, with victory arriving only after the discovery of occult keystroke trickery—not at all the Apple experience I have come to expect. Bridging WAN and LAN The first step was to get my BeBox working in bridge mode, functioning as a DSL modem only and handing over my public IP address to the Time Capsule. For the record (in case I need to repeat the exercise), Be sent me this advice: If you would like to, you could switch the BeBox into bridged mode, it would then behave entirely as a modem without routing function. To do this, please follow this procedure: Access the SpeedTouch configuration page by opening a web browser and typing in the Address Bar 192.168.1.254; Click on SpeedTouch > Set up; Click Next, then choose Multi IP 3 Data Ports; Click Next, then Start. After that your BeBox will no longer be accessible through the web interface and telnet server. This will set your be box in bridge mode. Things actually proved more ...

An OS X player for More FM Wellington

Bruce — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:29:13 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Good radio stations can be hard to come by. My personal preference is for a mix of older and contemporary tracks, with a healthy dose of variety but nothing too far outside mainstream. One such radio station is Wellington's More FM, to which you can listen live using your web browser. I'm not keen on Internet radio delivered via a browser window because I usually end up closing the tab/ window by mistake! This Saturday morning project produced an OS X app to keep in the Dock for when the urge to listen to More FM strikes; it opens a network stream and commences automatic playback, using either of the VLC or QuickTime players. Tested under Mac OS X 10.5.6 using VLC 0.9.9 (Intel) and QT 7.6. A browser-based player Windows Media Player 10 content as streamed by More FM won't playback via your Mac within Safari unless you have downloaded and installed both Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X and Windows Media® Components for QuickTime from Microsoft: A VLC-based player This Automator application for OS X uses the Play Movie from URL automator action by Jason Prell, available from Apple here. You'll need to have installed this action and of course the veritable VLC to use it: If Play Movie from URL is not pre-installed you'll see an error: A QuickTime-based player QuickTime is installed with Mac OS X by default. This app uses the default Run AppleScript action included with Automator, but QuickTime needs the help of Flip4Mac WMV to handle the WMA2 audio ...

Desktop refits with GeekTool and friends

Bruce — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:53:12 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Further to my previous post on how to get BBC weather feeds on your desktop, this article collects together other scripts for GeekTool I've come across and customized (hat tip to the original sources, which I neglected to record). Who says the command line doesn't have equal status alongside the Mac OS X eye candy? Suggestions for optimization/ improvement or additional useful scripts most welcome. Creating headings Create headings using an echo shell command, just as when using PHP. For example: echo " //UPTIME:" Within GeekTool you can specify a custom font face, colour and opacity, text alignment, accompanying icon, refresh time, and whether the output should be "on top" of other windows—as for any of the following shell commands: Reporting system uptime The following shell command will report system uptime: uptime | awk '{sub(":", "h ", $3); sub(",", "min", $3); print "Time since last system boot: " $3}' Monitoring memory usage Does you Photoshop work or toying in Parallels merit investment in additional RAM? The following shell command will allow you to monitor memory usage, showing the total RAM in use and top running processes (the window is sized so that the top 10 are visible): uptime | top -l 1 | awk '/PhysMem/ {print "RAM in use: " $8 " \n"}'; top -ocpu -FR -l2 -n20 | grep '^....[1234567890] ' | grep -v ' 0.0% ..:' | cut -c 1-24,33-42,64-77 Identifying CPU hogs Why is that non-essential utility app you just installed consuming 97% of your CPU cycles? The following shell command will allow you to monitor how much of ...

Live BBC weather using GeekTool

Bruce — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:33:00 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

GeekTool is great fun and seems an ideal means of occupying the mind while avoiding something else you should be doing. This Preference Pane for OS X basically lets you create a "live" desktop, auto-updating with data extracted using shell scripts (which can themselves call AppleScripts), image overlays, or log and other text files. I found many inspiring examples around the web to appropriate for my own desktop (see here; apologies for failing to note sources)—but one thing I had to work out by trial-and-error was bringing BBC Weather into the mix. Assuming you already have GeekTool installed (free), go download and install Lynx, a command-line web browser available for OS X here (free). Now enter your town, city, country or UK post code on the BBC Weather website. Look for the "latest observations feed" link. For example, for Chesterfield the feed link is: http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/obs/id/3282.xml In GeekTool create a new shell script with the following command: lynx -dump http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/obs/id/3282.xml This will show you the text file that we will be working with, created from the RSS feed. Alternatively you might open the same URL in Lynx itself from the Terminal: In a TextEdit window (for editing convenience) we now write AWK commands to search for and pull out the bits we want. I found these articles served as a useful AWK primer. You can also search-and-replace text as in the following code to remove redundant commas: {gsub(/,/,"")}; Find a unique word on each line from which you want to extract text. For example, to refer to the line containing ...

HoudahGeo take two best for geotaggers

Bruce — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:28:13 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

HoudahGeo was at version 1.4.2 when I last looked at it in a Mac geotagging software showdown. A license costs $US30 (50% less for students; also TrailPay option) although this is a free upgrade for those with a 1.x license. The following is a largely visual tour of HoudahGeo 2.1, illustrating its ability to perform both automatic and manual geotagging via an outstanding 3-step interface, and to share geotagged images with users of Google Earth, Flickr, and Locr—or any service/ software than can read EXIF metadata or CSV/ GPX files. Disclosure: A single user license for HoudahGeo was provided by Houdah Software for the purposes of this evaluation. You should be geotagging Geotagging—surely you've heard the term? The geotagging 'ABC' post here on bioneural.net is rather popular, and since the software showdown post was published geotagging in general, and on the Mac in particular, has seen a number of exciting developments. CDFinder has been updated with significant geotagging functionality (e.g. export of variable-size images to KMZ). GraphicConverter can edit geotags and create them using Google Earth. Geotag is a cross-platform tool seeing active development. An update to Nikon ViewNX brings free manual geotagging functionality. Even Apple have got in on the act with the release of iPhoto '09, which supports manual geotagging and sharing of geotagged images to Flickr Map (there are options for older iPhoto versions too). Of course the iPhone can geotag images taken with that device's camera, and track logging apps are available via the App Store. The range of Mac-compatible data ...