OS X Open With Out-of-date

On my Mac system I’ve noticed that, for some reason, multiple versions of a program, or even programs I no longer have installed, will show on the “Open with” menu in finder. Something like what you see in the screenshot.

Turns out this list is a sort of internal database that needs to be cleaned once in a while, but I’m not sure why the system fails to do this on it’s own. Regardless, this can be corrected by triggering a refresh of the database system and then re-launching the Finder.

Open Terminal and paste the following exactly, it should be all on one line:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

After that command finishes, hold down the Control + Option keys on your keyboard, then click on the Finder icon and select “Relaunch”

Installing activerecord-sqlserver-adapter on Mac OS X Lion

I’m on Mac OS X 10.7.3 “Lion” and want to develop a Ruby on Rails 3.2.2 application using a MS SQL Server 2008 database. To do this I needed to install the activerecord-sqlserver-adapter which requires TinyTDS. While the gem install activerecord-sqlserver-adapter worked fine, the gem install tiny_tds failed to compile. It required a freetds component.

This took me a while and I ended up having to install Homebrew to get it to work. Here are the steps I took to get this working, hopefully it’ll save others the hour or so I spent trying to get it working.

1. Install Homebrew Package Manager by using these instructions
2. Install the FreeTDS component
   

   brew install freetds

3. Install the TinyTDS gem

   gem install tiny_tds -- --with-freetds-include=/usr/local/include --with-freetds-lib=/usr/local/lib --with-iconv-include=/usr/local/Cellar/libiconv/1.14/include --with-iconv-lib=/usr/local/Cellar/libiconv/1.14/lib

4. Now install the SQL Server ActiveRecord gem

   gem install activerecord-sqlserver-adapter

You’ll need to then setup your database.yml file accordingly:

development:
  adapter: sqlserver
  host: 10.1.1.100
  database: mydb
  usernane: user
  password: s3cr3t
  

Move Mac OS X Users folder to secondary hard drive

I recently purchased a new 27" iMac and had it built with both an internal SSD disk and internal HD disk. I wanted to keep all of my applications and OS on the SSD while my user folders on the HD since it has so much more capacity. Here's how I was able to do this:

Restart Mac to Recovery Partition, use Terminal to copy Users folder to secondary drive and then add symlink on primary drive to secondary drive. In my directions below you need to aware of the following:

• The primary disk drive was renamed to “Macintosh SSD”
• The secondary disk drive was renamed to “Macintosh HD”
• My user account short name is troym
• My user account was the first one created on the system, so the system ID is 501

OK, so here’s the steps that I performed to complete this task:

• Restart Mac, holding down Command + R on the keyboard (I had to do this four times before it worked)
• Select your language
• Click on the “Utilities” menu
• Click on the “Terminal” menu option

ditto /Volumes/Macintosh\ SSD/Users /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users 
rm -rf /Users
ln -s /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users /Volumes/Macintosh\ SSD/Users
cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users
chown -R 501:staff troym

Updated Twitter Bootstrap OmniGraffle Stencil

I updated my Twitter Bootstrap CSS ToolKit OmniGraffle stencil with a number of changes.

• Complete replaced the tables
• Added helper text below form fields
• Added a stacked-form section
• Added a radio button control
• Made sure all form labels are right-aligned
• Set all stacked-form labels are left-aligned
• Added a date range control
• Increased the size of the textarea
• Resized the navigation bar to be 940px wide
• Grouped the pagination control

You can grab the stencil now from my GitHub repo, along with directions on how to update to the latest stencil if you're using the previous version.

Twitter Bootstrap Omnigraffle Stencil

I often use the Twitter Bootstrap CSS ToolKit for my web applications.  While this toolkit helps to make things quickly look great, I wanted to be able to use it in OmniGraffle.  I found a few Photoshop files that had the elements, but none for OmniGraffle, so I decided to try creating one.  This is my first OmniGraffle stencil, but I'm pretty proud of how well it came out.  Thanks to the OmniGroup for such a great product.

You can grab the stencil now from my GitHub repo.

I've submitted the stencil to Graffletopia, but still waiting for their review and approval.

Lion Mail Crashes When Searching

I’ve had a very frustrating problem with searching in Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” Mail app since I upgraded. After installing Lion after release, searching in Mail using the keywords like “subject:” and “from:” weren’t being honored and the search results weren’t correct. I was able to resolve this by one of the Apple engineers pointing me towards a bad index and rebuilding my mailbox indexes. This resolved that issue.

After that I started to see a problem where randomly when I’d type anything into the Mail search field the app would freeze, then crash. I was able to do the searches through Spotlight with the keywords, but it was kind of annoying. This became a consistent, reproducable problem after Mac OS X 10.7.1 was installed.

Earlier today I was able to talk again with one of the Apple engineers and he pointed me towards a corruption problem with the “Previous Recipients” list in Mail. Sure enough when I’d try “Window -> Previous Recipients” the window wouldn’t show, and when it finally did after a number of times and restarts, it was only half drawn on the screen.

Since I wasn’t able to clear this list using the GUI, I dig around and found I could do it from Terminal. Since doing this I’m able to search in Mail now without crashing, and it’s so nice

To fix this we need to open the “Previous Recipients” database, which is a sqlite database. First, close your Mail app if it’s running. Next, open Terminal and type:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

Next we need to clear out all of the “Previous Recipients” addresses in this database. To do that, type:

DELETE FROM ZABCDMAILRECENT

To exit sqlite press CONTROL + Z.

Open Mail and you should now be able to search!

iPhone 4 using H2O Wireless

Summary

I’ve been using a locked iPhone 4, using iOS 4.1 and up to the latest iOS 5.0 software, on the H2O Wireless Network since November 2010 without any problems. My plan is currently the $60 unlimited everything (phone, text & 3G data) plan. Below I outline the steps I took to make this locked iPhone 4 work on the H2O network with their data plan.

Note: This does not enable the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), or “picture messaging”, ability. There is currently no way that I have found to have BOTH 3G data and MMS working on a LOCKED iPhone 4. I have read that this is possible if you “jailbrake” your iPhone 4, however I don’t roll that way so I can’t verify this but do include the directions I’ve found below.

Get the SIM

First thing you need to do is purchase an H2O Wireless SIM card. You can do this online from their website here, or like I did from the local BestBuy store.

Modify the SIM

The H2O SIM card is the standard SIM size, but the iPhone 4 and newer uses the new micro-SIM (aka 3FF) form factor. While this micro-SIM format is physically smaller then the SIM format, the chip contact points are exactly the same.

Using this template and a pair of scissors (or perhaps a large kitchen knife) I was able to trim down the standard SIM to the micro-SIM format so that it fit correctly in my iPhone.

Activate the SIM

You now need to go to the H2O Wireless website and activate the SIM that you purchased. During this process you’ll need to select either the $50 unlimited phone + unlimited text + 250MB data plan or $60 unlimited phone + unlimited text + unlimited data plan.

The registration process took about 2 minutes for me, then I received an email with my new H2O Wireless phone number. You should now be able to send/receive phone calls and send/receive SMS (text) messages, however data (Internet) won’t work yet.

Configure the iPhone for H2O Wireless data

To use the iPhone 4 with the H2O 3G wireless data network, you need to have a configuration file so the phone knows how to talk to their data network. In the past you’d have to download the iPhone Configuration Utility, create your own custom configuration and then install it. However, H2O Wireless now makes it easy as they’ve created this configuration file for you.

To get the H2O-Config](https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/pageControl.php?page=IPhoneData) file, go here and enter your wireless phone number and you’ll receive a text message with the final steps to auto-configure your iPhone with H2O Wireless data.

At this point you should now be able to use the data capability of the iPhone, browsing the Internet using Safari, sending/receiving email, etc.

Enabling H2O Wireless Data & MMS on unlocked iPhone

Note: I haven’t performed these steps myself as I don’t want to “jailbreak” my iPhone. I cannot assist you with this process.

First, you’ll have to “jailbreak” your iPhone. If you choose to do this you should be able to find plenty of sites that offer directions on how to do this. I do not provide directions to do this here.

Second, follow the steps above to enable the H2O wireless data.

Third, open the app named “Cydia” on your phone, which is like an app store. Inside that search for an app named “APN Editing” which you’ll need to install.

You’ll configure your iPhone using the “APN Editing” application with the following settings:

MMS APN (Access Point Name): att.mvno
MMS URL: http://mmsc.cingular.com
Username: [leave it blank]
Passowrd: [leave it blank]
Proxy Address: wireless.cingular.com:80
Proxy Port: 80

Have an Apple Magic Mouse

If you have an Apple Magic Mouse, then you MUST download the wonderful Better Touch Tool application so you can unleash the true potential of this fully armed er, mouse.  You can completely customize what it does, clicks, taps, swipes, etc, etc.  Wonderful!

Running a Small Business – Free Tools

Interesting blog post about free tools to help you run a small business.

Watchtower Library for Mac

Have a Mac and want to run the Watchtower Library on it, without having to buy a virtualization software (Fusion, Parallels, etc) and a licensed copy of Windows? Check out Watchtower Library for Mac then.

Born Waid

I bought a pair of Born Waid shoes for our trip to Europe this past summer. These were the only shoes that I wore the entire 16 days and they were so comfortable! No problems what-so-ever.

I told my wife I want to get rid of all of my other shoes and buy one more pair of these, in a different color, and not wear anything else. I think these shoes have caused me to become a "shoe snob", I don't want to wear anything else!

Google Notifier for Mac Check Mail Frequency

I've been using the Google Notifier for Mac, but I'm disappointed that it only checks for new messages every 15 minutes. It's also a little annoying that there isn't a way to configure the frequency that it checks with in the Preferences.
After a little digging, I found a way to do it though. The post can be found here, however I've also pasted the directions below for reference.

• Click on the Google Notifier mail icon, then hold down Command and Option keys while clicking on Preferences
• You will be prompted with a box that has a key and value prompt. Type "AutocheckInterval" under key (this seems to be case-sensitive)
• For value type in the interval of number in minutes that you want it to check your email (for example, enter 5 for every 5 minutes)
• Quit out of the notifier (again found by clicking the Google Notifier mail icon)
• Restart the Google Notifier for your changes to take affect.

Google Apps: Docs

Having recently finished the Google Apps: Gmail Essential Training course at Lynda.com, I decided to checkout the Google Apps: Docs Essential Training course. I've toyed with the Google Docs before, but haven't spent much time with them.

Currently, I'm about half-way through the course and I'm very impressed with what Google has been able to do with this "application" within a web browser. It's actually very slick and powerful for a web-based application. If you haven't looked a Google Docs recently, or don't see the power behind it, take a moment to play with it a little more or checkout a little bit of the training for it, you might be impressed.

Google Apps: Gmail

I've been using Google's Mail (GMail) since it's inception, way back on April 1st 2004 when everyone thought it was an April's Fool joke (1GB of free email storage, that has to be a joke!). Since then I've been using it for 5 years and I thought I knew it pretty much inside and out.

Recently though, going through the Lynda.com Google Apps: Gmail Essential Training course, I realized I had some holes in my knowledge of Gmail. If you haven't had a chance to take a look at this course, or don' t have a Gmail account, you definitely need to sign-up for a free Gmail account and check out some of the training.

Lynda.com

I've been trying to spend some time each week watching some content from my Lynda.com training account that I purchased. I'm always impressed with the quality of the video content in the videos that I have viewed so far. I've also been impressed with the variety of software and training that they offer.

Without an account, they do have some videos that you can watch on each topic. You can find a list of the software they have training on here, and if you use this link you can sign-up for a one time free 24 hour access to all of the content. Even if you don't end up purchasing (and I don't get anything if you do or don't), it maybe worth 20 minutes of your time.

Software Development

Generate XSD from XML

I'm working on a project that requires me to provide an XSD file to validate the XML files I'll be sending from a laboratory to a hospital. Using the W3 Schools tutorials on XML and XSD I started writing my XSD by hand. I do NOT encourage this, it's a pretty painful experience and I was quickly frustrated.

A few Google searches later lead me to Trang, which is a Java utility to generate an XSD file from an XML file, that will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. While not perfect (kept missing the date type no matter what I did), it provided a good skeleton that I could then "tweak" the element types to be correct.

Sync Google Contacts with Mac Contacts

I'm back to using Google for most things now, with regards to email, calendar and contacts. While the Google Gmail and Google Calendar sync just fine with Mac OS X "out-of-the-box", the Google Contacts is still lagging behind. I'm hoping that, with Google supporting Microsoft ActiveSync and Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" having Exchange Server support built-in, this issue will finally go away.

But until Snow Leopard is released this fall, if you want to sync your contacts in the Mac Address Book with those in Gmail, you'll have to use Spanning Sync. I recently installed and configured a copy, works OK and should get me by until I see how "Snow Leopard" and Google work out.

If you're interested in trying it out yourself, you can download a copy here. If you want to buy a license ($25 for 1 year) you can use my discount code (J4MDCU) to get $5 off.

Ubuntu for the Netbook

Ubuntu has released a "remix" of their Linux OS specifically for netbooks. You can grab a copy by going here, then follow the directions to put it on a 1GB flash drive and install it on your netbook.

7 tips for using Faces in iPhoto ’09

Here were 7 good tips for working with Faces in iPhoto '09. I especially like the one to create a Smart Album for pictures where the Face hasn't ben identified yet.