Erics Tech Blog » Mac

5 Apps to Increase Mac Productivity

eric — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:00:35 +0000

I like to think I have been making the most of what’s available on my Mac. This means taking advantage of some obscure and some not so obscure apps. I want to go through some of those apps and a little about their usage to help others get some of the benefit I get. There are certainly other products available and even ones I use. The 5 apps I describe are the ones I use the most frequently (and recommend to just about everyone I come in contact with who uses a Mac).

Boxcar

Just is case you haven’t heard of Boxcar, it’s what notifications for the iPhone should have been. You can get push notifications for a ton of different services ranging from Facebook, Twitter, and email to Github or even something more custom (for those of you techies who read this blog). This awesome iPhone application has recently been released for Mac desktop. This means that those same notifications that you used to have to have tabs open for Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, Email, Github, or whatever other services you use are now all centrally located. Boxcar for Mac is still beta-ish so expect it to get a lot better. But centralized notifications helps to prevent you from checking all 80,000 (or so) locations for new items to distract you.
Alfred

Alfred App is what Spotlight should have been plus some. It is by far the application that I use the most on my Mac. It means that I grep through files, search my entire filesystem and either open a file or find the containing folder and open it up. And with the Powerpack you have the clipboard manager (which happens to be my favorite feature). It does favorite snippets and can save old clipboard contents for long period of times that can searchable. If you try Alfred and it doesn’t make your life easier, then you are using it wrong. I could go on for hours with how Alfred can make your Mac life better, but it’d faster and easier to just read the Tips Blog.
Caffeine

Caffeine is not really a productivity app, but something more to prevent annoyance and generally an all around handy app to have. It does one thing and does it well. Caffeine prevents your computer from going to sleep. This is great if you have a short screen saver that you don’t feel like changing or if you are watching a movie on Netflix and don’t want your computer to go to sleep. There is something to be said for simplicity and doing something well.
Notational Velocity

Mac sticky post-it style notes are good, but Notational Velocity has taken it to the next level. It’s freeform, searchable, remote-syncable, taggable notes (too many buzzwords, right?). But the fact is, you just start typing and it saves as you go. When you are done, you can add tags. And if you have an iPhone, then you can install SimpleNote and have your notes from the computer sync’d to your phone (and vise versa). But my favorite thing is just the fact that you can start typing and it is immediately searchable. I have it open on all my spaces and I am constantly making notes. I take items from my Alfred clipboard and paste them into NV as notes for how I get stuff working. This way I keep track of everything I tried and then just remove the things I don’t use (and then use those notes to write a blog post).
Homebrew
HOMEBREW

I have tried the gamut of package management for the Mac. I compiled things from source (and that just gets messy). I have also tried Fink and Macports and they just both felt a little hackish given the naturally usable feel of OS X in general. So I installed Homebrew and everything just sort of fell into place. It’s just as simple as “brew install $package” (after Homebrew is installed of course). And since every package installed is installed in isolation (/usr/local/Cellar), removing and upgrading can also be done with ease. If there was a solid GUI in front of it, I would recommend Apple adopt it as a 3rd party package management system.

If there are other packages or apps for the Mac that has had a great impact on your productivity, let me know.

Capistrano Hangs on Mac OS X Leopard

eric — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:30:54 +0000

I use Capistrano to deploy my webapps and have been for a while. I also deploy right from my laptop quite frequently. So I was a little taken aback when I could deploy in one place and not in another. It turned out that Capistrano was having issues with deploying to multiple servers. In fact, it turned out that the problem had the appearance of being Capistrano, but in actuality, it was Net-SSH. The whole issue can be tracked via the Lighthouse ticket here. I’m going to show you how to diagnose if you have this problem faster and how to fix it.

However, the shorter version is as follows. It starts out by hanging while trying to parallelize multiple connections. Not only does it hang, but it should peg your CPU. You will be able to tell this if you hit the Terminal and type uptime and you see a high load average and it keeps climbing while your deploy is hung.

elubow@beacon capistrano$ uptime && sleep 5 && uptime
22:25 up 7:25 mins, 2 users, load averages: 2.58 0.61 0.47
22:25 up 7:25 mins, 2 users, load averages: 3.16 1.11 0.97
elubow@beacon capistrano$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.6 (2009-03-31 patchlevel 368) [i686-darwin9.7.0]
elubow@beacon capistrano$ cap deploy:mail:modules
* executing `deploy:mail:modules'
* executing "sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/perl5/STMail && sudo chmod g+w /usr/local/lib/perl5/STMail"
servers: ["10.123.125.82", "10.123.125.101", "10.123.125.107", "10.123.125.113"]

I am able to replicate the problem all the way back to Net-SSH 2.0.11 (although it may go back further). All you have to do is upgrade your version of Net-SSH. Check your version and then upgrade if necessary.

elubow@beacon capistrano$ gem list | grep ssh
net-ssh (2.0.21, 2.0.11)
elubow@beacon capistrano$ sudo gem install net-ssh
Successfully installed net-ssh-2.0.21
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for net-ssh-2.0.21...
Installing RDoc documentation for net-ssh-2.0.21...

Hope this helps.

Count Instead of Sequence

eric — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:30:29 +0000

I use Bash one liners a lot. I think they are an important part of any programmers and sysadmins toolkit. If you can’t write a bash one liner, even a simple iterator, then you really need to learn. I promise it will make your life infinitely more pleasant.

Frequently I find myself writing things that require a loop or an increment of numbers. A good example would be like something that would walk over my web servers and check their uptime, load averages, etc. Using seq, that’s easy. But since Mac OS X doesn’t come with the seq command, I would previously improvise.

# Linux system
$ for n in `seq 1 6`; do echo -n "web${n}: "; ssh web$n uptime; done;
web1: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:50, 4 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web2: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:48, 2 users, load average: 0.07, 0.00, 0.00
web3: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.00, 0.00
web4: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web5: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00
web6: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00

# Mac
$ for n in `echo "1 2 3 4 5 6"`; do echo -n "web${n}"; ssh web$n uptime; done;
web1: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:50, 4 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web2: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:48, 2 users, load average: 0.07, 0.00, 0.00
web3: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.00, 0.00
web4: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web5: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00
web6: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00

That is no longer the case. I could have written this myself, but since I am not for reinventing the wheel, I Google’d around and found count.

$ for n in `count 1 6`; do echo -n "web${n}"; ssh web$n uptime; done;
web1: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:50, 4 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web2: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:48, 2 users, load average: 0.07, 0.00, 0.00
web3: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.00, 0.00
web4: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:47, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
web5: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00
web6: 18:36:56 up 82 days, 22:45, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00

I can’t take any credit for this script, nor do I plan to. But I feel that all Mac shell users should have this available to them. The original was written by Dave Taylor and is located here. I strongly suggest that in addition to copying the script, you read his explanation of its utility. It give you the ability to increment or decrement, whichever you find the need for.

To install, just copy and paste into /usr/local/bin/count and then chmod +x /usr/local/bin/count.

Here is the script in its entirety.

#!/bin/sh

# count - step through numeric values until you get to the max value
if [ "$#" -lt 2 ] ; then
echo "Usage: count {increment}"
exit 1
fi

counter="$1"
max="$2"

if [ "$#" -eq 2 ] ; then
step=1
else
step=$3
fi

while [ $counter -le $max ] ; do
echo $counter
counter=$( expr $counter + $step )
done

exit 0

Textmate Minimap Plugin

eric — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:00:35 +0000

My editor of choice for most of what I do on the Mac (when I’m not in the shell using Vim) is Textmate. I recently came across a neat plugin called the Textmate Minimap. Essentially this plugin opens a map across the side of your Textmate window (like another drawer on the other side) and allows you to scroll full screens. You can move the editing window screen by screen in the minimap. This is equivalent to a visual page down.

Example of the minimap

This isn’t really handy if you have a lot of small files, but you can imagine the utility with larger files. Now its still in beta stages, so be weary when you try it out. Install it into Textmate as a bundle and use it as necessary.

Apple Steps Up With Multitouch Mouse

eric — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:44:40 +0000

A while ago I wrote about how Apple needed an external multi-touch solution and that you can use your iPhone until then. Apple did it and now released the Magic Mouse.

To quote Apple, “It’s the world’s first multi-touch mouse.” It’s a wireless mouse that attaches to any computer that has a keyboard, mouse and Bluetooth via Bluetooth. It’s sleek just like everything else Apple makes. But the best part is that (as of now), its only $69. Good work Apple.

I could go on and on about why I think its cool and what it can do, but why waste time on my website reading a summary, just check it out on Apple’s web site: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/

What About An External Multi-Touch Trackpad For a Mac

eric — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:13:00 +0000

I used to be a big fan of ergonomic keyboards (and I still am). But I am an even bigger fan of the multi-touch trackpad. I have even extended it by using MultiClutch (I know the link looks funny, but that’s the page title, I promise). MultiClutch allows you to extend the swiping and pinching of fingers to extend to other applications and key combinations (both locally and globally). This means that it is so much a part of my daily productivity that I have had to make due without an ergonomic keyboard.

If someone knows about an external multi-touch trackpad (either wireless or USB) that supports 1,2,3 and 4 finger multi-touch, please let me know. And if one doesn’t exist, please let Apple know . Ultimately what I would like my “at home” setup to be is a wireless ergonomic keyboard along with a wireless ergonomic multi-touch trackpad.

I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

Things (Todo App)

eric — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:00:08 +0000

After reading and commenting on these 2 blog entries by rbowen: iPhone Todo Apps Things and iPhone Todo Apps; I figured that I would throw my $0.02 on here.

Things by Cultured Code does come with a high price tag. But it is by far the most useful todo app that I have come across.

Let’s do a quick salient point pro/con analysis of this. One of my favorite parts of Things is the concept of context. When you create a todo item, you can tag it with what context it is in. Then you can sort or show your todo’s by context. You can sort by multiple tags. This can be shown with the following example, “How can I see what phone calls I have to make for work?” You can click on the items tagged with work and phone. Then you’ll have which phone calls to make.

The biggest con here is the hefty price tag. It definitely does cause some sticker shock. Between the USD $10 for iPhone app and the USD $50 for the laptop/desktop version, USD $60 can be quite a bit for the simplicity of a todo app.

I have found that since spending the USD $60, I have become a lot more efficient and productive. There are also a lot fewer things that fall through the cracks. I have to face facts that I have a pretty poor memory. So when I have something to do, I immediately put it into Things and then sync it as soon as I am in the same place as my laptop again.

One of the beautiful aspects of Things is its simplicity. It has a simple interface and a very succinct group of menus. The only thing that I believe that Things is missing is alerts. I like the iCal sync and iPhone sync, but I would like it to integrate into Growl. This would be even more useful if you could give specific times that you want the Growl notifications to pop up. I know this isn’t possible in the current state of the iPhone OS (until push notifications from the background are available). But this is certainly an available on the laptop/desktop setup.

I am a big believer in FOSS and Open Source in general. However, I am also a big believer in the right tool for the right job. Sometimes that tool costs a little bit of money. Although it may not be the right tool for everyone, it happened to be a tool that made me a more efficient worker and person.

Downloading Youtube Videos onto the iPhone on Mac OS X

eric — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:00:41 +0000

For months I have been trying to figure out the best way to download Youtube videos to watch on my iPhone my hour commute to work. I tried a few different methods, the most recent of which was TubeTV. TubeTV was good except it was missing a few key features like continuing partially downloaded files and importing directly into iTunes. I could live with this up until it completely stopped working for me (otherwise I would still be using it).

Enter Tooble. Tooble is the answer. You give it a URL and it downloads the movie, converts it and dumps it straight into iTunes. Great work. Clean and simple.

Reminder Trick With Quicksilver

eric — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:00:14 +0000

I have a few tools for making and keeping myself more productive. One of those tools is Quicksilver. I know it is a widely used tool so I won’t spend time talking about everything it can do. However, from the Blacktree website, it is:

A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.

I like to be reminded of things, but I usually hate putting them into Entourage or Things (which I will definitely be covering in a future blog post). A shortcut using Quicksilver is to do the following:

Initiate Quicksilver (in my case): CTRL-SPACE
Type the ‘.‘ to enter text mode
Enter your reminder message: Relax your eyes
Press TAB and select Large Type
Press CTRL-Enter and select a period
For testing, use Run After Delay and Tab over to the third box
Enter an element of time. Again for testing, we’ll use 5s (the ‘s‘ being seconds) and press enter.

And there you have it. It will appear before your eyes 5 seconds after pressing enter. Just remember, there is no stickiness with Quicksilver. If it closes for any reason (computer restart, Quicksilver crash, etc), your reminder is gone with it.

No related posts.

Mac Perl Problems After Feb Update

eric — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:40:18 +0000

When I did my most recent upgrade (the latest Mac software updates), it broke my Perl install. In order to figure out if your Perl is broken like mine was, you will get a result like this:

beacon:mail elubow$ perl -MIO
IO object version 1.22 does not match bootstrap parameter 1.23 at /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/XSLoader.pm line 94.
Compilation failed in require.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.

I had a little trouble finding out how to fix this. So I am posting this here in case it helps someone else out. It was a simple fix (since CPAN doesn’t work) that you have to do by hand. Go to the CPAN site and download dist IO here. Download and untar it and run the following commands:

beacon:IO-1.2301 elubow$ sudo perl Makefile.PL
Writing Makefile for IO
beacon:IO-1.2301 elubow$ sudo make install
cc -c -arch i386 -arch ppc -g -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -no-cpp-precomp -fno-strict-aliasing -Wdeclaration-after-statement -I/usr/local/include -O3 -DVERSION=\"1.23\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.23\" "-I/System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE" IO.c
...
Removed for brevity
...
Files found in blib/arch: installing files in blib/lib into architecture dependent library tree
Installing /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/IO/IO.bundle
Writing /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/IO/.packlist
Appending installation info to /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/perllocal.pod

This should fix your Perl install. It also ended up that I had to run CPAN and reinstall Scalar::Util and Storable.