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LAPDOG » Apple http://www.lapdog.us Linux, Apple, Politics, Design, Observations, and Gaming Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:29:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Tech Writer Shocked to See Apple Xserves at CNBC http://www.lapdog.us/2007/12/20/tech-writer-shocked-to-see-apple-xserves-at-cnbc/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/12/20/tech-writer-shocked-to-see-apple-xserves-at-cnbc/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:51:45 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/12/20/tech-writer-shocked-to-see-apple-xserves-at-cnbc/ Yeah, well you can’t blame them of course… after all, they’re just the spokespersons for the industry, the tech know-it-alls right? In this video, Computerworld’s Lucas Mearian gets schooled by a system administrator at CNBC while getting a tour of the media giant’s 15 terabyte Apple Xserve RAID/Xsan setup. Makes you wonder if these writers get their credentials by just studying back issues of Computer Shopper magazine.Click here to view the embedded video.

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/12/20/tech-writer-shocked-to-see-apple-xserves-at-cnbc/feed/ 0 No lookupd? No problem! http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/30/no-lookupd-no-problem/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/30/no-lookupd-no-problem/#comments Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:24:27 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/30/no-lookupd-no-problem/ For quite a while now, Apple has dumped the old lookupd daemon and it may have confused some users. “How am I supposed to flush the DNS cache?” or “How can I restart DNS services without a reboot?” Fortunately, Apple now supplies dnscacheutil which takes care of everything and provides a great command-line interface for DNS tools within the OS.read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/30/no-lookupd-no-problem/feed/ 2 Microformats Plugin for Safari http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/28/microformats-plugin-for-safari/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/28/microformats-plugin-for-safari/#comments Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:09:25 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/28/microformats-plugin-for-safari/ Though there exists a CSS solution to do the same thing, this particular SIMBL plugin for Safari adds a configurable and intuitive microformats utility. One thing which may get annoying is the constant popping up of the “warning” window once a lot of websites start embracing microformats on every post or page.

read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/11/28/microformats-plugin-for-safari/feed/ 0 IRC on the iPhone! (kinda) http://www.lapdog.us/2007/07/06/irc-on-the-iphone-kinda/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/07/06/irc-on-the-iphone-kinda/#comments Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:29:21 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/07/06/irc-on-the-iphone-kinda/ Detailed instructions, with images, on how to set up your iPhone to log in to the Colloquy IRC client so you can chat directly from the phone itself! Yes, you’ll have to use a running Mac to proxy the connection, but it’s a start. Hopefully soon there will be a linux-type daemon that can accomplish the same thing. Stay tuned for my own personal experience with the iPhone!

read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/07/06/irc-on-the-iphone-kinda/feed/ 0 iTunes WTF! – Think of the Children! http://www.lapdog.us/2007/06/12/itunes-wtf-think-of-the-children/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/06/12/itunes-wtf-think-of-the-children/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:22:18 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/06/12/itunes-wtf-think-of-the-children/ “50 Cent’s masterwork “Candy Shop” is an eloquent and subtle meditation on the similarities between consuming candy and f**king. Classical composers Bach and Ligeti, on the other hand, took things a bit too far with their highly explicit, violin-only Chaconne (originally titled “****ing and ****ing in D Minor, 6th God**** Movement”).” Not sure if someone in charge got a little sloppy with their clicks and inadvertently checked the adult-content box in iTunes… Our friends at The Daily WTF explain:

read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/06/12/itunes-wtf-think-of-the-children/feed/ 0 Apple adds Xvid to QuickTime components page http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/05/apple-adds-xvid-to-quicktime-components-page/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/05/apple-adds-xvid-to-quicktime-components-page/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:19:30 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/05/apple-adds-xvid-to-quicktime-components-page/ Apple has added the open source Xvid codec to its list of QuickTime components on Apple.com… maybe now Xvid will finally make it into iTunes and the AppleTV.

read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/05/apple-adds-xvid-to-quicktime-components-page/feed/ 0 Google Desktop released for Mac http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/04/google-desktop-released-for-mac/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/04/google-desktop-released-for-mac/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:44:55 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/04/google-desktop-released-for-mac/ There’s a bit of confusion out in the community since Google announced its popular Desktop application would be available to Mac users. Why so? Sure, it’s a hit on the Windows platform because it brings functionality that isn’t already built into the OS (surprise!) but on Mac OS X 10.4 we have Spotlight. With a simple key-combination of Command-Space (or use the menubar icon) you can launch an app or open a document with just a simple keyword search. Google Desktop apparently does the same thing, except with Google-y goodness. Hmm… I smell a review coming up!

Luckily our friends at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (tuaw) site saw the inevitable showdown brewing and wrote up their comparison of the two heavyweights. Check it out now!

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/04/04/google-desktop-released-for-mac/feed/ 0 An Initial Analysis on the Apple iPhone http://www.lapdog.us/2007/01/09/an-initial-analysis-on-the-apple-iphone/ http://www.lapdog.us/2007/01/09/an-initial-analysis-on-the-apple-iphone/#comments Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:19:05 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2007/01/09/an-initial-analysis-on-the-apple-iphone/ (Originally from OSNews.com) Apple today announced the long awaited iPhone, a device that I predicted about years 1.5 ago that it would happen (I won’t forget how a fellow editor from a Mac site emailed me to say that I am crazy after reading my blog back then). But the iPhone is real, and it’s public information now. So based on the little we know about the device so far…

read more | digg story

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2007/01/09/an-initial-analysis-on-the-apple-iphone/feed/ 0 zcat broken on Mac OS X: Feature or bug? http://www.lapdog.us/2006/09/11/zcat-broken-on-mac-os-x%e2%80%a6-feature-or-bug/ http://www.lapdog.us/2006/09/11/zcat-broken-on-mac-os-x%e2%80%a6-feature-or-bug/#comments Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:46:07 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2006/09/11/zcat-broken-on-mac-os-x%e2%80%a6-feature-or-bug/ Apparently on Mac OS X 10.4.7 (and earlier), the zcat command doesn’t work. zcat is a very useful util to read through gzip-archived system logs and usually works by just typing zcat /path/to/log.gz

However, it appears to be broken on the Mac. For example, this is actual output:

[user@host:~] zcat /var/log/system.log.0.gz
zcat: /var/log/system.log.0.gz.Z: No such file or directory
[user@host:~] zcat -S .gz /var/log/system.log.0.gz
zcat: /var/log/system.log.0.gz.Z: No such file or directory

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2006/09/11/zcat-broken-on-mac-os-x%e2%80%a6-feature-or-bug/feed/ 2 OpenGL components missing from Intel 10.4.7 delta upgrade http://www.lapdog.us/2006/07/05/opengl-components-missing-from-intel-1047-delta-upgrade/ http://www.lapdog.us/2006/07/05/opengl-components-missing-from-intel-1047-delta-upgrade/#comments Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:31:43 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/2006/07/05/opengl-components-missing-from-intel-1047-delta-upgrade/ I didn't even know about this until I happened to be browsing the Mac tech support forums on the Blizzard World of Warcraft site the day after Mac OS X 10.4.7 came out. Apparently, if you own a Intel Mac (I own a MacBook Pro) and do a typical Software Update from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 some improved OpenGL components will be missing. The delta upgrade is approximate 133 MB and everything else seems to work fine otherwise. Blizzard (and Apple) recommends that Intel Mac users download the combo 10.4.7 upgrade from Apple's site and install that (for 10.4.6 users and those who did a delta upgrade to 10.4.7). How big of a deal is this? Blizzard mentioned in its forums that it has been tuning performance for Macs and was making some OpenGL enhancements in conjunction with Apple. To verify that these upgrades are working and that you have the latest OpenGL components, run World of Warcraft in Windowed mode and open your Console.log. You should see some strange entries which relate to graphics similar to this:

CGxVboBroker5 activated for GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB, size 2097152 for buffer slot
0, hints = 0x03

CGxVboBroker5 activated for GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB, size 2097152 for buffer slot
1, hints = 0x03

…and if those do not show then you may have to download the 10.4.7 combo upgrade. I can tell you that these new OpenGL improvements bring astounding performance. I can run WOW at 1680×1050, 2x 24-bit multisampling, full screen glow, terrain distance maxed, 50% anisotrophic filtering, trilinear filtering on, and practically every other setting maxed. Best of all, I get about 30 fps all the while, even on raid runs in Zul'Gurub! Of course, it doesn't hurt that this MacBook Pro has a 256 MB ATI Mobility X1600 onboard.

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2006/07/05/opengl-components-missing-from-intel-1047-delta-upgrade/feed/ 0 Microsoft CEO and engineers called in to exorcise Windows http://www.lapdog.us/2006/06/05/microsoft-ceo-and-engineers-called-in-to-exorcise-windows/ http://www.lapdog.us/2006/06/05/microsoft-ceo-and-engineers-called-in-to-exorcise-windows/#comments Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:17:55 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/?p=15 To illustrate how badly Microsoft Windows is designed, Australian IT magazine has a humorous article regarding Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's troubleshooting session for a friend. Apparently Ballmer was attending a wedding and the bride's father had asked him to troubleshoot his Windows PC at home. Of course, Ballmer volunteered to check it out because he loves the OS so much… and after two days gave up. He called in the engineers at Microsoft headquarters and together they found the system crippled by malware and corrupted settings, some of which were irreparable.

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2006/06/05/microsoft-ceo-and-engineers-called-in-to-exorcise-windows/feed/ 0 Postfix Goofiness and Temporary Workaround http://www.lapdog.us/2006/05/08/postfix-goofiness-and-temporary-workaround/ http://www.lapdog.us/2006/05/08/postfix-goofiness-and-temporary-workaround/#comments Mon, 08 May 2006 17:50:30 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/?p=12 Many distributions of Mac OS X come with Postfix installed, which make for great mail servers. However, Apple added a new twist to its UNIX backend with the addition of its own pseudo-replacement for cron, called launchd. This causes a minor, yet fatal error with Postfix on Tiger. If you use the preinstalled Postfix or roll your own, you may encounter this in your mail.log: fatal: open lock file pid/master.pid: unable to set exclusive lock: Resource temporarily unavailable. To correct this you need to mod a system setting file provided by Apple, and the solution has been posted on chxo.com. I must say, killing launchd via HUP doesn't seem to break my system but your experience may be different than mine, so please exercise caution and restart the box if you're unsure of what you're doing.

Share This ]]> http://www.lapdog.us/2006/05/08/postfix-goofiness-and-temporary-workaround/feed/ 0 Using MySQL with the built-in OSX Apache and PHP http://www.lapdog.us/2006/04/17/using-mysql-with-the-built-in-osx-apache-and-php/ http://www.lapdog.us/2006/04/17/using-mysql-with-the-built-in-osx-apache-and-php/#comments Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:03:23 +0000 Glenn Batuyong http://www.lapdog.us/?p=5 Although it's quite simple to download and install MySQL on a Mac OS X system, most PHP apps that interact with the database won't run right out of the box without an initial tweak. For the purposes of this article, I am referring to Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger) and MySQL 5.0.x. As of the 10.4.6 patch of Tiger, Mac OS X has Apache 1.3.33 and PHP 4.4.1 built-in. A nicety of the system is that external MySQL support has been compiled in. However you will need to adjust a few things to make web apps work. If you get the official MySQL binary distribution installed, everything is put into its proper place but you still need to set the root MySQL password. This isn't detailed in the installer AFAIK (I could be wrong… I didn't read the notes… do any of you ever?). So before you go any further, open up your Terminal. Note that all MySQL executables are installed in /usr/local/mysql/bin where mysql is a symbolic link pointing the current distribution directory, named after its version. Either change to the MySQL bin directory or add it to your path and type: mysqladmin -u root password new_password where new_password is the new, initial password for the root MySQL account. Also note that Mac OS X should have a built-in UNIX user called 'mysql' with no shell and a home directory of /var/empty. Sweet! Now that you have the first security step done, you need to tell PHP that MySQL now exists. If you attempt run PHP/MySQL apps out of the box at this point, they will likely balk and say that your database is down. This is because the compiled-in MySQL socket path differs from what actually exists when you install MySQL from the official binary distribution. By default, the PHP config file does not exist on Mac OS X but a template config file is included so you can activate it. Make a copy of /etc/php.ini.default and name the copy /etc/php.ini …now edit the file and look for this line: mysql.default_socket = This needs to be updated because the compiled-in default value is /var/lib/mysql. Update that line to read: mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock Save the file and restart Apache. Your PHP/MySQL web applications should now be running on Mac OS X. Be aware that Apple security updates have a nasty habit of breaking custom web apps if they touch Apache or PHP so keep track of your configuration files before you run Software Update. If you have problems with Apache and PHP on Mac OS X, in general, you might want to start by making sure PHP is activated. Check your Apache config file and ensure the PHP module is loaded. Create a generic phpinfo() PHP file, load that, and check all the settings.

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