Xcode 4.4 and MacOSX SDK 10.6 on Lion.

         OSX

In XCode 4.4 Apple has made the decision to not ship the MacOSX10.6.sdk that is in use by 100s of apps. The choice is to either not install XCode 4.4 and continue using XCode 4.3 or if you have already downloaded XCode 4.4 you need to get the XCode 4.3 DMG from Apple and then extract the MacOSX10.6.sdk from it and place it with the other SDK versions. If you already have a /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.

My must have OS X software

         Computing · OSX

I recently had the opportunity to look at what I would install on a vanilla OS X system and its was quite interesting to look at what I depend on and if I didn’t have it, what would be on my Christmas software list. So here goes: Git: Probably not the first thing that I would install, but it wouldn’t be the last. Via the proper GIT installer Python 2.

psycopg2 OS X – _PQbackendPID

         Computing · OSX      psycopg2 osx PQbackendPID

If you are having problems with _PQbackendPID, psycopg2 and OS X and have tried the forcing to 32 bit mentioned in other posts about the web then it might be time to try a more forceful approach. This is an example of the error that you might face: [cc lang=“bash”] dlopen(/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/psycopg2/_psycopg.so, 2): Symbol not found: _PQbackendPID Referenced from: /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/psycopg2/_psycopg.so Expected in: flat namespace in /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/psycopg2/_psycopg.so [/cc] The first thing to do is get rid of your old Psycopg2 (just in case), so locate the site-packages directory:

NewNewsWire

         OSX · Software

I have posted about NetNewsWire many times on here before. Its been my favourite news reading application for a couple of years now (if not more) but recent development has severally hampered the usability of the software. It seemed to be when they changed it to support sync to Google Reader – not a bad idea by any means, but releasing the software before it was full tested and working was a huge mistake.

The beauty of the ssh config file

         Linux · OSX      ssh config sshfs

This is a tip that I have used on OS X and on Linux, which I presume works on other *nix and BSDs using SSH. Basically in the .ssh folder in your home directory you can create a file called config with which you can put all sorts of configuration information for your ssh client but the real benefit for me was to use this to give extra information to hosts such as defining a different port number to connect on.

PostgreSQL for Mac and language support – PLPGSQL

         Computing · OSX      OS X and languages. · PostgreSQL · saved procedures · stored procedures

Seems sometimes the PostgresqlforMac package doesn’t have support out of the box for PLPGSQL or other stored procedure languages and you can’t simply change to the correct user to upgrade it instead call the createlang command like this: [cc lang=“bash”] /Library/PostgreSQL8/bin/createlang -l DATABASE -U USER; [/cc] Obviously changing DATABASE to your database and USER to your user. This will list all the languages enabled for that database. To add PL/PGSQL, try this:

Installing Windows 2008 on MacBook Pro 10.5

         Computing · OSX · Windows

Windows 2008 Server is probably the most robust operating system to come out from Microsoft whilst still supporting most of the modern features users demand. The robustness and speed of it is just two of the advantages it has over Vista. To install on a MacBook Pro its probably easiest to use Windows 2008 Server x86 CD 32bit. 64Bit and bootcamp is not recommended at the moment! First steps of the installation:

Working with SVN on OS X

         OSX · Software

I use SVN (subversion) quite a bit, even at home to manage my own files, but recently I have been running the beta version for Versions by Sofa and Pico. It turned into an excellent way of using SVN, being very visual and supporting everything that I needed, but alas the Beta period ran out and they released Versions 1. Now I was all for buying this application, but the purchase price of 39 Euros totally puts my of.

2008 Applications of the year

         OSX · Software

So here are my most used OS X applications of the year, in no particular order: Spotify. This is just an excellent music application, the speed with which the streams start is simply amazing and I don’t find that I get that many adverts in the way of the vast array of songs on offer. Textmate. I probably use this more than any other application on the Mac, for me hands down the best text editor that I have ever used and I find more and more features in it everyday.

Last FM

         Computing · Me · OSX

I recently thought that I would check out my listing on Last FM to see stats etc.. and to see what features they have added. Looks like I had forgotten to run last.fm on my Mac so it wasn’t updated since February. So that’s probably about 1000 hours of music unlisted, and lots of music missing. Gutted. Oh well, perhaps I will remember now.