As if I didn’t have a crappy morning already, my Mac OS X Mail had to start bugging during my morning routines by the computer. After countless crash-reports and relaunches I even rebooted, but without success.
I found some hints on Google, including one on disabling Growl Mail. This seemed to be the most realistic solution, but didn’t work. I also tried many other suggested workarounds like deleting ToDos in iCal, clearing some caches, hitting some keys when Mail starts and so on. Nothing helped. After even more relaunching and sending bug reports to Apple, and another five minutes of Googling, I discovered a thread that had solved the problem by deleting the GrowlMail.mailbundle directory from HD/Library/Mail/Bundles.
Luckily, that worked for me as well. So now I can finally start my day and look forward to whatever else Murphy has got in store for me.
I can’t understand why Apple has not included week numbers in iCal. Not even as an option. Well, luckily I found a php script that generates a calendar that you can import into iCal and that way get week numbers as “whole day” events. Ugly? A bit, but it might be worth it.
I made some own modifications to the script. My version accepts 0-2 parameters denoting starting year and ending year (if specified). If neither parameter is specified, the generated calendar defaults to the current year. If only starting year is specified, the script generates the week numbers for only that year.
The script can be viewed and downloaded here. Save the file to your computer and rename it to generate_ical_week_numbers.php. Note that you need php to be able to run the script.
Usage:
$> php generate_ical_week_numbers.php \
[startyear] [endyear] > week_numbers.ics
Then import the file week_numbers.ics file into iCal as a new calendar. That’s it.
The original script was found here.
When working inside screen over ssh in the Mac OS X Terminal application, it for some reason always hangs after the computer has slept. There’s seems to be no way to resurrect it, other than closing the Terminal and opening a new one, letting the old ssh connection die in loneliness.
However, this problem is avoided by either not using screen (magically, a “normal” ssh connection doesn’t hang the Terminal), or by using autossh to automatically restart a lost connection. I decided to try out the latter option.
Continue reading ‘autossh + screen = fully automatic relogin’
I’ve created my first Widget for Mac OS X. I started off creating it manually when I accidentally tripped over Dashcode, an application in Leopard that let’s you easily create your own widgets. It was up and running in a few clicks. Another couple of hours and it was ready to be released.
This widget displays today’s menu in the Exactum Unicafe restaurant in Helsinki. The whole week’s menu is viewable using the browse buttons at the bottom of the widget. This first version is really simple, but fully functional. In the near future I plan to extend it to support all Unicafes in Helsinki. UnicafeWidget is only available in Finnish.
The widget is free for download on the Projects page.
I’ve finally joined the white side. We’ve done some changes in the way we work at my job, which gave us an opportunity to choose new laptops. Being a Linux user, I’ve been interested in Mac OS X for quite some time, but I’ve never had the money to buy a Mac myself. When I got the chance to order a MacBook at work, I couldn’t resist. Mac users say that there’s no turning back. However, after using this Mac for almost a week, I’m not yet quite convinced.
Continue reading ‘Getting Macified’