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Ideally Blue

zzamboni.org
Ideally Blue

These are the things I have written about

mac

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Nov 27 / 1:47am

Remapping Mac modifier keys on Emacs 23.3

I just switched from Carbon Emacs (which is old Emacs 22.x) to Emacs for OS X Modified on my Mac (which is a Cocoa app, and Emacs 23.3).

One of the unwelcome changes was that the Emacs 'Meta' modifier is now by default mapped to the Option key and not Command as before. But this gave me the opportunity to learn how to map the Mac keyboard modifier keys arbitrarily. I now have the following in my .emacs:

I'm documenting it here just in case someone (or my future self, when I need to redo my configuration at some point) finds it useful.

Filed under  //  emacs   keyboard   mac  
Aug 5 / 2:31am

Installing cfengine on Mac OS X

Cfengine (tested 3.2.0) installs easily on OS X (tested 10.7), given that it's Unix. One problem I encountered was that it does not compile with the bundled version of Berkeley DB (it recognizes it during configure, but produces compilation errors). The solution is to use some other DB engine. I chose Tokyo Cabinet. Using homebrew, the process is simple

brew install tokyo-cabinet

After this, configure --with-tokyocabinet, and then compile and install as usual.

I have submitted a homebrew formula for cfengine. Once/if it gets approved, you should be able to run brew install cfengine to do all of the above automatically.

Update (2011/09/03): The cfengine homebrew formula has been accepted into the repository! You can now simply run "brew update; brew install cfengine" to get cfengine 3.2.0 installed.

Filed under  //  cfengine   homebrew   howto   mac   osx  
Dec 11 / 6:44am

CopperExport development paused

I want to post a short update aimed at users of my iPhoto plugin CopperExport. I have received multiple reports of it failing in recent updates of Snow Leopard, and I have also verified personally that it does not work properly in iPhoto'09.

Unfortunately, since the big move, I find myself without easy access to a Mac for development (I had a Mac at my previous job, and I use Windows at my new job), which pretty much makes fixing these bugs impossible. Until I get a new machine, I will not be able to provide updates to CopperExport. Of course, if any developers out there want to make the appropriate fixes, I will happily accept patches that you submit, and produce a new release myself.

I apologize to my users for this not-so-happy state, and I want to assure you that as soon as possible, I will resume development. Thank you for your patience and your support, and for the many kind words you have sent me about the plugin itself.

Filed under  //  copperexport   development   mac   software