A Keyboard for Messy Folks

Do you like to eat and drink while you code? Well Logitech's fully washable keyboard is for you. Spilling soda is no longer quite the problem it was.

Mac and Windows Native App Packaging for Java and JavaFX

With the release of Java 7 u6, native packaging support for Windows and Mac Java FX applications is available to everyone. This is totally awesome and I plan to dive in, but haven't yet. But don't wait for me, here are the details so you can get started.



For Mac OS X packaging, here are the details:

• Java Mac Packaging Guide


• AppBundler Project

And for Windows, check out Igor's original post:

Igor's Packaging Blog Post

Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) is out

It's here! Mac OS X Mountain Lion is available on the Mac App Store. CNET has a review.A lot more iOS and iCloud integration. So apps like iMessage and Reminder will also be on your desktop, making them a lot more useful.



As always, I will be waiting for the first major patch before I start installing it.

Apple announcements galore!

Apple made a ton of announcements today at their World Wide Developers Conference. Here is a link to the Verge's summary:

The Verge: Best of WWDC 2012

The biggest announcements appears to be the new MacBook Pro Uber. A crazily loaded 15 inch machine with a retina display for $2200. That is a pretty amazing price for what you get.



The new IOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion announcements were interesting but didn't really measure up to the MacPro Uber! Though I should say, Siri will be included with IOS 6 and expect some functionality updates. Siri being very sports aware was the biggest example given.

Finally, a better battery?

The Verge has a story on a new battery technology that could supplant the iron grip of Lithium Ion batteries. The new technology is called Iolyte, and has a number of advantages:

1. It is not flammable


2. It holds 10 times the charge given the same size

The product's manufacturer, Boulder Ionics (based here in Colorado), expects to have commercial products ready by the middle of this year.

Great Cross Platform Programmer's Editor

I am always looking for good tools. When I just need a text editor, I typically use JEdit. It is free, open source, and since it is written in Java, works well on Mac, Linux or Windows. However, JEdit is not always the simplest tool to configure and use.



Recently I ran across Sublime Text. For $60, you get a really nice editor, with an easy to use interface. Plus, the editor is skinnable so you have a number of options on how the editor and your code actually look. It has nice code completion features with customization options. Top that off with the fact it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. It is definitely worth a look.

Where is JDK 7 after Mac OS X Install?

Problem: I just installed JDK 7 on Mac OS X, but it seemed like nothing happened. What do I do, where is it installed?



Solution: Everything is explained in the ReadMe. Unfortunately, I missed the link on the last screen of the installer. So here is the link in case you missed it:

JDK 7 Mac OS X ReadMe



Basically, use the Java Preferences application in the /Applications/Utilities directory to choose which version of Java to use. Then open a Terminal window and you will see the JDK you selected is being used.

OS X Mountain Lion Adds App Certificates

I found this story from MacWorld on the new certificate system that is being added to the next version of OS X. In essence, any application you wish to install and run on a Mac will need a certificate from Apple identifying the developer. Apple does not have to vet the app, but developers do need to get the certs to sign their apps with.



A few thoughts.

• On the plus side of the ledger, this is intended to and should prevent a lot of malware. That is a good thing and should make for secure systems.


• As long as Apple makes the process relatively inexpensive and easy to use, it should be good. Charging too much would, of course, be devastating to the platform.


• However, I do wonder how well this will work if you are installing an application and your Internet connection is down. Or if you are on a plane without an Internet connection.


• In Mountain Lion, you can still install unsigned applications by answering some security questions. So your computer is not totally locked down.


• I do wonder if a more free market approach would be better. Allowing trusted 3rd parties to issue certificates would provide a feeling that Apple is not trying to control everything.


• Not sure this help with browser based attacks which would seem more likely in the years to come.

MacLife January Highlights - Chips, Siri, and Rays

Here are some of the highlights from this months MacLife magazine available on the web.



MacLife: The Future of ARM - A great story on where ARM is headed with their processes. More power, less electricity should make for some great devices.



MacLife: iPhone 4s Review - The scoop on what is new with the iPhone 4s.



MacLife: 10 Questions to Ask Siri - I like the fact that Siri has a sense of humor. I look forward to this sort of tech.



Ray Solar Charger - For $50, get your own Solar charger for your iPhone.

MacLife: Apple MD - Troubleshooting your Mac and iOS Apps

This months issue of MacLife has a great series of stories on troubleshooting problems with your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.



Here are the best ones I could find:

• How to Diagnose Mac Problems | Mac|Life


• How to Reset iOS Apps | Mac|Life


• Why's My Mac Slow? | Mac|Life


• How to Boot Your Mac in Safe Mode | Mac|Life


• How to Fix Your Fonts | Mac|Life


• How to Recover Your Passwords | Mac|Life


• How to Sweep Your Drive Clean with Software | Mac|Life

I highly recommend a subscription.

Intel Ultrabooks here to Compete with MacBook Airs

CNET has a writeup on the fist wave of Ultrabook laptops. These are part of an Intel program to design Windows based laptops to compete with the MacBook Air.



CNET: MacBook Air vs. Ultrabooks: The first wave



I think the most interesting thing is the price. At $900 to $1200 they are not much cheaper than the MacBook Air. So it does make one wonder, why would you buy a Rolex knock off when you could own a Rolex for the same price?



Methinks I would rather get the Air and just run Bootcamp.

OS X Tip: Figuring out Server, Background Issues

Problem: I try to start Web Sharing, File Sharing, or a similar background process in OS X and it fails. The process quits with no error message. What do I do?



Solution: Open your Applications --> Utilities folder. In there, start the Console application. This little app captures all the error messages and warnings thrown by the operating system. Try starting the process again. You should see the error message display in the console. From here, you can start figuring out what is wrong.

Mac OS X Lion After Upgrading Review Notes

Well after upgrading to iOS 5 last week I found out iCloud does not work with OS X Snow Leopard. Yes that is a bit bizarre. So over the weekend I upgraded to OS X Lion. Here is a quick summary of my thoughts and findings with Lion.



UI Enhancements

You will get the most benefit from UI enhancements if you are using a trackpad. Switching desktops, and calling Expose (now called Mission Control) can all be controlled with a three finger swipe. Very cool.



Another feature of note is the direction of scrolling has been flipped. The idea is that scrolling should match the direction you use for a touch interface. However, my Mac doesn't have a touch interface. In addition, I'm constantly switching between Windows, Linux, and OS X. So changing the scrolling direction on one OS is really annoying. Thankfully you can still turn this off.



iCloud

Well it turns out the iCloud feature that I really want to use, music syncing, will not be available until the end of October. So enabling the feature has been a bit disappointing. You can sync bookmarks, address book, and calendars. However, unless this will work on other operating systems its kind of useless for me. GMail already keeps all my iOS devices synced and it works on any platform. I still need to do more investigation on syncing between Mac and Windows to really understand what works.



Other Surprises

Installing OS X Lion removes Java from your machine. You can download it from Apple and get it back easily. I did find this a bit odd. Also my Apache Web servers no longer worked on upgraded machines. I had to comment out the FastCGI plugin so Apache would start.



Overall

It has some nice enhancements and pretty much is not that different from Snow Leopard. All my apps seem to run fine (knock on wood), and stability seems to be good. So far so good. But I have to say, it sure was a lot of work just to be able to use iCloud. :)

Mac OS X Proxy Settings Do Not Work

Problem: You have just turned on proxy support for Mac OS X. However, even though your proxy settings are correct, Safari and Chrome cannot connect to any web site. In addition, no proxy settings work, Auto Proxy Discovery, Automatic Proxy Configuration, and Web Proxy (HTTP). The settings are correct, but the browser cannot connect.



When this happened to me, Firefox and SeaMonkey worked just fine. Bizarre and frustrating.



Solution: Reboot you system. Yep, that's it.



In my particular case, as soon as I rebooted with Auto Proxy Discovery checked, everything on my system began to work fine. I hope this post helps save the time of other poor soul who runs into this. lol. No idea why the reboot is required.

Cyberduck FTP/SFTP/DAV Client Now on Mac App Store

Cyberduck (by David Kocher) has been my favorite FTP/SFTP client for the Mac for a number of years. It essentially has a folder interface with which you can drag and drop files to or from your destination. It includes a bookmark system that is very easy to use. And most important, it supports SFTP, in addition to FTP, which is the defacto standard for copying files on the Internet. Recently I also discovered that Cyberduck has full DAV support which works great with the Oracle Beehive server at work.



Cyberduck is still available for free as an open source product. But it is also available on the Mac app store for $24.95. A great price considering what a great product this is.



Cyberduck - Mac App Store

Cyberduck Site

App Week

This week I am going to write about some apps and Mac apps I use a lot or have used a lot in the past.



The Mac app store was announced quite a while back, but I never used it until a few weeks ago. Much to my surprise a number of my favorite apps now are on the store. Simply purchasing the app on the store, makes it available on all your Macs. Thus, the App store allows you to sync your purchased apps to all your Macs. Hope you like these apps as much as I do.

Smultron OS X Text Editor - Now in Mac App Store!

I have written about Smultron before a few times. A free open source text editor for the Mac that works really well. However, the original author, Peter Borg, no longer had time to maintain it so the project was on life support. So I stopped using it.



A few weeks back I got some good news. I found Smultron was on the Mac App store for $5. Smultron is back!



Smultron - Mac App Store



That is a great price for such a useful tool. I purchased it right away and now I am using it again on all my Macs. So if you want an easy to use, yet powerful Mac native text editor, check out Peter's site for more information: Peter Borg Apps

OS X Tip: Two Hidden Airport Wifi Features

Ran across a couple of Airport wifi features today that I did not know about.



First, there is a built in airport command you merely need to add a link to. Once you do that, you can do a number of queries on the command line. Details can be found here:



airport � the Little Known Command Line Wireless Utility



Second, just hold down the option key and click on your Airport icon on the menu bar. This provides some pretty detailed information about your connection.

Swap Control and Command Keys on a MacBook Pro Running Bootcamp and Windows 7

Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops are some of the best laptops out there on the market. Not only great for running OS X, but with Bootcamp they make great Windows laptops too.



However, one annoyance with Windows on a Macbook is the tiny little Control key on the left side of the keyboard. When you cut and paste a lot of text, like I do, pressing Control-c or Control-v can be a little difficult. Not a problem when running OS X, since you use your Command key (right next the the Space Bar on a Mac). However, once in Windows you stuck with that little Control key. Or are you?



Recently I found out there is a way to make your left Command key function like the Control key.This is not a key swap, it is really just a key reassignment. So the right command key still works like a the Windows key. But after making this tweak, your left Command key works just like the Control key making your cut and paste keystrokes a lot easier.



The key reassignment is done in the registry. However, since mere morals don't really want to work with the Registry and its nasty hex codes, there is a utilty to do this. Download Sharpkeys 3.0 from here and read the explanation of what it it does from RandyRants.



To reassign the key, start SharpKeys and click add your dialog looks like this:

Chose the left Command key as the "from" key (note in Windows it shows up as the left Windows key). And choose Control as the "to" key. Click OK.

Any reassigned keys are listed in SharpKeys in case you ever want to remove the mapping. Click on the "Write to Registry" button when you ready to make the changes to the Registry.

That's it, the changes have been written to the Registry. Logoff and log back in or reboot. Now you can cut and paste in Windows with your thumb instead of your with your little finger. Absolutely wonderful stuff! Enjoy.

Where is the .jedit directory on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Ran into this problem the other day. Where the heck is the .jedit configuration directory for the JEdit editor on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard?



Usually, the .jedit configuration directory can be found in your home directory on any operating system. However, on OS X 10.6, when I did an ls -a in ~, no .jedit.



Solution: For OS X 10.6, look in: ~/Library/jEdit