Mac
How to make the Flip Mino HD import into iMovie 09
I just picked up a new Flip Mino HD and it’s pretty nice, but I was having problems getting it to import properly into iMovie 09. Likewise iMovie 09 was failing to import a number of other video files for no apparently good reason. Others have reported that import “just works”, but not for me.
I finally narrowed it down to bad QuickTime plugins. I had probably two dozen QuickTime plugins in /Library/QuickTime that I had accumulated over the years. Many of them I probably don’t need any longer thanks to Perian. I compared these to a stock Leopard install and removed everything else.
Once I removed these from the folder, everything worked fine. I can even import through the “import from camera” interface and not just via file import, as some have reported. The following files are in my /Library/QuickTime folder now, which include the stock Leopard plugins, as well as Flip4Mac and Perian:
- AC3MovieImport.component
- AppleIntermediateCodec.component
- AppleMPEG2Code.component
- Flip4Mac WMV Advanced.component
- Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
- Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
- Perian.component
I kept all of the other ones around, in case it turns out that I need them, but so far so good.
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How to patch Xcode to work with Subversion 1.5
The latest version (3.1.2 as of this writing) of Xcode is linked to Subversion 1.4. Unfortunately, I tend to use the SVN integration as well as the command line, and would like to use subversion 1.5 – but the working directory formats are not compatible. After looking for solutions everywhere, I found a couple of possibilities, some that didn’t work, and some that almost worked.
One popular solution is to just copy offending shared libraries from svn 1.5 over those in /usr/lib. There are two problems with this. The first is that doing so you are messing with the default libraries and something may not be happy. In fact, apache isn’t happy. This solution appeared to work fine until I restarted apache and it complained about missing libraries. A better solution is as follows.
I originally found the basis of this solution on this thread, thanks to a follow up by Jean-Daniel Dupas and subsequent changes by Philippe Casgrain. The idea is to install svn 1.5 into /opt/local, leaving the stock svn and libraries untouched, and then patch the Xcode subversion plugin to use these new dynamic libraries. This is nice and clean, and leaves everything else in its original condition. It didn’t work entirely for me on the latest Xcode, so I updated the script accordingly. Here are the steps I followed:
Step 1: Install Subversion 1.5 binaries
Download subversion binaries and install them into /opt/local. Modify your search path to run subversion from this directory, or create appropriate aliases. This won’t effect Xcode directly yet, but gives you both subversion 1.4 and subversion 1.5 installed.
Step 2: Run the patch script
Quit Xcode. Download this SVN Xcode Patch o your computer, chmod 755 to make it executable, and run as super user. The first argument is the full path to the Xcode subversion plugin and the second is the root directory where svn libraries are installed. For example:
sudo UpdateXCodePluginToSVN1-5.sh /Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/XcodeSubversionPlugin.xcplugin/Contents/MacOS/XcodeSubversionPlugin /opt/local/
The script makes a backup of the plugin first, feel free to make your own if you don’t trust it. It then uses install_name_tool to patch the executable to change its dynamic library paths from /usr/lib to /opt/lib. You’re done!
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iTunes 8 on Windows XP x64
Finally found someone describing a way to install iTunes on XP64
“I went back to the iTunes download page in IE x64 (spoofing Vista’s UA) and started monitoring with Wireshark. I started the download, and Wireshark was able to see the URL that was being requested. I finally had the direct URL!http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iTunes8/061-5526.20080911.gtre4/iTunes864Setup.exe
Once the file was downloaded, I was able to proceed with the iTunes 7.6 guide. I extracted the MSI files out of iTunes864Setup.exe using 7-Zip. I installed the AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi file. I already had the QuickTime files from QT Lite. I opened up iTunes64.msi in Orca and changed the version from 600 to 501, then installed it. I installed the GEAR burning drivers. I skipped the last part about manually choosing the iPhone drivers, as I don’t have an iPhone and just want iTunes 8 for the HD features.
After rebooting to complete the GEAR driver installation and copying GEARAspiWDM.sys as the guide suggests, I no longer get the warning about CD burning upon starting iTunes. I was able to open up iTunes and watch the free HD episodes they’re currently offering.”
Via iTunes 8 on Windows XP x64 | PCTech.invisibill.net:
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Objective-C static libraries and categories
If you are building iPhone or other Mac apps with the iPhone using static libraries, reading
Technical Q&A QA1490 will help you. I was getting a problem running with FMDB because it uses categories to extend the functionality of one of its classes and failing at runtime with a selector problem.
To resolve this issue, the static library should pass the -ObjC option to the linker. This flag causes the linker to load every object file in the library that defines an Objective-C class or category. While this option will typically result in a larger executable (due to additional object code loaded into the application), it will allow the successful creation of effective Objective-C static libraries that contain categories on existing classes.
In my case I had to put these flags on the primary application target (the one using the library) rather than the library itself, which strikes me as odd.
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Access your Mac drive under virtual Windows
If you have been using the Parallels Desktop virtualization software to run Windows XP on your Intel Mac you may have noticed that their hacky “PSF Network” solution to accessing your Mac drive under Windows blows. Don’t get me wrong – I’m very impresses with the rest of the package, and you can’t beat the price. But it just flat at doesn’t work.
Turns out that’s ok, cause there is an easy work around. Just use the Mac’s built in support for Windows file sharing (via samba) to access your drive. Under Mac OSX just enable “Windows File Sharing” from your Sharing preferences pane. Then, under Windows I mount my home directory by accessing \iMac\duane, enable reconnect at login, and ta-dah.
Yes it seems a little odd to share files between two operating systems running simultaneously on the same computer, but hey – it works great.
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Selecting an Apple Boot Camp disk format
I recently installed Boot Camp on my new Intel iMac, and it works fabulously. The big dilemma that I (and others it seem) have is how to best allocate the drive space between the Mac and Windows partitions. So many variables to deal with. I want to have enough disk space in Windows to get my work done, but I’m also stingy and don’t want to give away too much of my Mac drive’s space since it is my primary operating system. In this post I’ll try to explain what I learned and what I came up with.
Continue reading “Selecting an Apple Boot Camp disk format”
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Sharing a Printer between Mac and Windows with Bonjour
While in theory, if I have enabled printer sharing on my Mac, the printer should be available to Windows machines on my local network. In practice however, I’ve never been able to get this to work. I can get Windows to think its submitting jobs, but they never make it into the queue. I’m not sure if the problem is on the Mac side or the Windows side, but I’m putting my money on Windows being at the heart of the problem.
In any case, I finally found an ideal solution with Apple’s Bonjour technology (formerly Rendevous). Bonjour lets you create an instant network of computers and devices just by getting them connected to each other. The computers and devices take over from there, automatically broadcasting and discovering what services each is offering for the use of others. This is the same magic that makes iTunes auto-discover other iTunes clients on the network. With Bonjour services installed on your Windows machine, you can magically discover your shared Apple printers on the network. It’s a brain dead setup/install process:
- From your Mac’s Sharing preferences pane, make sure that Printer Sharing is enabled.
- On your Windows machine, download and install Bonjour for Windows
- After installing, click on the “Printer Setup Wizard” shortcut installed by Bonjour on the Windows desktop
- Select your printer from the list of network devices found by Bonjour
- Select “Generic PostScript Printer” (the default) as the printer type
I’m not too clear on why you need to use generic postscript driver rather than the native driver, but you do. I tried using the native driver for my Canon i960 but it failed to print. I’ve seen several other folks reporting this as well. It’s even selected by the Wizard by default. In any case, it works well with full color support and so forth.
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MacOS X Sleep Problems with USB Hubs
Why can’t I find a USB hub that will let my computer sleep properly? I recently bought a USB 2.0 hub when I upgraded to the Intel iMac. The hub works great, but it keeps the computer from sleeping while idle. I had the same problem on my G4. It took me about a half dozen hubs (USB 1.1) to find one that worked properly.
That old hub works fine on the iMac,but it is of course USB 1.1. That’d be fine except I have an external drive connected which is pretty much worthless at USB 1.1 speeds. Swapping in the new hub is the problem. D-Link claims that it fully supports the Mac, but I guess their flexible on this point. To me, its a show stopper.
I do NOTWANT to leave my Mac on all the time. I WANT it to behave! Anyone have any brand/model of USB hub that they have had success with? The D-LINK DUB-H7 hub I’m using is powered, and seems to be pretty high quality. It’s got 6 of the 7 ports used (scanner, printer, UPS, keyboard/mouse, card reader, drive), but nothing else magical.
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Using ACLs to Share iPhoto and iTunes Libraries
In this article over at Trent Davie’s ad Hominem blog he discusses an elegant solution to the whole notion of sharing an iPhoto library amongst several users on the same Mac.
My wife and I have this problem. We certainly don’t have our own sets of photos, but we do manage our own accounts. The old way was to wrap iPhoto in a bourne shell script that set the umask before each execution, maintaining group permissions. This works fine, but has the significant downside of having to be rebuilt every time a new iPhoto update comes down.
I’ll be trying out this solution to see if it works better for us. It also mentions in the comment trail that a similar approach could solve the problem for iTunes. What I really want though is for each account to share the same music library (the songs themselves), but maintain different ratings and playlists for each account. I’ve seen nothing that will do that for me yet however.
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Target Mode: Turn your Mac into a FireWire Drive
This is one of those cool Mac tricks that you tend to not hear about until you actually need it, and then its a lifesaver. I learned about “target mode”, a feature of all but the oldest Macs that turns your computer into the world’s most expensive external FireWire drive.
I needed this the other day when moving files between my old PowerMac and new Intel iMac. FireWire is 4X faster than ethernet, but you lose a bit if you have to copy from computer A to an external drive, then connect the drive to computer B and copy it back. Enter “target mode”. How to use target mode:
- Shutdown the computer that you want to copy to (the target)
- Connect the source computer to the target computer via FireWire cable
- While holding down “t” on the keyboard (t for target of course) power on the target computer
After a few moments, the FireWire logo will dance around the screen and you should see the target computer appear on the source computer’s desktop. It will look like any other external FireWire drive. Drag and drop! When you are done, “eject” the target computer, then power it down.
Elegant, simple, but amazingly useful. How very Apple.
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