Apple

Yesterday I’ve start using Prowl, as I heard good comments about it. And one of the things I want it to check, are my server statuses. I made a quick script using bash and crontab to check every 10 min if it replies on ping. Per server, I created “host.domain.tld.sh” (e.g. zero.rootspirit.com.sh), and added this in the file:

#!/bin/bash
KEY=YourApiKey
HOST=zero.rootspirit.com
ping -c 1 $HOST   &>/dev/null
if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
curl -k -s "https://prowl.weks.net/publicapi/add?apikey=$KEY&application=Server%20Connectivity%20Failure&event=&description=$HOST&priority=2"
fi

Of course, change KEY to your API key, HOST to the IP or DNS of the server it should ping. Also, make sure, that when pinging on your host where you’ll run the bash script on, a non-existing domain actually returns:

A short howto, as I was unable to find any clear ones on the net.

I'm using Mac OS X (Leopard) as client, and a Gentoo server as server/host.

I both tried Viscosity and Tunnelblick on my Mac as OpenVPN software, and Viscosity is probably somewhat easier to configure (using the GUI), it was shareware. So I ended up using Tunnelblick and it seems to be doing its job quite well.

First of all, make sure Gentoo is set up and working as intended. I used my home router as VPN server (having both eth0 and eth1 (= ppp0).

Angry IP scanner was quitting each time I started the application, and looking at Console I saw these errors:

06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed loading MRJApp.properties file
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed while getting Resource/Java directory
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [LaunchRunner Error] No main class specified
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CallStaticVoidMethod() threw an exception
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.run(LaunchRunner.java:112)
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.callMain(LaunchRunner.java:50)
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.JavaApplicationLauncher.main(JavaApplicationLauncher.java:61)
06/11/08 11:34:15 com.apple.launchd[97] ([0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]) Exited with exit code: 1

After some googling I came upon this website.

I laughed!

This one, I’ve taken from the Brightkite iPhone beta Google Group.

This should help several people who aren't yet privy to this information. Your iPhone or iPod Touch's iTunes backup process (the thing that some people tend to skip) dumps your device's crash logs to a folder in your home directory. Here's how to get to those logs.

DEPENDING ON YOUR OS:

• Mac OS X: <your-home-directory>/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<device-name>/<brightkite-crash-log>

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user-name>\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\<device-name>\<brightkite-crash-log>

• Windows Vista: C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Roaming\Applecomputer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<device-name>\<brightkite-crash-log>

If you can't find either of those, the logs should be on your device anyway. If it's jailbroken, your logs can be found under:

• /var/mobile/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/<brightkite-crash-log>

The missing tool in Mac OS X is most likely wget. Here’s a (universal) port.

Read the readme for installation howto. :)

Today I had to reinstall Bootcamp, and thus create a new Windows partition.

Trying the Bootcamp setup wizard, I got the same error as I had before - “Your disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved”.

I tried to Zero-Out-Data, overwriting all deleted data on the disk with 0’s. Yet this did not seem to solve the problem.

After deleting some big files, like my heroes & 24 episodes, I tried again. Still nothing.

Here’s a list of all World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King installers:

English: Win - Mac

French: Win - Mac

German: Win - Mac

Spanish: Win - Mac

The download is 2.04Gb (on a Mac), I haven’t started the download on a Windows yet.

And yes, you will still need a beta invitation before being able to login!

You’ll find me under Tuinslak or Isazi on the EU beta realm.

As for the character copy, it was done within 10 minutes. Just 5 hours left on the download. :(

I recently started to use Namely but having its icon in my dock was quite annoying (like to keep my dock clean).

Namely is an app that let’s you launch any application by typing in a few letters of that program’s name. Just type in a key combination ([Apple]+E here), and Namely’s window pop ups.

After a bit of Googling I found that it was possible to hide icons from the dock.

I recently came upon this post; enjoy it. ;)

Makes life just that bit easier!