Mac Os X – Yeri Tiete

Check websites with LanguageTool for typos

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 17:40:29 +0200

This is quick and dirty (and with the help of ChatGPT).

FlatTurtle has a new site, and there's been some fine-tuning here and there that led to a few typos creeping in. I wanted a quick tool to plug in a page, and that would highlight possible mistakes.

I've been a personal (paying) user of LanguageTool for a few years now (European, and less spammy and dodgy than Grammarly)

Started off with a terminal tool, but in the end that wasn't working out (hard to get the colouring to work and make it clear enough).

Figured a website would be easier:

Insert a site
Let it go through the LanguageTool API for mistakes*
Show what is potentially wrong and explain why so I can go and edit it

(*) Surprisingly hard because it needs to trim all HTML and js and other crap. And it has issues detecting headers (without punctuation) from paragraph text, etc).

It's far from perfect, but it works well enough for half a day of fiddling around.

You can hover your mouse over the red words to get some information as to why something is wrong.

The code, provided as-is, is here, and you can run it using:

python3 -m pip install flask selenium beautifulsoup4 geckodriver-autoinstaller requests
python3 web_check.py --api-key KEY --username EMAIL

And opening http://localhost:5000.

EMAIL is your login, the KEY can be found here.

Have fun.

Script to display Mac battery information

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 17:07:44 +0200

You can see how this script makes that couple very happy.

Quick and dirty script that shows your Mac battery information (health, cycles, etc). If an Apple keyboard or mouse is connected, it'll also display the battery % of those.

# Battery information
battery() {

	if !ioreg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
		echo "ioreg not found. Exiting."
		return 1
	fi

	_ioreg=`ioreg -l`
	_profile=`system_profiler SPPowerDataType`

	MOUSE=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Mouse" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	TRACKPAD=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Track" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	KEYBOARD=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Keyboard" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	CYCLE=`echo $_profile | grep "Cycle Count" | awk '{print $3}'`

	if [ -n "$MOUSE" ]; then
		echo "Mouse: "$MOUSE"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$TRACKPAD" ]; then
		echo "Trackpad: "$TRACKPAD"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$KEYBOARD" ]; then
		echo "Keyboard: "$KEYBOARD"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$CYCLE" ] && [ "$CYCLE" -ne 0 ]; then
		echo "Mac battery "`echo $_profile | grep "State of Charge" | awk '{print $5}'`"%"
		echo "Charging: "`echo $_profile | grep "Charging" | head -n 1 | awk '{print $2}'`
		echo "Cycles: "$CYCLE
		echo "Condition: "`echo $_profile | grep "Condition" | awk '{print $2}'`
		echo "Health: "`echo $_profile | grep "Maximum Capacity" | awk '{print $3}'`
	fi
}

Outputs something similar to this (no mouse or keyboard connected):

Macbook Air M1 issues

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 04:11:22 +0100

I recently got my mom a Macbook Air M1, upgrading from a 2010 Macbook Pro (High Sierra).

When migrating over from High Sierra to Big Sur, using Migration Assistant (my Synology TimeMachine kept on failing -- but besides that, migration went smoothly) two issues came up that required calling Apple.

But first off I noticed that when migrating, for some reason FileVault was turned off (more on that later). I, obviously, turned it on.

Problem A: when rebooting the Mac, I noticed the keyboard layout changed from Belgian (Azerty) to ABC (which is US English?) and it didn't accept the password to unlock the Mac. You can manually select another keyboard layout which accepts the password, but at every reboot that resets and requires going back through the layout picker.

Solution A: M1 no longer supports the usual SMC or NVRAM reset. But this problem could be solved by turning off the mac, closing the lid (?!) and waiting 30+ seconds before turning it back on. According to the person on the phone, that's the M1 SMC reset.

Problem B: I disabled guest mode in System Preferences > Users & Groups -- but it was still showing alongside the regular/admin user. I don't want guest mode.

Note that the guest mode only showed at the disk unlock (i.e.: after a reboot) and not when logged out (i.e.: Apple logo > Log Out from the regular user).

Solution B: Tried several things with Apple support:

Turning off screen sharing and print sharing (sure -- didn't care too much about these)
Turn guest mode on/off and reboot/force quite System preferences
Turn off Find My in iCloud settings (not acceptable)
Turn off FileVault (not acceptable)
Manually running:
- sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer guestAccess -bool NO\n
- sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server AllowGuestAccess -bool NO\n
and a few other things I now forgot

This is what actually did help:

Turning off FileVault actually turns off Guest mode; so when the Mac was not encrypted, it only showered one user (instead of the user + Guest) at the login prompt.
- Obviously, that's not acceptable and I turned it back on
Supposedly turning off Find My in iCloud settings is needed (according to Apple this requires Guest mode)
- I later turned it back on and Guest mode did not reappear. So, what Apple was saying was incorrect, and it does not make the Guest user show up.
Running sudo fdesetup list in Terminal shows the list of users. This may be helpful for debugging.
Running dscl . list /Users shows many users and included Guest in my mom's case. Not entirely sure what I am looking at here.
Running sudo dscl . delete /Users/Guest solved the problem. This deletes the Guest user (?).

Yard Sale: Macbook Pro late 2013

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 10:00:48 +0200

For sale due to getting a portable Macbook:

Late 2013 Macbook Pro (15.4" Retina)
2.3Ghz i7 (quad core + Hyper-Threading)
16Gb RAM
512Gb SSD
Intel Iris onboard GFX + Nvidia GeForce GT 750M PCE GFX
BE-Azerty keyboard
€2445,41 in 28 October 2013
SUPER fast
Minor scratch in the back of the LCD
Minor (not very noticeable) corrosion at the right hand
Weird scratch "smear" in LCD display (only visible on white background; about 2x2cm; to be honest it's not really visible)
Besides this very decent Macbook Pro, it has been used, but in very good shape for the extreme work it has committed. Taken care of this device as if it was my own child. And did I mention blazing fast?

Contact: yeri+mbp@tiete.be

Specs:

Processor 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Memory 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM Flash Storage 512GB Flash Storage Apple Thunderbolt to Enet Adpt Apple Thunderbolt to Enet Adpt Apple Thunderbolt to FW Adptr No FireWire Adapter Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adptr No VGA Adapter Keyboard and Documentation Keyboard/User’s Guide(Z)-BEL Country Kit Country Kit-INT

Pictures:

It’s a Macbook Pro !

“Smear” above “AGE” (really hard to see)

Scratch at the back (knocked it against a glass door at night in my old apartment)

Corrosion at the right hand (not left, don’t ask why – probably because I use the touch pad all the time).

More info:

Courier IMAP and auto deleting trash after 7 days

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 11:53:20 +0100

E-mails that had been deleted for over 7 days were automatically removed from the IMAP server. E-mail date was ignored (ie the mail could have been from 2010; the actual time in “Trash” counted). This didn’t happen to other folders (Sent, Archive, Spam). This recently happened and hadn’t happened before.

I had to restore my trash folder from backups every 7 days (yay for rdiff-backup).

It took me a while to figure it out… The problem first appeared in October, right after several big changes:

Yosemite update
Airmail to Airmail 2 update (I was convinced this was the root cause, looking at my clients instead of the server)
Android 5.0.x
Android Email app sunset, changes to GMail app
IPv6 working decently at home after updating my RPi to Fritzbox devices.
Random connection errors in GMail app (this was due to misconfigured DNS in the GMail app and causing IPv6 catch all to redirect to the webserver instead of the mailserver. It didn't happen consistently because over mobile (4G & lower) there is no IPv6 and at home is randomly falls back to IPv4 as well. IPv4 DNS was well configured.
Moving my ~100.000 deleted e-mails from "Deleted Items" (OS X Mail default) to "Trash" (Android & Courier default) to stop having to move them manually from one folder to the other every so often. => this was eventually the cause but I didn't realize.

Being convinced it was most likely Airmail 2 and very maybe Android I had been looking in that direction.

Debugging was also extremely slow as I had to wait 7 days before being able to check if the changes I made helped anything.

I eventually figured out that it was not Airmail when I rebuild my whole mail database and it defaulted back to putting my deleted mails into the Archive folder instead of Trash. Archive mails were kept over 7 days, but items in Trash still removed.

That’s when I started looking at Courier IMAP config: /etc/courier/imapd (and not imapd-ssl).

There’s an option that says:

##NAME: IMAP_EMPTYTRASH:0
#
# The following setting is optional, and causes messages from the given
# folder to be automatically deleted after the given number of days.
# IMAP_EMPTYTRASH is a comma-separated list of folder:days.  The default
# setting, below, purges 7 day old messages from the Trash folder.
# Another useful setting would be:
#  
# IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7,Sent:30
#
# This would also delete messages from the Sent folder (presumably copies
# of sent mail) after 30 days.  This is a global setting that is applied to
# every mail account, and is probably useful in a controlled, corporate
# environment.
#
# Important: the purging is controlled by CTIME, not MTIME (the file time
# as shown by ls).  It is perfectly ordinary to see stuff in Trash that's
# a year old.  That's the file modification time, MTIME, that's displayed.
# This is generally when the message was originally delivered to this
# mailbox.  Purging is controlled by a different timestamp, CTIME, which is
# changed when the file is moved to the Trash folder (and at other times too).
#
# You might want to disable this setting in certain situations - it results
# in a stat() of every file in each folder, at login and logout.
#
IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7

Comment out that last line, and restart courier-imap(-ssl)… Simple as that.

This solved my issue.

I’m not sure when that config change happened (Debian update?) and I do not know who at Courier thought it was a good idea …. But sheesh.

Yard Sale: Mac Mini (G4)

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:03:17 +0200

I’m selling a Mac Mini 1.5Ghz G4 (PowerPC) with 512Mb ram. It has a 80Gb disk in it (7200 rpm I believe, but not sure). It runs Linux like a charm, and is a perfect server (and WAY faster than a Raspberry Pi).

I believe the latest version to run was Mac OS X Tiger (10.4).

It comes with the power adapter, a DVI to VGA adapter, and in the picture below is the optional WiFi adapter.

Tyr ~ # uname -a Linux Tyr 3.2.0-4-powerpc #1 Debian 3.2.54-2 ppc GNU/Linux

Tyr ~ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 500 217 283 0 11 171 -/+ buffers/cache: 34 466 Swap: 953 0 953

Tyr ~ # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 73G 882M 72G 2% / udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev tmpfs 51M 212K 50M 1% /run /dev/disk/by-uuid/bf89e3dc-6606-45e1-a87f-ab8e1be66b85 73G 882M 72G 2% / tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 291M 0 291M 0% /run/shm tmpfs 251M 40M 211M 16% /var/cache/apt tmpfs 251M 73M 179M 29% /var/lib/apt/lists tmpfs 291M 0 291M 0% /tmp

Tyr ~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 7447A, altivec supported clock : 1416.666661MHz revision : 1.2 (pvr 8003 0102) bogomips : 83.24 timebase : 41620907 platform : PowerMac model : PowerMac10,1 machine : PowerMac10,1 motherboard : PowerMac10,1 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh detected as : 287 (Mac mini) pmac flags : 00000010 L2 cache : 512K unified pmac-generation : NewWorld Memory : 512 MB

Price: €50

Contact: yeri+mac@tiete.be

Mac OS X Mavericks + VLC top bar

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 09:28:05 +0100

Mavericks, and its new "multi display support" adds a grey-ish bar to the top of VLC when watching anything full screen.

I never found a way to get rid of it, and it has annoyed me ever since. Until yesterday...

This is how to get rid of it:

play movie
drag to 2nd screen
click Video > Float on Top
go full screen (cmd+F or Video > Fullscreen)

Keep in mind, that once you get out of full screen, and get back in it, the bar will be back. Enabling and disabling the above mentioned option won't change it anymore. The only solution I've found was to quit VLC entirely, reopen it, go back the where the movie was, click the option, and go full screen...

plxthx for buggy releases.

Edit: Today I am unable to apply my above mentioned 'fix'. I have however found another option under VLC preferences: "Interface > Use the native fullscreen mode". Deselect that option, and it seems to be working.

Mac os (Mountain) Lion + external display + sleep when closing the lid

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:13:41 +0200

I recently dared to upgrade from Snow Leopard (10.6) to Mountain Lion (10.8), skipping Lion (10.7) altogether.

One of the mayor disturbances I had, was when I was using my Macbook Pro at my home office. I use an external display (some Samsung SyncMaster) as well as my MBP’s main display.

I put my MBP to sleep by simply closing the lid, keeping the power source and external display attached.

Pre-Lion this resulted in my MBP neatly going to sleep mode, in Mountain Lion this resulted in Mac OS using the external display as sole display and keeping the MBP running… Not something I was interested in, as it would either require me to unplug power before closing the lid or manually clicking the sleep button for my MBP to go to sleep.

After some great searching, I came along this post (page 3 and 4 have useful information) and I’ll summarize it here:

Unplug your external display
open Terminal (via spotlight for example) and type: sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"
Type your Mac password
Reboot and wait for Mac OS X to fully boot
Plug your external display back in. The resolution might be wrong and it might not recognise your display.
Go to sleep by closing the lid. It should now work correctly.
Upon reopening, the resolution will be fixed (if not, close and reopen or replug the external display -- I'm sure it'll be solved now).

I'll add this info as well that jk10003 added:

If it screws up your system, just zap the PRAM next boot (cmd-opt-p-r) and you'll be back to the default Lion state. Or if you can still get into terminal, this command will get you back to Lion's default state as well:
sudo nvram -d boot-args

Compile wget on Mac OS X

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:08:03 +0100

There's a precompiled wget available on the net, but it's not automatically accepting StartSSL's certificates. And as it seems, there's a wget update available that did.

This is what I had to do to compile it on my Macbook Pro;

Install Xcode, if you haven't, and be sure to select UNIX Dev Support.

Or you'll get this error:

configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

Export Xcode's gcc PATH:

PATH=/Developer/usr/bin/:$PATH

Download wget
In Terminal: untar it

tar xvzf wget-latest.*

And compile it

cd wget directory
./configure
make
sudo make install

In case you had an old (precompiled) wget installed;
remove that version first (/usr/bin/wget probably).
By default, this one will install itself in /usr/local/bin/wget which should be in your $PATH as well (in case it's not, make a symlink from the old /usr/bin/wget to /usr/local/bin/wget, or recompile with other installation directories).

Java + Angry IP Scanner error

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:00:43 +0100

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.

YouTube of the day

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:29:55 +0200

Just 'cause I'm bored.

wget for Mac OS X

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:28:29 +0200

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

Read the readme for installation howto. :)

Namely + hiding its icon

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:54:16 +0100

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.

First of all, configure Namely, make sure it pop ups if you type in your key combo. If you don’t do that now, you’ll have problems to configure it later.

Once that’s done, quit Namely.

Then go to the Namely.app folder (using Terminal), and add these 2 lines

LSUIElement
1

between and

This is what it should look like:

(Nano is the editor I use, but you can also use vi or vim too, depending what’s installed + you might have Namely installed in a different directory)

Nazgul:~ yeri$ cd /Applications/Utilities/Namely.app/
Nazgul:Namely.app yeri$ nano -w Contents/Info.plist

This is how my Info.plist looks like:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8">
< !DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">


        CFBundleDevelopmentRegion
        English
        CFBundleExecutable
        Namely
        CFBundleIconFile
        Namely
        CFBundleIdentifier
        com.asagoo.namely
        CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion
        6.0
        CFBundlePackageType
        APPL
        CFBundleSignature
        ????
        CFBundleVersion
        2.5.1
        NSMainNibFile
        MainMenu
        NSPrincipalClass
        NamelyApplication
        LSUIElement
        1

Notice line 25 & 26.

And that should be it – double click Namely to start it up, hit your keyboard shortcut, and it should pop up!

No icon in my dock. :)

Hide your Printer icon in Mac OS X.5

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:24:17 +0100

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

Makes life just that bit easier!

Hamachi(X) on Leopard

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:30:00 +0100

When playing with KisMAC, I noticed something weird in my /var/log/system.log;

$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd$pid) posix_spawnp("/usr/sbin/tuncfg", ...):
No such file or directory
$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd$pid) Exited with exit code: 1
$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

tun is (trying) to restart every 10 (!) seconds. I tried updating Hamachi’s tun/tap drivers, without any success. It kept restarting the process every 10 seconds.

After a bit of Googling, it seemed to be a known problem. So I decided to uninstall Hamachi & the tun/tap drivers.

sudo rm -r /usr/bin/hamachi
sudo rm -r  /usr/bin/hamachi-init
sudo rm -r  /usr/sbin/tuncfg
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tuncfgd.plist
sudo rm -r /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tuncfgd.plist
sudo rm -r /Applications/HamachiX

This should solve the restarting problem. You might want to reboot to be sure.

When uninstalling the drivers, HamachiX will be gone; there will be no way to use it. You can decide to ignore the spawning-processes, and keep using Hamachi as-is, but the spawning processes might slow down your computer. But HamachiX should work (although it often crashed here).

I tried reinstalling the tun/tap drivers, but the same happens. I guess I’ll have to wait for a fix. :(

On the other side, I’ve tried the console version of Hamachi (so no HamachiX) which seems to be working fine (so far). Just missing out on the handy GUI. Edit

Mac OS X.5.2

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:45:05 +0100

Yes, it’s here, finally!

A 355 Mb patch, downloaded over poor UMTS/3G at school and in the train… Took a while, but it’s finally installed.

Some nice few features, like the fact you can now remove the semi-transparent effect on the menu bar (makes it nicer). They also added some nice stacks enhancements.

A Time Machine icon is added in the menu bar too, just too bad you can’t make it just pop-up when it is actually backing up. I like keeping my menu bar clean. ;)

And well, a lot more bug fixes, but haven’t noticed any of them, besides perhaps iCal that for some reason hides appointments, as if they were deleted. After changing weeks/refreshing the page, if reappears… (most iCal bugs were fixed in patch 15.1 for me)

The only thing they haven’t fixed is the Workgroup problem… Still can’t join one. If forgets the name of the workgroup I’ve entered when I close the window… Yes, there are some workarounds, like copying the network-location and so on, but I haven’t tried yet.

But hey, I’m glad with this. :)

No big changes, but I hope Leopard’s bugs are fixed now

Parallels + Ubuntu

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:00:25 +0100

I finally got a reply from the Parallels support team. After using the alternate Parallels installer it finally works again! Even after rebooting Mac! joy

Before trying to run Vista/Bootcamp through Parallels again, I’m waiting till the end of my exams (Thursday). Don’t want to blow up my Windows install again when I’m in desperate need of it. ;)

As usual with Parallels, creating/installing a new OS isn’t easy. Wether it crashes or you get a bunch of errors, you’re always up for a day full of fun!

Here is how I managed to install Ubuntu on Parallels:

First of all, make sure you're running the latest version of Parallels, especially if you're using Leopard.
Step 2, download the alternate Ubuntu installer. If you do not use the alternate installer, you'll end up with 'Display server errors' before being able to install Ubuntu. You can download Ubuntu here. Select the approriate version (probably Desktop, latest version), and check "Check here if you need the alternate desktop CD. This CD does not include the Live CD, instead it uses a text-based installer".
Step 3, create a new virtual machine, with OS Linux/Ubuntu.

And follow the steps. I've added some more screenshots below. You can leave everything by default, that's as you wish.

As CD-drive, select the Ubuntu (alternate) installer .iso-file.

Click Finish and Start -- the Ubuntu installer will boot.
You'll end up in Ubuntu's welcome screen. Select your keyboard layout (hit F3) and select (text) install
Here too, follow the steps on the screen. It will ask for your language, country, and will propose a manual or automatic disk partition. I've selected automatic -- it creates a big ext3 root partition, and a swap partition. The installer then asks if you agree with the partition table. Select Yes or No. (I've selected No - changed my root partition from ext3 to reiserfs, as I'm a big reiserfs fan.) When selecting Yes -- the table will be created and Ubuntu will start installing.
After it's installed, Ubuntu will reboot. This is where you'll get your first error; ACPI: Unable to locate RSDP. This is a known error; you can safey ignore it.
Ubuntu will continue to boot, and then pop up this error: The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds, and will freeze. To fix this error, shut down and restart (or reset) the VM, and hit the ESC-key. Grub's bootloader menu will pop up if everything is right.
Select the 2nd option (recovery). Ubuntu will boot up in text-mode-only and you should be logged in as root (if you're not, add 'sudo' in front of the commands below).
In Parallels, click (on top of your screen) "Actions" -> "Install Parallels Tools..." and type in following commands in the shell:
- mount /media/cdrom
- cd /media/cdrom
- ./parallels-tools.run
- reboot
After Ubuntu has rebooted (in normal mode), you shouldn't receive any more errors, and you can enjoy Ubuntu on your mac!

Mac OS X > Windows

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:29:40 +0100

When surfing the web, I came upon an old site we (read: Rootspirit) used to host.

Nick, one of the posters, wrote an article I totally agree with. It really reflects why I’m using Mac instead of Windows now.

Read about it here (Dutch), or here (Google translated, far from understandable)

IP calc

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:28:13 +0100

For those who have to work with IP’s and subnets, I have only one word; Bitcricket IP Calculator.

It converts decimal IP’s into binary or hexadecimal IP’s (and, the other way around too); it gives you the IP class; it calculates subnets, with the number of hosts/subnet, and gives you the number of host bits; and many more!

Shiny tool to quickly do subnet calculations. Has proven it’s use when doing the Cisco CCNA tests. ;)

Bootcamp

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:40:31 +0100

For a few courses I’m following at school, I need to be able to run Windows.

As I’m owning a Macbook Pro (with Leopard) that shouldn’t have to be any problem using Bootcamp.

I created a 5 Gb partition and installed WinXP a few weeks ago. So far all fine.

As I don’t really like to reboot into XP (I can’t access my mails, don’t have my IRC client, all my Camino tabs are closed, …) I tried Parallels.

Parallels, at first, was a real disappointment. It crashed my Mac OS X several times. It was only, just a few days later, when they released a patch to solve all Leopard issues, that I started to enjoy it.

Running all my programs from Parallels (instead of rebooting), I never noticed my Bootcamp WinXP was actually broken. As exams were approaching (I’m not allowed to run a virtualization of Windows, because my school’s key and network loggers won’t work like intended, not that I care that much, but they do ;) ), I rebooted for the first time in weeks to my Bootcamp XP, and noticed the famous hal.dll error (or Google it, you’ll see why it’s famous).

I repaired my Windows XP install (as explained in Parallels’ knowledge base), and that indeed fixed the problem… of Bootcamp… My parallels was now broken (hal.dll error for Parallels, instead of Bootcamp). Trying to recreate a new Parallels virtual disk for bootcamp, or even reinstall the program, … All failed. (There should be bootflags to edit, and force Parallels to use a different hal.dll, well, read about it here, it’s no longer useful for me.)

Googling and searching their forums, no luck, no one had a fixed solution. Only ’try this’ and ’try that’. (To follow the above howto I’ve posted, you need to be able to (re)install Parallels, and by the time I found that howto I wasn’t even able to do that; Parallels froze during installation.) I e-mailed the Parallels support team with my problem, and the form said they’d reply within 3 working days… It has been over 2 weeks, and I’m still waiting.

I then noticed that my Mac/Apple keyboard driver weren’t working in Bootcamp-XP, some chars like #, @, > and so forth weren’t working (or at least the layout didn’t match with my Apple keyboard). I tried to reinstall the Bootcamp drivers (located on my Leopard DVD), they all failed to install (no error message…). Being quite fed up with it, I decided to reinstall XP (without formatting, just overwriting my Windows dir). And here too, the drivers failed to install, with no specific error message… Took the required backups, formatted, and had the wild idea to install Vista.

Booted from the Vista install DVD, and came to the conclusion I needed at least 7 Gb disk space to install Vista (having a 5 Gb partition, this wouldn’t work). Back in os X I deleted the Windows partition, and tried to recreate a new (10 Gb) one.

And… This error came up: “Your disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved” (other link). I now started to panic, as I had less then a week to fix this problem. Following a few try-this-and-try-that’s, I removed a few big files from my disk (someone even said to remove Office 2004, but I wasn’t about to do that), I tried to repair my disk (from the Leopard DVD), I tried smaller partitions, even 5 Gb wouldn’t work, and then, when all hope was almost lost, I tried one last thing; ‘Zero Out Data’. This will overwrite all deleted files (well, marked for deletion by your disk, but still written on it, so this data can theoretically be recovered) with zero’s.

And this too, has to be done from the Mac OS X install CD/DVD.

After, well, about 40 minutes Disk Utility was done, I rebooted right into Leopard, and retried to create a 5 Gb partition… And guess what?! It worked!

I deleted that partition again (5 Gb being to small), and recreated a 15 Gb partition, and this too worked with no problems.

I now happily run Vista on my Macbook Pro, and so far I can’t complain.

The only thing I haven’t been able to fix is Parallels, I can’t even reinstall it (it freezes during install). But heck with it, I’ve lost enough sweat already to fix Bootcamp.