Just a quick tip. If your menubar crashes in OS X it can be restarted by typing a simple command in the Terminal.
killall SystemUIServer
You can also restart the Dock by typing:
killall Dock
or the Finder by typing:
killall Finder
All these commands are case-sensitive.
Changing file permissions on the Mac is something you need to know how to do if you want to create your own non-home directory only shares on the Mac. Leopard implements folder sharing similarly to the way SharePoints does. I find myself needing to change permissions regularly because certain programs like to change file permissions on their own. The Terminal is generally better for changing permissions because it is much faster and also because you have more control. Sometimes you may need to do this is the file permissions get messed up in Leopard’s File Sharing under System Preferences.
Here’s how it works:
Electronic Arts chief creative officer Bing Gordon at Apple’s latest Developer conference stated that EA would be moving some of their most appealing titles to the Mac coming available in the next few months. The first games to become available for Mac will include Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is certainly great news for Mac gamers and now it sounds like I should finally be able to decommission Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro’s hard drive. However there is one issue that was conveniently skipped over at the keynote.
Although these games are coming to the Mac they aren’t being ported, well not in the traditional sense anyway. TransGaming’s Cider which acts as an interpreter between the game’s original code and the Mac OS frameworks will be used as a wrapper to get the games to run under OS X. The problem lies in the fact that interpreting code uses much more resources rather than running pre-compiled code, which pretty much every game is.
If you have ever used Azureus, a java bittorrent client you will know that it is much slower than say Transmission. While Azureus does more than Transmission, it is significantly slower considering than all it really does is display text and download files. The same thing would in theory apply to gaming under Cider. Since most of these games already require all the hardware you can throw their way, it doesn’t sound like Mac gamers are getting a fair deal.
Worldwide the Mac platform accounts for roughly 5% of the installed base of PCs. However since most Mac users aren’t gamers, rather than designers, power users and technically challenged folk, etc. I can understand why EA would not go to the trouble of investing more money to properly port their games to Mac versions. The bright side is that EA may only be testing the waters with Cider and hopefully all new future releases from EA will be proper fully compiled Mac versions.
If the EA Cider titles run close to the performance of their Windows versions then I will probably run the Mac versions. In the end, this is only good news for Mac gaming.
I have started writing Java programs at uni and i’m required to add a Java package called B102.jar to the compiler.
Well, the university doesn’t support anyting other than Windows so it was a pain trying to figure out how to use Xcode and use their ‘B102.jar’ package. Anyway to add a .jar package to Xcode for compilation, all you need to do is add your .jar package to:
/System/Library/Java/Extensions/
That’s it. Now when you type import B102.*; for example, it will compile correctly.
Safe Sleep is a kind of sleep mode similar to what Windows users have. It was integrated into the Mac OS X kernel a few years ago and can be enabled through the Terminal. Mac users use the sleep mode often, either letting their computers go into sleep mode after a preset time or manually sleeping the machine. Sleep is especially useful on portable Macs, such as the MacBook or MacBook Pro.
The problem with sleep mode on portable Macs is that is doesn’t always work right. A few times I’ve put my MacBook Pro to sleep and come back later only to find the fans spinning really fast because it didn’t go to sleep properly. It was very hot and I thought it might have damaged the hardware, luckily it was ok. Safe Sleep uses no power and so completely solves this problem because it powers off the computer rather than preserving the RAM state by using a low power state. It does take a little longer than normal sleep but it’s worth it in my opinion:
Pros and Cons
+ Preserves complete system state using NO POWER
+ Restore is faster than doing a cold boot
+ Your laptop won’t burst into flames from screaming fans whilst in a bag
- Takes longer to sleep than normal sleep mode
Safe Sleep mode in action on my MacBook Pro:
Enabling Safe sleep mode is relatively easy, however you need to take come caution, especially if you are using Secure Virtual Memory. Safe sleep doesn’t appear to work if you are using secure virtual memory, but you should take caution if you attempt to enable it.
Safe Sleep can only be enabled under Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) or 10.4 (Tiger). You should make a copy of the instructions below or print them out, incase you have problems.
Step 1. Enable Safe Sleep
To enable safe sleep on your Mac, the Open Firmware needs execute some code at boot time.
Open the Terminal, enter each line while pressing enter at the end of each line:
sudo nvram nvramrc=’” /” select-dev
” msh” encode-string ” has-safe-sleep” property
unselect
‘
sudo nvram “use-nvramrc?”=true
Restart the computer.
Step 2. Enable Hibernate Mode
To continue, you must have at least as much free disk space as RAM in your computer , plus 750MB.
Therefore if you have 2GB of RAM, you must have at least 2.75GB of free space on your hard disk.
To enable Safe Sleep, in the Terminal enter:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3
This should create the file /var/vm/sleepimage.
If (and only if) you have secure virtual memory enabled, enter 7 (rather than 3) to disable encrypted
hibernation. Encrypted Safe Sleep does not yet work.
Now when your Mac enters sleep, it will now enter the regular Sleep mode first (consuming minimal power). But will
only enter Safe-Sleep if the battery is very low on power, or is unplugged.
To use Safe Sleep mode instead (which takes a bit longer to sleep and wake-up) enter in the Terminal:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1
Enter 5 (rather than 1) with secure virtual memory.
To disable Safe Sleep:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
You do not need to restart to set the changes for hibernate mode.
Happy lappy sleeping 
A big thanks to Andrew Escobar for providing the info
I was accepted into Murdoch University where I will be working towards a Degree in Computer Science. Woooo Hooooo!!!
I have picked all my units and I start in 2 weeks. I decided to take an extra maths unit in the first semester because my maths isn’t the best, but it will prepare me for the harder maths unit in the second semester which is called “Computational Mathematics”.Gaussian elimination? Matrices? Linear Transformations? Oh crap.
These are the units I chose for the first year:
Introduction to Computer Science ( ICT102 )
Introduction to Data Communications ( ICT103 )
Fundamentals of Mathematics ( MAS164 )
Introduction to 3-D Graphics and Animation ( ICT101 )
Principles of Computer Science ( ICT104 )
Fundamentals of Computer Systems ( ICT106 )
Computational Mathematics ( MAS167 )
In other news, I couldn’t believe the other night. I was playing World of Warcraft and I managed to make 75g in under 1 minute. Yes you heard me! I wasn’t hacking or farming or selling something at the auction house. I made 75 Gold because of the incompetence of a level 67 Mage who shall remain nameless. It goes a little something like this (I am Poisonic):
Mage : Can anyone tell me how to become an enchanter?Poisonic : Yeah you need to find the trainer. Speak to a guard.Mage : kkMage : WTB [Strange Dust]Poisonic : I have someMage : I’ll give you 75s for 20 strange dustPoisonic : ok. meet me in Ironforge.Mage : kk
So I meet this guy, then I ask for more money, being the greedy sea urchin that I am and not surprisingly he yells at me and says no that’s all your getting. So I say OK and we proceed to do the trade.So I put in my 20 Strange dust and he puts in 75G. He typed in 75 Gold! Well you would not believe how god damn fast I pressed the trade button. Trade trade trade trade!!!!! So the deal got done and unbeknownst to him, he gave me 75 gold instead of 75 silver! He didnt even ask for it back so I was happy as pie and proceeded to auction house where I bought myself the best armour money can buy
Hopefully you don’t bomb in tests and spend your time drawings pictures on your work but this student got 1/10 for his effort.
LOL ………
Steve Jobs unveiled his latest product at Macworld 07, the iPhone. It looks like a real winner although I do see a few problems with it such as cost, network locking and 3rd party applications.
Though these things aren’t going to worry people with deep pockets, availability will. Right now it looks like you aren’t going to be able to purchase one for a while. The release dates for the iPhone at the moment are:
United States : June 2007
Canada : Late 2007 to early 2008
Asia : Sometime in 2008
Australia : Maybe 2008?
And even when you can, boy it looks like it’s going to be expensive. It’s makes sense that it would be expensive, given it can do everything except walk your dog. But bear in mind it’s going to cost you:
US $499 - 4GB Model
US $599 - 8GB Model
2 Year contract + data plan required
We know that data plans don’t come cheap and the requirement of a data plan will most likely make this a phone not many university students will be able to afford, however as Steve said at the keynote, as the product matures over a couple of years it will become cheaper and eventually everyone will be able to afford one.
The iPhone looks great, performs great (we think) but we aren’t going to know much until it is actually available and if Steve opens the phone’s OS for development, it’s going to become a very powerful phone.