Installing Rhapsody DR2 on VMWare
Between the acquisition of NeXT by Apple in the late 90s, and the release of OS X, Apple tried and abandoned a path to merge the two company's technologies into a new, modern OS. Ultimately, a similar but different path was chosen, where much of the proprietary technology that made OpenStep expensive (specifically Adobe-licensed PostScript) were re-created, and better compatibility (replacing Yellow Box with Carbon and Classic) with existing Mac applications was provided for.
Nonetheless, what amounts to an experiment: Rhapsody, essentially the NeXTStep/OpenStep OS with Mac interface elements bolted onto it (sometimes), and Yellow Box included in the distribution, was incredibly interesting.
Shortly I will outline instructions here for getting Rhapsody DR2 (x86) up and running in VMWare. These instructions are amazingly similar to those I wrote earlier for NextStep.
One to Many
Here's a couple cool toys from Microsoft that allow you to use one computer with multiple users. I imagine this would be great in the classroom, but I'll be there are some other cool uses too...
The Multipoint Mouse SDK allows you to use multiple pointing devices on one desktop. This would be a great way to develop for multitouch environments, without having to invest in multitouch development workstations.
And Microsoft's new Multipoint Server allows a single Windows Server to function as a complete desktop for multiple users.
PC Museum Make History (Re-post)
To celebrate its fifth year in business, the Personal Computer Museum has created a new program that allows the breakthrough, under $300 personal computer of the 1980’s – the Commodore VIC-20 to access Twitter, one of the world’s foremost online communities. CKPC FM 92.1 personality Ed McMahon (Mayor of the Morning) will create computer history with the first VIC-20 Tweet and afterwards museum visitors can tweet too. The first “tweet” will happen on Saturday February 20th at 11am EST. Find the museum on Twitter or Facebook at http://www.pcmuseum.ca/twitter.asp
“Many have asked ‘Why are you doing this? There’s not much demand for new VIC-20 software.’ It was the challenge of creating a bridge between the past and present. It’s amazing how far technology has progressed in the past 30 years. The software runs from a cassette tape on an unexpanded VIC-20 with only 5 KB of RAM and a processor that runs at 1 MHz,” commented Syd Bolton, Curator of the Personal Computer Museum.
To put this in perspective, an average PC today runs at 3000 MHz and contains 2,097,152 KB. That means the average computer today has 419,430 times the memory power and 3000 times the speed of a personal computer from the 80’s.
The museum created a software platform for many vintage computers to be able to "tweet" (called "TweetVER" which is short for Tweeting from a Vintage ComputER). For those who would like a copy of the software program, visit the museum’s website http://www.pcmuseum.ca for information.
Windows Phone 7 Series
So the cat is slowly climbing out of the bag on Windows Phone 7 Series. I think I'm allowed to say that I've seen it, and that its awesome. The initial set of information was announced at MWC, to pretty rave reviews.
I'm new to blogging about Microsoft, so I won't say any more, for fear of messing up. Follow CKindel on Twitter, and plan to be at MIX 2010 if you're interested in learning more about this pretty revolutionary step in mobile device interaction.
Stream Video to your iPod or iPhone
Looking for a simple way to stream your (non-iTunes) video library to your iPhone or iPod touch over WiFi? Check out Air Video from InMethod.
The server app transcodes your media on-the-fly so you can consume formats the iPhone OS doesn't support. The newest version even offers experimental web-delivery. The app comes in two parts -- the server that runs on your Mac or PC, and the Client that you install on your mobile device. The server advertises itself over Bonjour, so there's virtually no set-up involved. In practice, files that need conversion before playing start-up on my iPhone within about 30 seconds.
The free client can view only 3 videos from your server. The $2.99 full version has no limits. I'd love to see additional mobile devices exported, but otherwise I'm very satisfied with my purchase.
AppleTV for Mac
This remains the most popular thing I've ever posted -- despite the fact that its really nothing special. The meat of it is a little start-up script that contains no undiscoverable tricks. I don't even use it any more!
Nonetheless, it's in-demand, and I can't find a hosting method that can keep up. So, here's my solution:
- The start-up movie is no longer available here -- it probably shouldn't have been posted here to begin with. If you find someone with a Patchsticked AppleTV, it's trivial to SCP in and grab the start-up movie (discussed here.)
You can also use any other movie you want, which you specify when you edit the script.
- The screen saver never worked right on a normal Mac, but Scott Q has engineered a replacement. His link appears to be down, but get in touch with him and send him your thanks.
- The script itself is still available here.
Copy and Paste the script into the AppleScript editor, updating it to provide the path to where ever you want your start-up video, and save it as a run-only script. Add it as a Login item in your account, and you're set.
- The background image I made is awful (it was just a screen shot) and I'm sure someone's made better, but I'll keep that here if you want it. If you do this right, you should only see the wallpaper for a few seconds anyway, so if you make yourself an all black image, or find a nice Apple logo, you'll be all set.
And honestly, that's all that was released. Like I said, nothing magical. My Mac Mini worked fine as a Home Theater PC, but eventually I just went with an actual hacked AppleTV (which smoothly handles anything but MKV) because I wanted my Mac for other things. If you find any other great ideas, feel free to share them here!
Print to PDF in Windows 7
doPDF is simple, lightweight, installs in seconds and 100% compatible with Windows 7. It may not be feature-heavy, but it meets the need, and I like it.
If converting a document to PDF for archival or sharing is something you need to do, check out doPDF 7.0.
Super Quick Timezone Change in Windows 7
With my new job, I find myself frequently (twice a week) switching between EST and PST. This can be confusing when planning meetings and other events on my calendar, because I have to mentally keep track of where each attendee is. Often I find myself switching my time zone back and forth using the "Change Date and Time Settings..." dialog in Windows 7.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a faster way to do the switch? Well, it turns out there is! To do this, we're going to build a simple batch file for each Time Zone we spend time in. Here's an example -- repeat for each zone you want.
- Open Notepad and enter this code:
@echo off
cls
echo Switching to EST...
echo.
tzutil /s "Eastern Standard Time"
echo Done!
- Save the file in your C:\Windows directory as: est.cmd
- To invoke, hold the Windows key on your keyboard, and then press R -- this will invoke the "Run..." dialog
- Type: est
- Hit enter
Your clock will be instantly switched to Eastern Standard Time, and if you're using Outlook, your calendar will update too. Once you get used to the keystrokes, you can change time zones in less than two seconds.
Assorted, Scattered Objective-C Notes as compared to C#
A outlet is like a pre-known property that can be bound
(ie: drag destination object to origin object and assign to the outlet (property) nextKeyView)
myObject.methodToCall(parameters)
is like
[myObject methodToCall:parameters];
int i = myObject.assignValue;
is like
int i = [myObject assignValue];
form.Window(makeKeyAndOrderFront(target));
is like
[[form window].makeKeyAndOrderFront:target];
object myObject();
is like
id myObject;
string myString;
is like
NSString *mystring;
Defining an instance method:
private string myMethod();
is like
- (NSString *)myMethod;
Defining a class method:
public DateTime myMethod();
is like
+ (NSDate *)myMethod;
private float convertAmountbyRate(float amt, float rate)
is like
- (float)convertAmount:(float)amt byRate:(float)rate;
convert.convertAmountbyRate(1.0, 2.3);
is like
[convert convertAmount:1.0 byRate 2.3];
public interface myInterface : myClass {...}
is like
@interface myInterface : NSObject {...} @end