To merge video files together with mencoder is simple:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy file1.avi file2.avi file3.avi -o full_movie.avi

I just found out that HFS+, the preferred file system for Mac OS X, is case-insensitive when it comes to files and directories. I don’t understand why? It’s sure as hell causing issues with stuff I’m copying from my Ubuntu PC.

Just seems like a dumb idea.

Since Mac OS X Tiger 10.4, preference files for applications have been stored as binary property lists. This really reduces the file size for preferences, and makes application access a lot faster. However, if you ever want to read the file as XML, you’ll need to convert it.

plutil -convert xml1 path/to/preferences.plist

Now open the file and it’ll be in beautiful, human readable, XML.

My search for an open source, Ubuntu alternative for EyeTV on OS X is nearly over. I stumbled across ‘Me TV‘ a few days ago–and I’ve left it as long before writing up a post about it so that I could have a good play with it.

(more…)

It was very frustrating installing a fresh WordPress on my Mac and finding that the permalinks didn’t work. Turns out the default Apache settings for personal web sharing on OS X disable .htaccess overriding.

sudo mate /etc/httpd/users/yourusername.conf

Now you’ll want to enable Apache to follow symbolic links:

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks

And to allow .htaccess overriding:

AllowOverride All

The file should then look like:

<Directory "/Users/yourusername/Sites/">
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

Now in System Preferences, stop and start ‘Personal Web Sharing’. Things should work perfectly now.

This semester at University, I’m taking ‘Compiler Design & Techniques’ as a module. The second coursework involves drawing Finite State Machines diagrams that represent regular expressions. Rather than using a word processor to draw these diagrams with a rather untidy look about them, I went in search of a tool that’d help me produce high quality drawings. I’d heard that Latex was good for mathematical diagrams, but that seemed like overkill as I only wanted the diagrams, not a whole new document syntax to learn.

(more…)

I’ve had a bit more time recently to play around with Ubuntu and am finding the ‘Ubuntu versions’ of apps that I’ve grown to love on Mac OS X. One of which being Hot Corners which I always use to lock my screen when moving away from it.

Brightside is the Ubuntu app to do the job.

sudo apt-get install brightside

Once installed, go to System, Preferences, Screen Actions. I then checked the “Bottom right corner” and then chose “Start screensaver”. Works a charm.

Be sure that in your Screensaver settings to check the “Lock screen when screensaver is active” option.