recently I built myself the GNU coreutils 7.4 for Mac OS X, as Intel-only binaries. So if you have an Intel mac, and you’d like the GNU coreutils instead of the BSD ones on your Mac, I’ll share them with you.

It was about time that I tried out the Mac OS X Package Maker anyway, so I created an installer package that you can just hit and run. If you’re already running Mac OS X 10.6, you can also use this package containing 32- and 64-bit universal Intel binaries.

Have fun with it,
Jannis.

for a while now I’ve been using and trying out Apache CouchDB, the rather new and very cool document-oriented database written in Erlang.

The problem

To get used to the Couch a bit (it’s very comfortable, by the way), I’m currently writing a quote management system with CouchDB as backend. Now, every quote thingy has a feature like »random quotes«, and this is done with SQL backends using ORDER BY RANDOM() or something like that. Now CouchDB doesn’t use SQL, but instead view-based querying, where views are based on map/reduce functions (read more in the CouchDB wiki). It’s not so easy to order by RANDOM() here.

The solution

… is to create a view that I called random_quotes, with only a map function, which looks as follows:

function(doc) {
    emit(Math.random(), doc);
}

Now you’ll get a random number associated with each of your documents. To get 1 or n random documents from your CouchDB now, you query the view with the startkey parameter set to a random number between 0 and 1 (e. g. in Python: startkey = random.random()), and set limit to the maximum of rows that you want to get.
Now you could possibly get less rows than you wanted, because if your startkey is too high, it won’t cover that much documents. The solution is to count what you’ve got, and get documents from the beginning of the view, with a limit of as much documents as you still need, and the endkey set to your previous startkey.

I have written a python function that does this, using CouchDBKit, to which I contributed a object mapper:

import random
def get_random(db, n):
    """Get an iterator over n random quotes from the database.
    
    Parameters:
        db: couchdbkit.session.Session
        n: int
    """
    # see above how this view looks like
    view_results = db.view('quote/random_quotes',
        startkey=random.random(),
        limit=n)
    count = view_results.count()
    if count >= n:
        return view_results
    else: # not enough documents yet:
        new_limit = n - count
        other_results = view_results.view(
            endkey=view_results.params['startkey'],
            limit=new_limit)
        # we'll get at most as much documents as the DB contains, rather than
        # getting duplicates
        return chain(view_results, other_results)

Update: Note that if you query for more than a document at a time, you are likely to get »bad« randomness, i. e. always the same set of documents for a given random startkey. I haven’t yet found a solution to this, so if you need true randomness, you better query for single documents and aggregate them yourself.

Have fun with that, and a nice day,
Jannis.

So, here’s my sweet solution. How it works: It tells the spell checker that it should check spelling, but for NO language. It works like deleting all the NSLanguages parameters in its Info.plist. If you know what you’re doing, you can edit /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Info.plist yourself (NSLanguages is an array in Services » Item 1 – or use my edited Info.plist, see paragraph below) – if not, I’ll assist you a little bit.

sudo mv /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Info.plist /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Info.plist.bak

Hit return and you will be prompted for your password. Don’t be confused of no characters appearing after the prompt, just type your password and hit return again. Paste the following into the terminal window now:

sudo cp

Insert a space and then drag the Info.plist you just downloaded on your terminal window. Type another space, then insert the following:

/System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Info.plist

Your line in the Terminal window should now look like this:

sudo cp /Users/YourUserName/Downloads/Info.plist /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Info.plist

(the string that appeared when you dragged the file onto the terminal window might look different) – Check if you didn’t forget a space, then hit return again. Eventually, you may be asked for your password again, but don’t worry if not, that’s all right, too.

Finally, type

sudo killall AppleSpell

and you’re done!

Hope somebody’s lucky with that,

Xjs.

Update: It appears like you should not have applications running that use AppleSpell.service while “patching” it – as Owen pointed out. So quit all apps that do spell checking before.

2008-05-27

Spotlight: folder1/folderx/filename.txt and folder2/folderx/filename.txt appear to be in folder1 and folder2, not in folder1/folderx and folder2/folderx. Left hand: useful, right hand: confusing.

Proper English: You’ll sure have noticed that if you have two files with the same name and search for them with Spotlight, the name of the folder (directory…) they are in is displayed in gray letters after the file name. (Something like file1.txt – Stuff and file1.txt – Documents (Screenshot (!))). Now I think I’ll describe what I found out by giving you a step by step walkthrough how to reproduce it.

1. Take a folder of yours (I always take ~/Stuff for those sort of things).

2. (optional) create a sub-folder and give it a fancy name. Open it. (You don’t need to do this, but I like sub-folders. (Ask Nico, he’s always getting crazy about that (Hmm. I’m developing a lisp-like syntax for my writings.))). (<–this looks weird)

3. (*NOT* optional) create two folders in your sub-folder (or wherever you want ). Call them … say “folder1″ and “folder2″.

4. Create a folder named “folderx” in each of the two folders you still know from step 3. It is important that the sub-folder is named the same in both folder1 and folder2. (You know what I mean?)

5. Create a file “file423.txt” (add some fancy numbers after the name to make sure it doesn’t appear somewhere else on your hard disk) in both “folderx”-es. This file’s name also gotta be the same in both folders. And it’s got to be *in* folderx.

6. Search for “file423.txt” (or however you called it) in Spotlight.

You will now see two entries: “file423.txt – folder1″ and “file423.txt – folder2″. ‘Huh’, might you think, ‘I put them in folderx, not folder1 and folder2… has some minister who sits in a wheelchair moved them around?’ (Especially when you – like I – find out this one when sitting in the train without internet connection). No, Spotlight is some sort of smart. It sees that even if it would write the folders after the files, it wouldn’t help because it still would be the same. So it goes up in the directory hierarchy till it finds out where the pathnames differ from each other, and prints that folder. The good thing: there *must* be a difference, otherwise the files would be in the same place (and have you ever seen two files named the same in the same place?). The bad thing is when you have… say /usr/local/gtk/include/gtk.h and /opt/local/gtk/include/gtk.h, it tells you that the one file is in /usr and the other one in /opt… that’s *really* confusing. A little snippet of the path would be betther in that case, I think. Somehting like “gtk.h – /usr/…/include/” and “gtk.h – /opt/…/include/”.

After installing z-OSX-Updates (10.4.z, 10.5.z) reinstall GNU coreutils if you like them. Because: OSX replaces them by its own coreutils. Nice, huh? Well, but PowerPC apps didn’t work for me (since about 05-15) … which was bad. With 10.5.3, they do work again *phew*.

My kernel was last changed on 05-23… hmmm… nice date …. Verschwoerungstheorie… huh… there was *no* software update around that date… or was there? HEEELP!!!

There are files appearing in my ~/Library/Application\ Support/pearLyrics/lyrics/ directory… which I have never listened to… help. I think they were created around 05-23 too … actually 05-15.

2008-06-01

I still have got the problem with bezels in applications such as Mail or Colloquy, in which the number is displayed on the lower border of the bezel instead of centered (Sorry, I can’t find a screenshot of it.). That’s since … about 02-02 or so, and 10.5.3 hasn’t fixed it. It’s ultra-weird. Checking the source code in Colloquy, I could fix it with telling Colloquy to draw it to the upper border, now it’s centered again, but looks sluggish. The bug seems to be in [NSBezierPath AppendPathWithArcAndCenterOrSomethingLikeThat]. Funny thing is: this doesn’t happen on other user accounts, so I thought it had to be in ~. Now I logged out, moved ~/Library and ~/.[!.]* away (tarred the . files, but Library was too heavy, didn’t want to wait (/Stuff/Library should be enough, then, and Mac OS X definitely didn’t touch that directory). Now logged back in, seemed like a fresh user account (let alone the other data (pictures, documents, code) in ~). Started Colloquy on a local ircd, typed something… know what, the bezel problem still exists. WHY … WHY THE F*ING H*LL WHY?!?! I also moved aside my complete home directory and logged back in, but Mac OS X seemed to have noticed that and showed me “jannis2″ instead of “jannis” as home in the Finder. Not on Terminal, though. (Slowly this is becoming a sort of chaotic diary.) I am really going to reinstall Mac OS X if I can’t solve that problem. It’s *REALLY* *F’ING* *ANNOYING* *!!!!* !. Yes, it is. (Sorry.) Anyhow, it can’t have to do anything with a framework *in* the .app bundle, cause it only happens on my user account. (I could perhaps create a new one and move to that one, but don’treallywantthaty’know).

Can one turn off “check spelling as you type” globally somehow? Annoying, too. I know how to write most of the words out there. It always underlines words like “NSBezierPath”, “don’treallywantthaty’know”, “jannis” (although it should at least know my first name, damn it…), “AppendPathWithArcAndCenterOrSomethingBeautifulLikeThatNiceFunctionYouKnowWhatIMeanErYesIReallyThinkSo” and other funny things. But none of the proper English text is ever ever underlined. (Not even if I mistype something… no, that was a (bad (at least I commit it)) joke). Oh, wait, there are even cases where something that’s really *right* and *spelled correctly* is underlined, that’s when I use two languages (that is, German and English) in one context (be it a sentence, a chat, a mail conversation, whatever). Even in this Stickies.app it fools me: I turned it off clicking “Edit » Check Spelling While Typing”, switched to another stickie, and what happened? underlined me fflush(). !!!111one eleven!.

Talking of Stickies.app: this nice and light blue cyan (cymbaline cirrus-minor cyspedelic (erm…)) stickie is getting *very* large. But I can’t delete it or change its color, because I’ve got another (dark blue) sticky which says “blog about that blue sticky in the lower left corner”. Well. It’s taking most of the screen now, not just the lower left corner. I think when I’m on the Net again, I’ll just copy and paste what’s written here into my Blog. You must read it, then, not I ;^P.

2008-06-07

Today was a hard day. I deleted my user account, recreated it and moved all the data from my old home folder back here. I sorted out ~/Library, copied only the most important stuff. Especially did I have a look at Application Support and Preferences, where I only copied some things which I didn’t wanna have to configure again. I *did* reconfigure most of my apps. Now the bug with the bezels is fixed. I still don’t know why it was. Especially because I did only change my home folder, and manually moving it aside didn’t work. Why? … Has anyone had the same problem (or still has)? Well, this *is* a solution, but it is very tiring. Time Machine takes an eternity to backup all the little NetNewsWire files in ~/Library, by the way. Did cost me some nerves.

2008-06-20

13.50

Help. My MacBook blew my ears away today. Now I have found out what had lead to the problem: my httpd keeps crashing on launch, I don’t know why. Yesterday it still worked… I need to investigate this.

17.03

Now I found out that it’s the PHP module that makes my server crashing. Guess how I found out? By disabling all modules one by one. But I need PHP.

17.42

When Denis from MobileMacs mentioned it about Safari 4, I found that the iScrobbler Info window in the Finder has the option “open in 32 bit mode”. In the info.plist is written the following: /Users/jannis/Pictures/Screenshots/64-Bit\ Info.plist.png . By the way: I’m going to re-compile PHP. Nothing works.

17.50

Erm, hello? iScrobbler doesn’t work?! GRR!!! I’ll reinstall Mac OS X.

Igh? It works when turning on 32-bit mode. Does that mean that 64-Bit apps don’t work any longer? WTF? (By the way, Apache is also a 64-bit-process. But it worked without the libphp.so, so maybe only that one is compiled in 64 bit, or it doesn’t apply to all my 64-bit-apps.

18.01

Phew. It works again after I’ve done a PRAM reset. Does that mean that my mod_php work again?

18.05

Yes, it does. Good. Again a *big* PHEW!

2008-06-23

I put my MacBook into sleep mode (that is, I closed the lid) and – after a while – opened it again. Now I noticed that I hadn’t been asked for my password when opening it, which is bad. Going into System Preferences, although, I found that the checkbox for “Require password to wake the computer from sleep or screen saver” was checked. Unchecked it, checked it again, same case. Unchecked it, logged out, logged back in, checked it, worked. Anyway, I wonder why – though I didn’t investigate further where this option is saved, etc.. Anyone had the same problem or knows the answer?

2008-06-25

My Grayscale Icon collection is growing. By now, I got grayscale icons for *breathing deeply* Activity Monitor (Icon and CPU bars), Address Book, Mail, Console, Dashboard, Dictionary, Finder, iCal, Icon Composer, iPhoto, iTunes, Linkinus, NetNewsWire, Pages, Photo Booth, Photoshop, Preview, QuickShareIt, QuickTime Player, Safari, Smultron, Stickies, and TextEdit. I like the looks of a completely grayscale desktop very much.

2008-06-26

HardwareGrowler won’t keep running. I made a GeekTool entry that shows me if it runs, and if I start HardwareGrowler manually, ten seconds later it’s quitted again. It says EXC_BAD_ACCESS/KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE in the crash log. That is, SEGV . Need to check for a new version or try and debug it.

20.36

ouch. Just saw that I wrote ‘grep “HardwareGrowler” file && $error’ instead of ‘grep “HardwareGrowler” file || $error’… rocket science. Still, *sometimes* it crashes, or there wouldn’t be crash reports.

2008-07-23

Okay, HardwareGrowler crashes always when changing into sleep mode. Does anybody know how to execute a script when waking from sleep?

I’ve now got an invitation for a service I have known for some time: Dropbox. With Dropbox, you can set up a directory for syncing, which is then synced to their server and over several computers. It’s similar to .Mac MobileMe. – If you like an invitation, comment here. I’ve only got 10 invites, and I’ll go by seriousity of the requests.

EDIT: I was invited by another person, so I’ve now two accounts…
This means I’ve now got 16 invitations left!

All the best, Jannis.

Oh, by the way: Dropbox works for Mac OS X and Windows, not for Linux (sorry).

Today, as the european soccer championship is over (luckily), I want to lose a word or two on it, too.

As you might have noticed, those soccer players spit out on the ground very often during or after games (at least they did very often in the ten minutes I looked at the television). Firstly, I wonder why they do not simply swallow their saliva instead of spitting it out. Secondly, which I think is a very important issue nobody thinks of, I saw many children between the age of … say eight and thirteen imitating that, and there is no doubt that they just thought it was, you know, cool.

If any soccer player is reading this, maybe he can answer my first question – and: you should watch out that you don’t do this every time a camera’s got its focus on you, because many children get used to it, which is unhygienic. (I think.)

…ereht iH,

Jannis.

I have decided not to continue translating every blog post I write. I’ll post them into two categories called “German” and “English”, and you can subscribe to either if you don’t like one of these languages.

I cannot really tell which sort of posts will rather be in English and which in German, I think I’ll write in the language whichever I am currently thinking in.

Wishing to have made things clear,

your Jannis.