The iPad – A Truly Inspiring Device, Thanks to the Lack of Multitasking!?
I received my iPad just a few days ago, and despite this short period of time, it already changed the way I work drastically.
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Running AppleScript from Java
In my current project, I need to launch an external application and maybe execute some additional commands on this external application. Due to the very nature of the project, the whole system will always be run on Mac OS X. So I thought, "why not use AppleScript"? Read more
Keyboard shortcuts for Apple Mail
I use Apple Mail on my MacBook Pro, mainly because it has a better integration with Spotlight than Thunderbird. It also has a nicer UI and is easier to configure.
However, the keyboard shortcuts are really strange. In case you didn't find out yourself, here are the most important ones:
- Send message - CMD+SHIFT+D (what does the D stand for? Deliver?)
- Apply rules to selected mails - CMD+ALT+L (L for ruLe ???)
- Select all messages in a thread - CMD+SHIFT+K (K for seleKt ???)
- Erase junk mail - CMD+ALT+J (now, this is obvious - J for Junk)
Apple developers, if you read this, please comment on the deeper meaning behind the shortcuts.
CVS on a Mac
In order to be able to work on some of our Xtext / Eclipse related build scripts, I needed to install a CVS command line client on my Mac. Now if you google for "cvs mac", you'll get a large list of result, basically telling you to get the Apple Xcode SDK. While the Xcode SDK is for free, and usually you don't even need to download it from the Apple Developer Connection's website (as you already have it on your Mac install disks as Lullabot points out), it occurred to me that installing a 1+GB space hog seems to be a bit of an overkill for getting a tiny application.
So I decided to give Fink a try. Here is what you need to do to get a CVS commandline client on your Mac:
- Download Fink
- Install Fink
- Copy FinkCommander to your Applications folder
- Start FinkCommander
- In the search box, type "cvs"
- Click on the "install binary package" button (it's the leftmost, with the blue plus sign)
- In the lower pane, you can now watch Fink downloading and installing the CVS package.
- Let's see if it works. Open a command line window and type "cvs":
Perfect!
Using Safari to view the Eclipse Help System (when Safari is not your system default browser)
I belong to the minority of people who love the Opera Browser. You've got to try it, it has got all sorts of nice features - e.g. you can easily create keyword-driven search shortcuts or browse the web using mouse gestures. But I digress...
Of course, I configured Opera to be the default browser on my Mac. Which is nice for surfing the web. However, I do not want the Eclipse Help system to appear in Opera - mostly because I tend to have way too many tabs open anyway. So, I'd like to open Eclipse Help in Safari. Here's what you need to do to achieve this:
- In Eclipse, open the preference dialog
- Select General -> Web Browser
- Click New... to add a new external web browser
- In the dialog box Edit External Web Browser, fill in the following details:
- Click Ok, then Finish
Obviously, this only works on Mac OS.
Eclipse on MacOS
By default, runtime instances of Eclipse will start with large fonts. To get rid of this behaviour, just add -Dorg.eclipse.swt.internal.carbon.smallFonts to the VM arguments of the respective launch configuration.
I guess it might be a good idea if PDE UI could transparently add this parameter to Eclipse launch configurations - I opened a bug to get this fixed.
The iPhone has an innovative user interface. The iPhone has an innovative user interface?!
My colleague Wolfgang Frank recently blogged about innovation at Apple. His post contained a link to a video of James Gosling demonstrating the Star7 PDA:
The concepts of the GUI seem to be quite familiar to those who know the iPhone, don't they? Have a look at this:
"This is the day I've been looking for for two and half years"
If you come to think of it, the Star7 PDA prototype development took place in the early 90's. Steve Jobs' introduced the iPhone in his keynote speech in 2007. "Two and a half years..." Did they really invent the iPhone from scratch? If so, Apple seiously suffers from the Not Invented Here Syndrome...
There is an interesting discussion regarding whether Apple invented all those concepts on their own. One commenter writes:
Do anybody think Sun is able to come up with anything like iPhone? I don't think so look at the Swing UI. after many years and many new L&F wots the difference? There is not a UI that can rival the default UI of the OS X nor Windows. Face it.....Sun is not know for designing.
Oh, and we must not forget Google Android:
Funny how all those things resemble each other so much...The bottom line is that among the three devices, the Star7 is the only really innovative one. It had been way ahead of it's time. What a pity Sun didn't make more of it.
