How to run the irl-obs-switcher on macOS?

Last week I‘ve received a comment on the initial irl-obs-switcher blog article regarding the use of the tool on macOS.

And good point: Apart from the source code release on GitHub I am generating binary releases for several operating systems and processor architectures.

For Windows it‘s quite straight forward. If you do not have dotnet 6 installed you will be guided automatically.

For Linux you gotta install dotnet 6 basically according to the official documentation and then run the irl-obs-switcher file.

For macOS it‘s a bit less straight forward – so here are screenshots and comments to guide through the process:

first go to the github repository of irl-obs-switcher and check for all pre-requisites.
download the current version 6 sdk for your cpu platform – arm64 if you have Apple Silicon. x64 if you have an Intel Mac.
Allow the download
After the download finished right click and „Open with Installer“…
a successful installation!
in the release page of irl-obs-switcher download the latest macOS binary release.
after unzipping right click the folder and select „new Terminal at Folder“. If your menu does not show this item just open a Terminal (search for Terminal) and navigate to the folder you unpacked the binary release to („cd Downloads“)
Then mark the irl-obs-switcher executable by running „chmod +x irl-obs-switcher“. Then try to run it with ./irl-obs-switcher. On current macOS you might get a pop-up warning you about the file you are trying to run. This is a default warning as the binary release of irl-obs-switcher is not signed/approved by Apple but just made available by the developer (me) to you. Choose „Cancel“ as might not want to move it to the recycle bin just yet.
Next we need to tell macOS to anyway allow us to run the irl-obs-switcher file by going to the „Security&Privacy“ section of the System Settings.
You will see a button „Allow Anyway“ that you can click to allow running of irl-obs-switcher.
Now when you try to run irl-obs-switcher again the warning will look different. Click „Open“ and you‘re good to go.
Now you can go ahead, edit the configuration JSON file. Now you should have OBS running and WebSockets installed and set-up to make proper use of the tool.

I hope this short step-by-step works for you. In fact by making it I‘ve found some bugs and fixed them along the way.

A keyboard and touchpad for the iPad Pro

With the release of the M1 iPad Pro I had decided to order one to replace my aging iPad mini 4 from 2015.

And so far I am very happy with it. I‘ve got it with the Apple Smart Folio which comes with this strange material that seems to collect dust like crazy. At least it seems to do it‘s job to protect the device.

The Smart Folio allows you to prop up the iPad either fully up or lay it down onto a table at an angle,

Embedded into the smart folio are magnets on both sides. It even depends solely on magnetic force to attach to the iPad Pro.

Now I‘am regularly typing and using a mouse with iPad OS. Which works great with the normal bluetooth keyboard and mouse from Logitech that I had around still. But those desktop peripherals are quite heavy and big devices compared to what you would want with such a mobile device like the iPad Pro.

There are multiple options that replace the Smart Folio with keyboard and touchpad combos. From Apple, from Logitech and of course the usual suspects from China. Those combos all have different downsides for me. For example:

  • Apple Magic Keyboard
    • enormous price
    • No F-keys
    • Heavy
  • Logitech Folio Touch
    • does not attach magnetically but puts the iPad into a bumper frame
    • As thick as it gets
    • Kind-of pricey for keyboard and touchpad

Both of the above options require the iPad Pro to be always connected to the case/keyboard. This limits the angles and the distance I can put the iPad to use it. It limits how I can use the keyboard and in what positions I can type. Both of them also connect directly to the iPad Pro through the back-connectors to be powered and data-transfer.

None of this is a good thing for me. I want a keyboard+touchpad that I can basically put at whatever distance I want in front of the screen and put the screen anywhere I need to be able to work comfortably. Everything being too tightly integrated and requiring to be always wired up to even work is a big downside for me.

So I started to look around and quickly found lots of options of keyboard/touchpad combinations that are self-powered and actually also already available for years.

With some research I settled to purchase one that ticked all boxes for me:

  • The haptic feeling when typing should be bearable, ideally it should be like a good notebook keyboard
  • The touchpad should support multi-touch gestures and work well with iPad OS – that is a really hard thing to achieve – it seems
  • Bluetooth 5.0 connection that does not interfere with WiFi
  • very light, yet has to have enough battery for hours of use
  • Needs to attach somehow to the iPad case while not in use yet needs to be detached physically from the iPad while in use
  • Needs to support all normal keys you would need on Linux console or while programming, including the F-keys.
  • cheap?

This is how it looks like while in use:

As you can see it‘s not actually attached to the iPad but just there ready to be used.It‘s a fair size – remember: this is an 12.9 inch iPad next to it.

All the above checkboxes are ticked as the the keyboard feels well while typing. It has F-keys and even offers switchable layouts for different use-cases. All my programming and console needs are fulfilled.

It’s insanely light – feels almost too light. But the backside is thin metal which is magnetic. And yes. It just attaches to the outside of the original Apple Smart Folio that I already had. It literally just snaps onto it and stays there while being moved from one place to the other.

With the flexibility of the original Smart Folio I can now put the iPad onto the couch table and sit comfortably on the couch while typing and using the touchpad with the stable small keyboard on my lap.

Since it comes with it‘s own battery (I have it for 1 week and I was unable to empty it) its a bonus that charging takes place through a USB-C port. Most other cheap keyboard/touchpad combinations come with a Micro-USB port for charging. Even in 2021.

I could not resist to open it right up. There are 8 screws at the bottom that can easily be opened.

Look how easy it will be to replace the battery one day. This is a basic off-the-shelve battery pack that is cheap to replace when faulty.

Now while I can recommend this keyboard for the iPad Pro I cannot tell you where you can get it. I‘ve ordered mine on Amazon but while I was writing this article I was unable to find and link the product page. It got removed apparently.

So my only recommendation would be: Go for a hunt for keyboards with similar options. Mine also has key backlights with different colors – which nobody needs for any reason. But if you go for the hunt. Look out for keyboard touchpad combinations that offer Bluetooth 5.0 and USB-C for charging. Compare the pictures as the keyboard layout was quite unique (T-cursor keys, F-keys,…) .

Apple Watch repair attempt

After years of use the display of my trusty Apple Watch popped off. It seems the glue had given in and failed.

As there was nothing wrong with the watch otherwise I am attempting a repair.

I’ve got the new adhesive seal, a new force touch sensor and a new battery while I am at it.

Add opening and disassembling was an adventure in itself I had to give up for now as I am missing an exotic Y000 screwdriver.

While I wait for this to arrive – here is the screw I had to stop at:

Travel Tip: get an electronic public transport card in Japan without any hassle (iOS)

Previously you had to be in Japan or to have a japanese AppStore account to get access to software that allows you to manage and add SUICA cards to your wallet and use it right-away for public transport.

Now with the 2020 olympics approaching more and more tourist support-apps are made available to non-japanese audiences.

Just like this little helper:

So the scenario was: You arrive at an airport in Japan. And the first thing you needed to do to use the public transport system was to get such a SUICA card either purchased or topped-up.

This is a straight forward process and they even came up with “Tourist SUICA” cards that will deactivate themselves after a certain amount of time and are cheaper to purchase upfront – still it was a process you had to know how it works.

With the above helper app you’re simply doing this:

  1. Download app.
  2. Make sure you’ve got Apple Pay set-up with at least one of your credit cards
  3. Use the SuicaEng app to create a brand new SUICA card out of thin air and top it up right there.
  4. (optional) push your SUICA card to your watch to simplify the purchase processes even more – you’ll just tap your wrist to pass through gates or purchase goods.

batch convert HEIF/HEIC pictures

When you own a recent iOS device (iOS 11 and up) you’ve got the choice between “High Efficiency” or “Most Compatible” as the format all pictures are being stored by the camera app.

Most Compatible being the JPEG format that is widely used around the internet and other cameras out there and the “High Efficiency” coming from the introduction of a new file format and compression/reduction algorithms.

A pointer to more information about the format:

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF), also known as High Efficiency Image Coding (HEIC), is a file format for individual images and image sequences. It was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined by MPEG-H Part 12 (ISO/IEC 23008-12). The MPEG group claims that twice as much information can be stored in a HEIF image as in a JPEG image of the same size, resulting in a better quality image. HEIF also supports animation, and is capable of storing more information than an animated GIF at a small fraction of the size.

Wikipedia: HEIF

As Apple is aware this new format is not compatible with any existing tool chain to work with pictures from cameras. So you would either need new, upgraded tools (the Apple-way) or you would need to convert your images to the “older” – not-so-efficient JPEG format.

To my surprise it’s not trivial to find a conversion tool. For Linux I’ve already wrote about such a tool here.

For macOS and Windows, look no further. Waltr2 is an app catering your conversion needs with a drag-and-drop interface.

It’s advertised as being free and offline. And it works a treat for me.

Tabemono – from a name to UX and UI…

As you might know by now I am re-implementing MyFitnessPal functionality into my own application to be deeper integrated with kitchen hardware and my own personal use-cases rather than to be an add infested subscription based 3rd party applilcation.

So the development of this is ongoing, but I wanted to note down some progress and explanation.

Let’s start with explaining the name: Tabemono.

It does really mean something – and as some might have guessed – in japanese:

Tabemono – 食べ物

Taking just the first Kanji:

Implementing the UI from the UX has proven to be as challenging as expected.

When we started to toss around the idea of re-implementing our food-tracking-needs we started with a simple scribble on post-it notes.

This quickly led to a digital version of this to better reflect what we wanted to happen during the different steps of use…

It wasn’t nice but it did act as an reminder of what we wanted to achieve.

The first thing we learned here was that this will all evolve while we are working on it.

So during a long international flight I’ve spent the better part of 11 hours on getting the above drawing into something resembling an iOS user interface mock-up. With the help of the (free for 1 private project) Adobe XD I clicked along and after 10 hours, this was the video I did of the click-dummy:

Since then I’ve spend maybe 1 more day and started the SwiftUI based implementation of the actual iOS application.

And this brought the first revelation: There are so many ideas that might make sense on paper and in a click-dummy. But only because those are just tools and not reality. It’s absolutely crucial to really DO the things rather than imagine them.

And so the second revelation came: If I had an advise to any product manager or developer out there: Go on and pick a project and try to go full-circle.

You ain’t full stack if you’re missing out on the understanding of the work and skill that your team members have and need.

iPhone 11 Pro battery is…

…quite amazing.

I’ve upgraded just before the Japan travelling to the current iPhone generation. I was expecting some improved battery life but I did not dare to think I would get THIS.

I’ve taken the last 3 generations of iPhones on trips to Japan and they all went through the same exercises and quite comparable day schedules.

The amount of navigation, screen-time, taking pictures and just browsing the web / translating led to all 3 previous generations to be out-of-juice just around half-day.

Not this generation. Apparently something has changed. Not really in terms of screen time – screen on-time got better, but not as great as the overall usage time of the device with screen off.

In regards of how much power and runtime I am getting out of the device without having to reach for a batter pack or power supply is astonishing. I am using my Apple Watch for navigation clues so I am not really reaching out for the phone for that. But that means the phone is constantly used otherwise to make pictures, payments, translations….

I am comfortably leaving all battery packs and chargers at home when all the time before I was charging the phones at lunchtime for the first time. I usually had to charge 2 times a day to get through.

With this generations iPhone 11 Pro I am getting through the whole day and reach the hotel just before getting down to 20%.

I am still using it all throughout the day. But this is such a relief that I am confidently getting through a full day of fun. Thumbs up Apple!

SwiftUI on the Web

SwiftUI is the new cool kid on the block when it comes to iOS/iPadOS/macOS application development.

As Apple announced SwiftUI early 2019 it’s naturally only focussing on making all the declarative UI goodness available for the Apple operating systems. No non-apple platforms in focus. Naturally.

But there are ways. With the declarative way of creating user interfaces one apparently can simply start to re-implement the UI controls and have them render as HTML / Javascript…

The SwiftWebUI project is aiming to do so:

Unlike some other efforts this doesn’t just render SwiftUI Views as HTML. It also sets up a connection between the browser and the code hosted in the Swift server, allowing for interaction – buttons, pickers, steppers, lists, navigation, you get it all!

In other words: SwiftWebUI is an implementation of (many but not all parts of) the SwiftUI API for the browser.

To repeat the Disclaimer: This is a toy project! Do not use for production. Use it to learn more about SwiftUI and its inner workings.

SwiftWebUI

Odometer for the HUD

Since I am back at developing the Head-Up-Display app I was writing about in February (yeah, mornings got darker again!) I want to leave this nice looking Odometer Javascript library here:

Odometer is a Javascript and CSS library for smoothly transitioning numbers. See the demo page for some examples.

Odometer’s animations are handled entirely in CSS using transforms making them extremely performant, with automatic fallback on older browsers.

odometer

TIL: iPhone Visual Voicemal is IMAP

Today I learned that the Apple iPhone re-purposes the IMAP protocol to implement the voice mail feature.

By sniffing the network traffic it was possible to examine the IMAP protocol revealing username and the corresponding hashed password (which allows to repeat a successful login) and of course all voicemail files. We want to highlight, that all the voicemail files have been transferred unencrypted.

Assessment of Visual Voicemail from 2012

good wireguard tutorial

If you, like me, are looking into new emerging tools and technologies you might also look at Wireguard.

WireGuard® is an extremely simple yet fast and modern VPN that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography. It aims to be faster, simpler, leaner, and more useful than IPsec, while avoiding the massive headache. It intends to be considerably more performant than OpenVPN. WireGuard is designed as a general purpose VPN for running on embedded interfaces and super computers alike, fit for many different circumstances. Initially released for the Linux kernel, it is now cross-platform (Windows, macOS, BSD, iOS, Android) and widely deployable. It is currently under heavy development, but already it might be regarded as the most secure, easiest to use, and simplest VPN solution in the industry.

bold wireguard website statement

To apply and get started with WireGuard on Linux and iOS I’ve used the very nice tutorial of Graham Stevens: WireGuard Setup Guide for iOS.

This guide will walk you through how to setup WireGuard in a way that all your client outgoing traffic will be routed via another machine (server). This is ideal for situations where you don’t trust the local network (public or coffee shop wifi) and wish to encrypt all your traffic to a server you trust, before routing it to the Internet.

WireGuard Setup Guide for iOS.

text replacements for Tokyo ward and kens on iOS and macOS

I am having a hard time learning japanese and reading/writing the kanji especially.

Having to write japanese city names frequently (for example when doing searches) I still do remember the spoken out version of the name but I do not quite yet remember the kanji version. Also I do not want to switch back and forth in keyboard languages.

For this, especially in macOS and iOS there is a nice way around this. With the built-in “Text Replacement” feature of your Mac or iPhone/iPad you can easily mass-import a mapping between the romanized version of a word and the japanese written out kanji version of that word.

While you are typing then you will be presented with recommendation text replacements, effectively the kanjis of what you’ve just tried to write.

see the text recommendations above the keyboard

Unfortunately I do not know a way how to mass-import these text-replacements on iOS.

But if you own a macOS computer and you have it synced over iCloud with your mobile phone or tablet you will likely be able to open the text replacement pane in your system settings and import this plist file into it. Simply drag the file (after unzipping the ZIP file) into the text replacement window.

Download the Tokyo-Text-Replacement.zip file. Extract it (double clicking). And drag the .plist file into the Text Replacement Window.

For you to derive your own files you can find the raw data, a list of all designated Ken and Ward names in Tokyo here:

the appropriate case for your hackintosh

It’s been a year since Zenvent posted this:

Created a custom case for my hackintosh, it resembles a minified Power Mac G5. I have uploaded the parts to Thingiverse in case you’d like to make one of your own. 

https://www.zenvent.com/blog/hackintosh/

Hackintosh (a portmanteau of “Hack” and “Macintosh”), is a computer that runs macOS on a device not authorized by Apple, or one that no longer receives official software updates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackintosh

retrofit an old printer to be available on the network

In 2007 I had become proud owner of a Samsung ML-2010 mono laser printer. It’s done a great job ever since and I can recall changing the toner just once so far.

So you can tell: I am not a heavy printer user. Every so often I gotta print out a sheet of paper to put on a package or to fill out a form. A laser printer is the perfect fit for this pattern as it’s toner is not going-bad or evaporating like ink does in ink-printers.

So I still like the printer and it’s in perfect working condition. I’ve just recently filled up the toner for almost no money. But – but this printer needs to be physically connected to the computer that wants to print.

As the usage patterns have significantly changed in the last 12 years this printer needs to be brought into todays networked world.

Replacing it with a new printer is not an option. All printers I could potentially purchase are both more expensive to purchase and the toner is much more expensive to refill. No-can-do.

If only there was an easy way to get the printer network ready. Well, turns out, there is!

First let’s start introducing an opensource project: CUPS

CUPS (formerly an acronym for Common UNIX Printing System) is a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows a computer to act as a print server. A computer running CUPS is a host that can accept print jobs from client computers, process them, and send them to the appropriate printer.

Wikipedia

A good, cheap and energy-efficient way to run a CUPS host is a Raspberry Pi. I do own several first-generation models that have been replaced by much more powerful ones in the previous years.

So I’ve taken one Raspberry Pi and did the set-up steps: Installing the Raspberry Pi Print Server Software.

And now – what did I get?

I got a networked Samsung Laser Printer. No thrills, no problems at all.

the CUPS web interface
the printer shows up on Linux (Ubuntu here)
on iOS and macOS the printer magically appears
on Windows 10.

how long until …

I am a happy user of the Apple Watch and iPhones in general. It’s working out great for me so far.

There are a couple of features that I would wish where there. And simple things like an hour-chime or hour/half-hour tap are frequently included into the WatchOS updates.

But some of the more specific features just won’t materialize on Apple Watch.

Think of this: You are doing your thing, you know, being a productive member of the society. And apart from the information “What’s next” the information of “When’s next and how long until then” is equally important.

I already had all information – like upcoming events – in my calendar. Why not have the watch display directly on the watch face how long I’ve got until then?!

This is where I’ve found an app called “Time Till” by Rachel Higley.

You’re downloading it on your iPhone and when opened up first it will show you a list of your calendars.

You can turn on/off any of them in this app and by doing so you are selecting which of the calendars will be included in the calculation “how long until the next meeting”.

I’ve only selected one calendar which holds those appointments that I need to know how long until then. So it’s not the next work meeting. It’s important things.

On the watch, however many calendars you’ve selected, it will show you something like this:

I’ve circled the complications added by “Time Till”

So in this case it’ll show the hours until I have to wake-up. Whatever I put into this calendar will show up there. If I want with the name of the event, but most commonly I am using the bottom right version: just the hours/minutes until.

Unfortunately Rachel is quite busy and so there’s no update for the app to also support the new Modular Infograph complications of WatchOS 5 and up.

If you don’t know how those look like, here is a picture I’ve put together from Apples developer documentation:

So I am thinking to rewrite the app and include the new complications. In fact: I’ve implemented my “Discordian Calendar Apple Watch Complication” app as a test and exercise to learn how I would be able to rewrite “Time Till”.

Now the only thing I need is to be kissed by the muse that fuels the urge to just get it done :-).

all macOS wallpapers in 5k

Every major version of Mac OS X macOS has come with a new default wallpaper. As you can see, I have collected them all here.
While great in their day, the early wallpapers are now quite small in the world of 5K displays.
Major props to the world-class designer who does all the art of Relay FM, the mysterious @forgottentowel, for upscaling some of these for modern screens.

https://512pixels.net/projects/default-mac-wallpapers-in-5k/

Miataru – open source location tracking

Not a lot of things are more private than your location.

Yet sometimes you wish to share your location with friends and family. May it be during an event or regularly. Maybe you want to

To allow the tech-minded audience to be in full control of what data is aggregated and stored regarding these needs I’ve created Miataru back in 2013 as an open-source project from end-2-end.

With the protocol being completely open and ready to be integrated into any home automation interested users can either utilize the publicly available (stores-nothing-on-disk) server or host your own.

Everything from the server to the clients is available in source and there’s a ready-to-go version of the client app on the AppStore.

this is a location sharing session when the blue pin met the yellow pin

the discordian calendar on your wrist

I’ve finished my little coding exercise today. With a good sunday afternoon used to understand and develop an iOS and Watch application from scratch I just handed it in for Apple AppStore approval.

The main purpose, aside from the obvious “learning how it’s done”, is that I actually needed a couple of complications on my watch that would show me the current day/date in the discordian calendar.

I have to say that the overall process of developing iOS and Watch applications is very streamlined. Much much easier than Android development.

The WatchKit development was probably the lesser great experience in this project. There simply is not a lot of code / documentation and examples for WatchKit yet. And most of them are in Swift – which I have not adapted yet. I keep to Objective-C for now still. With Swift at version 5 and lots of upgrades I would have done in the last years just to keep up with the language development… I guess with my choice to stick to Objective-C I’ve avoided a lot of work.

Anyhow! As soon as the app is through AppStore approval I will write again. Maybe somebody actually wants to use it also? :-)

With writing the app I just came up with the next idea for a complication I just really really would need.

In a nutshell: A complication that I can configure to track a certain calendar. And it will show the time in days/hours/minutes until the next appointment in that specific calendar. I will have it set up to show “how many hours till wakeing up”.

exercise: develop a Watch app + complication

I’ve started to write a watch app for iOS/WatchOS which is going to display the current calendar information according to the discordian calendar.

Since there’s no watch support on any of the calendar apps in the AppStore and I wanted to have easy to use watchface support I had to try it myself.

I will update here on the progress but so far it looks like this:

pushing notifications in home automation

I was asked recently how I did enable my home automation to send push notifications to members of the household.

The service I am using on which all of our notification needs are served by is PushOver.

Pushover gives you a simple API and a device management and allows you to trigger notifications with icons and text to be sent to either all or specific devices. It allows to specify a message priority so that more or most important push notifications even are being pushed to the front when your phone is set on do-not-disturb.

The device management and API, as said, is pretty simple and straight forward.

apparently we’re sending a lot of notifications to these devices…

As for the actual integration I am using the NodeRed integration of Pushover. You can find it here: node-red-contrib-pushover.

With the newest client for iOS it even got integration for Apple Watch. So you not only are limited to text and images. You can also send our a state that updates automatically on your watch face.

As Pushover seems consistent in service and bringing updates I don’t miss anything – yet I do not have extensively tested it on Android.

Apple Health challenges are broken

We are using Apples smartwatch to measure some health stats during our workouts. And Apple Watch is doing a great job at that.

With all that polish one would expect better from what Apple has to offer in the software department…

Apple Watch has monthly challenges that get automatically generated from previous measurements. But seeing that an already much above average activities number would have to be doubled to complete the challenge is absurd. To a degree where challenges are arguably health risks…

two factor mandatory for apple developers

Apple has started to force developers that want to develop and publish on the MacOS and iOS platform to enable two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2FA) is a type, or subset, of multi-factor authentication. It is a method of confirming users’ claimed identities by using a combination of two different factors: 1) something they know, 2) something they have, or 3) something they are.

wikipedia

When I just got around enabling it for one of the apple accounts I’ve got there seems to be a much much higher security barrier in place already…

That’s probably some sort of zero-factor no-authentication. I guess. Anyway: Kudos to Apple for finally forcing people to minimum standards. Properly integrating the second factor will make this so much simpler for users. Apples ecosystem solution already is quite well integrated.

Have you switched all your daily used services to two-factor authentication yet?

Apple Airplay for SONOS (in Docker)

We’ve got a couple of SONOS based multi-room-audio zones in our house and with the newest generation of SONOS speakers you can get Apple Airplay. Fancy!

But the older hardware does not support Apple Airplay due to it’s limiting hardware. This is too bad.

So once again Docker and OpenSource + Reverse-Engineering come to the rescue.

AirConnect is a small but fancy tool that bridges SONOS and Chromecast to Airplay effortlessly. Just start and be done.

It works a treat and all of a sudden all those SONOS zones become Airplay devices.

There is also a nice dockerized version that I am using.

using the RaspberryPi to make all SONOS speakers support Apple Airplay

Airplay allows you to conveniently play music and videos over the air from your iOS or Mac OS X devices on remote speakers.

Since we just recently “migrated” almost all audio equipment in the house to SONOS multi-room audio we were missing a bit the convenience of just pushing a button on the iPad or iPhones to stream audio from those devices inside the household.

To retrofit the Airplay functionality there are two options I know of:

1: Get Airplay compatible hardware and connect it to a SONOS Input.

airportexpress_2012_back-285111You have to get Airplay hardware (like the Airport Express/Extreme,…) and attach it physically to one of the inputs of your SONOS Set-Up.  Typically you will need a SONOS Play:5 which has an analog input jack.

PLAY5_back

2: Set-Up a RaspberryPi with NodeJS + AirSonos as a software-only solution

You will need a stock RaspberryPi online in your home network. Of course this can run on virtually any other device or hardware that can run NodeJS. For the Pi setting it up is a fairly straight-forward process:

You start with a vanilla Raspbian Image. Update everything with:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Then install NodeJS according to this short tutorial. To set-up the AirSonos software you will need to install additional avahi software. Especially this was needed for my install:

sudo apt-get install git-all libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev

You then need to get the AirSonos software:

sudo npm install airsonos -g

After some minutes of wait time and hard work by the Pi you will be able to start AirSonos.

sudo airsonos

And it’ll come up with an enumeration of all active rooms.

Screen Shot 2014-06-25 at 11.38.47

And on all your devices it’ll show up like this:

IMG_1046

and

Screen Shot 2014-06-25 at 12.38.27

 

Source: https://github.com/stephen/airsonos

full text transcripts of the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (wwdc)

Since I’ve become sort of an iOS developer lately I had my fair share of WWDC recordings to get started with this whole CocoaTouch and Objective-C development stuff.

Now a tool that is pretty handy is a this website that offers a full-text transcript search of all WWDC recordings. Awesome!

Bildschirmfoto 2013-11-02 um 00.54.36

Source 1: http://asciiwwdc.com/
Source 2: http://miataru.com/ios

Miataru for iOS is available in the iOS AppStore

After roughly 1,5 months of learning Javascript and Objective-C the iOS application and the publicly available Miataru service launched this week.

If you want to interface with the publicly available instance of the miataru server you can use the URL: http://service.miataru.com. This URL also is pre-configured with the iOS client that got recently available in the AppStore.

featurerette-1

appstorebadge_small

Source 1: Miataru for iOS
Source 2: iOS AppStore

working around MacOS X bugs: multiple “open with” context menu entries

Obviously it’s impossible for Apple to fix that quite annoying bug in their operating system that leads to double/tripple/… program entries in the “Open with…” menu. Everytime an application is updated it adds a new entry but does not remove the old one.

This makes your open-width menu look like this:

Bildschirmfoto 2013-05-12 um 18.11.38To fix this you need to run a simple command in your terminal.app:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user;killall Finder

This simple command will kill the double/tripple/… entries and restarts your finder.app to make the change visible. Your “Open with…” menu should now only show singular entries per application:

Bildschirmfoto 2013-05-12 um 18.14.11