PostgreSQL & Python on Mac

I've been playing with Django & MySQL for a while but for my next project I wanted to integrate it with a PostgreSQL database. Everything went well until I wanted to install Psycopg as my python adapter to PostgreSQL. After a bit of blundering about here's what it eventually took: Download and install PostgreSQL one-click installer from http://www.postgresql.org/download/macosx. Remember to read the README file before actually running the installer. Download the psycopg2 source from http://initd....

Java and iPhone AES interoperability

I’ve been trying to get my head around cryptography on the iPhone so that I can create a native iPhone app (iPasskeep) that interoperates with my JPasskeep password keeper application. It has taken a while to get my head around CommonCrypto APIs - how to use them, how not to use them and their limitations. It then took a bit of fiddling to find the right incantations in Java to get an interoperable cryptographic transformation....

JPasskeep and Command-Q on Mac

I've released a new version of my long-running password keeper application: JPasskeep. This new release is now able to handle a Command-Q keystroke on the Mac, giving a user (i.e. me) an chance to save any updated entries. No more mousing around to close a window. The actual mechanism to do this was to reflectively call Apple's EAWT application classes to allow me to register the correct event listener. Hmm, run anywhere with java GUI apps....

Command-Tab and friends on Mac

Most people who work with a Mac know Command-Tab to cycle through currently running applications, but few know of Command-~ (tilde): it allows you to cycle through all the windows of the current application. No more mucking around with F10....

How to resize iTunes on OSX

I've updated to a smaller macbook - unfortunately iTunes remembered its previous size. Usually you can go to the Window > Zoom menu bar option and resize a wayward mac application, but iTunes just turns itself into a little application - not quite what I wanted. However, if you hold Alt/Option key while you click on Window > Zoom in the menu bar, iTunes will resize itself to fit the available screen area....

S3DropBox 1.2 is now released

I love feedback ... including bugs (thanks Cam). The S3DropBox will now only permit the creation of a bucket when Amazon S3 returns a HTTP 404 status code in response to a HTTP HEAD request for the bucket prior to creation. The new version can now be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/s3dropbox/....

JPasskeep Update

Just finished a new version of my long-running password keeper application. You can download the cross-platform version, the mac dmg image, and the source code. New changes include the ability to export entries to an encrypted HTML page (see my previous post on javascript cryptography) and bundling the cross-platform version as a single JAR file using one-jar. As usual this version does not rely on javax.crypto APIs to function so it should work wherever a JDK5 compatible VM can run....

S3DropBox 1.1 has been released

This release now permits the S3DropBox to be used in corporate environments (ie. behind authenticated proxies), including being able to handle NTLM authentication with proxies. HTTPS support has been enabled, although HTTP is still used by default. Check out the new release here....

S3DropBox is now on Google Code

In June of 2008 I released the initial version of the S3DropBox as a download available from this blog (see S3DropBox). Since then I've been adding little enhancements to the drop box as updates to the linked zip files. This of course is not the right way to share an application or its code-base, so I've created a google code project at http://code.google.com/p/s3dropbox/. Feedback, patches and wish-list items are always welcome....

What is using my USB drive?

For a while I’ve been trying to find out what is using my external USB hard disk on my mac when I want to eject it. Its been driving me batty and I usually resort to a few choice expletives before pulling out the cable anyway. Recently I read about the lsof terminal command - for example: lsof /Volumes/BACKUPHD This shows you what processes are currently busy stuffing around the specific volume....