Author: Joel Mama

I own a Web development company in Portland, OR called Prise Design Group (PDG for short). http://prisedesign.com/

Canon PowerShot videos crashing everything

Some AVI videos were crashing everything on my Mac that tried to view them (Quicktime, Adobe Bridge, to name two). The videos came from my Canon PowerShot camera; model A610 to be exact. [Side note: I love my camera. Thank you Canon for making such an awesome machine!]

After some investigation it turned out to be a codec installed in the /Library/QuickTime directory that was causing all the problems. So I made a directory called “dead” in the /Library/QuickTime dir and moved the trouble codec file there. Now everything has been working fabulously. The trouble file is called “AviImporter-r7 (Intel).component”.

I got a Mac!

I finally purchased a Mac. I got it way back before xmas (about 3.5 months ago) but am only posting about it now because I’ve been too busy loving it 🙂 I have long desired a Mac since I learned OS X was basically the stability and coolness of unix with the awesome GUI of a Mac. I was going to get a MacMini in an effort to save some cash, but I changed my mind and got a MacBook instead. The stats:

  • MacBook with OS X Tiger (10.4.8)
  • 2.0 Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 2 GB RAM
  • 80 GB HD
  • SuperDrive
  • And the rest of the standard stuff: wifi, bluetooth, gigabit ethernet, etc.

I also purchased a ViewSonic VX2035wm 20.1″ wide screen LCD monitor. Running in a dual monitor setup with the laptop screen. I’m in heaven. I’m slowly trying to transition the Mac as my primary machine/platform. I’m loving it so far. I even did some unix “hacking” the first day I got it. I was able to give my Palm TX internet access via a bluetooth connection to the Mac. Nerd attack.

Here’s a photo of my current setup:

Three monitor setup

Left to right: ViewSonic GS790 monitor plugged into my Dell Inspiron 700m laptop (not pictured) running XP, the new 20 inch LCD, the MacBook on the right. They’re all sharing a single Microsoft keyboard and mouse thanks to the jaw dropping power of FOSS Synergy.

I can’t praise Synergy enough. You hook your keyboard and mouse up to a single computer, then install the Synergy client software on each computer you want to share the keyboard and mouse with. Then little elves and wizards crawl inside your computers and start casting spells. At least that’s how I think it works because it looks like magic to me. Watch in amazement as you drag your mouse from one screen to the next jumping from XP to Mac and back again. Amazing.

I’m loving OS X so much that after about only 2 months of using my Mac, I bought my wife a MacMini for Valentine’s day. It replaced her ailing generic beige box PC. What better way to say “I love you” than with a computer running OS X?

Spell check is built-in to Opera on the Mac

I just stumbled upon this gem. Opera on Mac has spell checking built-in! Right-click in a text box and there ya go. That was easy.

This Opera page contains details about Opera and spell checking. It states:

“On Mac OS X, Opera uses the system spell checker. There is no need to install additional software.”

Plesk SMTP ridiculously slow

If you use a Plesk server as your outgoing SMTP to send email from your client (I like Thunderbird!) you may notice that it takes FOR-EVER to connect and send. After a quick Google search, I found out that you need to disable reverse DNS lookup to speed things along. This page is where I found the fix and it has great info. I’ll dupe it here for the hell of it.

Edit your /etc/xinet.d/smtp_psa (and smtps_psa for secure connetions I assume). Under “server_args” insert “-Rt0” after the equals sign.

Before:

server_args = /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

After:

server_args = -Rt0 /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

Restart xinetd via /etc/init.d/xinetd restart and you’re done! Test it out, your SMTP should be much faster.