Posts tagged ‘Software’

Really? I have to restart my computer for 6Kb?

I use MAMP daily. I love MAMP. I recently discovered how truly awesome MAMP Pro is too. But that’s a story for another time. I recently upgraded from MAMP 1.8.4 to 1.9. When I got MAMP 1.9 installed I started the servers. Apache came up but MySQL didn’t want to. I tried shutting down both servers and starting it back up again, which didn’t work.

Thankfully, there is a pretty simple fix. To begin with, make sure MAMP is shut down. Next, open Terminal. To open Terminal either open Spotlight (Cmd+Space) and type “terminal” or you can find Terminal in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.

Once you get Terminal opened, type the following:

ps aux | grep mysql 
lsof -i 
killall -9 mysqld

That’s it. Start up MAMP and MySQL will come back up just like normal. Another option would be to simply change the port number MySQL is using in MAMP. Restarting your computer may work too but I did’t try that.

I guess I never noticed it, but I have a lot of menu icons! In order from left to right is:

Adium
Waveboard
Tweetie
BetterTouchTool
Alfred
Dropbox
Google Notifier – Calendar
Google Notifier – GMail
Caffeine
MobileMe Sync
Time Machine
Bluetooth
Wireless
Audio/Volume
Time
Spotlight

Check out a screenshot of all of them on my desktop:

When I first updated to Snow Leopard I was using a Logitech mouse. But I kept having problems with it. Some of the time it would read my single clicks as double clicks. So if I was selecting a bunch of files to be deleted, it would then open them all up. It became very annoying. So I started using the Mighty Mouse until the Magic Mouse came out. I use the Magic Mouse exclusively now.

I have to say the Magic Mouse is almost the best mouse I have ever had. I say almost because with both the Logitech mouse and Mighty Mouse, I had a way to do application Exposé without touching the keyboard. For most people, this isn’t a big deal. But I spend a lot of time on the computer. Shortcuts like that really help.

I’m pretty sure Apple is working on updating the Magic Muse driver to do it now, but in the mean time, you can use BetterTouchTool. I have it set right now to three finger click opens up Exposé. I can easily change it to a two, three, four, or five finger click, or tap, or swipe. It’s a pretty nice little program. If you gave a Magic Mouse, I recommend you try it out.

Even if you don’t have a Magic Mouse, you can still use it on multitouch touchpads on the Macbook and Macbook Pro.

[Update Jan. 11th, 2009] There is also MagicPrefs which looks like it does the same thing. I haven’t tried it because BTT is working great for me.

When I upgraded my Mac from Leopard to Snow Leopard, the only thing that really changed for me was I had to updated a couple pieces of software or wait about a week for the software to be updated. There were two things that could not be updated. The first was a plugin called NuFile that I used to create new files and SCPlugin that I used for subversion. Both used the context (right click) menu. Unfortunately, Snow Leopard changed the way that context menus are done. Apple now wants software developer to use the services menu instead. So for now, both are dead in Snow Leopard.

To get around the NuFile problem of creating a new file, I am using QuickSilver to open the application and then save the file wherever I want it. Or saving the file to the desktop and dragging it into the folder where I want it. Not as quick as the context menu but it gets the job done.

As far as SCPlugin is concerned, I needed a subversion app right away. So I started downloading a bunch of them to see which one I liked the best. A lot of them didn’t run on Snow Leopard. The ones that did, they were too complicated and it annoyed me or they didn’t notify me if there was an update. Which is important to me. I don’t want to check for an update manually. I wanted the app to check for an update and then left me update it if and when I wanted. I liked svnX up until I wanted to add a folder with 4 levels of subfolders in it and one file inside of the last folder. I ended up having to add the folders one by one. So I dropped that right after that experience. Plus it was difficult to get to work with repositories that required a username and password. You would have to go to Terminal to accept the certificate.

Then I landed on Versions which everyone thinks is the greatest subversion app for the Mac. I tried it out. It was good. Much better than all of the other subversion applications I had tried previously.

Then I found Cornersone. It did everything Versions did, but it did it better and quicker. It has a very nice inline content viewer as well. It also felt smoother and more stable to me. It also plays nice with repositories that require you to log in with a username and password and also saves the information in the keychain. Both are about the same price (Cornerstone is only $1 cheaper). Now that I have Cornerstone and see its power, I don’t even see myself going back to SCPlugin even if/when they update to work with Snow Leopard.

I am using MAMP for local PHP development. It’s alright. It has a tendency to not want to cooperate sometimes. Like this morning. I loaded up MAMP and Apache started just fine but MySQL didn’t want to do anything.

If you are getting an error similar to “Error: Could not connect to MySQL server!”, rather than having to reinstall MAMP (which sometimes doesn’t work), here’s a fix:

1. Quit MAMP
2. Open Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)
3. Type “killall -9 mysqld” (without the quotes)
4. Start MAMP

It should be working now. If not, you may have to sudo the command (“sudo killall -9 mysqld”)

Another option is to go to Appliacations/MAMP/db/mysql/ and delete anything is is NOT a folder. I didn’t have to use this option so I can’t vouch for it myself. According to forum postings it works though.