Fixing Alt+Tab when Switching from Mac to Windows

From time to time the need arises to use a Windows machine and CoRD is my client of choice on the Mac. It speaks the RDP protocol, is fast, and contains some nice tweaks like clipboard synchronization and the ability to connect to multiple machines at once. All in all a great client except for one Achilles heal of an issue – every time I switch back to CoRD with ⌘+Tab the Windows Start Menu is activated.

The makers of CoRD are well aware of the issue, so much so that they include a disclaimer in their FAQ about the problem

This is a side effect of how OS X handles keyboard input, how CoRD interprets it, and how Windows processes what we send it.

Why they haven’t fixed the issue in the application is beyond me – it makes using a Windows machine a total headache. Luckily there is a quick fix for the problem. Using Autohotkey you can disable the Apple (Windows) key from opening the Start Menu. Simply add the following script to your Autohotkey configuration:

~LWin Up:: return
~RWin Up:: return

The fix should work on Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

Solving Murder Mysteries with Meteor

The team at Meteor is turning out a great product and last week’s Meteor Devshop did not disappoint. I met some interesting folks building a wide range of awesome Meteor apps.

Here is my lightning talk explaining the motivation for my Choose Your Own Adventure rotary phone and how Meteor helped me turn it into an app I could share with the world (my mom).

Howdoi + Alfred: Even More Instant Answers

Having dabbled with a number of application launchers, I eventually settled on Alfred for its slick design and Powerpack features. Recently Alfred v2 introduced Workflows to automate anything and everything with the touch of a key.

Here’s a custom workflow for howdoi that displays answers via Growl and also copies the result to the clipboard.

Download it here: Howdoi.alfredworkflow.

Buenos Aires street art & graffiti

I took to the streets this weekend to capture a series of Buenos Aires street art & graffiti photos. Inside you’ll find art by Ever, Gualicho, Jaz, Nerf, Pum Pum, Stencil Land, and Triangulo Dorago, among others.

Enjoy!

Open Files on Github from Emacs

In the course of a project it helps to share pointers to specific files and lines of code with others. I use Github for this task, sharing URLs like: https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi/blob/master/howdoi/howdoi.py#L156

When sharing URLs from a project with deep directories (Scala/Java) it can be a real pain to open github.com, pick a branch, and then click through src/com/blah/blah folders until you find the file. Instead, use this command-line Python script to generate a Github URL directly from a file or directory. Also included is an elisp function to generate URLs from Emacs.

The URL generation logic can be found inside gitopener.py

Invoke the script on Emacs with M-x browse-on-github

;; Open github pages from files
(defun browse-on-github ()
  "Show the current file on github"
  (interactive)
  (let* ((script-path (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/lib/python/gleitzpy/gitopener.py"))
         (full-path (mapconcat 'identity `("python" ,script-path ,(buffer-file-name)) " "))
         (result-url (trim-string (shell-command-to-string full-path))))
    (message result-url)
    (browse-url result-url)
    ))

Update: Stand-alone project now on github.

Quieting Adium, or, OCD Dockwork

As technology continues to roll toward a more standards-driven regime, a delightful bit of nostalgia can be gleaned from the rich and varied history of the chat application. Not unlike the lineage of the User-Agent string during the browser wars, Instant Messenge applications were written, rewritten, copied, and abandoned while efforts to standardize the protocols of the big three IM companies (AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo!) foundered.

With most of America using AIM or Yahoo! and the rest of the world firmly locked into Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, the web community witnessed the rise of the multiprotocol IM client. Rather than bridge the protocol gap between the Big Three these clients offered the user a seamless experience while chatting between services. With Pidgin’s release in 1998 the multiprotocol IM floodgates were opened and the 2000’s saw the release of Miranda IM, Trillian, Adium, iChat, BitlBee, and Meebo. These clients had real staying power, able to absorb new protocols like XMPP (Google Talk) and SIP while supporting the older IRC, Oscar (AIM, ICQ), and even Zephyr.

When it comes to the Mac community Adium appears to have the upper hand. It’s skinnable, has a playful mascot, and boasts a variety of rich plugins. The application is almost perfect except for one dark, nagging problem: the spinning Adium dock icon while connecting.

In a nutshell my problem follows thusly: I regularly use AIM, Google Talk, and IRC including a IRC server run by eBay that requires being on a VPN to connect. When not on the VPN all accounts connect except for the eBay IRC. Adium, in its infinite wisdom, keeps trying to connect to the unreachable IRC server and forever displays the spinning dock icon. In other words, OCD hell.

Never one to settle for less, I poked around in the Adium files and found a simple solution. The spinning dock icon is actually a set of four individual images, Connect[1-4].png. With the following command you can remove the four images and restore balance to the force:

mv /Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Resources/Shared\ Dock\ Icon\ Images/Connect* /tmp

However, each time Adium receives an update you’ll have to run the command again. Solution? Roll your own application. Adium, being open source, is easy to build and install yourself. Simply check out the code, delete the Connect images, and install the application.

hg clone http://hg.adium.im/adium
mv adium/Resources/Shared Dock Icon Images/Connect4.png /tmp
make latest (this builds the application)
make install (this installs the application to /Applications)

Another case closed!

Tunitas Beach Dancing

My set from Trip Vest’s magical birthday party this weekend on Tunitas Beach.