Archive for Mac OS X

14 results.
Sep02

The GIMP 2.8.2 for OS X: New features. But, is an unusable mess

by todd on September 2, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Posted In: Free & Open Source Software, Mac OS X, Open Source

The GIMP 2.8.2 for Mac OS X update has a lot of promise. It brings the single window option from a previous update that many people (including me) had been waiting for combined with the first native (no X11 needed) release.

Unfortunately, running it on a late 2010 MacBook Air running Mountain Lion was an exercise in frustration. Before describing some of the problems I ran into after just a few minutes of use, I should note that Mountain Lion does not allow non Mac App Store apps to be installed by default. However, there is a setting available to change this (see screenshot above).

So, what did I run into?

  • GIMP loads very slowly compared to Pixelmater and some other image editors.
    Dragging an image file from the desktop to GIMP resulted in GIMP crashing without any warning or error message. It just dumped out.
  • Subsequent attempts to drag and drop image files on to GIMP was simply not allowed.
  • The color space conversion dialog box was under the main window (in single window mode) and unseen when opening a file.
  • Pressing Save results in saving a file to GIMP’s unique native format instead of the original image type (JPG or PNG in my tests).
  • Exporting a file to JPG or PNG produced a dialog box under the window that is not visible.
  • GIMP frequently crashed. Sometimes with an error message but often without any warning or error.

The GIMP 2.8.2 for OS X is so unstable that I couldn’t even use it to resize the four screenshots for this blog entry.

Mac using GIMP fans should wait for a future bug fix release before trying this software.
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Apr13

Firefox icon invisible in dock in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

by todd on April 13, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X

I found Mac OS X 10.7 Lion slowed my Macbook Air so much that I decided to leave my iMac running Snow Leopard. I just noticed that the Firefox icon is invisible in Snow Leopard’s dock. Hovering over the empty spot brings up a text tip. And clicking the empty spot with a mouse launches the software. However, the icon is invisible.

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Jan15

NASA open sourced OpenVSP parametric aircraft geometry tool

by todd on January 15, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X, Open Source, Windows

NASA is open sourced its parametric aircraft geometry tool used to create 3D aircraft model. OpenVSP is also available as installable binary code for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X. Linux users can compile the source code to install the software.

Via Slashdot

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Dec24

Silverlight 5 for Mac OS X still crashing (screenshot)

by todd on December 24, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X, Microsoft

Microsoft Silverlight 5 for Mac OS X (Snow Leopard in my case) continues to be a problem for me (earlier reference here). The screenshot here happened while using Netflix in Firefox 9.0.1.

I should note that the Mac running Snow Leopard is capable of running Lion. However, I’ve seen enough oddities on my Mac running Lion to postpone the upgrade on other computers.

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Dec11

Microsoft Silverlight 5 for OS X bad for Google Chrome web browser health

by todd on December 11, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X, Microsoft

I updated Silverlight on my Mac from 4.x to 5.0 today. The main reason was the have what was presumably the best experience for Netflix which requires Silverlight even on a Mac. Unfortunately, it looks like Silverlight 5 breaks Google Chrome. After the update, Chrome spawns zombie processes. The result is that Chrome becomes unusable after starting up something that uses Silverlight like Netflix. The only way I could shut Chrome down was to open a terminal window and use kill to terminate Chrome.

To make matters worse. The Microsoft Silverlight downloads page with a link to Silverlight 4 actually leads to a version 5 download. The end result is I cannot visit any webpage that uses Silverlight without breaking Chrome.

UPDATE: Silverlight 5 does not seem to have problems when used with Firefox under OS X.

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Sep19

LiveScribe smartpen Mac OS X driver continues its buggy ways

by todd on September 19, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X

The Livescribe Desktop for Mac OS X started crashing today. However, before doing that it told me that a newer version was available. So, I downloaded version 2.8.1 and installed it. The installation went to completion. However, I continue to get this error message from OS X about the smartpen’s driver.

And, oh yes, hey LiveScribe, could you stop launching LiveScribe Connect everytime I run the Desktop. I never ever need to use it 100% of the time. In fact, I only used it once for testing and do not want it launching all the time.

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Aug16

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 Update Fixes Some WiFi Problems

by todd on August 16, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X

The Mac OS X 10.7.1 update today says it fixes some WiFi problems. This seems to be true in my case. My MacBook Air now works with an access point that became inaccessible after upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion last month.

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Aug08

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant screenshots. FYI: 2GB required

by todd on August 8, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X

I ran Apple’s Lion Recovery Disk Assistant on my Air and took the screenshots below. The only problem I ran into is that it looks like a 1GB USB drive is too small despite Apple’s documentation that it provides sufficient space. I switched to a 2GB USB flash drive which worked fine.
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Aug08

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant builds recovery system on external drive with 1GB free space

by todd on August 8, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Posted In: Mac OS X

Apple released a tool today that can create an recovery partition on an external drive. The tool needs an existing functional Lion installation to start with. So, the tool needs to be exercised before a disaster or hard disk replacement. The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant needs 1GB of available space on an external hard drive or USB Flash drive.

Here’s what Apple has to say about the external recovery system once it is created: When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant (tool download page)

OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery Disk Assistant (tool information page)

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Aug01

iCloud.com accessible by non-developers too [UPDATE: Was a fluke]

by todd on August 1, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Posted In: iPad, Mac OS X

You don’t need an Apple Developer account to access Apple’s iCloud.com. I logged in using my consumer Apple ID. What you can’t do, however, is get updated iWorks components (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) for the iPad that works with iCloud. It is not a matter of simply using the existing iDisk document access in the current version of, for example, Pages.

It is only a matter of time until iWork components for iPad are updated to work with iCloud.com.

UPDATE
My ability to login to iCloud using a non-developer account was apparently a fluke. This is the message I get when I attempt to login to iCloud.

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