shards mvr

  • strange: when adding a link to an (Apple) Notes document: if the URL has a comma, everything up to the comma is silently stripped (permanently; editing the URL afterward, is too late) - one solution is to encode commas (the first time) as %2C

  • A sudo softwareupdate --install --all never got past Downloaded. 😕 No prompt (cmd-line or GUI) to restart & nothing in-process (ex: verification). I was watching logs, and saw nothing amiss. Solution was to ^C & run it again - with --restart too.

  • Uninstall is sometimes not so simple

    Drat; I’ve been meaning to try the Smile AppleScript editor, but waited too long, and it’s incompatible with modern macOS - HOWEVER:

    I trashed the /Applications/Smile directory (no uninstaller in there), and then re-opened Script Editor to get back to work - but it hung; never completed startup and showed no error messages. Strange.

    After a bit of debugging, I recalled that when I’d installed Smile - since I luckily already had Apple’s built-in Script Editor app open - the Installer told me it had to quit that first. Interesting - and seemed maybe relevant now.

    So I started hunting for evidence of just what had been installed - likely something conflicting with Script Editor (at least).

    /var/log/install.log did have some info, and so did /private/var/db/receipts - which led to the solution (in my case anyway), which was also deleting these directories:

    /Library/Application Support/Smile
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/FITS.osax
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Numerics.osax
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Satimage.osax
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/XMLLib.osax

    After which, Script Editor was able to finish startup - and even showed the unsaved script that I’d been working on. Nice.

  • ugh: in a dir within iCloud Drive, replacing a regular file, with a symlink of the same name, apparently breaks sync’ing 😟 - and good luck trying to find that via brctl log -w. (only reason I knew it broke: a periodic check of sync status)

  • oh; weird: if you happen to have /tmp open in a Finder window, brew install wget fails with dir_s_rmdir - apparently due to a “.DS_Store” file, a few levels below /tmp

  • macOS Login Items, and other "Allow in Background"

    There are lots of Login Items and other “Allow in Background” items in macOS these days (especially if the Mac is managed…) so it can be useful to get a list of them all - especially when names shown in the GUI, are not clear. The dumpbtm tool is verbose - though generally all you need is this abbreviated list:

    sfltool dumpbtm | grep -E '^([[:blank:]]{0,1}[^[:blank:]]|[[:blank:]]*(Name|URL):)'

  • how to convert macOS clipboard RTF (ex: from Notes.app), to Markdown? this’ll get you 95% of the way there: osascript -e 'the clipboard as «class RTF »' | tr -d '«»' | sed 's/^data RTF //' | xxd -r -p | /usr/local/bin/pandoc -f rtf -t markdown

  • How strange: On one Mac I use, when I paste (cmd-V) into the filename field (has focus) in a Save dialog, it suddenly jumps to the Documents folder. On another Mac, it simply pastes, leaving the folder as-is. It apparently does this jump, on any keyboard equivalent (ex: cmd-A).

  • The macOS Weather app can notify for severe weather - it’s Settings window, directed me to Settings > Notifications – but Weather was mising. I stumbled on a solution: Open Notification Center & open Weather from there - it immediately prompted to enable. (C’mon Apple :/ .)

  • I started a Note, with lists of of word / term associations - which make sense to me. Since Spotlight indexes Notes.app, the results come up in that context with everything else, so it’s already started to help me find things more quickly. Might try to integrate with Quicksilver…

  • How strange: I just got a “Magic Keyboard” for my M1 MacBook Air - and its Globe key works (to show Character Viewer) – only when not in clamshell mode. It works in either mode, for other things like Dictation.

  • Apparently it's time for M1 users, to migrate their Homebrew config. Like right now.

    Drat; that was an unpleasant surprise:

    For some reason, when I tried brew upgrade today, the response was: Cannot install in Homebrew on ARM processor in Intel default prefix.

    Weird; it’s been working fine, via Terminal in Rosetta, on my M1, for quite some time. Last I saw, that was required, on Apple Silicon.

    I don’t see any warning logged from past “brew update” runs. And I couldn’t find any announcement or release note, that Homebrew is now ready for prime-time on M1 - but apparently someone felt it necessary to force the issue. :/

    So, since I depend on brew and several tools installed that way - including some automation - I dropped what I was supposed to be doing, to sort this out. Here’s what it took for me:

    1. Run brew bundle dump - this will create a Brewfile in the current directory.
    2. May or may not be necessary: Quit & relaunch Terminal, without Rosetta.
    3. Install Homebrew - let it go to the new dir, /opt/homebrew/ - AKA ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}.
    4. Run brew dump - which uses the previously-created Brewfile, to (hopefully) install what you were using (as much as it can) in it’s new structure, in ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}.
    5. As long as this succeeded, delete / archive the Brewfile. If not, debug…
    6. If you haven’t personalized $PATH etc.: Follow the directions (in the output above) for updating that.
    7. If you have (personalized $PATH etc.): Update that to also include ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX} (using the ouput as a guide) - note that there are some new environment vairables here, to consider adding to your shell’s config. You’ll likely want to make sure the new dir is before the old one (so any tools not yet updated are still accessible - and new tools take precedence over the now stranded ones).
    8. Update any needed configs that live in /usr/local (ex: for clamav), into the correct place in the new ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}.
    9. Now find wherever you might have references to brew tools, which are hard-coded for /usr/local, and update instead, to ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}. Suggestions of places to look: /etc/crontab, user-specific crontabs (ex: crontab -l), LaunchItems and such. And scripts that might be hard-coded for /usr/local. (Yes; hard-coding is “bad” - and sometimes useful to, for example, be sure to use the tool installed via brew, vs. a built-in tool by the same name.)
    10. Repeat on any other systems you need to.
    11. Set a reminder to clean out the stuff in /usr/local, once it’s no longer needed. (It might be sufficient to which each tool, and confirm when they’re all found in ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX} vs. the old /usr/local.)

    Whew! That seemed a bit more difficult than necessary - especially since it was (as far as I could tell) forced without warning.

  • Wow; the new Spatial Audio feature (AirPods) is cool - though rather disorienting in some situations; here’s how to control it: support.apple.com/guide/air…

  • Oh for the love of… Zoom on Mac may be recording you even when you’re not using it. How many “oops” does one org get?!

  • quick way to get notified that your other Mac (maybe a server?) has some software updates available: swupd_remote_check.sh

  • A Hack to Index Notes, for Quicksilver

    First: A few presumptions; this is a hack:

    • You have at least some grasp of operating at the (Mac) command-line; ex: in Terminal.
      • For instance: ~ (tilde) is an abbreviation is for your homedir.
    • You know what Quicksilver is.
      • (Yes; Far as I know, it’s Mac only.)
    • Debugging your setup is up to you; at the moment, I have extremely limited availability to help.
      • Feel free to drop a note; on the off chance it’s possible, I will try to help.

    How to set it up

    1. A (bash) script to list the Titles of your Notes:
      • The code is in separate section below.
      • Save the script to ~/dump-note-titles.sh.
      • chmod it, to be executable: 
        chmod u+x ~/dump-note-titles.sh
      • Run it once, to seed the output file: 
        ~/dump-note-titles.sh
      • Open the ~/titles-from-notes-app.txt file which it generated.
        • It should have a list of the Titles of your Notes.
    2. Keep this up-to-date, via cron:
    3. Config QuickSilver to use this new “index”:
      • Add a Catalog entry, using File & Folder Scanner.
      • For the Path, select the ~/titles-from-notes-app.txt file generated by the script above.
      • For the Include Contents setting, select Text Lines.
    4. Config a new Quicksilver Action, to open Notes by title:
      • Open Script Editor.app.
      • Paste the code in - see the separate section below.
      • Save it, as open note by title.scpt (File format: Script), to your Quicksilver Actions directory.
        • Which is usually here: ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/.

    How to use

    • Fire up Quicksilver.
    • Start typing some substring of a Note Title.
    • Select the Title you want from the results.
    • Select open note by title as the action.

    bash Script ~/dump-note-titles.sh

    #!/bin/bash
osascript \
	-e 'set outFilePath to (((path to home folder) as text) & "titles-from-notes-app.txt")' \
	-e 'tell application "Notes"' \
	-e     'set nameList to name of every note' \
	-e 'end tell' \
	-e 'set outFile to open for access file outFilePath with write permission' \
	-e 'repeat with theName in nameList' \
	-e     'write theName & return to outFile as «class utf8»' \
	-e 'end repeat' \
	-e 'close access outFile' \

    Applescript open note by title.scpt

    using terms from application "Quicksilver"
	on process text ThisClipping
		tell application "Notes"
			show note ThisClipping
	end process text
end using terms from

    (Yes; I do intend to put this in a repo, where it belongs.)

  • clean up sensitive (Mac) Preview files

    It’s handy to print things to Preview - maybe you want to save the “security” questions and (random) answers from a new site registration, to a secure place (like 1Password) and now you’re wondering where that temporary file is - with that sensitive info.

    So; fire up a terminal:

    find $TMPDIR -type f -mmin -1440 -iname \*.pdf\* -print0 | xargs -0 -L1 -t -I% mv -i % ~/.Trash/; open ~/.Trash/

    Notes:

    • start find with these options / arguments:
      • in $TMPDIR - your own user’s dir for temporary files
        • (which will automatically get cleaned up - eventually)
      • -type f - we want to find files only
      • -mmin -1440 - files modified in the last 1440 minutes (1 day); tweak as you like
      • -iname \*.pdf\* - files of with an extension of pdf*
      • -print0 - output results null-terminated (to handle “special” chars)
    • | - pipe results to xargs, to process them using these options:
      • -0 - handle null-terminated input
      • -L1 - process one item at a time (if any)
      • -t - show commands as they’re executed
      • -I% - in the ensuing command, replace % there, with the resulting filename/s
    • mv - move these files, with the following options:
      • -i - interactive prompt (instead of overwrite)
      • % - the source filename, substituted by xargs
      • ~/.Trash/ - destination dir; put them here
    • open ~/.Trash/ - open (in Finder), for your review

  • Quicksilver

    I’m amazed how useful Quicksilver still is. I’ll be blogging more about it shortly.

    In the mean time, here’s a quick description of how I use it (and there many features I don’t use).

    • start typing the name of thing, and get it
      • thing can be a: file, app, command, function, …
      • the typing can be - in the middle of the name of what you’re looking for - multiple discontiguous parts of the name - great for getting to specific things quickly - it can even be a typo - which you define as what you meant; powerful - as you type, potential matches are shown for your selection - and it learns: as you make choices, those are rated higher than other potential matches
    • it doesn’t matter where thing lives
    • you define what to do with thing; like:
      • search for thing; with DDG, in a local doc repository, …
      • send thing, to be processed bything2
      • add thing as an argument to a command; in a shell/terminal, or AppleScript, or, …

    Best part: It let’s me have a thought about thing, type that in, and move directly to what I want to do with thing. All without remembering where thing is, which app to open, and all that ancillary stuff - which often results in moving my thought process from what I intended to do, to how to do it. Or, sometimes, forgetting it altogether.

  • log4j is not the problem

    The central problem, is the enormous jenga tower that we’ve built:

    • Full of dependencies that virtually no one understands.
    • Dependencies generally chosen, for expedience.
    • Chosen by coders at all levels of in/experience.
    • Driven by “ship it now”, and “move fast and break things”.
    • With management rarely caring about risks - until one becomes a public crisis, which can no longer be ignored.

    Predictions:

    1. These crises will get both worse, and more frequent - bad actors (*), have noticed how vulnerable everything is.
    • (* Bad actors of all stripes, not “just” in tech - and some have state-level resources.)
    1. Even still, there will be little fundamental change in how we write & deploy code - because most of the people making these decisions haven’t felt it. Yet.
    2. The “powers that be” think they’re insulated from the pain. It may not be long til they find out how wrong they are.

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