I found the default text distracting, so mine are now a simple gray tab.

(Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for Together.app, which only lets you edit the bounding box edges. The text appears to be drawn by the app [or, at least, doesn't seem to be a bitmap in Resources.])

There’s a lesson in there that I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.

The Widget monitors tour information in OnTour.net and compares it to the music you have in your iTunes library. The downside being, of course, that you have to hit F12 to get a notification. But otherwise, the interaction model is perfect — meaning that you don’t need to change your behavior at all, yet you gain new value and information. Brilliant.

(Via Lifehacker)

Not quite as sexy as an iPod.

#!/bin/bash

cmd=$1
if [ -z $cmd ]; then
    me=`basename $0`;
    echo "Usage: $me command_name";
    exit;
fi

man $1 > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "No man page for $cmd";
    exit;
fi

man -t $cmd|open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app

On my box, I called the script ‘manpreview’and dropped it in ~/bin/ for easy access. Once you `chmod u+x` it (and have ~/bin/ in your path), you’ll be able to do fun things like `manpreview tcpdump` for some extended reading.

Though it’s officially unsupported on Eclipse 3.2 (they only support 3.1), it seems to work just fine in my environment.

(Via eHub)

[Minor update: Aptana ran fine on my OS X machine, but crashes hard on my AMD64 Ubuntu Dapper box running Eclipse 3.2.]

It took a little brain rewiring to get used to this new setup, but I became comfortable with it rather quickly — that is, until I got to work in the morning and sat down at my OS X machine. Bouncing between machines with different keymaps is a pain, so I decided to try remapping the keys on my Mac as well. A few google searches found a number of kernel hacks for 10.1 through 10.3, but I noticed that they all seemed to be abandoned projects. After adding “10.4″ to my search query, I quickly found out why: remapping the control keys is just a System Preference. Woo hoo!

The screenshot below shows the “Modifier Key…” dialog within the “Keyboard & Mouse” System Preference panel:

All together, this box serves quite well as an A/V machine, so I’m not looking to get rid of it (especially since the new X86 PowerMacs are still vaporware.) However, the RAID backplane didn’t actually fit in the Apple case (as you’ll see below), and the lone 120mm case fan was starting to ask for help. Since Apple doesn’t offer larger cases, a swap to a full size ATX case was in order.

The Gigabit Ethernet Macs pre-date the elaborate case internals and “cooling zones” that the new G5′s have. Inside, the hardware is organized just like any other PC, so while I didn’t anticipate a perfectly smooth transfer, I had no doubt that the pieces could be made to fit into a modern ATX case. To give me some extra room, I went with the rather large, ThermalTake Armor case.

The new case towers over the Apple box, but it’s extremely easy to work with, and provides plenty of options for mounting hardware and fans. The entire front is a stack of 5 1/2″ bays, which leave plenty of choices for mounting the RAID backplane, the internal drive cage, and case fans.

The stripped Armor case next to the G4. (And yes, that’s really where the RAID backplane was “mounted” — I simply ran the SATA and power cables through an empty PCI slot to the chassis up above. Don’t do this at home kids!)

The Apple case popped open. You get a better view of the SATA cables here, and the limited space for hardware expansion. (NOTE: The boot drive is actually under the DVD burner now, in the space where the ZIP drive was mounted originally. I used to have a stack of drive sitting in the bottom of the case, but with the RAID, they were no longer needed.)

Before getting too far into the swap, I pulled the Apple motherboard and video card for a test-fit (show below.) The Apple motherboard lined up with one existing mounting hole, but otherwise, clearance and fit were tolerable.

The Apple power supply was probably the only OEM part that just dropped in:

Next up was a test fit that the cables would still reach, and thankfully they did:

To mount the motherboard, I needed new holes for the board stand-offs. This was a simple chore for a Sharpie marker and a Bosch hammer-drill; However, before swiss-cheesing the case, I did have to decide how the stand-offs would actually attach to said holes. Normally the holes are threaded, and the stand-offs just screw-in; So my first inclination was to tap the holes after drilling. After considering how much time I’d waste doing this, I came up with an alternate plan. Instead of tapping the holes, I would simply make the holes just big enough for the threaded stand-offs to fit through, then attach a small nut from the other side to hold the piece in place. This saved a lot of time, and the result is just as sturdy. (Unfortunately, the macro focus mode on my N90 isn’t quite as good as I’d like, so the close-up pictures of this mount didn’t come out well enough to show.)

With the motherboard secure, the next piece of the puzzle was how to mount the processor board to motherboard. On the dual G4, the processors are actually on a small board with a ZIF-like connector on the back. With the connector snug, the processor board is then bolted to steel case-mounts that poke through the actual motherboard, and the aluminum cooling fins are hung off this little board. Without a hard mount, there would be no way to hang the cooling fins, so I needed a solution for this mount.

In the picture below, you’ll see the processor board mounts sticking up in the middle of the steel side I’m holding. This piece is attached to the plastic exterior with a series of hex bolts.

After examining the original case, I noticed that the processor mounting holes were steel bits that were pressed into the side of the case. It occurred to me that if I could pull those out, I could reuse them. The extraction was quite simple: support the steel backing with some wood, and nicely ask the mounts to come out with a 5-pound mallet. They pop right out, and I was able to reuse them in the new case.

With the motherboard and processors secure, the rest was simple wiring. I put the drive cage and boot drive behind a 120mm fan up front; The DVD burner was mounted low in the case so that my cables would reach; And the RAID backplane slide right in up top.

After double-checking every mount and connection, I brought the machine back into the office for a test run. On boot-up, I was greeted with a never-before-seen startup screen:

…the machine just hung there.

I’ve been mucking around with Apple hardware since I was about 9 years old, so seeing a new boot-up error screen is both exciting and a bit concerning. Since I had a feeling the hardware was just feeling like a lost kitten in a new home, I went with the easy potential fix and zapped the PRAM. It did the trick. (Though I still don’t know what that error means.)

The finished product not only adds a little bling to an otherwise dated machine, but also pumps a pleasantly cool breeze from the back of the case. There’s still a little finishing work left to do, but overall I’m extremely happy with the outcome — and the confusion it causes for the casual observer.

Phase I complete: The ATX case swap was a success:

The remaining empty shell:

On first glance, Google offering a 3D modeling program seems a bit strange. I mean, what could this possibly have to do with search, right? But the key is to look at it differently. If you’ve used Google Earth, odds are high that you’ve also tried looking a major city with the “3D Buildings” option enabled for that all too futuristic, flying-through-the-world experience. But what you notice when you do this is that there aren’t enough 3D models, and they tend to lack detail. So how do we get from flat, satellite photographs to rich 3D models of every building in the world? Well, you start by giving away a free, easy to use 3D modeling program that can import/export into Google Earth… And then you let your customers (happily) do the work for you. (Co-creation at it’s best.)

For more, see:

• How do I place a SketchUp model in Google Earth?
• Google’s 3D Warehouse

Below: an example SketchUp model (of the University of Texas tower) geo-positioned over a Google Earth map tile

There’s plenty of information online that describes how SSH tunneling works and how to set it up, but not surprisingly, you have to do a bit of Googling to actually find concise, step-by-step instructions that actually work. So here we go: Erik’s Three-Step Plan for Looking Like You Know What You’re Doing SSH Tunneling. (For the record, I’m using a PowerBook running OS X, tunneling to a server running Ubuntu Linux.)

[STEP 1] On the remote server I’m running Privoxy (an HTTP proxy.) On a Debian/Ubuntu box, getting Prixovy running is as complicated as typing: sudo apt-get install privoxy

[STEP 2] Assuming you can SSH into your remote server (ie., no firewall blockage), launch Terminal.app and issue something like this: ssh -N -L 8118:127.0.0.1:8118 remoteuser@serveraddress (changing “remoteuser” and “serveraddress” appropriately.) Using the -N flag you’ll still need to authenticate with the server, but you won’t actually get a command prompt — the window will just look like nothing’s happening.

[STEP 3] Tell your browser to use a proxy for HTTP and HTTPS running at 127.0.0.1 on port 8118.

You’re done! You can now hit WhatIsMyIP to see it working.

Of course, just like other three-step programs, there’s a little fine print and few extra details that might help to know:

1. Privoxy is an HTTP proxy, which translated means that instead of your browser asking a server for a web page, you’ll be asking Privoxy and Prixovy will relay the request and pass the resulting content back your way. Using a proxy is handy when: (1) You want to tunnel your browsing activity, and/or (2) When you’d like to have the proxy do some content manipulation for you (which is what Privoxy was written to do.) This content manipulation can be anything you want, but most of the time it means stripping out advertisements and possibly cleaning up bad HTML before the browser sees it.
2. If you haven’t used Privoxy before, you might want to read the docs and poke around in the config files to tweak as needed.
3. By default Privoxy runs on port 8118, hence the 8118 mapping the ssh statement.
4. Save yourself some time by storing your proxy settings for future toggling. To cover most OS X apps you’ll be creating a new Network Location for this. Go to the Apple Menu / Location / Network Preferences to create a new location profile. Toggling can be done using the Location menu under the Apple menu. For Firefox (which ignores the system-wide proxy settings), you’ll need to enter the settings directly into the Firefox’s Preferences or install the SwitchProxy Firefox plugin to enable a pop-up menu for proxy switching from the Firefox status bar.

Happy Surfing!