simonb.com: a 35mm comedic short about a man

On the Mac you can change the DVD region code 5 times after which no more changes are “allowed”. There’s something fundamentally wrong with hardware that disables itself. Or hardware that essentially dictates to the owner (the owner!) what it can be used for. Anyway, some searching turns up the means to reset the code. The below applies to Pioneer drives. My Mac has a Pioneer DVR-117 drive there’s seems to be no specific firmware for this drive downloadable on the net but some searching on the forums makes it clear that we can use the DVR-108 firmware. I found this article particularly helpful.

WARNING: this may permanently damage your drive.

The software to flash the drive - DVRFlash - can be downloaded from here.

The firmware can be downloaded from here.

Just follow the instructions, re-flash and region code is updated. Plus I think it adds some new capability to the drive.

How to change the number of pages (NumPages) displayed in Word documents. Edit those field codes.

Here’s a page explaining how to make the sasl_passwd.db file used by Postfix when SMTP relaying mail.

We like to print invoices in a variety of currencies. There’s no setting in QuickBooks for this - it takes the system default… Well, most of the time. If you have your Region (International PreferencePane, System Preferences) set to one where the little yellow triangle shows up with the message about Unicode and WorldScript, the currency symbol is ignored. So, say I have China selected for no other reason than say I’m in China and billing in Yuan QuickBooks will use the $ (USD) symbol. I have to set the Region to ‘United States’ (not the Unicode one, the other one) and manually set the Currency to Yuan and the Measurement Units to Metric (not Imperial or as the Mac has it ‘U.S.’). Then QuickBooks is happy. Obvious really now I think about it.

It’s often useful to have a local SMTP server one can throw messages at without passwords and authentication. For example, if you’re doing a quick hack or sending messages from a program like Apple’s Mail. It’s even more useful if your local SMTP server can contact your regular SMTP server to send the messages into the greater interweb.

Macs come with postfix installed which can do just that - but without any graphical means of configuration I doubt most people know it even exists. It is a fully functional mail server though and can be used as such. Postfix Enabler will probably work for most people who want graphical configuration. Others will read Postfix’s excellent docs and edit the config files using vi. However, there are a few cases in which Postfix Enabler falls short. Namely if you’re contacting a SMTP server that expects STARTTLS.

To get postfix to use STARTTLS when contacting a SMTP relay you simply add:

smtp_use_tls=yes

to /etc/postfix/main.cf

Newer versions of Postfix recommend a different way of saying the same thing - check which version you have and read the docs. My Mac has 2.1.5 current release is 2.4.

Doing the above after using Postfix Enabler fixed my problems.

Of course, if Apple respected my choice of email client (Thunderbird) rather than forcing me to use Mail everytime I want to mail an event from iCal none of this would matter.

Stephen Fry - a man of many words

So my Mac Powerbook keeps going to sleep. (It needs a little rest.) With the following message in the console:

Power Management received emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.

Out comes to hardware test CD which almost immediately gives the following error message:

Hardware Test: Track Pad Error
2STH/1/3squi

This means the temperate sensor underneath the trackpad is broken. Searching the forums, it is clear this is a common issue.

So we call the fixers and they take the Mac away in a padded bag. A week later I call them. ‘The trackpad works.’ They tell me. Translation: we’ve had it for a week and can’t find anything wrong and can’t be bothered to pick up a phone. I explain in no uncertain terms that it is the temperate sensor not the trackpad and ask them why given that I told them the hardware test results this is not obvious to them. Some hours later they call me back. ‘We’ve found a problem with your temperature sensor...’ In the end I was without the Powerbook for nearly two weeks. Good job I pulled the hard disk before handing it over.

Sparkle is a programmers tool that automates application updates.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to restart'

From Mac Geekery

sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/PrintingServices/PrintingServices restart

Above will restart your cups daemon.

Apple has opened a new store on Fifth Avenue, New York. There is time lapse movs of the stores first 24 hours of opening. Click on the 05:00 movie, near the end as it is starting to get light a guy holds up a sign proposing marriage.

From YouTube

Here’s a video of Steve Jobs telling the Cupertino Council that Apple is building a new campus. He also tells them that Apple is their biggest tax payer and they should be happy that Apple is staying in Cupers. Oh, the star struck awkard grins on the councils faces. Apparently the proximity of Apple is not enough for the council to use QuickTime as their streaming video format - the council is using Windoze Media. Now that’s just not cricket.

David Weiss has a very interesting tour of Microsoft’s Mac Labs.

List of keyboard shortcuts for the Mac:

• Apple’s List
• Dave’s Picks List
• MacRumors List
• Mac Rumors List for Screenshots