Tunneling iTunes through SSH

         OS X      itunes · linux · OS X

If you want to listen to your music library on the go, you can tunnel iTunes through SSH in a few easy steps. First of all, you have to enable sharing in iTunes: iTunes > Preferences > Sharing > Share my library on my local network. This will announce your library on your local network using multicast DNS, provided by Apple's implementation of zeroconf: Bonjour. The library can then be accessed on port 3689 of the computer mDNS announced.

Slim down applications: Trimmit

         OS X      itunes · OS X

Applications on Mac OS typically include a lot of stuff most people won't use daily, especially translations in foreign languages and builds for different architectures (x86, x86_64, PPC and PPC 64 bits). A handful of utilities exist to trim down applications. I personally use Trimmit, a free-as-in-beer software that gives excellent results, as long as it's used carefully. For example, let's take the latest version of iTunes (v9.1) under Snow Leopard.

Changing an application icon under OS X

         OS X      minitip · OS X

I don't like the default icon for Preview.app in OS X. The sight of that child, giving me this creepy grin, sitting here in the Dock while I'm browsing pictures, is just weird. There are two ways to make him go away. The hard way I call this method the hard way because it involves having another .icns file (the filetype for OS X icons), and navigating through folders supposed to be hidden.

Seitunes v0.8

         OS X      OS X · Seitunes

Version 0.8 of Seitunes is here! Apart from finishing implementing the core functions, I focused on code clarity and performance enhancements. Code All major Applescript interactions with iTunes now go through separate C functions instead of “oh hey just do it here in main()” as before. These functions act as wrappers to access iTunes, and can be re-used for any other project. I could even put them in a separate file and call it a library :)

OS X 10.6.3 broke ncurses

         OS X      curses · OS X · Seitunes

As I was working on my Seitunes project, I noticed something strange: the arrows didn't quite work any more. Instead of their proper action (up & down to change volume, right & left to change song), they all quit the program and printed -respectively- “OA”, “OB”, “OC” and “OD” on the stdout. I tried to go back to a working state by progressively deleting new features I was implementing, until I had exactly the same code as the (known working!

Insecure startup item disabled

         OS X      OS X · startup items

As a follow-up to my post about startup items, I want to point out that a Startup Item must have proper permissions or it will be disabled at startup with the following message: In my case, the files under /Library/StartupItems/MyApache still belonged to me instead of root:wheel. Fixed with a simple: mbp:StartupItems florent$ sudo chown -Rv root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/MyApache/ It also appears that StartupItems permissions need to be set to 755 (executable/script file) and 644 (plist file) respectively.

Put OS X to sleep via command-line

         OS X      applescript · minitip

When connecting to an OS X box via SSH, you may want to put it to sleep after you're done. This is no system call to put the computer to sleep that I know of. However, Applescript can do it, and it is trivial to call the OSAScript interpreter in bash. The following script puts the computer to sleep: #!/bin/bash osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep' Edit: found a better way!

Seitunes, an iTunes command-line interface

         OS X      curses · itunes · OS X · Seitunes

My home main computer is a MacBook Pro, on which I frequently play music with iTunes. However, I'm often on my laptop, without direct access to the MBP's screen or keyboard/mouse to pause, change song, change volume, etc. I can connect to the MBP using VNC, but I was looking for something more lightweight. I therefore decided to design a command-line interface for iTunes, that I would run via SSH. I called it Seitunes for reasons I can't really remember right now, but there it is!

On designing mockups

           minitip

As part of a group project, I am currently involved in designing an application from the ground up. Designing the UI first drafts, before even chosing a programming language or environment, is something that should be easy and straightforward. We needed a tool that allows easy sharing between people, regardless of operating system. Please welcome Mockingbird. An amazing web application to design sleek and elegant UIs, Mockingbird is Javascript-based (no Flash!

Startup Items: launch services at boot

         OS X      apache · OS X · startup items

This post is a follow-up on the setup of your own Apache web server (although the technique can be used to start about anything of course). Unlike classical Linuces that stock programs to launch at boot in a /etc/init.d folder for example; OS X uses a mechanism called Startup Items. These items can be found in /Library/StartupItems/, ~/Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems. One particular strength of the Startup Items is that you can specify in which order to launch them.