Macs and Grant Site Just Don't Click
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By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer  Scientists, scholars and others planning to use their Macintosh computers to submit grant proposals to the federal government in the months ahead should be prepared for a rocky, or at least error-message-littered, road ahead.
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John Mertic's made even more updates to the Windows installer he's been working on - this time, he's enhanced the install with a web server selection tool.   I've updated the Installer with the following changes:  Added a dedicated dialog for selecting your Web Server Moved the dialog to pick the Apache conf folder into the installer itself    There's also a screenshot of this new feature to give you an idea of what the support will look like. This latest update can be downloaded here.
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In my article about the web site for the Geek Ranch I suggested three tools that made sense for doing the site: Drupal, Joomla and Karrigell. Well, as usual, all I have to do is say "I will pick between X, Y and Z" and good old option W shows up. This time, it is named webgen.read more
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Today I played with using TSocks  and SSH to provide a transparent SOCKS5 proxy to internal hosts in our colo.  Its a pretty easy setup:  {{{  apt-get install tsocks vi /etc/tsocks.conf #define your networks here export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libtsocks.so  ssh -D 9050 username@server.com  }}}  Then you can use all your standard applictions like wget, Mozilla, etc without any reconfiguration.  Since its SOCKS based and not application based you can connect to everything as if you had a route.  No more stupid localhost:198377 custom port forwards!  The trick of course is the {{{-D 9050}}} which tells SSH to open a SOCKS server on that port.  It turns out that tor  also supports tsocks which seems ...
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A Hawaiian company claims to have developed a $50 software emulator that allows a Windows PC to run Mac OS X. A legal expert says it's likely Apple will have some objections. By Leander Kahney.
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If you can't get Firefox to use the new version of the Flash player, you've come to the right place. I just got finished fighting with Flash and Firefox. It was a long fight, but I won.
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Norbet Mocsnik, having just set it up himself, is sharing the steps needed to get DokuWiki set up and working with a simple authentication system.   I promised to investigate the steps needed to set up DokuWiki with the simplest authentication scheme for a friend and I thought others might benefit from it too, so here it is.   There's about fifteen steps in all, including the download/install of the package and creating the basic functionality (like a simple Auth schema - he gives an example). Create the superuser and set up the desired restrictions and you're home free. If you want more information on authentication in DokuWiki, check out this page on the DokuWiki's wiki.
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It's the preferred tool for Mac OS X Server file sharing and user management. Ryan Faas gives you tips and tricks for how to make it work for you.
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Scientists, scholars and others planning to use their Macintosh computers to submit grant proposals to the federal government in the months ahead should be prepared for a rocky, or at least error-message-littered, road ahead.
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By Jay Lee, Houston Chronicle  Dec. 19--Q: When I click on a link in an e-mail message, nothing happens. Previously this would open Internet Explorer and take me to the Web page.
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InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition asking Microsoft to keep Windows XP available indefinitely, not end most sales on June 30 as currently planned, has prompted many readers to suggest that maybe the best answer for those who don't like Vista is to switch to another operating system completely.                                                    "Don't be afraid. Just switch to Linux and become a member of a really free society," wrote Carlos Raul Gutierrez.[ Find out the deployment secrets of early Vista adopters ]"Windows Vista was the reason I bought a Mac mini. I didn't want my only choices to be an operating system that would soon be obsolete (XP) or one that was buggy and would break much existing hardware (Vista), and I'm not enough of a geek to use Linux (do things from the command line? Puhleeze...)," wrote "Jack."How realistic is a switch to Linux or Apple's Mac OS X? For some users -- often technically savvy people such as engineers, consultants, designers and CTOs -- it is clearly an option that already works quite well. In the past year, running Mac OS X or Linux as your default OS has been made easier by the capability to run Windows in a virtual machine, giving you access to both Windows-only applications and Web sites that rely on Microsoft's Internet Explorer-only ActiveX technology. But in a business environment, switching to a Mac or Linux PC may not be quite as easy.The Mac OS X option Of the plausible alternatives to Windows, Apple's Mac OS X has the largest market share and history. InfoWorld chief technologist Tom Yager has written that the latest version of the Mac OS, Leopard (10.5), is simply the best operating system available. And Macs are indeed popping up more frequently even within IT circles -- I've seen more MacBook Pros in the hands of CTOs and IT execs at conferences in the past year more than I've seen Mac notebooks in such venues ever. Although there are no real numbers on just the business adoption of Macs, it's clear that Apple is in growth mode, gaining an increasing proportion of all new computer sales for more than a year now.InfoWorld's Yager has chronicled the adventures of one PC user who switched to the Mac OS, showing that for an individual, the conversion was ultimately a rewarding one. The TechWeb site has also provided a good guide on how to make the switch to Mac OS X.A key tool for any Mac OS X switcher is a virtual machine to run Windows for those apps and Web sites that require it. Both Parallels Desktop 3.0 and EMC VMware's Fusion software will do the trick, as InfoWorld's comparative review has shown.Although Macs are compatible with most typical hardware, such as monitors and drives, fitting a Mac into an enterprise's management systems and ERP applications can be a different story. Yager's Mac Enterprise blog and the Mac Enterprise user group both provide advice on managing Macs in a traditional IT environment.The Linux option The more technically inclined may be attracted to Linux, the most popular form of desktop Unix. Linux desktops typically are challenged by limited hardware compatibility (due to lack of drivers), limited application options, and user interfaces that require active participation to get work done, which tends to keep Linux away from the general user population. But those who work with a Linux server all day may find that using it on the desktop as well actually makes their lives easier.Just as Mac users need occasional access to Windows, so do Linux users. Because Linux distributions run on Windows-compatible hardware, it's straightforward to use desktop virtualization software, such as Parallels Workstation, Sun's (formerly Innotek's) VirtualBox, and EMC VMware's Workstation software, to provide access to both environments.Although some enterprises have committed to wide Linux deployment -- such as automaker Peugeot Citro?n's plans to install 20,000 Novell Suse Linux desktops -- most have left Linux to the engineering and development staff.InfoWorld Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy argues that desktop Linux is doomed to remain a tiny niche OS, given the Linux community's lack of interest in providing a UI that regular people could use. Kennedy tried to spend a week working on nothing but the Ubuntu distribution of Linux but gave up on the fifth day.But Kennedy's take isn't the last word on desktop Linux. Frequent InfoWorld contributor Neil McAllister put together a special report on how to move from Windows to Linux, concluding that the effort was not as hard as you might think.Who's right? As with any platform choice, they both may be. A one-size-fits-all approach may be unrealistic. And that likely explains why many businesses will have a mix, dominated by Windows XP today (and perhaps Vista in a few years) but not exclusively tied to Microsoft's OS.
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If you're using FlickrFan, you should have a copy of podcatcher.root in your Tool folder. If not now, at the top of the next hour (launch the OPML app so it can do the update). I want to get started with a small group of people, develop features, and then figure out how to broaden it, if that turns out to be the right thing to do. For now, I just want a testbed to develop, and a group of interested users. I've put together a brief cheat sheet for FlickrFan users. http://codecasting.org/podcatcher/00001.html  If you have a question please post it there and we'll try to get you the answer. Hope it works, and hope you like it.
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Stefan Mischook has taken a little time out from his beginner's guides to PHP to post today about the simplest way to set up PHP and MySQL on a Mac - MAMP.   In my beginners php videos, I recommended XAMPP as the way to easily install Apache, PHP, MySQL on a MAC. [...] This nifty little application allows you to (really easily) install Apache, PHP and MySQL. You are provided with a standard DMG file that you simply drag to your applications folder.   He includes screenshots, details on what the package contains, sample code using it and, of course, the Dashboard widget to start and stop the Apache and MySQL servers.
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Dave Dash has posted a configuration that he had shared with him for getting nginx and the symfony framework to work happily together.   I almost gave up on nginx and was going to settle on lighttpd or Apache, but I decided to check the symfony list and in minutes Kiril Angov (Kupokomapa) answered with a working nginx configuration. This is why I like the symfony community.   He includes the config in an easy to use/c&p kind of format so you can drop it into your install and get it up and running quick.
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PHP Magazine has a new link today to a tutorial covering Building and Installing PHP, Apache on Mac OS X 10.3.5 with GD
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Pierre-Alain Joye has made an update to his information about building Cairo on Windows with more fixes and the creation of a dedicated page for the project.   I fixed a possible issue with PDF and PS support, it should work way better now. The cairo_build_windows archive has been updated and a decent freetype2 is now included (from gnuwin32). The build system has been tested with VC++ Express and VC.net 2003. Also a configure.bat is now included, it is a simple "alias" for "cscript /nologo configure.js ". You can call it just like any real configure.   As mentioned, a project homepage has been set up for cairo-win32, and can be found here along with some results of it: PNG file, PDF file.
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Current versions of FileMaker aren't compatible with the new Mac OS, even though Apple owns the company.