http://www.my-old-macintosh.de/

The eWorld app is mind-bendingly cool. And if you leave it alone you get flying toasters.

Trying to install the current avrdude via MacPorts can hit a snag though, because there is a flex source file (lexer.l) which won't compile with the version of flex that MacPorts installs (if you have ever installed flex via MacPorts).

The Apple supplied flex is fine, so the Portfile just needs a little addition to point the ./configure in the right direction.

Edit the portfile:

/opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/ release/ports/cross/avrdude/Portfile

And add the following line to the end:

configure.env-append LEX=/usr/bin/flex

Now you just need to rebuild:

sudo port clean avrdude
sudo port install avrdude

Job done!

Cubase, like Photoshop and many other seemingly professional software packages, refuse to acknowledge that software developers (who you might consider important users) often choose to install their Macs with case-sensitive file systems. Mac OS X has had case sensitive file system options since 10.0 in 2001 included UFS.

Anyhoo, to make Cubase LE work after the installer botches it's attempts, run the following in your terminal:

CUBASE="/Applications/Cubase LE 4.app"

cd "$CUBASE/Contents"
sudo mv components Components
# documentation stays lowercase
# documentation files seem missing - can get them from steinberg website anyway
# fonts must stay lowercase
sudo mkdir -p Help
sudo mv help/* Help
sudo rmdir help
sudo mv presets Presets
sudo mv scripts Scripts
sudo mv Scripts/patchnames Scripts/Patchnames
sudo mv Scripts/trackmixer Scripts/Trackmixer
sudo mv Templates templates/unknown.cpr
# templates dir stays lowercase
sudo mv vstplugins VSTPlugIns


# in case future updates have different casing:
sudo ln -s Components components
sudo ln -s documentation Documentation
sudo ln -s fonts Fonts
sudo ln -s Help help
sudo ln -s Presets presets
sudo ln -s Scripts scripts
sudo ln -s templates Templates
sudo ln -s VSTPlugIns vstplugins

Or I zipped this up in a command file you can double click if you prefer: fix_cubase_case_sensitive.command.zip.

Christmas present idea if anyone's listening :)

Welcome to Macintosh —the documentary for the rest of us.

Happy Matt?

The big change is that it's now designed to stay running all the time. When you pause or stop iTunes, the hut window will tastefully fade away. When iTunes fires up again, it will come back. There are a number of new options in the prefs window to support that such as adding to your login items.

Available now :)

You can do simple polls as well.