30 Mar 2009, Posted by Jo Hund in Note to self, Ruby/Rails, 0 Comments

Simplest way to use cron with Rails

For simple applications I use cron to run automated background jobs like sending emails or indexing sphinx.

I like to have all aspects of my application under version control. Cron is no exception. To do this, I add a file named “crontab” in /config. In there I add all my cron jobs in regular cron notation.

(more…)

06 Dec 2008, Posted by Jo Hund in Note to self, Tools, 12 Comments

Tablet pressure support on OS X for X11, Gimp, and Inkscape

Here is what I had to do to enable tablet pressure support for the X11 based Gimp and Inkscape applications on OS X Leopard:

My setup:

• OS X Leopard: 10.5.5 on Intel
• X11: XQuartz 2.3.2 RC2
• Inkscape: 0.46 (Mac binary)
• Gimp: 2.6.3 (Mac binary)
• Tablet: Wacom Graphire ET from around 2003

Key points are:

• get at least the 2.3.2 version of XQuartz. 2.3.1 will not work!
• In Gimp/Edit/Preferences/Input Devices: Click on “Configure extended input devices…”, set device ‘pen’ to ’screen’.
• In Inkscape/File/Input Devices …: Set device ‘pen’ to ’screen’.
• You might have to restart your apps

Nice. Now we have pressure support on OS X for these two great apps. The Inkscape calligraphy tool is very nice. Makes my handwriting look nicer than on paper.

11 Jun 2008, Posted by Jo Hund in Note to self, 0 Comments

Fixing Inkscape on OS X Leopard

After I upgraded to Leopard, Inkscape did not start up any more. Just a blank screen. Here is what I did to fix it:

If you like Inkscape (an open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator) and have a Mac with Leopard; you will figure that it after installation it will not work. It will say that font caching might take time, but never start. It’s because of a simple bug, with a simple solution. Just open a terminal (Applications/Utilities) and type this, followed by an enter;

mkdir ~/.fontconfig
After that it should start normally.

Thanks to Kuneri for this tip.

13 May 2008, Posted by Jo Hund in Note to self, Ruby/Rails, 0 Comments

Require Ruby ‘Forwardable’ on Leopard

When I upgraded to Leopard, some of my Rails apps broke. Ruby threw this error at me:

uninitialized constant User::Forwardable

Here is a simple fix:

require 'forwardable'

in environment.rb.

It seems that on Tiger ‘Forwardable’ was included by default, but not on Leopard any more. Not exactly sure why this is.

01 Jan 2008, Posted by Jo Hund in Note to self, 0 Comments

Kill caps lock

I found myself too many times having to rewrite the last word because I hit the caps lock key by accident. I decided to take care of this annoyance once and for all

Here is how to turn off the caps lock key on OS X Leopard:

1. Go to “System Preferences”
2. Select “Keyboard & Mouse”
3. Go to the “Keyboard tab” and click “Modifier Keys …”
4. Select “No Action” for the Caps Lock Key

Now you will never be annoyed again by accidental uppercase characters. What a useless key …