OS X App: Tinker Tool

I have been toying with the idea for a while of switching 100% to Mac. General day to day stuff is no problem at all. office is available, as are alternatives, I can check my emails yada yada. The one thing that has been holding me back is web development which is obviously quite important to me and my job. No worries I though and I have even convinced myself to switch from my native ASP programming background to the realms of PHP.

Before I start I should point out that I am a Mac newbie so if I say something stupid then please correct me. I have managed to "turn on" Apache, Install PHP, Install mySQL and CocoaMySQL (Similar to phpMyAdmin I am lead to believe) and set up Wordpress. Before now I have used Windows, ASP and IIS exclusively and I have looked into Apache and most of the "magic" is done in 2 files: httpd.conf for general settings and .htaccess for specific directories.

The first problem on the Mac is that you cant get to either of these files. .htaccess files are hidden by default as in UNIX any filename that begins with a period is hidden. The httpd.conf file is in a hidden directory that you can't get to either. I tried using Spotlight but it doesn't find either of these files as it doesn't show hidden or system files :/

Also, It seems that there is no option in system settings to display hidden files and folders. Basically I needed a way to get to these files and make changes in order to take advantage of mod_rewrite and the clean URL's it can produce.

I googled the problem and it came up with an app called Tinker Tool:

"TinkerTool" is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system."

There is a full list of features that you can "tinker" with available on the page. Some pretty neat stuff, but the part that interests me most is it's ability to show and hide hidden files and folders by checking or unchecking a box. Simple enough even for a windows user to manage!

I still haven't managed to get mod_rewrite to work properly yet though, but thanks to Tinker Tool I am a little closer. So if your a Mac newbie like me then I can recommend you try it.

iPod Tip: Pod Player

Today I came across a piece of software called Pod Player :

"Pod Player is a freeware application to be used with your iPod. It allows you to play music from your iPod while it is connected to your PC. When launched, it will look for an attached iPod and when it finds one it will read the music database on the iPod. You will then be able to views your songs in a similar way as in iTunes (by artist, genre, album, playlist, etc). You can now also extract songs from it. There are a few little extra features such as iPod Hacks, checking for duplicates etc. You can play your music on any computer when you iPod is connected without the need to install any programs such as iTunes."

Now thats all well and good but if you have an iPod already then it's more than likely that your PC has iTunes or one of the other various programmes that perform the way iTunes does.

The beauty of this programme is that it's in a single exe file that can be stored on your iPod itself as it's only 454kb. It also allows you to extract songs from the connected iPod to the computer for all your backup needs ;) Now that makes it useful!

All you need to do is enable disk access on your iPod and copy the exe across then hey presto you have a portable solution to allow you to play your iTunes on any PC that has a spare USB port. The only snag is that the machine playing the files needs the right codec in order to be able to play the files. So in the majority of cases the files will be in MP3 format and there shouldn't be a problem although you may have problems with your AAC audio.

Quite neat though.

I'm not dead!

Just a quick note:

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead

From Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Just incase anyone cares...I'm not dead!
Just busy with real work and real life at the moment.