OSX: Text Editing

I don’t do “word processing”, I write. I have different tools for writing depending on the task. Here is a review of OS X text editors that I use and would recommend. Read more

OSX: Eject Key Joyfulness

When shutting down your MAC using function and the eject button is the fastest way to get things done.

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Apple MacBook Pro Disappointment Today

I am sure that most of you know that Apple refreshed their MacBook lineup. However the MacBook Pro 17″ didn’t get much love. As Pooh Bear would say, “Bother!”.
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OS X:Tools - Mental Case - Flash Cards - With iPhone Support

I have a constant struggle to memorise new content and review material. After some research I decided to try using flash cards as a new technique. Now I have some software to do this and its one of my favourite tools. Read more

OSX:Punditry - Four Options From Apple in September - Unexpected!

I am holding on to some cash, waiting for Apple to make their September udpates. Here are my predictions for what they will release, and why. Read more

OS X:Why It “Looks” So Different.

When you first eyeball OS X, I mean, really, actually look at it and use it for a bit, you realise that it looks different. During some reading, I found out why. Read more

Upgraded to 320GB HDD in My MacBook Pro

I just upgraded the disk drive in my Mac Book to 320 GB (from 160Gb) and it could not have been easier.
I can’t believe how simple this was using Mac OS X. No restore or data migration, just a simple backup and then install the drive. Boot and back in business…… Read more

OSX: Tools I Use on the MAC OSX

Someone recently asked me about the tools I use on my MAC and could I publish a bit about them and some of the my working habits using MAC. So I will be posting more soon. If you have some suggestions please let me know via the contact form or drop me an email at myetherealmind { at } gmail.com.

Monolingual, OSX and 10.5.3 Update - Saving Space

I use Monolingual to save space on the MAC OSX. Quick word on how much space you can save and how to do it. Read more

Serial Console on OSX

Serial Communication in OSX Terminal

I knew it had to be possible to view serial data in the OSX terminal window, but I’m not enough of a unix geek to figure it out. Finally, a little googling told me what I needed to know. Here’s how to read and send serial data from the terminal in OSX. (just like hyperterminal on windows)

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Caring for Your Dynamips Install - Deleting Unwanted Files

Dynamips and dynagen are well behaved programs most of the time. Occasionally I am configuring a feature or two that causes IOS to crash (most recently I was configuring MPLS and redistribution on c2600 IOS which got really busted).

Then I noticed that my hard drive didn’t have a lot of free space….

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Installing Tun Tap Driver on Leopard

First, I read about what TunTap is at Wikipedia and VTUN Sourceforge. From what I read, TunTap was written for the VTUN project to specifically encapsulate Ethernet packets (TAP driver), whereas the TUN driver encapsulated IP packets. The driver is used by other popular software so it looks like it is here to stay. It is implemented as part of the Linux Kernel.

Go here Tun TAP driver for MAC OS X and download the installer package for Leopard.

Extract the package using Stuffit Expander (free app, google for it), and this will create a pkg file. This is a self installing script package so use Finder to run it, it will ask for your password so as to root privileges to install the Tun and Tap drivers into your dev directory.

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Network Tools, Craftsmen and Why My Mac Is a Good Hammer

My brother is intensely interested in tools, especially handtools for woodworking. He likes to go to markets and buy old tools, it seems a strange type of hobby so I finally asked him why ?

It turns out that many of these hammers, chisels, and planes were actually HANDMADE by those tradesmen from 50 or more years ago, often when they are apprentices. And many hammers and chisels were customised by that person to fit their exact way of working, short handles, long heads, cutting blades at odd angles.

It strikes me I am part of time honoured tradition by making my own tools. My laptop is my own hand made hammer and chisel set, and I choose MAC as the raw material.

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Flush DNS Cache on MAC OS X

Mac OS X - Clearing or flushing the DNS Cache

Once you go to a Web site, or do any DNS lookup, the IP gets cached for quite a while. This becomes a royal pain if you’re a systems administrator who is in the middle of migrating domains from one server to another. Executing the following clears the cache, restarts the caching daemon, and fetches fresh DNS records. And there was much rejoicing…

For Leopard


sudo dscacheutil -flushcache


For Tiger

lookupd -flushcache

(On Windows you do ipconfig /flushdns)

iTerm and Dynamips - Write to All Terminals at Once

I am often find myself needing to stop, make a configuration change to Dynagen, and then restart. To make sure I don’t miss anything I go to every screen and write the configuration.

In iTerm, there is the ability to send the same command to all screens at once, excellent!

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Suspending and Resuming Dynamips

As someone who travels often, and always looking to make use of the travel time, I was pleased to find that I can suspend and resume the Dynamips routers. This saves me battery on longer trips, or lets me have more CPU when I running other applications such as Parallels / VMware to give me some Microsoft Visio joy. iTerm sessions are not terminated by doing this, they just don’t show any data until you resume the sessions.
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Dynamips and the Leopard Terminal

I wanted Dynamips to act more like the way I think and it keeps on opening

gf:~ gregferro$ cd Documents/dynalab/Dynagen/Dynagen.app/Contents/Resources/
gf:Resources gregferro$ ls
AppSettings.plist configobj.pyc dynagen.ini pemu_lib.pyc
appIcon.icns configspec dynamips_lib.py script
confConsole.py console.py dynamips_lib.pyc validate.py
confConsole.pyc console.pyc en.lproj validate.pyc
configobj.py dynagen pemu_lib.py
gf:Resources gregferro$
gf:Resources gregferro$
gf:Resources gregferro$ sudo vim dynagen.ini
Password:

I want to use iTerm instead of the Terminal that is part of Leopard for the Dynagen / dynamips output. So you can see the following

# Uncomment below of OS X with Terminal with named tabs (requires Leopard)
#telnet = /usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down' -e 'tell application "Terminal" to do script with command "telnet %h %p ; exit" in last tab of first window' -e 'tell application "Terminal" to tell window 1 to set custom title to "%d"'

# Uncomment below for OS X with iTerm with named tabs
telnet = /usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell app "iTerm"' -e 'activate' -e 'set myterm to the first terminal' -e 'tell myterm' -e 'set mysession to (make new session at the end of sessions)' -e 'tell mysession' -e 'exec command "telnet %h %p"' -e 'set name to "%d"' -e 'end tell' -e 'end tell' -e 'end tell'

The only problem here is that the Terminal window is still used by Dynagen, so I still end up with Leopard terminal. I wonder if there is a way to fix this.

Configuring iTerm for Dynamips

To get started with my lab faster I use iTerm to prepare a full set of possible sessions. This post walks through how to do this which should help you to get started faster. Also some keyboard shortcuts.
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