SubClosure

I recently had to set up a new mac for web development.
Its always such a hassle to find it all again and I ended up spending much more time then anticipated.

Here is a quick reference list of what steps I took. Following this list will get you going in under one hour plus all software is free.

1. install cyberduck for transfer and remote synchronization
2. install xampp for a complete LAMP setup
3. install eclipse pdt for a great php IDE
4. install eclipse subclipse plugin for your svn projects
5. install aptana plugin for all web development
6. install textwrangler as a general purpose text and code editor with remote support
7. install firefox with firebug plugin for debugging your html/css/javascript

After that also download some great php libs to include in new php projects:

1. redbean – database orm
2. ezql – easy database interface and abstraction
3. phpmailer – probably the best email lib for php
4. phpunit – unit testing
5. simplepie – rss parser and rss creation
6. php thumbnails – great for image uploads

I took me a while to find a free paint programm for Mac OS that works
similar to paint for windows.  Had to google around for quite some time to find it.

Being new to Mac I’m no so used to the fact that everything Mac related starts with the letter “i”. Otherwise I would have found this little program much quicker.

Here it is:  iPaint – http://ipaint.sourceforge.net/

this is what iPaint looks like in action:

It seems to  work pretty good

So you got yourself a new Macbook or an iPhone and someone swiped it? Good news – if you were lucky and installed something like Undercover you will most likely be able to track down the thieves and recover your lovely little machine.

How does it work?
Undercover installs itself into the bios of the Apple device and with the installation you get a unique device ID, that you need to provide when reporting a theft.
When the machine goes online Undercover constantly checks if the device ID is reported as stolen or not. If it is reported as stolen the device will send geographical information about its location to Undercover. It will also transmit screen shots and if possible photos of the thief. Undercover will then contact local law enforcement to recover the stolen device.

If law enforcement fails to recover it, Undercover slowly renders the device useless and counts on the fact that the thief will then either sell the device or send it in for repair. Because of geographical awareness, Undercover then display a message to the repair center or new buyer, that this is a stolen machine that needs to be returned.

Undercover can not be disabled by the thief. If you install Apple’s firmware password, your Mac can not be formatted without knowing your firmware password.

This seems to be an awesome protection from thieves and it comes at a very reasonable price.

I recently purchased a Mac Book Pro – primarily for software development. As a long time Linux and Windows user I though it would be time to try something new and join the hype.

To work with Mac OS efficiently I needed to install quite a bit free extra software.
Here is a list of what I found useful for my purposes.

Awesome and free:

• Firefox – I like it much better then safari
• Perian – adds support for many popular video formats such as divX
• Open Office – used this under Linux and Window as well
• Google Notifier – check for new Google Mail and Google Calendar entries
• Google quick search box – search for anything from your taskbar
• iChat with Google Talk – use iChat to chat with your google buddies
• Virtual Box – free virtual machine to run Windows or any other OS
• Skype – I use skype since many years to stay in touch and do my calls
• Seashore – easy to install free image editor based on gimp

Free development tools:

• Xampp – save yourself the hassle of setting up Apache, Mysql, PHP, etc
• Eclipse – my favorite development platform
• jEdit – a free editor for programmers, written in java
• Cyberduck – handy opersource ftp, sftp, webdav browser for Mac OS X
• Wget – Mac OS X only comes with curl. But curl does not provide the same functionality as wget
• NVU – NVU is a handy and free HTML and CSS Editor
• Free Ruler – measure things on your screen with this useful little tool

Commercial Tools:

• Path Finder – replacement for mac finder with great features like tabs and split pane

A cool website listing all opensource mac applications