Archive for the ‘OS X Hints’ Category.

Solved! Pause during Leopard loading/booting

25th November 2008, 08:35 am

So this problem has had me complete perplexed for almost a year now. After logging in to my MBP, Leopard would sit there for minutes, not doing anything spectacular… and then resume booting when it felt like it. I figured it was some pesky application’s handy work. HIGHLY IRRITATING!!!

The other day it was time to format the MBP. It had been over a year since the last format, and has accumulated loads of junk from University and the like. Whilst installing applications again, I kept a close watch on my Leopard loading times. I totally figured it out… :)

Upon rebooting post-installing the RAID Manager software for my Western Digital Premium Edition 1TB RAID, I was immediately hit with the pause!! Solved. The process actually causing the pause is ‘WDNotifier’, which is launched at start up. Da da da!! The problem is easily fixed by removing the app entirely via

sudo rm -R /Library/StartupItems/WDNotifer.app

For those who are concerned about deleting system-like files, I can confirm my RAID still works perfectly (currently using Time Machine on it too). So, a simple problem now has a simple solution. Its amazing how quickly the MBP boots up now; its super fast :)

Category: Apple, OS X Hints  |  Comment

Missing URL in BibTex Bibliography

16th March 2008, 11:11 pm

This is some stupid thing that cost me several hours of tinkering tonight. By default, URLs and last access time/date are not part of any style in LaTeX. How freaking ancient is that?!!?!

So heres a fix. Its been tested under OS X 10.5, so it should work for anyone running Linux too.

  1. Download urlbst from http://nxg.me.uk/dist/urlbst/. For me the current version is 0.6.
  2. Extract the archive anywhere, just so happened to be my Downloads folder.
  3. Open a terminal window, and navigate to the newly created directly. For me it was ~/Downloads/urlbst-0.6/
  4. Run ‘./configure’ without the ‘ and ‘
  5. I have to use the acm bibliography style, so i will be playing around with acm.bst
  6. Run ’sudo mv /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/acm.bst /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/oldacm.bst’. This moves the original style file to a safe place.
  7. Run ‘./urlbst /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/acm.bst newacm.bst’. This adds the URL information to the style.
  8. Run ’sudo cp newacm.bst /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/acm.bst. This moves the new style file to a directly where LaTeX can find it.

Now all your webpages and sources with online references & cite dates will look right! Woot! Sleepy time now!!!

Category: Apple, Development, Linux, OS X Hints  |  3 Comments

OS X Hints: 64bit WEP WiFi + Slow Internet

25th September 2007, 11:15 am

Yesterday my MacBook Pro finally came. Expect some pictures and a full review soon.

During the set up of the wireless network connection, I ran in to some trouble. My PC-exclusive wireless lan is configured to be non-SSID broadcast, MAC access controlled and encrypted with 64bit WEP. To set it up it should be as easy as typing in the network name and key. But noooo…

Continue reading ‘OS X Hints: 64bit WEP WiFi + Slow Internet’ »

Category: Apple, OS X Hints  |  1 Comment