Chris Johnston » Apple Mac

How to get Phusion Passenger and ImageMagick to work together?

Chris Johnston — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:12:24 +0000

For Studio Gallery, I want people to have the ability to upload avatars for the clients that they create. I am using the Paperclip plug-in for this and when running the app via script/server this works great. I installed ImageMagick and Paperclip is able to find it since all the right paths are set in my .bash_profile file.

The problem is that I can’t get Paperclip or ImageMagick to work when running the app via Passenger. I have added the following lines to my /etc/profile file:

#ImageMagick
export MAGICK_HOME="/usr/local/ImageMagick-6.4.1"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/lib"
export PATH=$MAGICK_HOME/bin:/usr/bin:$PATH

But so far, it seems that Apache or Passenger is unable to find ImageMagick. Anyone have any ideas?

Must have Mac Apps

Chris Johnston — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:18:01 +0000

A coworker was asking me some questions about the Mac, he had just received his new ThoughtWorks MacBook Pro. As a partial answer, here is my list of must have applications for the Mac. I have divided them into two categories – free and not free.

Free Apps

QuickSilver – the definitive time saving app getting things done without doing them
Growl – displays messages directly on the screen in a little transparent window
Adium – Instant Message app that works with just about every protocol out there today
Chicken of the VNC – excellent VNC client
iStumbler – for finding WiFi hotspots
NeoOffice – OS X implementation of OpenOffice.org (a Microsoft Office replacement)
xCode – Apple’s IDE, this gives you C compilers and other tools you will need for compiling things like Ruby gems
SvnX – Subversion Client (if you don’t want to use the command line)
iSquint – converts just about any video format into iTunes, Apple TV, and iPod compliant video
MenuMeters – puts a set of graphs in the menu bar that show you what your CPU, Memory, Networks connections, Disks are doing
Perian – added codecs for playing back non quicktime compliant audio and video files

Not Free

TextMate – the only editor for the Mac
Transmit – FTP/SFTP client
Omnigraffle – Visio replacement for creating diagrams
World of Warcraft – I think this one goes without saying

That is all I can think of right now, as more come to me, I will add them.

Ruby and Upgrading to Leopard

Chris Johnston — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:06:22 +0000

I recently upgraded my mac to OS X 10.5 and had some problems installing the Ruby gem Hpricot. This particular gem is compiled from source when it is installed (on a Mac at least, no idea about Windows or Linux). When I tried to install it, it kept throwing an error and failing. The problem was that I had forgotten to also upgrade Xcode, so it was being compiled with an old copy of gcc.

What web design app to use for Rails development on OS X?

Chris Johnston — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:57:32 +0000

The subject line basically says it all; what web design application are people using for Ruby on Rails projects on OS X? My first guess is TextMate. Are there any apps out there that support Rails layouts and ERB?

I am currently taking a look at Panic’s Coda and am really impressed with what I am seeing. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Cool Mac Tip – Locking your computer using keyboard

Chris Johnston — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:41:11 +0000

One thing that OS X misses, in my opinion, is the ability to lock the computer when you walk away. I finally found an excellent tip on how to set this up using the screensaver and QuickSilver.

Parallels Desktop creates Max/PC ads

Chris Johnston — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:31:21 +0000

The guys at Parallels have put together four excellent Apple “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” like ads showing off the ability to run Windows and OS X side by side.

Two finger scrolling

Chris Johnston — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:05:53 +0000

I am not sure what it is called, but the ability, on my Macbook Pro, to use two fingers on the touchpad to do things like scrolling just makes so much sense. The only problem I have with it is that when I start using a PC, I find myself trying to scroll with two fingers. It just makes so much sense and, in terms of muscle memory, is incredibly easy to pick up and remember. I also find that even when I have a mouse attached, I still end up scrolling with two fingers instead of using the mouse wheel. When it comes to design and usability, Apple gets it right.

The future of Human-Computer Interaction

Chris Johnston — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:28:02 +0000

The video below demonstrates the power of multi-touch, the technology that apple put into the iPhone, as it should be used. It is cool in a phone, but when used as the interface for an entire computer, it has the potential to change the way we interact with and think about computers. If you have ever seen Minority Report, this is it. This is the future.

I saw the “video below on the O’Reilly Mac Dev website.”:http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/02/multitouch_one_step_further.html One comment made on that site that I do agree with is that as cool as this video is, we still need to solve the problem of how to efficient enter text. I am not sure talking to our computers is the entire answer, but it is probably half. I wonder if hand writing recognition is the second half. The problem with that is that most people can type faster then they can write.

I can’t wait to have this interface on a desktop or tablet computer sometime soon.

More Apple News – New AirportExtreme and Office 2008 for Mac

Chris Johnston — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 04:54:31 +0000

There were two quiet releases/announcements made today along with all the iPhone hype:

* Apple has released a new version of AirportExtreme that incorporates 802.11n and software to turn on the 802.11n cards in new Macs such as the Macbook and the Macbook Pro.
* Microsoft announced Mac Office 2008 incorporating the new user interface which uses the ribbon instead of menus. I realize that I am probably suppose to hate MS, but I personally think that the new Office UI is a huge step in the right direction when it comes to creating software. And it is just really cool.

Both links go to the Mac Rumors website where you will find more information and more links.

Apple MWSF Keynote – AppleTV and iPhone

Chris Johnston — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 04:36:23 +0000

I “watched” the Steve Job’s keynote address via the Mac Rumors website and was a little disappointed with it. I watched the video of it and I have to to say that I am still a little disappointed, but for different reasons. The first disappointment was because there was not more Mac stuff. The second disappointment is from the realization that I may never be own an iPhone.

First though I have to say that both AppleTV and the iPhone both look incredible. I want both, right now. I will probably be running out to buy AppleTV as soon as it is available at the Apple store here in Toronto. We have been looking for a media centre PC and this is definitely the one to get. I think Apple will corner the media pc market with this release. At the very least, if you check the prices of the accessories, Apple has some of the cheapest HDMI cables around.

The iPhone is simply amazing; and probably won’t be available in Canada any time soon. My prediction is actually that it will never be available in Canada. I hope I’m wrong.