How-To: Proximity Automation
Uncategorized June 11th, 2009 by Shai Perednik
Would you like to be able to use the magic of Bluetooth to automatically pause iTunes, set your away message in Adium, and lock the screen simply by standing up and walking away from your desk? Of course you would — it’s future-tastic (jetpacks not included)! Let’s take a look at how to pull this off.
What You’ll Need
First you’ll need a copy of Proximity, a handy (and free) little application which monitors your Bluetooth-enabled device and fires off AppleScripts when it leaves and enters connection range. As an added touch, we’ll also use a copy of DeskShade to lock and unlock the computer with style, leaving a nice away message displayed on the screen and opening a “Hacker Log” to display what activity took place while you were away.
DeskShade actually does a lot more than just allow AppleScript to lock and unlock your screen. I won’t go into a full review of it here, but essentially, it will also help keep your desktop clean, your wallpaper fresh, and your mind uncluttered. If, however, you want to forgo the use of DeskShade, you can instead lock and unlock the computer by having AppleScript launch your screensaver and adjust the security settings required for waking it up. AppleScript files for both approaches can be downloaded here (8kb, ZIP).
Getting Set Up
Install Proximity, and from within the preferences pane select your Bluetooth device. I used my iPhone, but any “discoverable” device should work. In the AppleScript section link to OutofRange.scpt for when the device moves out of range and InRange.scpt for when it moves back in range. Make sure that monitoring is enabled and set a frequency for proximity checks — I used 60 seconds. If you decided not to go the DeskShade route, then just swap in the second set of scripts for that step above and skip ahead to the testing.
Install DeskShade and on the DeskLock tab set a password, enable AppleScript to unlock, set the Hacker Log to open after unlocking and set the away message to something appropriate. I used the same “More than 30ft away from my computer” message that is set in Adium via the out-of-range script.
Future Perfect
Data Robotics Hates MAC
Uncategorized June 11th, 2009 by Shai Perednik
After updating to 10.5.7 my Drobo over USB started flaking out and randomly disconnecting. I didn’t think much of it, just maybe the Drobo was dying until I found this thread over at DroboSpace.com that I remembered a similar issue with 10.5.6.
Digging around the forums eventually led to a burried new firmware version that is supposed to resolve this issue.
v131 on Drobo.com
I will try that update, but in the meantime I figured I would vent out on the dobospace thread.
Below is my post @ drobospace.com
Jennifer said:
To forum customers:
- Was Drobo working properly until you updated to 10.5.7
- Are your using the USB or Firewire port? Could you see if the same problems happens on the other port, ie if you are using the USB try firewire port on Drobo
- I noticed a couple of customers in the forums mention they did not encounter these problems in 10.5.6.
- We would like to get some more information from you, could you open a case with Tech Support
Jennifer & Drobo,
You are not properly supporting your MAC customers. You have some very loyal followers that parade your product and yet you make no effort to support us.
This is the perfect example. 10.5.7 was available to developers for some time. Why is it that you wait for customers using the final release of 10.5.7 to tell you that there is an issue?
Data Robotics should be proactive and running beta OS releases to ensure that when they are released to the public there is no conflicts.
It is out of the question to tell a user not to update to a major OS revision just because their external drive doesn’t support it.
Another thing, why is it that I can buy a cheap $20 enclosure that works fine with OSX over USB and yet your $400 device can’t do that.
Your BeyondRaid is great but get your support and engineering department together!
-Shai
http://www.shaiperednik.com
Tags: 10.5.7, Data Robotics, Drobo, Mac, OSX
Upgraded Wind MacBookNano to 10.5.7 100%
Uncategorized May 15th, 2009 by Shai Perednik
Today I took the plunge and updated my MSI Wind runnnig 10.5.6 to 10.5.7. Normally I would have waited longer before applying a major update. However with recent reports of 5hr battery life on the 6cell u100 I decided to update.
Following this post everything went through fine. I had to remove ffScroll and SmartScroll, reaply the Trackpad driver included in the driverpack and not I’m back @ 100%. No hickups.
Interesting thing is after the update my TimeMachine update was 3.2GB and is still backing up.
Below is the post i followed via the MSI Wind Forums
Download Link: (Current version 1.5)
MSi WindOSX86 Upgrade Pack v1.5
The above driver pack only has the 10.5.7 Update pack to allow you to install the 10.5.7 Combo update and the 10.5.7 Update pack and after your restart you will still have full access to your Trackpad and Keyboard. It doesn’t matter if you are running 10.5.4 or 10.5.6, just follow the instructions and you can easily upgrade to 10.5.7.
New notice in this installer
Here’s what’s included in the PDF guide:
Guide to install 10.5.7 Combo update on MSiWindOSX86 build
Prerequisite:
<follow the Guide included in the download>
Downloads:
The Driver pack with instructions
The Apple 10.5.7 Combo update (Apple web site)
Ready to install:
Download and then install the Apple 10.5.7 Combo update.
DO NOT RESTART!!
Now run the appropriate installer. This will install the missing PS2 kext’s so that when you restart you will have your keyboard and trackpad.
It is now okay to reboot; click whichever “Restart” button you like, it doesn’t matter.
Just to clear up any misconceptions, here’s a screen shot of my system while I was performing the update:
Almost done:
As you may or may not know, with almost any combo or “point” update, your system will restart, begin to boot up but then restart a second time. This is completely normal and to be expected.
Tags: 10.5.7, Apple, Build, Leopard, Mac, MSI, MSI WIND, OSX, wind, XP
