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I use growl on my mac — but I haven’t browsed the site in ages. Today, from del.icio.us I found this gem: Growl­No­ti­fier class (Python)

I am going to use the hell out of this. Python bind­ings for Growl? Heck yeah!

Some notes for myself: Make sure to view the scripts and Extras fold­ers, and also enable “remote noti­fi­ca­tion” in the pref­er­ence pane.

This will be incred­i­bly use­ful for track­ing net­work events — also, it’ll be kind of cool. I need to make a bugzilla growl plu­gin to tell me when new bugs hit my queue (but that’s redun­dant with email noti­fi­ca­tions, I know.)

I use growl on my mac - but I haven't browsed the site in ages. Today, from del.icio.us I found this gem: GrowlNotifier class (Python) I am going to use the hell out of this. Python bindings for Growl? Heck yeah! Some notes for myself: Make sure to view the scripts and Extras folders, and also ...

Tak­ing an OS/X Moment here to share some cool apps I’ve found recently:

Check Off: A handy lit­tle to-do list app. Small, light­weight and sim­ple. Now, if only I could main­tain an actual todo list for longer than the time it takes me to think of (or be assigned) a new task. (Free)

Bar­quee: This is another small app — sits in your bar, and allows you to con­trol iTunes from there. Nice for when I’m not using my iPod, and have another tril­lion apps run­ning. (10$)

Ter­mi­na­li­cious: A nice lit­tle app that allows you to launch com­mands in Ter­mi­nal — and it keeps a his­tory of the com­mand you’ve ran. (Free)

Text­Mate: Ok, so I pimped what I think is the best edi­tor for OS/X again. Sue me.

SQL­Grinder: A damned nice SQL client — sup­ports a wide range of func­tion­al­ity, includ­ing schema browsing/exporting/etc. Also sup­ports a wide range of data­bases. A dang fine application.

Taking an OS/X Moment here to share some cool apps I've found recently: Check Off: A handy little to-do list app. Small, lightweight and simple. Now, if only I could maintain an actual todo list for longer than the time it takes me to think of (or be assigned) a new task. (Free) Barquee: This is ...

So, one of the things I am begin­ning to test the waters on is writ­ing actual GUI appli­ca­tions in Python — design­ing a GUI is not some­thing I have ever done, nor have I ever had the need. How­ever, as I develop more tools — dis­trib­uted ones at that, I find that putting a decent UI around them would be handy for other users.

Let’s throw in the fact I am also a Mac User. So in real­ity, I know I want to start with some­thing like wxPython or PyGTK — I know that much at least.

But sit­ting in my book­mark list is an arti­cle (from Apple’s site) on using Python to develop Mac appli­ca­tion using PyObj — some­thing that’s been eat­ing at the back of my head for a few months.

In any case, start­ing with PyObjC is a lit­tle beyond my GUI capa­bil­i­ties at the moment. So, instead I found Python­Card — a GUI con­struc­tion kit for Py apps using wxPython.

The Python card site has an excel­lent starter walk­through here which i fig­ure I’ll start chew­ing on.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to ramp up on this — right now I’m tapped out with every­thing else under the sun — but more infor­ma­tion is good information.

So, one of the things I am beginning to test the waters on is writing actual GUI applications in Python - designing a GUI is not something I have ever done, nor have I ever had the need. However, as I develop more tools - distributed ones at that, I find that putting a ...

If any­one is doing a lot of Python on the Mac edit­ing — I highly rec­om­mend using Text­Mate it’s light, pow­er­ful (after you get the python bun­dle from SVN) and sup­ports projects.

I have it inte­grated with Per­force, Sub­ver­sion and CVS with syn­tax high­lint­ing, cus­tom keys.

Really, every­thing I look for in an edi­tor. And given you can add your own bun­dles or extend exist­ing ones, it’s sim­ple to add Bicy­cle Repair man inte­gra­tions, etc.

The main­tainer has a blog and he’s been doing fre­quent nightly builds — each with notice­able improvements.

It’s also not very mem­ory inten­sive (a drag for me with other edi­tors) and very respon­sive when edit­ing large num­bers of files.

Give it a try, buy a license!

If anyone is doing a lot of Python on the Mac editing - I highly recommend using TextMate it's light, powerful (after you get the python bundle from SVN) and supports projects. I have it integrated with Perforce, Subversion and CVS with syntax highlinting, custom keys. Really, everything I look for in an editor. And given ...

pythonmac.org — Mac OS X Python Resources

Ahhh, sweet mac and Python. Tastes like happy.

pythonmac.org - Mac OS X Python Resources Ahhh, sweet mac and Python. Tastes like happy.

By now, most of the known world knows about Apple’s foray into pro­vid­ing video play­back sup­port for the new iPods (hot) — one of the things I was wor­ried about was the abil­ity to drop my own videos (DVDs, Car­toons, etc) onto one of the new iPods, but given I was already famil­iar with Hand­brake I knew it was only a mat­ter of time before some­one linked it all together to show how to drop a DVD on there, fully and here we are: HOWTO Rip DVD Movies To Your iPod

By now, most of the known world knows about Apple's foray into providing video playback support for the new iPods (hot) - one of the things I was worried about was the ability to drop my own videos (DVDs, Cartoons, etc) onto one of the new iPods, but given I was already familiar with ...

WTF: News­Ga­tor Tech­nolo­gies Acquires NetNewsWire

I love NNW — it’s what I use to scan RSS feeds like a crack whore. I have to read up on this.

Edit to Add: Another link Oreilly Arti­cle

Another Edit: Drunk­en­Blog has a good write up that sets some of my fears at ease.

Ulti­mately, I sim­ple hope NNW stays as light as it is, and I’m not forced in any way to adopt the New­Ga­tor cen­tral­iza­tion for the cross platform/web/iPhone/Toaster syn­chro­niza­tion fea­tures — I only have 1 machine, and I only care about 1 machine. It’s my Mac. I use NNW because it’s light, orga­nized and simple.

Now, MarsEdit is going to be inter­est­ing. I’d be using that to post more often, except that it doesn’t sup­port some of the advanced blog­ger fea­tures (i.e: Sim­ple pic­ture addi­tion, Titles, etc) but them’s the breaks. I hope some­how it doesn’t become abandonware.

Oth­er­wise — I’ll just have to write some­thing myself. ;)

WTF: NewsGator Technologies Acquires NetNewsWire I love NNW - it's what I use to scan RSS feeds like a crack whore. I have to read up on this. Edit to Add: Another link Oreilly Article Another Edit: DrunkenBlog has a good write up that sets some of my fears at ease. Ultimately, I simple hope NNW stays as ...

Oh Look: Wel­come to Romeo

I can use my blue­tooth tele­phone as a remote con­trol for my mac. Which is sort of crazy. Of course, I have Ver­i­zon “We like to Crip­ple Blue­tooth” so me using this would require some SEEM hack­ing, and I still haven’t bought my damned data cable.

Oh Look: Welcome to Romeo I can use my bluetooth telephone as a remote control for my mac. Which is sort of crazy. Of course, I have Verizon "We like to Cripple Bluetooth" so me using this would require some SEEM hacking, and I still haven't bought my damned data cable.

A good arti­cle here on Fink on OS/X: MacDevCenter.com: Installing Fink on Mac OS X

I like dar­win ports more over­all, it seems to be a bet­ter cit­i­zen on the system.

A good article here on Fink on OS/X: MacDevCenter.com: Installing Fink on Mac OS X I like darwin ports more overall, it seems to be a better citizen on the system.

or-shut-up.html”>Mac OS X Viruses: Put Up or Shut Up (part 1)

Thank you Wil — I might have dis­agreed about you’re com­ment about Unit/Functional Test­ing, but damned if I don’t agree with you about the “Mac Virus” thing. I’m sick and tired of explain­ing to peo­ple why Macs in gen­eral are more dif­fi­cult to pen­e­trate, and over­all almost impos­si­ble to infect in a sim­i­lar fash­ion to Win­dows Machines. Why do you think you only see root-kits on Linux? The inher­ent OS struc­ture won’t allow you to do any­thing to the sys­tem as a whole with­out full
root access — which, like OS/X — requires pass­word authen­ti­ca­tion. I could rant on — but I won’t. Yes — it is pos­si­ble to write Mal­ware for a Mac — all you need to do is make a piece of soft­ware that users will click to down­load, and install. Hell, if you’re feel­ing squir­rely, you could even make it force the OS/X “this appli­ca­tion needs to run a pro­gram to install” sudo authen­ti­ca­tion dia­log to really get access.

Once the user finds the soft­ware, the user has to down­load the soft­ware. Then that user has to install the soft­ware, and then
authen­ti­cate that soft­ware. This is not a virus! A virus uses flaws within the OS, on a basic ker­nel level or other system-level flaw to gain oth­er­wise inac­ces­si­ble access within the OS to cre­ate dam­age. For instance, click­ing on a web­site within Inter­net explorer that has a mali­cious ActiveX con­trol, that because every­thing on a win­dows box (nor­mally) effec­tively runs as Admin­is­tra­tor, gains access to your sys­tem reg­istry and then plays the banjo with your sys­tem as a whole.

Cur­rently, there are 0 “viruses” meet­ing this cri­te­ria for OS/X. There aren’t any on the hori­zon. Yes — there are pieces of Mal­ware — I could write one right now that would har­vest user data from a given OS/X host. I would not be able to access things like Key­chain (for pass­words, etc) with­out prompt­ing the user, but social engi­neer­ing (manip­u­lat­ing users to do some­thing they might not oth­er­wise “want” to do) has never been ter­ri­bly dif­fi­cult. Mal­ware is a risk on every sin­gle com­put­ing plat­form in the wild! Heck, I could com­pile a cus­tom ver­sion of Apache that does very bad things, and dis­trib­ute it for unix systems.

That last state­ment is a bit of an argu­ment for Open-Source, not that any­one has time to sit there and read thou­sands of lines of code — but given that projects like Mozilla can have their dis­tri­b­u­tion “infected” with a virus — the argu­ment stands. (Iron­i­cally enough, the virus that infected the mozilla dist was aimed at — you guessed it — windows!

The biggest risk Mac users face at the end of the day is being a “por­tal” to viruses from other users. For instance, I have Mail.app run­ning right now — my mom could send me an infected file/email from Out­look, and I could in turn pass it onto another user with­out real­iz­ing it — the virus did not affect/infect me — but it might infect a per­son down the chain. This is an argu­ment for server-side virus/email fil­ter­ing. Again — the same thing hap­pens with Linux/Unix
clients.

There was an issue at a pre­vi­ous com­pany where we had a 1.5 TB linux file­server open on the net­work. The server was run­ning NFS and SMB, and every­one in devel­op­ment and QA used this as a dump­ing ground. After two severe virus infec­tions (attack­ing win­dows) in .doc files and Win­dows exe­cuta­bles we had to start scan­ning the shares for infec­tions on a nightly basis. Although we had AV tools installed on all of our work­sta­tions, AV tools some­times don’t play well in a test­ing envi­ron­ment, so our test hosts kept get­ting infected. Joy! Another case of “you ain’t infect­ing the host, just the consumer”.

On one hand, I’m happy about Wil’s bounty offer for 500$ for the first per­son to make a real virus for OS/X — on the other hand, I’m both­ered by the fact it might one day come to pass, even if I truly believe that OS/X inher­ent design won’t allow it.

or-shut-up.html">Mac OS X Viruses: Put Up or Shut Up (part 1) Thank you Wil - I might have disagreed about you're comment about Unit/Functional Testing, but damned if I don't agree with you about the "Mac Virus" thing. I'm sick and tired of explaining to people why Macs in general are more difficult to penetrate, ...