Tomcat Controller for Mac OS X

Folks, if you've installed Apache Tomcat on your Mac OS X machines for deploying webapps, this post will surely interest you. This quick byte is about a free small useful utility - Tomcat Controller, used for starting and stopping Apache Tomcat with a single mouse click.

Once downloaded, install it. Observe that it will add a new PrefPane in the System Preferences. It supports the newer 64-bit machines and older 32-bit machines as well. However, on newer 64-bit machines, am wondering why it closes and reopens the 32-bit System Preferences. Guys, do drop in your comments if you're aware of the reasons why it happens this way.

You simply have to mention the location pointing to the Tomcat instance. The current version 2.1 works like a charm for Tomcat 6 & 7 alike. Just click Start Tomcat Server. This comes in very handy if you have to bounce the server over and over again.

Finally, if you need some help with installing Tomcat & accessing the Tomcat manager, do refer my previous post. Bye.

Disable Google Chrome Notifications on Mac OS X

All Mac OS X users using Google Chrome browser might have recently noticed a new Google Notification icon ( a grey bell ) on the OSX menu bar.

You'll quickly notice that it's settings menu does not provide any intuitive way to exit or disable it.

In order to disable it, do the following :

Open Google Chrome browser.

In address bar, type chrome://flags

Now search for the option "Enable Rich Notifications" and change "Default" to "Disabled" from its drop down menu. Hope it helps.

Oracle Weblogic 12c Installation Guide on Mac OSX

This post will walk you through the installation of Oracle Weblogic Application Server 12c on a Mac OSX machine.

First of all, visit the official Oracle Weblogic download page and download the latest generic version. You would need to create a Oracle ID first. Accept the agreement and start the download. In this example, we would download the Weblogic v12.1.2. The filename in this case is wls_121200.jar

Also, note that the generic version does not come with JVM / JDK for its installation. So make sure, you have Java installed on your machine.

Once downloaded, note the following steps :

Run the following command to initiate the installer

java -d64 -Dspace.detection=true -Xmx1024m -jar wls_121200.jar

This will start the extraction of the wls_121200.jar and also perform some routine system pre-requisite checks. Note the arguments that we passed. The space.detection parameter is set to true to detect available space. Also, the max memory usage size by JVM is set to 1024m i.e 1 GB.

Now, you'll the following installer GUI screens.

In the next screen, you'll see the option to modify or change location of Oracle_Home directory. Leave it to default option if you don't want to modify the location. Click Next.

In the following screen, you have to choose the type of installation. Choose the default option. However, choosing the Complete Installation will also install OPatch and some examples like medrec. 

In next screen, you can see the overall Installation summary. Save the response file if you intend to perform silent installations in the future. Check this link for reference. Click Next.

This will start the installation process. This will take a few minutes. You can observe the overall progress here.

Once the installation is completed, you'll see the following screen. Click Finish. This will initiate the next step - Configuration Wizard.

Below is the welcome screen of the Wizard.

Following is the first screen of the Configuration Wizard. Here you can set the Weblogic Administrator account and define the Parent domain location. Click Next.

In next screen, you'll see the progress of the domain creation.

Now, in the next and final screen, you'll see the Configuration success scene. Here you can check the option to start domain. Leave it unchecked, so that we can start it manually. Click Finish. That's pretty much a plain vanilla installation of Oracle Weblogic server 12c on Mac OSX machines.

In my next post, I'll cover how to start and stop Weblogic 12c and any associated issues related to it.

Info on decryptedFile.dmg - Mac OS X

I've come across many users who get confused or panicked, the moment they see something strange like "decryptedFile.dmg" in the Disk Utility. Well usually, it is the remnants of the last Flash Player install / update that you performed. Seemingly it is a harmless dmg. Although there is a well-known malware named Flashback, which disguises itself as the decryptedFile.dmg.

If you feel like it might be Flashback, check this link for detailed instructions on how to remove it manually. (Your system is clean if you have to jump from steps 1-3-8-9)

If its not the malware, then note these simple instructions for how to remove the harmless dmg from your system :

• Open Disk Utility

• From the left pane, control-click decryptedFile.dmg and choose the eject option

• Again control-click decryptedFile.dmg and choose "Reveal in Finder" option.

• Now, once you see the file in Finder (usually it's located in the sub-folders of /var/folders), delete it using Cmd-delete

Also, refer the following Apple Discussion page for more related content.

Check if a user has root access in Mac OSX

On Mac OSX or any other unix flavor, you can find if a user has root access i.e superuser privileges or not. Open terminal and type the following

Eg:

sudo -l -U ironcladWriter

where the -U switch stands for user name.

If you have root access, you will see the following in the output :

User ironcladWriter may run the following commands on this host:
    (ALL) ALL

If by any chance, you don't know your username, type the following in Terminal :

whoami

Boxer - DOS games emulator for Mac OSX

Ever miss the classic DOS games of the 90's in the Windows era? Well, if you own a Mac, you can still play those classics on your machine.

Remember the first person shooters like Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D or the side strollers like Bio Menace, Dangerous Dave, Prince of Persia, Aladdin or Lion King?

Well if you loved playing the above games, then BOXER is definitely the app for you. Period. Oh and by the way, it has nothing to do with boxing :)

Boxer is a beautiful DOS games emulator for Macs which is basically powered by the DosBox's emulation at its core.

DosBox can be separately installed on Mac, but many users might find it confusing and tricky to install it through Terminal. Boxer saves you those hassles. You don't need the technical expertise to run commands on the command line. All you have to do is download Boxer and the DOS games.

Now, if you're wondering where to find good old DOS games, please check out the following links :

DOS Games Archive

Liberated Games

Good Old Games

DosGames

Here's a quick simple walkthrough to use Boxer :

Once, downloaded simply open it to view the welcome screen.

Then go to any of the above DOS games sites and download the game. It usually might be a zip file.

Unzip it and click "Import a new game".

Now, all you have to do drag and drop the unzipped game folder into the dotted square as seen above. This will initiate the importing process. If the game has Install.exe as its installation program, it will be automatically selected at this stage.

Let's take an example of the Apogee Software's Bio Menace. You'll see the following screen once you drag-n-drop the unzipped folder. 

It will automatically select the Install.exe. You just have to click "Launch Installer". In the next screen you'll see the actual installation process, as it would have happened on a DOS prompt.

In most cases, you just have to follow the default steps in general, to proceed with the installation.

The screen below shows that the games has been imported successfully and is ready to be played on your Mac.

At this stage, you can drag and drop any image or cover art for the game, to make it look attractive and identifiable on your game shelf. 

Now, click "Launch Game". Sit back, relax and start playing :)

This emulator is similar to the Wine wrapper used to play Windows games on Mac OSX or Linux. 

Also, if you click the Display tab in Boxer's preferences, you choose the type of rendering style as seen below. 

Ok guys, am sipping on some Pepsi before the action begins. It's time to play Snake Logan and start shooting the dirty filthy alien monsters. Aaaaah I so feel like it's the 90's again :)

Bbye !

Hardcode subtitles using Handbrake - Apple OSX

If you're a movie buff like me and watch a lot of non-english, foreign language movies, you must be coming across the headache to find english subtitles.

Although you can google and download the subtitles file ( .srt files ), it can be quite convenient to permanently hardcode the subtitles to the video. A very good app to do so is known as Handbrake

Although the main purpose of Handbrake is to transcode video into different formats, it is also useful to hardcode a .srt file to a video.

A sample screenshot is shown below :

As you see, you can simply choose a video by clicking Source. Then click the subtitles tab at bottom and click "Add External SRT" to choose the .srt file.

Once selected, just choose the Output format and click Start to encode. After it's done, you see a funny popup like this :)

Free up memory (RAM) in Mac OSX

While using Mac OSX at times you feel may some application is eating up too much memory, whereby the system performs too slowly. If you observe any noticeable lag in the performance, chances are a lot of memory RAM is being used up and the free RAM is too low.

In such a case, open the Terminal and type the following:

purge

This will free up a lot of used or inactive RAM.

In fact in order to check the exact figures, open the Activity Monitor from the Utilities. Then click the System Memory tab from bottom. Compare the figures of Used and Free Memory before and after running the purge command. You'll see that the Free Memory stats shoot up drastically, thereby improving the performance.

Show file extensions in Mac OSX

People new to Mac OSX often ask how do I see a file's extension, since by default the extensions are hidden. In order to view the extensions, do the following:

• Open any finder window or just click anywhere on the desktop.

• From the topmost Finder menu, click Preferences.

• Click the Advanced tab in the Finder Preferences.

• Tick mark the "Show all filename extensions" 

Safari 6 for OSX Lion - Buggy, Problematic

Why why why Apple did you "upgrade" Safari to actually downgrade it??

Safari v5.x was so nice previously and worked so smoothly.

Ever since its upgraded to v.6.1.1 on my OSX 10.7.5, its performance has sharply downgraded. It stops responding on certain websites. It eats up big chunks of memory. 

The previous cinematic most-visited Top Sites page was so tasteful than the now-simplified straight lines rectangular crap.

When you toggle between windowed and fullscreen, Safari usually tends to hang or stop working or you see the spinning wheel running forever.

Why have you changed the Bookmarks section? Previously it was so organized and helpful with the screenflow. Damn you apple and your android-y simple designs. 

Safari these days is so irritating, I've switched to Chrome for good.

For simple designs customers should buy cheap chromebooks, why the premium Apple should stoop down to cheapo level? Bring back the zing, the color than using the current stupid simplistic designs... End of rant

OSX - Indian Rupee Symbol

For Indian users using, Mac OSX, here's a quick tip for saving the Indian Rupee ₹ symbol as a shortcut.

1. Go to System Preferences -> Language & Text
2. Then click the Text tab next to language
3. Click the + button from bottom to add a new shortcut
4. Type (INR or inr or Rs) under the Replace column and type the equivalent ₹ symbol under the With column

Check the following screenshot for reference

Now open up TextEdit and type INR and it will automatically replace it with the ₹ symbol.

Shell Scripting : The Shebang

People who are new to shell scripting or are new to it often hear the term "shebang". If you're one of them, then you might have seen the shebang symbol in the topmost line in any shell script but maybe you're not sure what it means or what's its significance.

The symbol #!  i.e shebang is part of the topmost statement of a shell script which is used to tell which interpreter you'll be using.

Eg:

#!/usr/bin/bash  (Bash interpreter)

#!/usr/local/perl   (invokes the Perl interpreter)

#!//usr/bin/ksh (Korn shell interpreter)

#!/usr/bin/awk   (use the AWK interpreter)

OSX Terminal Clear Screen

A lot of pro Windows users when switching to a Mac, often find it difficult to get rid of their old habits.

One of those habits happen to be clear screen (CLS) in the DOS prompt. But on a Mac, when you fire up a terminal window and type a few commands, you usually tend to type CLS later to clear the clutter. And you are are like Oh boy! how in the world do I clear the screen? :) when you see the error [ -bash: cls: command not found ]

Here's a quick tip: Just remember to type Command+K to clear the screen.

Macbook Pro Battery Tips

• Macbook Pro is one of the few laptops that have had the best battery performance in my opinion. Having used Dell and HP laptops loaded with Windows OS, in the past, it was evident how quickly the battery runs out of juice. Macbook Pro's on the other hand has had really good battery performance. I've heard that the Macbook Air has much better battery performance.

• However, ever since Apple released the OSX Mavericks free upgrade, a lot of users have complained about battery issues. Infact the hullabaloo about battery issues is so loud, that I've refrained from upgrading to Mavericks even if it's free. As a matter of fact, if you see the 200+ feature list for the upgrade, you'll notice that a majority of 'new' features are useless. So instead, I just upgraded the Safari browser along with the other regular app updates. However, ever since Safari was updated to v6.1 even my battery drains out quite fast. I have a feeling that the Safari browser is a lot buggier than its previous versions and tends to max out the CPU and memory consumption - thereby draining out battery much faster.

• Inorder to keep a track on the battery shelf life I've started to use an app called Coconut Battery. Its a small little utility to monitor the battery statistics. One good feature I liked about it is you can save data on various dates and keep a track on the charge cycles. My 15" MBP is more than 2 yrs old and has had close to 200 cycles by now. As per Apple's support article, my model supports a max cycle count of 1000.

• I also read somewhere that the battery performance usually gets deteriorated due to overheating. Overheating happens when you run multiple apps which use system resources heavily. So it would help to keep a check on the battery temperatures as well. Deteriorating batteries tend to bloat and bulge thereby affecting the internals. You can check some apple discusiion forums about the same here.

• You can also calibrate the battery by going powerless once in a while and allow the battery to completely drain out. Then let the laptop cool for some time. Once cooled down, plugin the power cord and restart again.