Pressing F5

Changing resolution of your Ubuntu Server command line in VMWare Fusion

Ben Haines — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:29:52 +0000

UPDATE: I’ve since been told this doesn’t work for all users. I’ve done a bit more searching and the easiest solution is to simply use Mac OSX Terminal at full screen :)

————————————

Once again I find myself blogging about something that took way too long to solve. If you want to change the console / cli / command line resolution of your Ubuntu Server running in VMWare Fusion then this is what you need to do:

Edit the grub template file:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Add the desired resolution from the table below to the file:

    | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024
----+-------------------------------------
256 |  0x301    0x303    0x305    0x307
32k |  0x310    0x313    0x316    0x319
64k |  0x311    0x314    0x317    0x31A
16M |  0x312    0x315    0x318    0x31B

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE="vga=0x317"

Trigger an update to all the grub config files by issuing the following:

sudo update-grub

Check it works :)

sudo reboot

You will get a message saying that “vga=” has been depreciated and that you should use GFXPAYLOAD instead. Unfortunately you cannot easily add that param to your /etc/default/grub file without changing a whole bunch of other stuff.

See here for more information:

Link 1

Link 2

Add colours to your bash terminal in Mac OSX

Ben Haines — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:34:43 +0000

Thanks to the following post I have found out how to add helpful colours to directories and executable files in bash / terminal.

Add the following lines to your .bash_profile file in your home directory. Voila.

export CLICOLOR=1
export TERM=xterm-color

BMW F800GS service repair manual download

Ben Haines — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:24:32 +0000

Now a proud owner of a BMW F800GS motorbike I’ve been trying to find information about BMW’s service or repair manuals for the the bike. Truth is, unlike other manufacturer they don’t make them readily available. Instead they seem to charge owners for them and will ship the information on a CD or DVD. I guess the alternative is a Haynes manual :)

Unwilling to give up I eventually found a copy of the CD / DVD on a torrent search engine here.

NOTE: I haven’t downloaded the manual, therefore I cannot confirm that it is the actual manual. Also remember that this information is likely to be the copyright of BMW and by downloading it you will in all likeliness be breaking some law (I’m no lawyer!!).

Good luck servicing your F800GS.

NetBeans, Apache, PHP, XDebug and Symfony on Mac OSX… easy!

Ben Haines — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:28:28 +0000

Six months ago I tried to get Apache, PHP, MySQL and Symfony on my Mac OSX build, so that I could avoid using a CentOS based dev environment I was running in VMWare Fusion. After weeks of struggling with compiling apache, php and mysql I gave up and stuck with CentOS Linux.

Today I stumbled across the following two tutorials as a result of switching to the NetBeans IDE for my php development work. In short, using the free version of MAMP and by following the steps described in the second tutorial you can be up and running with Symfony dev environment on your Mac. ;)

How to install MAMP, XDebug and configure both with NetBeans IDE – http://www.netbeans.org/
How to install Symfony on Mac OSX with the help of MAMP – http://www.tech-recipes.com/

Happy coding!

Symfony Checklist – what to check before your application goes live

Ben Haines — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:45:41 +0000

Fabien tweeted about this moments ago. The generous folks at UI Studio have put together a helpful checklist that every symfony developer should work through before launching an application.

Checks include:

Custom 404 and other error/maintenance pages
Security related
PHP configuration
User experience

Check it out at http://symfony-check.org

Want to add FLV support to QuickLook in Mac OSX?

Ben Haines — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:24:27 +0000

My answer to this questions was a big YES! Dug around the Internet and found the homepage of XDD(?).

http://homepage.mac.com/xdd/

In addition to his/her cool FLV QuickLook plugin he/she has also created a Folder and Archive plugin for QuickLook.

Download and install Perian
Simply drop the .qlgenerator file into “/Library/QuickLook”
Type “killall Finder” on the command line in a terminal window (if you don’t know what this is simply reboot)
Browse some .FLV files in Finder and you should be able to hit spacebar to bring up QuickLook – Voila!

My thanks go to XDD ;)

Missing you all!

Ben Haines — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:46:39 +0000

“Good morning Vietnam” … or rather “Good evening Vietnam”

My Vitriol – Simply awesome!

Ben Haines — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:36:27 +0000

My Vitriol were simply amazing. What more can I say!? Playing at the ULU My Vitriol rocked the house, after all it has been over a year since they played a proper gig (excluding festivals).

Rock on ;)

Free ID3 editor for Mac OSX / Apple

Ben Haines — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:59:14 +0000

Just in case you are looking for a free ID3 editor for Mac OSX / Apple. I stumbled across Musorg today… a cracking simple little ID3 editor that is completely free.

http://peippo.eu/musorg/

Another one to add to the list of great free Mac OSX apps ;)

When companies just don’t think – Toyota turns down free advertising

Ben Haines — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:12:56 +0000

It seems Toyota, although they aren’t the first, just haven’t thought things through. Rather than let their customers have images sporting Toyota cars on the desktops of their PCs and Laptops, they have chosen issue a blanket DMCA notice to Desktop Nexus asking them to take down every desktop wallpaper featuring a Toyota car.

A great way of turning fans/customers against you. Well done Toyota.