OSX on Lantean

Superpowers

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:12:02 +0000

I've been avoiding this Claude plugin, as ... it's just a bunch of text files, and I didn't even consider it'd be useful.

Well, I was wrong.

https://github.com/obra/superpowers

How is it helping me?

/add-dir lets you tell Claude it’s okay to access multiple folders (think of sub-components)
It automatically spawns single purpose agents, which helps with the context collapse problem
And it really guides you thru brainstorming, making a plan (and saving it to disk), executing, and committing in slices

Scary good stuff eh! 🤔

It’s Flat!

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 22:29:45 +0000

iTerm2 Settings

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 10:03:38 +0000

I've been using iTerm2 for few years, and everytime I need to setup a new install... I find myself looking up how to properly set it up.

So... about time to write this post! My settings would be...

Settings > Appearance > General > Theme
- Set to Minimal
Settings > Profiles > Default
- Colors
  - Defaults: Background to pitch black
- Window
  - Transparency set to 20%
- Keys > General
  - Left Option key: Esc +
  - This enables Option + Backspace to delete words
- Keys > Key Bindings: New Shortcut for Option ←
  - Send Escape Sequence
  - Esc+ b
- Keys > Key Bindings: New Shortcut for Option →
  - Send Escape Sequence
  - Esc+ f
Settings > Advanced > Session
- Disable Session Restoration
- Disable When restoring a session (…) draw a banner saying Session Contents Restored
Settings > Advanced
- Disable Restore window contents at startup

Looks somehow like this:

Thank you, A8C!!

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 19:15:24 +0000

🫡

Induction

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 23:13:20 +0000

You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you.

From now on, you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You will not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter.

You're a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu, and dismissed just as quickly.

Italian WWDC!

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 05:34:34 +0000

Fixing my Apple Studio Display

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:30:40 +0000

Almost two months ago, my Apple Studio Display started malfunctioning. It worsened up to the point it became unusable.

At first, it started loosing video signal intermittently (you'd hear the "unplugged" macOS sound). I've noticed that if I hooked up my MacBook Pro directly to wall power, I could get around this.

Unfortunately, over few weeks, it stopped working altogether, without further notice.

Since I live in Mars, there's no official Apple Store here, and the premium resellers mentioned it'd take months to get the spare parts (and the cost would be the same as a new display), I've decided to fix it myself.

Imminent!

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:22:44 +0000

Stressful Day

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 15:03:09 +0000

v60 @ Liverpool

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 16:39:03 +0000

Never, Ever Do This!

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 10:00:26 +0000

I do realize it's an old article... but... still, brutally eye opening. Also... is this why Netscape fell? wooooooooow

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/

Barcelona =)

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 12:31:45 +0000

Run!

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 23:11:14 +0000

Farewell, Productivity :|

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 19:53:18 +0000

Quake, Doom, Catacomb, GTA. Right there, in your browser.

Oh. Did anyone say Prince of Persia?

Farewell, Gmail

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 23:12:32 +0000

I started using Gmail around 2004, when it was invite only. I remember the UX being insanely fast (it was hard to believe it was just a web app!).

At some point in that decade, Google introduced Apps, free to everyone. It allowed you to use Gmail along with your custom domain. (Wow!)

At the time, I was a student, and loved everything Google. So immediately jumped in.

Years passed by, things happened...

Under / Overestimation

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:09:50 +0000

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.”
Bill Gates Axiome

La boqueria

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 12:04:03 +0000

Smile =)

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 18:40:08 +0000

Manifesto

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 09:41:31 +0000

I've been thinking about this text lately. This one goes to a friend, who happens to love the Hackers movie 🤟

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

 Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.

 I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

 +++The Mentor+++

Fixing "MACHINE CHECK ERROR"

Thu, 06 May 2021 00:58:21 +0000

If you're running Windows 10 on a Macbook Pro 2013 (Early), and constantly stumble upon an awesome Machine Check Error screen whenever you reboot, you shoooould try:

Open the device manager
Locate you GeForce GT 650M
Uninstall the 2017 Driver
Reboot
Let Windows install the system’s driver

For the record, this is the driver you'd want:

Manual Symbolication

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 20:23:51 +0000

I keep loosing this snippet, over an over, apparelty.

If you ever need to symbolicate (manually) a memory address, you'll just need the dSYM file:

xcrun atos -l LOAD_ADDRESS SYMBOL_ADDRESS -o dSYMs/APP-NAME.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/APP-NAME

🔥🔥🔥

NSPredicate: Filter multiple entity kinds

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:53:44 +0000

let predicate = NSCompoundPredicate(orPredicateWithSubpredicates: [

 NSCompoundPredicate(andPredicateWithSubpredicates: [
 NSPredicate(format: "entity = %@", Note.entity()),
 NSPredicate(format: "content CONTAINS[cd] %@", "1")
 ]),
 
 NSCompoundPredicate(andPredicateWithSubpredicates: [
 NSPredicate(format: "entity = %@", Tag.entity()),
 NSPredicate(format: "name CONTAINS[c] %@", "tag")
 ])
])

Now, this yields another problem: there is no API to limit the number of entities to fetch "per group".

If you do need this feature, you're probably better of with multiple NSFetchRequest(s).

Fixing Macbook Brightness Keys in Windows 10

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 14:43:27 +0000

Scenario: You've installed Bootcamp on your mac (shame on you), AND updated AMD's graphic cards, to deal with stability issues.

If, for some reason, your MacBook's special keys (Brightness, Volume, etc) stop working:

Boot into your macOS partition
Open BootCamp Assistant
Click over Action > Download Windows Support Software
Save the package to a flashdrive
Boot back into Windows
Run BootCamp > Drivers > Apple > AppleKeyboardInstaller64
Reboot
Think closely, why, in the name of Satan, you’d need Windows

Embedding NSTokenField inside NSScrollView

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 15:59:12 +0000

In order to get NSTokenField (or NSTextField) play well with a ScrollView, you should:

Pin the fixed edges (in my case: Top / Bottom / Left)
Leave alone the edges that can grow (again, in my case: Right)
Set a placeholder Intrinsic Size, to keep IB happy
Override intrinsicContentSize

Notes:

Pinning the TokenField to every single edge simply causes the container view to assume the actual TokenField’s size (and thus, kills the scrolling behavior).
Sample code available here!

Fixing "application is damaged, can’t be used to install macOS" Error

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 15:08:02 +0000

This error, thrown while trying to install an old macOS version (probably in a VM!) is caused by an expired certificate.

Good news is: this can be fixed, by deleting a file within the installer itself:

Right click on the Installer XXX.dmg
Click over Show Package Contents
Open Contents > Shared Support
Nuke InstallInfo.plist

🔥

First Postcard (Ever!!)

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 01:51:24 +0000

In roughly 35 years (wow I’m a bit old!!) I never ever got a postcard. Up until today!!

Thank you Thuy, this is an AMAZING gift. Will live on my desk from now on! ❤️

Baby Birds!

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 12:48:17 +0000

Coffee I Need

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 11:33:11 +0000

You just....

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 22:18:09 +0000

500

Sun, 24 Mar 2019 12:26:13 +0000

This happened yesterday. On the freeway. Definitely a close one

Switching t2.micro > t3.micro

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 23:08:17 +0000

Okay… incoming boring post, so that i don't go insane searching for this.

A. Verify you've got ena support:

[ec2-user ~]$ modinfo ena
filename: /lib/modules/4.14.33-59.37.amzn2.x86_64/kernel/drivers/amazon/net/ena/ena.ko
version: 1.5.0g
(...)

B. Install AWS CLI

C. Figure out your instance ID:

$ aws ec2 describe-instances

C. Verify the current status of EnaSupport:

$ aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids INSTANCE_ID --query "Reservations[].Instances[].EnaSupport"

D. At this point you should probably stop the instance!

E. Enable ENA

$ aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id INSTANCE_ID --ena-support

F. Verify it all went well:

Fixing my KitchenAid Fridge!

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 12:57:59 +0000

This post is… pretty much, a note for my future self. I own a KitchenAid fridge (late 2006: KBLC36FMS), and thing is, it started constantly beeping.

Nope. It’s not the door’s sensor. It’s not the water filter either. Odds are: the compressor is unable to start.

Diagnose Mode

Push for 3 seconds both, the Reset Filter Percent and Power, and the fridge will get into diagnose mode.

There are two numeric displays in the fridge, and… this handy table will help you read the status of each one of the components.

Brotherhood

Sun, 13 Jan 2019 14:44:48 +0000

Raw. Untamed Power

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 23:13:35 +0000

NginX: Self Signed SSL

Fri, 18 May 2018 10:24:10 +0000

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout selfsigned.key -out selfsigned.crt

Detaching subdirectory into it's own GIT repository

Fri, 18 May 2018 09:50:36 +0000

Move folder to it’s own branch

git subtree split -P name-of-folder -b name-of-new-branch

Initialize the new Repository

git checkout new-repository-url
git pull path-to-big-repository name-of-new-branch

And that’s it, pretty much!

Real Life PORG!!

Sun, 25 Mar 2018 08:57:01 +0000

Stabby.Today

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 14:43:32 +0000

Burning Kali in macOS High Sierra!

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 22:05:27 +0000

To my future self: this is how you can ‘burn’ an ISO file into a flashdrive, so that it’s bootable!

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o destination.img kali-linux-2017.2-amd64.iso 
diskutil list
diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 1 "Free Space" "unused" "100%"
sudo dd if=destination.img.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
diskutil eject /dev/disk2

macOS: Format as FAT32

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 19:18:32 +0000

Find the device path:

diskutil list

Format as FAT32:

sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 NAME MBRFormat /dev/disk2

Thanks Apple, for having FAT32 as an option in the Disk Utility app. It’s so much nicer than having to remember a CLI command.</sarcasm>

Disabling Num Lock on startup (or why Windows makes me sick)

Thu, 04 May 2017 10:25:35 +0000

Launch Regedit
HKEY_USERS\Default\Control Panel\Keyboard
Set InitialKeyboardIndicators to Zero

Now, next time you boot… your beautiful small keyboard won’t have Num Lock enabled by default, AND you should be able to enter your password without further issues.

Spotify: Multiuser Issues

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 19:30:53 +0000

I've recently hit an annoying issue: if you share your mac with, say, your brother... you'll figure out that Spotify will only work in one of the two accounts.

It doesn't really matter if you actually have two seats or not. It won't run at all.

Solution?. As ever... bash and...

cd /Applications
sudo chmod -R 755 Spotify.app/

Let's Encrypt + Amazon AMI

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 15:05:46 +0000

Download certbot

$ wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto
$ chmod a+x certbot-auto

Generate Certificates

sudo ./certbot-auto --debug -v --server https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory certonly -d YOUR_WEBSITE_HERE

Auto Renew Script:

sudo crontab -e
0 1,13 * * * /home/ec2-user/certbot-auto renew

Source Here

LLDB + Xcode 8 Kung Fu

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 10:34:54 +0000

Printing Arrays

parray number pointer
poarray number pointer

Reading Method Parameters

register read $arg1 $arg2
memory read $arg1

Printing Objects in Swift

expr -O --language objc -- 0x1003183e0

Disassembling the current frame

disassemble --frame

Module Image

image list ModuleName

UIStackView inside UISScrollView

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 16:40:48 +0000

Disable tAMIC

scrollView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
stackView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false

Pin the ScrollView

NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
 scrollView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: leadingAnchor),
 scrollView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: trailingAnchor),
 scrollView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: topAnchor),
 scrollView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: bottomAnchor)
 ])

Pin the StackView to the ScrollView corners. Include minimum width + padding:

let padding = CGFloat(10)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
 stackView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: scrollView.leadingAnchor, constant: padding),
 stackView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: scrollView.trailingAnchor, constant: -padding),
 stackView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: scrollView.topAnchor),
 stackView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: scrollView.bottomAnchor),
 stackView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: scrollView.heightAnchor),
 stackView.widthAnchor.constraint(greaterThanOrEqualTo: scrollView.widthAnchor, constant: -2 * padding)
])

Evilness!

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 15:14:04 +0000

Cupertino rules the world. Clearly.

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 06:14:12 +0000

Could this be the result of... an alien intervention.?

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 06:09:55 +0000

Dude... where's my GPU?

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 17:43:03 +0000

macOS Sierra. As stable as ever.

Thank you, Cupertino. Love ya!

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f9375ebce): "GPU Panic: [<None>] 4 0 20 0 0 8 6 3 : UH eAWAVAUATSHl(: GPU is not found. PCI config access fails!!!
\n"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/AppleGraphicsControl/AppleGraphicsControl-3.13.74/src/AppleMuxControl/kext/GPUPanic.cpp:127

Until the Beginning and End...

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 16:14:46 +0000

… blur into something called… Until we Meet Again (…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVUl-b2Stk

Profiling: Swift Compile Time

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 19:04:00 +0000

xcodebuild -scheme TARGET clean build OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS="-Xfrontend -debug-time-function-bodies" | grep .[0-9]ms | grep -v ^0.[0-9]ms | sort -nr > culprits.txt

Reference Here

Xcode 8: Disabling Networking Logs

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 18:27:25 +0000

Xcode 8 seems to be printing, for whatever reason, lots and lots of extra debug information. We can shut it down by means of an environment variable:

OS_ACTIVITY_MODE = disable

Reference Here

Kali Bootable FlashDrive + Mac

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:44:05 +0000

Long story short… this is how i managed to get a bootable Kali flash drive:

Make sure the Flash Drive is partitioned with the Master Boot Record DiskUtility Option.
Kali’s ddcommand didn’t do the trick for me. Instead, i’ve used this tool.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear...

WWDC 2016

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 16:17:36 +0000

This was a VERY unusual WWDC. One of my best friends was actually one of the Apple engineers that imparted sessions.

There is no way things could be more awesome… Right?

I’ve got nearly 45 sessions in my download queue, which will definitely take a while to go through. So far, I’ve got few highlights:

The new Foundation is immutability friendly.
Xcode got violently powerful with memory graphs.
There is no way a single human could absorb everything that was published.
Same as above.
Apple Filesystem has copy on write capabilities, which will make my life easier.

Removing Cocoapods Integration

Wed, 11 May 2016 10:47:54 +0000

I’ve recently stumbled upon a huge Cocoapods annoyance. By recently i mean: 5 minutes ago. And by annoyance i mean: i’ve been struggling with this for an hour.

After switching over to CocoaPods 1.0, i began getting the following error:

ld: library not found for -lPods

Luckily, my friend Aaron shared this dark knowledge:

sudo gem install cocoapods-deintegrate
pod deintegrate
pod install

Thanks Aaron. Seriously. Thank you.

Evil Engineering

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 09:10:49 +0000

IPTables: Blocking your favorite Brute Force Attacker

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 12:08:45 +0000

If you happen to detect a bruteforce attack on your self-hosted WP instance, this would be the IPTables syntax to block it:

iptables -A INPUT -s 119.81.130.34 -j DROP

Whenever you miss the attacker, and you’re ready to unblock, you may just type:

iptables -D INPUT -s 119.81.130.34 -j DROP

Hope this helps!

ARC: weakSelf Caveats

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 12:13:40 +0000

Here’s an interesting ARC scenario. Consider the following snippet:

__weak __typeof(self) weakSelf = self;
int64_t delay = (int64_t)(0.1 * NSEC_PER_SEC);
dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, delay), dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
 [weakSelf doSomething];
});

Whenever the block gets executed… weakSelf might have a valid reference, or not. Right?. Now, what happens with the following snippet?

__weak __typeof(self) weakSelf = self;
int64_t delay = (int64_t)(0.1 * NSEC_PER_SEC);
dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, delay), dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
 [weakSelf doSomething];
 [weakSelf doSomethingElse];
});

This is where it gets interesting!. There’s a possibility that doSomething might get executed, while doSomethingElse might not.

Network Link Conditioner

Sat, 14 Nov 2015 15:11:43 +0000

We’ve all known, for quite some time, about the existance of the NLC tool: it’s used during iOS App Testing, under bad network conditions.

However… i’ve (recently.. cough… cough…) realized that this tool can also help you cap OS X bandwith. This is specially useful when downloading the latest Xcode, and you don’t wanna kill the entire connection, just with that.

You can find the Network Link Conditioner in Apple’s Developers Portal, inside the Hardware IO Tools for Xcode package.

VMWare Fusion: Shrinking OSX Image

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 19:40:18 +0000

If you’re using VMWare Fusion for OSX, and you’ve got few images of older OSX releases, odds are you might have over-alloc’ed the disk space… you can never know how much it’s really gonna be required!

Steps to fix this are:

Launch the OSX image that requires shrinking
Open Disk Utility App
Pick the Disk, click over the Partition tab, and reduce the partition’s size, as much as possible
Shutdown the Virtual Machine

Once ready, you’ll need to locate the VMDK file of your image: it can be found inside the Image.vmwarevm bundle.

Swift: Unit Testing

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 16:50:49 +0000

I’ve recently stumbled upon severe issues, while trying to write a Unit Test, in Swift, that would access Swift Code that belongs to the main app.

Contrary to what ~~almost~~ everyone mentions, you should not import the Main App’s files into the Testing target.

Instead, this is what you should do:

Enable Defines Module in the main target.
Add an import at the top of the Unit Test, to make the main project visible.
Make sure that the classes to be tested are set to public.

Reference Here!

Fixing Violent OSX GPU Crashes

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 11:33:21 +0000

I’ve been experiencing, for months and months, quite violent OSX crashes, attributed to the GPU.

My awesome friend Dennis suggested me to try disabling Integrated <> Discrete GPU switching. And guess what? i’ve been crash free for almost two weeks.

I’m just documenting right here what has to be done, for future reference. Just uncheck this Energy Preference. I’ve been told that the exact string for the checkmark might look different across the latest Yosemite releases, but the setting should still be lurking there:

The truth... is out there!

Tue, 24 Mar 2015 21:42:18 +0000

Best news i’ve read… in quite some time!

Removing local git branches that aren't in the remote repository

Thu, 12 Mar 2015 10:48:38 +0000

New trick of the day. If you wanna cleanup your local git branches that were already merged, you could use this bash alias:

alias git_cleanup='git branch --merged develop | grep -Ev "(master|release|hotfix|develop)" | xargs git branch -d'

Props to Nick + Maxime!

Fish Shell

Fri, 02 Jan 2015 11:01:29 +0000

Installing Fish:

brew install fish

Displaying the branch name in the prompt:

Place the following script here: ~/.config/fish/config.fish

set fish_git_dirty_color red
set fish_git_not_dirty_color green

function parse_git_branch
 set -l branch (git branch 2> /dev/null | grep -e '\* ' | sed 's/^..\(.*\)/\1/')
 set -l git_diff (git diff)

 if test -n "$git_diff"
 echo (set_color $fish_git_dirty_color)$branch(set_color normal)
 else
 echo (set_color $fish_git_not_dirty_color)$branch(set_color normal)
 end
end

function fish_prompt
 if test -d .git
 printf '%s@%s %s%s%s:%s> ' (whoami) (hostname|cut -d . -f 1) (set_color $fish_color_cwd) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal) (parse_git_branch)
 else
 printf '%s@%s %s%s%s> ' (whoami) (hostname|cut -d . -f 1) (set_color $fish_color_cwd) (prompt_pwd) (set_color normal)
 end
end

Reference here (Thanks for sharing the snippet!)

Fixing: StatusBar covering your UIViewController's view

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:52:48 +0000

Ever since iOS 7, if you’re not using a UINavigationController instance, you’ll need to perform a very simple step, in order to prevent iOS’s StatusBar from covering your view:

Press Control, click over the “Top Layout Guide”, and drag it upon the troublesome view.
You’ll get a small popup. Please, click on “Vertical Spacing”.
Edit the new constraint, and update the Constant value, as needed.

Reference here!

CoreData HeavyWeight Migration Issues

Sat, 25 Oct 2014 10:45:36 +0000

We recently hit a pretty severe bug. In one of our apps, users began experiencing token issues after an upgrade.

Bottomline?… the last upgrade had a Heavyweight migration. So far so good, but what happened?. Turns out that the URIRepresentation that can be used to map a NSManagedObjectID, is and is not reliable. Everything is okay, until you perform a heavyweight migration!.

Heavyweight migrations might swizzle your NSManagedObjectID’s. Fix?, create your own primaryKeys. NSUUID helper class is the easiest way to accomplish that.

Loading SecCertificateRef from PEM String

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 17:05:49 +0000

In order to load a PEM certificate, you’d probably wanna grab the PEM itself from your backend, right?.

You can do so, by means of this command:

openssl s_client -showcerts -host host.com -port 443

Once you’ve got the certificate, you should get rid of the Begin/End Certificate substrings.

Cocoa Snippet itself is quite easy:

NSData *rawCertificate = [[NSData alloc] initWithBase64Encoding:PlaintextCertificateString];
SecCertificateRef parsedCertificate = SecCertificateCreateWithData(NULL, (__bridge CFDataRef)rawCertificate);

That’s it. Don’t forget about checking expiration dates. Unfortunately, Apple’s API to do so is private, and i personally refuse to build OpenSSL into my app, just to check that.

Codesign Check

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 10:38:28 +0000

Keychain access for iOS apps is tied up to the provisioning profile you use to sign the binary. So, what happens if you release a new build, signed using a different provisioning profile?.

Yes! your guess is accurate!. You loose access to anything you’ve stored in the keychain, resulting in (probably) deauthentication.

There is a command that allows you to verify the “Keychain Access Group” for a given executable. By means of this, you’ll be able to verify if your new release will have the same access than your previous build (assuming you also have that binary!).

Pure.Awesomeness.

Mon, 07 Apr 2014 23:03:07 +0000

Repairing CocoaPods Broken Repository

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:02:32 +0000

It seems that CocoaPods fellows had an issue with libgit, and their public repository broke down.

In order to fix it, you’ll need to….

pod repo remove master
pod setup

Fixing '"A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer" Alert

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 10:23:39 +0000

I’ve just got a nice alert, while trying to install a Mac App from the AppStore, saying the following:

"A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer."

Solutions?

Nuke the app’s Xcode build folder. Location: ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/
Execute the following command: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Now you should be good to go!

Sparkle in Sandbox Mode

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 22:48:24 +0000

If you're trying to distribute updates for your OSX app, outside the AppStore, still, with the AppSandbox enabled, you've come to the right place.

In the official Sparkle repository, you can find this pull request. Since it hasn't been updated in a while, and the settings were fixed for OSX Lion, i've just forked the pull request, and pushed a couple fixes here.

Allright, so, how should you proceed?

Clone the repository!
Open the Build Phases of your target and…
1. Add Sparkle.framework as a dependency
2. Link Sparkle.framework library
3. Copy Sparkle.framework to ‘Frameworks’
If you’ve done things right, your ‘Build Phases’ tab should look something like this:

Hawaiian Awesomeness

Sat, 25 Jan 2014 18:51:24 +0000

I’ve been lucky enough to spend a couple days with several friend in Oahu island. Let me just say this: Hawaii is awesome.

During january, when it’s supposed to be winter, the water temperature is perfect pitch. Wifi is great, and the food is super tasty, not sure why, yet.

Next time… Maui maybe?

Generating a Mac Iconset

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:06:24 +0000

You’ll need to create PNG assets with the following sizes and filenames:

icon_16x16.png
icon_16x16@2x.png
icon_32x32.png
icon_32x32@2x.png
icon_128x128.png
icon_128x128@2x.png
icon_256x256.png
icon_256x256@2x.png
icon_512x512.png
icon_512x512@2x.png

All of those assets should go into a folder named ‘Icon.iconset’. Afterwards, just fire Terminal and type the following command:

iconutil -c icns

If all went well, you should have a .icns file right there!.

Reference: Apple’s Guidelines.

Removing "@2x" substring from files

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 15:17:54 +0000

If you’re reading this, probably… it’s because the Art Designers of your team just sent you a bunch of SD assets, with the @2x substring… and you don’t wanna spend the next 30 minutes cleaning that up… right?

If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place. Fire Terminal, open the containing folder, and type the following:

find . -type f -name "*@2x*" -exec sh -c 'echo mv "$0" "${0/@2x/}"' '{}' \;

Note: you might have just noticed that this will actually echo the replacement. That's for safety. Validate the output, and proceed removing the 'echo' command call.

Fixing Codesign Issues with Helper Apps

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:15:40 +0000

I’ve been getting “Invalid binary” errors, while trying to upload a binary to the AppStore. The solution can be found in stackoverflow, i’m just pasting it here, for future reference…

1. Re-Codesign the Helper app from terminal:

codesign -f -s "3rd Party mac Developer Application:" -i "com.bundle.YOUR.HELPER" --entitlements path/to/helper/entitlements YOUR-HELPER.app

2.   Remove provisioning profile from Helper app, adding a “Run script” into the “Build Phases”:

rm "${BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR}/${PRODUCT_NAME}.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/YOUR-HELPER.app/Contents/embedded.provisionprofile"

After this, i managed to upload the binary!

OSX: Fixing SSH hangs!

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:41:46 +0000

This glitch is pretty annoying. You’re following a log, while connected to a server (through ssh), and after a while, your ssh connection hangs. The solution?.

Fire up Terminal, and type the following: nano ~/.ssh/config

Once there, fill up the following:

ServerAliveInterval 300
ServerAliveCountMax 120

That should keep your connection alive for the next 10 hours, without further issues.

Fixing SVN hangs on OSX

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:02:23 +0000

I’m writing this, right here, so i know where to pick it up next time i get the same issue. Thanks to Jonathan, who wrote this awesome post, and saved me quite a lot of time.

Long short story, it seems there is a buggy library on OSX, that produces broken SSL connections to hang for quite some time. Workaround?

sudo port install neon

That should upgrade the faulty library, and fix this annoying issue.

Install Lynx on Max OSX

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:05:33 +0000

This task is pretty straightforward. At least if you already’ve got MacPorts installed. (If you don’t have macports, please, head on to this website and get it, it’s extremely useful to geeky users).

Let’s proceed.!. Open a Terminal window, and type the following command

sudo port install lynx

That’d be all. To test Lynx, type the following:

lynx www.lantean.co

If everything went fine, you should see something like this:

Howto Uninstall Flash Player from a Mac

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:26:28 +0000

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably aware of the dangers of Flash Player. And you’ve read, most probably, about the last couple of viruses / penetrations to Facebook and Google.

Steve Jobs hated Adobe Flash… personally, i say he had a very good reason. If wasn’t, probably, just because Adobe refused (at first) to publish its suite for Mac. He knew that it was troublesome… so… let’s proceed removing that junk from our system!.

Mac NTFS support

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:19:00 +0000

Ahhhhh… you need to mount a friend’s pendrive… or you have an external HD with a Windows partition, and you’ve just realized you need to add your Mac NTFS support?.

You came to the right place!. Yes, there are a couple paid options… like tuxera and paragon. Both of them are good options, but they cost a couple dollars. And… we just wanna read a couple files… we’re not gonna be living with NTFS the whole time, right?.

Crashing a Mac Easily

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:53:43 +0000

So... you thought that OSX was the most stable OS ever developed... right?. Guess what... you can crash it super easily. Just try the following...

Open any OSX app. For instance, Safari.
Type in the location bar the following string: File:///
See the crash onscreen?

It’s been reported in OpenRadar, and astonishingly, it’s only affecting the latest incarnation of OSX, Mountain Lion. You can crash Chrome, Safari… and probably, any app you’ve got installed.

Extending CodeIgniter Parser to support Objects

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:46:30 +0000

I really like codeIgniter, since it’s super lightweight, and its learning curve is super small. You can get to build a whole website within just a couple days, even with database support.

I’ve written myself a e-commerce website in just two weeks, without having previous knowledge on the technology. Now, let’s get to business.

What happens when you’re writing a view (php based), and you need to display a variable?. Well, you’ve got, essentially, two options. To begin with, you can simply invoke the php ’echo’ routine, by doing something like this:

Install mongoDB on a Mac!

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 11:13:11 +0000

MongoDB is a NoSQL database, free of charge. The beauty of mongo relies on its schema-less design… you can add and remove fields, without doing ‘alter table’.

Your information gets stored in JSON, which is seriously interesting, specially if you work with iOS / Android Apps, and the communications layer works in json.

So.. fire up a browser, and head to this urls. Assuming you’re running OSX (like me!), you’d need the mac binary, which is about 60 megabytes.

Do Macs need Antivirus?. Yeah, they do!

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 23:53:26 +0000

So… you own an iMac.. maybe a Macbook Pro, or maybe you’re one of the lucky owners of a Mac Pro. You’ve been watching ads for the last ten years… you bought it all, and you feel safe just because it’s not a windows… right?.

Well… things are not the way they were a couple years ago. As Apple gained more and more marketshare, virus developers turned their eyes on our belived OSX system. Since Java virtual machine has been found to be buggy… several viruses that affected Mac have been caught in the wild.

Running airmon-ng in mountain lion!

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 22:54:11 +0000

For those of you who have no clue what is all of this about, Aircrack-ng is a command line tool that allows you to bruteforce WEP and WPA wi-fi password protections.

WEP being the easiest protection to break, and WPA the hardest. The difference?. WEP can be broken in… two days, give or take (probably less than that), while WPA could take months… without results!. Personally, everytime i needed to break a WEP protection, i had to boot a linux system. If you’re like me, and you’d rather staying in OSX, this is juuuuust for you.

App Review: Reeder

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 10:18:23 +0000

I’ve tried several RSS Readers for Mac. Many of them are free… such as Google Reader, or Capuccino. But a couple weeks ago i sumbled upon Reeder. I dare to say… it’s the best RSS Reader you’ll be able to find, anywhere else.

Why is that?. Well, the UI is pretty awesome… take a look:

Reeder has several UI styles. Personally, i use the layout portraited above. You get your feed list on the left… the posts in the middle, and the actual post on the right.

Showing current folder in Terminal's Title

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:55:07 +0000

This is a nice trick i’ve learnt not long ago. Nice, and useful. If you run OSX, and you’d like Terminal to display the current folder, in its title… to looks something like this:

All you need to do is to edit the .profile in your home directory, and type the following line:

export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;[${PWD/$HOME/~}]\007"'

Nice, right?

Fixing 'Show in Finder'

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:06:50 +0000

I’ve been dealing with an annoying glitch in OSX 10.8.2. For some reason, ‘show in finder’ breaks down… on its own.

The workaround is…

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Let’s just hope a real fix shows up, sooner rather than later.

Adding .NFO preview support to OSX

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:18:07 +0000

This is a nice thing… you just need to do the following:

$ cd ~/Library
$ git clone git://github.com/delynn/QuickLook.git

Fixing "iTunes was unable to load dataclass” Error

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:34:15 +0000

I’ve been dealing with the “iTunes was unable to load dataclass” for several hours. I’ve uninstalled iTunes, Xcode, deleted the Mobile Device Support… reinstalled everything, booted the system, and nothing seemed to work.

After searching for quite some time, i’ve found this post. Long short story, if you delete this framework:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework

…and right afterwards you relaunch Xcode (which will, as a result, reinstall such framework)… you should be able to get rid of this… annoooooooooying problem.

Unlock Hidden Wallpapers in MountainLion

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:08:53 +0000

Long time no see!. It must been a month, at least, since my last post. I’ve come across this article… and thought it would be a good idea to store this somewhere, so i don’t loose track.

It’s simple. Just open this folder:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.Framework/Versions/A/Resources/Default Collections/

You’ll find about 147 MB of high definition wallpapers, that are already bundled in your Mac, and nobody told you. They’re retina-sized (3200x3000), so if you’re using a Macbook Pro with Retina Display.. it will definitely look awesome.

UITextField Vertically Centered

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:42:38 +0000

What if you wanna vertically center the text in a UITextField?… This is an easy trick..!!

[textField setContentVerticalAlignment:UIControlContentVerticalAlignmentCenter];

OSX Lion: Refresh Launchpad Contents

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:57:43 +0000

I recently came across a problem. The contents of the launchpad, somehow, got corrupt. I was seeing files that shouldn’t be there. So… how did i fix it?

Open this folder:

~/Library/Application Support/Dock

(CMD + Shift + G… and paste that!). Once you’re right there… you’ll need to delete delete the “.db” file. Last step… relaunch the dock!

killall Dock

That’s it!

Old School Mac

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:17:48 +0000

So… we’re stuck in 2012. While technology moves forward in a fast pace, the human aspect of our society gets worse as well. If you think about it … it’s wicked. We have all of this cool tech, yet, people die of hunger all over the world.

Not too long ago… everyone thought that tech would change the world. Say.. back in 1984.

Guess what!. If you miss that epoch… and don’t feel ashamed about it, you can skin your OSX to make it look as the ooooold Mac System. It’s pretty cool, and you can get it for free right here.

Coda 2 for OSX

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:52:25 +0000

Time has come to write few lines about Panic’s fellows. This week they have released an awesome tool named ‘Coda’. For those who never heard about it, it’s an html editor. I’ve tested TextWrangler, TextMate, BBEditor, Sublime, just to name few. But this one has everything already in there.

It has svn / git integration, and it’ll also allow you to upload your new websites to Amazon S3, or any webhosting you might be using.

OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion System Requirements

Sat, 19 May 2012 11:37:09 +0000

Since the Preview 4 has just been released, and we’re getting close to the final release, i thought it would be a good idea to check out what are the system requirements for Mountain Lion.

Well, let me say you something. They’re tight. Yeah. Most of you are probably gonna need to buy new hardware, if you still wanna run this big cat. Mountain Lion needs..:

64-Bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better required
Ability to boot into OS X 64-bit kernel
Advanced GPU chipset required
Internet connection required to download and install OS X 10.8

Long short story, the following hardware will be able to run 10.8:

MacBook Pro – 13″ from mid 2009 or later, 15″ from late 2007 and newer, 17″ from late 2007 and newer
MacBook Air – late 2008 and newer
iMac – models from mid 2007 and newer
MacBook – 13″ aluminum from 2008, 13″ from 2009 and newer
Mac Mini – early 2009 and newer
Mac Pro – early 2008 models and newer
XServe – early 2009 models and newer

Anything else is ‘deprecated’. So… where are you standing? do you need to spend money… or not?. (Excuses, excuses… i wanna buy a new Mac Retina!).

Make OSX Speak anything!

Sat, 19 May 2012 11:30:27 +0000

This is a nice trick, which can be used in any console script. There is a command named ‘say’, which is the one that does all of the magic. You can use it this way:

echo lantean | say

What’s interesting about this is that you have different voice tone variations. To get a full list, you can do this:

lantean$ say -v ?
Agnes en_US # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Albert en_US # I have a frog in my throat. No, I mean a real frog!
Alex en_US # Most people recognize me by my voice.
Bad News en_US # The light you see at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of a fast approaching train.
Bahh en_US # Do not pull the wool over my eyes.
Bells en_US # Time flies when you are having fun.
Boing en_US # Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's here and it's colder than usual.
Bruce en_US # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Bubbles en_US # Pull the plug! I'm drowning!
Cellos en_US # Doo da doo da dum dee dee doodly doo dum dum dum doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo
Deranged en_US # I need to go on a really long vacation.
Fred en_US # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Good News en_US # Congratulations you just won the sweepstakes and you don't have to pay income tax again.
Hysterical en_US # Please stop tickling me!
Junior en_US # My favorite food is pizza.
Kathy en_US # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Pipe Organ en_US # We must rejoice in this morbid voice.
Princess en_US # When I grow up I'm going to be a scientist.
Ralph en_US # The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.
Trinoids en_US # We cannot communicate with these carbon units.
Vicki en_US # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Victoria en_US # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Whisper en_US # Pssssst, hey you, Yeah you, Who do ya think I'm talking to, the mouse?
Zarvox en_US # That looks like a peaceful planet.

So far, so good. Now, if you actually wanna use one of those voices, you need to specify the -v parameter, just like this:

OSX 10.7.4 released

Sat, 12 May 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Indeed, we got another OSX update. This time, 10.7.4…. which should fix several vulnerabilities out there. It’s over 700 MB, so it’ll take some time to get downloaded.

If you didn’t already update your mac, it’s time you hit the Software Update button in the Apple menu. I really recommend you do it right away… those Flashback viruses have been giving lots of headache’s.

Guitar Pro for OSX

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:39:58 +0000

We, as guitar players, need to constantly practise. Every single day of our lifes. After a certain point… you don’t really need to practise. Your fingers get used to the strings… everything works smoothly.

Personally, i love Guitar Pro. If you’re lazy enough to learn songs by yourself, there are just plenty of tab resources everywhere…

Maybe the best feature that GP has is the ‘speed trainer’. You can set up the initial Beats Per Minute, the number of loops, and the speed increase in each round. So all you need to do is to hook your guitar up to an amp, and hit the strings.

OSX: Renaming Fonts (For Free!)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:22:07 +0000

I just got a huge problem. I’m working on an iOS app, and it turns out that we need to maintain compatibility with iOS 4. So… the problem is that we use custom fonts. A lot of them. That shouldn’t be an issue. BUT… i got to notice that iOS 4 supports up to two different fonts per family.

Long short story, if you’ve got a font family with… 5 different fonts, iOS 4 will load just two of them. So how do we solve it?.

Back to BitTorrent

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:31:01 +0000

Well… after MegaUpload was shut down, it’s been a hell of a nightmare to find a working filesharing service. Everyone is sooo afraid of the MPAA and RIAA, that they’re just closing the door. So… it’s time to get back to our roots.

YEAH!. I’m talking about P2P networks. I used to be a huge fan of BitTorrent, in the good old days where MegaUpload wasn’t even technically possible. It is in fact thanks to BitTorrent protocol that The Pirate Bay is still operative. Magnet links are, as far as i know, legal. Nobody can punish you for posting magnet links. In the end, it’s a GUID, right?.

OSX iStats

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 05:37:26 +0000

Apple did a pretty good job with OSX. You buy a new mac… and you get almost everything you need, ‘for free’. Any mac comes with iPhoto preinstalled, Mail, Calendar, Safari and even Garage Band. Basically it covers everything an average user needs to do.

There are really really few weak spots to OSX. I dare to say that… one of the few things OSX lacks is a nice widget to check out things such as the download speed… cpu load and temperature and even uptime. Good news is that there is a nice company called iSlayer, that has a reaaaaally cool Dashboard widget named ‘iStat’ , which does exactly that.

Automating file download...!

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:53:26 +0000

I really don’t know if we’ll have file sharing services in… say… 5 years from now. Since megaupload has been taken down, and it’s CEO imprisoned, several other file sharing services have begun shutting down their services.

But many of them are still alive and kicking. So… whenever you need to download a huge amount of different files, manually entering the captchas (plus opening the links, one my one) turns into a tedious task.

Useful Firefox Plugins

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:48:24 +0000

Google Chrome is definitely my favorite web browser. It has OSX Lion fullscreen support… it’s fast and lightweight, and Google itself is in charge of pushing it forward. But sometimes it just falls short… you just can’t find a suitable plugin for whatever you need to do. That’s the only reason i have firefox installed in my mac. Even the latest version of FF, release 11, doesn’t support OSX fullscreen feature.

Free Mac RSS Reader

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 03:03:42 +0000

I’m not really the kind of person that recommends things. Good things stand out by themselves, and if it’s true that they’re good, they actually don’t need sponsorship.

But i feel like this app totally deserves a review. I’ve been using Google Reader for years. Somehow, i got used to its rusty interface. It’s true. A RSS reader doesn’t need to be fancy.. it should just work. But why not make it pretty?

OSX Software: Code Editor

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:21:30 +0000

I know. Real, old school devs.. use nothing but VI… or it’s enhanced incarnation, VIM. But maybe you don’t have the time to deal with a big learning curve. I don’t wanna memmorize obscure shortcuts, just to be considered ‘old school’.

That’s why i’ve been searching for a good html / javascript / php IDE for OSX. So far… i’ve played with few tools. What i was looking for is an integrated environment that allows you to upload your files… right there. That practically eliminates TextWrangler from the list.

OSX Software: VLC

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:22:42 +0000

I most definitely love Quick Time. It’s easy to use, elegant, and it bears Apple’s logo. But it has several limitations. Yeah, you guessed. There are certain video formats that you cannot open with Quick Time.

So… what happens? . You switch to Windows? just to play your favorite show?. No way.

There are few alternatives you may or may not have heard of. VLC, is a great opensource application, that allows you to open, virtually, any file format. Furthermore, it’s available for Mac, Windows… and linux!. I really love VLC, because it has support for Apple’s Remote, and you can lower the volume, pause, or fast forward / rewind, whatever you’re viewing.

OSX Tools: TrueCrypt

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:14:57 +0000

OSX Users have enjoyed FileValult for quite a long time. It’s Apple’s standard tool to encrypt a whole volume. And it’s pretty hard to crack!.

But it has few weak points. You cannot encrypt a folder, or a single file. And once you’re logged into your mac, you’ve got access to all the files and folders stored within your user. Maybe you share the user with someone else. Or maybe you simply wanna backup encrypted data, and you think that PGP isn’t a good alternative.. or you just wanna try something new!.

FTP Client for OSX!

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:34:25 +0000

I recently had to play with several FTP servers… and truth to be told, working command line can turn into a pain in the neck. You might miss a filename, or maybe you need to type really, relaly long paths. That’s why i began looking for a decent FTP client for OSX.

Well, it turns out, these guys wrote a pretty decent FTP client. And guess what! they offer it for free!.

OSX Terminal: Adding current folder to the title!

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:00:21 +0000

If you’re just like me, and have lots of Terminal tabs open, you probably end up typing ‘pwd’ all the time.

Luckily, there is an easy solution:

Create a file named ‘.profile’, in your user’s home.

Type the following string in there!:

export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;[${PWD/$HOME/~}]\007"'

That’s it!. You’re gonna have, from now on, the current working directory right there in the windows tab!.

En algun lugar del Tiempo

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:36:55 +0000