Mike Gabriel

Can you go from coordinates to legal and vice versa with your app?

Sun, 22 May 2011 20:37:13 -0600

Currently Prairie Locator is a one-way conversion. Reverse conversions may become available in the future but I have no timeframe to provide at this time.

Apple TV 2 — Fix a Crashing XBMC

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:09:00 -0600

I see this thread a lot on FireCore and various other forums. Running XBMC under ATV2 works fine and then one day it starts crashing back to Lowtide after a random amount of time.

What’s actually happening is ATV Updater Service is checking for updates with Apple and once an update becomes available it tries to prompt, of course XBMC isn’t designed to allow Lowtide prompts take the responding view and it crashes.

The easiest way to solve the issue is to SSH into the Apple TV, install a text editor (I prefer VIM, but Nano works too) and add a block to the hosts file so that when the updater service checks it doesn’t actually reach Apples update servers.

ssh root@apple-tv.local

apt-get install vim

vim /etc/hosts

Make your /etc/hosts file look like the following

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost
127.0.0.1       mesu.apple.com

You’ll notice the last line adds 127.0.0.1 mesu.apple.com. Once you have added that line, save the file and all will now be good in the world of XBMC.

Keep in mind, if you choose to update your ATV2 in the future, you will need to edit this file and comment or remove that line so it can connect to the update servers.

Celsius — Environment Canada for iPhone

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:28:30 -0600

Recently released is my newest application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Celsius, a simple weather application powered by Environment Canada. A must have for every Canadian with an iOS Device! Check it out at http://www.celsiusapp.ca

No Recent Files in OS X

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 21:11:00 -0600

After spending a few hours exchanging emails with developer Vadim Shpakovski while trying to troubleshoot an issue with CodeBox we managed to come across a solution that wasn’t initially apparent.

If you’ve ever been working with an application and noticed the Recent Files history is empty, then you have likely ran into the same issue I did.

Luckily, the solution is simple. In your OS X System Preferences, under Appearance ensure Number of Recent Items is not set to None.

Uninstall Xcode on OS X

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:55:00 -0600

If you ever need to completely remove Xcode due to application issues or future upgrades, you can run a single command from Terminal to remove it.

sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all

Of course, /Developer is dependant on where you installed Xcode to.

Quickly Removing .SVN Directories via Terminal

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:20:00 -0600

If you’ve ever faced that truly … testing … task of needing to remove a whole heap of hidden .svn directories from a folder and it’s myriad subfolders because some idiot did an SVN Checkout rather than Export to a development server, you’ll love this Terminal command:

find . -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

You can run it from inside any folder to remove all .svn folders from it and all it’s child folders. Beautiful.

– Beyond Standards

Rdio Blog: Announcing: Rdio for iPhone 1.0

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:58:37 -0600

Rdio Blog: Announcing: Rdio for iPhone 1.0 :

Rdio.com launched version 1.0 of their iPhone app today. It’s quite the improvement over the previous version which I thought worked fantastic. Next I am hoping to see a lot more content for Canadian users. It’s funny that there’s a great majority of Canadian artists that are not available due to licensing restrictions.

Saskatchewan Volkswagen & Audi Club

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:19:57 -0600

Saskatchewan Volkswagen & Audi Club

EGO Style for XCode 4

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 20:42:38 -0600

EGO Style for XCode 4

DroboFS Automounting on OS X

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:00:00 -0600

I recently purchased a DroboFS and one of the only hiccups I have had with it is getting it’s shares automounted properly under OS X 10.6.4. Surfing the net there is all kinds of lame-ass solutions such as adding the shares to the Login Items profiles, which works if your user gets automatically logged in on system boot, but then you get a Finder window that pops up. Rather annoying when other solutions are possible. Normally in past environments I would just add the share to the /etc/fstab file and you’d be cooking with fire, but I wasn’t having any luck with this DroboFS. After some digging around I have manged to get the DroboFS shares mounted when OS X boots up. I have tested it with both smbfs and and afp and they work as expected, you just need to substitute them into the /etc/auto_smb file. With that said, here’s what you need to do.

Edit the /etc/auto_smb file and add a line with the following format:

 -fstype=smbfs ://:@/

Create the local share path and give full access:

mkdir 
chmod 777

Enable auto_smb in the /etc/auto_master file

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master            # Use directory service
/net                    -hosts          -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home                   auto_home       -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers        -fstab
/-                      -static
/-                      auto_smb

And you’re done! Reboot the machine and it will auto mount the share on boot. If you have any questions just post a comment below and I’ll try my best to help.

Prairie Locator - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba Legal Land Description to GPS Converter & Locator

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:28:07 -0600

Prairie Locator - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba Legal Land Description to GPS Converter & Locator:

I have just finished launching the newest version of Prairie Locator and you can now convert and plot Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba Land Locations. Check it out!

VW Factory - Germany

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:08:04 -0600

VW Factory - Germany

Apple & Kindle Spoof

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 08:43:51 -0600

Apple & Kindle Spoof

Gymkhana 3 Part Two

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:37:32 -0600

Gymkhana 3 Part Two

Requiem For A Dream This was one of the most popular pages on my...

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:40:00 -0600

Requiem For A Dream

This was one of the most popular pages on my old blogsite, I had made a rip of this audio track off a popular Wagenwerks video. I have no idea who created this mix so if you know, please send me a message and I’ll update accordingly. Feel free to download it here.

SKDubs.com - Green Cabrio Rollby

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:13:00 -0600

SKDubs.com - Green Cabrio Rollby

R-Fest 2010

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:23:24 -0600

R-Fest 2010

Microsoft Support Article: Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:23:04 -0600

Microsoft Support Article: Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music

Prairie Locator - Saskatchewan Legal Land Description GPS Converter & Locator

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:19:01 -0600

Prairie Locator - Saskatchewan Legal Land Description GPS Converter & Locator:

A web-based application that I developed last year to convert Saskatchewan Land Locations to GPS Coordinates. I spent the last few hours redoing it from the ground up, complete rewrite for a even more user friendly experience.

The homescreen on my iPhone 3GS.

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:48:36 -0600

The homescreen on my iPhone 3GS.