RealPlayer

Trying to keep up with the football this afternoon showed up a little problem listening to RealPlayer streams on the Intel version of OS X.

Bottom line is that RealPlayer is not yet a universal binary. So although it runs fine stand alone it doesn't support being embedded in a universal binary.

i.e. because Safari and Firefox 1.5.0.2 are in universal format, they cannot embed plugins that are not.

So the options are :

a) Regress to a nont universal binary version of Firefox
b) Use RealPlayer as both a browser and player - i.e. when you want radion/video enter http://news.bbc.co.uk/ into RealPlayer and browse using it.

I've gone for b) - but I will investigate mplayer for time shifting shows.

Mac OS X Intel mod_jk

hmmm non for months then two in a day......

I struggled to find a binary copy of mod_jk to link Apache and JBoss over AJP.

Quick summary for anyone else needing to play this game :

a) Snag the code from jakarta.apache.org
b) ./configure -with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs
c) copy the resultin mod_jk.so to /usr/libexec/httpd
d) edit httpd.conf in /private/etc/httpd/ to add

LoadModule jk_module libexec/httpd/mod_jk.so
AddModule mod_jk.c

JkWorkersFile /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat/conf/workers.properties
JkLogFile /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat/logs/mod_jk.log
JkLogLevel info
JkLogStampFormat "[%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y] "

JKMount /myapp/* ajp13

e) Create/edit workers.properties in /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat/conf/
workers.tomcat_home=/usr/local/jakarta-tomcat
workers.java_home=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/
#workers.java_home=/usr/java
ps=/
worker.list=ajp12, ajp13

# Definition for Ajp13 worker (Ajp12 left to readers imagination)
#
worker.ajp13.port=8009
worker.ajp13.host=localhost
worker.ajp13.type=ajp13


f) Restart Apache - all done.

Looks like I've switched

I've been suffering Mac envy in OS/hardware terms for a long time.

The problem has been that nagging doubt in the back of my head that says that there will be one requirement that I can't solve without windows (vpn being the main issue up until now). Well once Apple announced Boot Camp I realised that excuse had vanished. The only remaining one was around video games and the XBox 360 is already out pacing anything I can afford in PC graphics cards for a year or so (for the record Oblivion is dominating my time when the kids are in bed).

So last weekend I ended up in an Apple store buying a MacBook Pro. I'm sure everyone has read enough I switched and the decision I made was right posts from others so I will summarise where I am.

Cons

Battery life seems short - that said I'm still playing with *everything* at once, so that could be the core reason, however I suspect the dual core is a little thirsty ;)

The base gets a little toasty, never mind - I've already had children.

The only version of Eclipse I can find that supports Intel is a 3.2 RC - thats fine except MyEclipseIDE does not support this yet but the v5 releases will and they are imminent.

Pros

Its all so easy - iCal, iSync, my phone, work calendar.

Unix command line - I grew up with Unix, at last I have a great GUI, with that command line goodness I know and love.

Screen/hardware - glorious.

Its a *very* fast machine.

Tools I know/use regularly like OpenOffice/Firefox/Skype all work fine under OS X.

Instant Hibernate/Instant on that actually works.

Open vpn works instantly

Parallels machine vitualisation - installed both Win98 and linux trivially for the 2 dependent applications I still need (The linux will dissapear once I get to grips with gcc).