PECL memcache and PHP on Mac OS X Leopard

Wow, has it really been that long since I’ve written here? I really need to do better.

So tonight I ran into an interesting issue this evening in configuring PECL memcache to run on my Macintosh. To give you a bit of background, I use the built-in copy of Apache, but with PHP (current 5.2.8) compiled from source since the version in Leopard is old and I needed some things that it didn’t provice. After that was installed with no problems, I went to the ext/memcache-3.0.4 directory to compile memcache as so:

> phpize
> ./configure
> make
> make install

Then added it to php.ini as an extension and restarted apache. But it didn’t work. The information returned from phpinfo() still indicated it had not been installed. So I checked the logs and found this little gem:

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library ‘/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/memcache.so’ – (null) in Unknown on line 0

Okay. WTF does that mean? While Googling around for an answer, I came across this page. According to it,it’s a strong indication that you’ve likely compiled against the wrong architecture! This is an indication that the shared extension is causing a segmentation fault. Fortunately, there is a solution – force configure to use the right architecture.

> make clean
> MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 CFLAGS=”-arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe -no-cpp-precomp” CCFLAGS=”-arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe” CXXFLAGS=”-arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe” LDFLAGS=”-arch x86_64 -bind_at_load” ./configure
> make
> make install

Now restart apache. You should have working memcache!

Installing PECL PS on Mac OS X

Tags: php, pecl, ps, leopard, os x, osx

The PHP that comes standard with Mac OS X Leopard doesn’t come with the PECL PS extension. PECL PS requires pslib, and the last version I verified to work the PS extension was 0.2.6 (I still have an outstanding bug for that). There’s a minor little bug that prevents it from compiling on OS X, so here are the steps necessary to get PECL PS working on Leopard:

1. Download PSLib 0.2.6. Unpack to somewhere on your filesystem (I use /usr/src)
2. cd pslib-0.2.6/src
3. Apply this patch to pslib.c (patch pslib.c leopard_pslib-0.2.6.patch)
4. cd ../
5. ./configure
6. make
7. make install

By default this puts it in /usr/local/lib. Now install the PS extension using PECL.

1. pecl install ps
2. When it asks for path to pslib installation, /usr/local/lib
3. Once it’s done compiling, add the .so to your php.ini. You may have to move the .so or alter extension_dir in your php.ini.
4. sudo apachectl restart

Automatically Joining a Group Chat with Adium

Tags: adium, apple, applescript, jabber, group chat

At dealnews, we have an internal Jabber server that we use for our internal communications. As part of that, we have a number of internal chat rooms for the various areas of the company.

I’m a big believer in automation – that is, scripting various repetitive actions that I have to do every so often. One of these little things is joining our developer chat channel each morning when I get to the office. Unfortunately, there’s no built in way in Adium to do this, nor does Adium expose native AppleScript commands to join group chat. It does for other functions, but group chat functionality is conspiciously absent, even though there’s a long standing feature request to implement this.

So, we have to hack it. In this case, I used AppleScript to imitate keyboard input

set CR to ASCII character of 13
tell application "System Events"
    tell application "Adium" to activate
   keystroke "j" using {command down, shift down}
    keystroke "development"
    keystroke CR
end tell

So we have a script, but how to automate the launching of it?

I mentioned MarcoPolo before. It has quickly become one of my favorite pieces of Mac software. In this case, I use MarcoPolo to launch the AppleScript (with a 10 second delay to allow time for Adium to start and connect to the Jabber service). You can launch AppleScripts using the osastart utility like so:

/usr/bin/osastart /Users/codelemur/Scripts/DevChat_AutoJoin.scpt

It sucks that it’s like this, and I wish they would expose a more native way to do this, but it does work.

Something In The Air

Tags: apple, macbook, macbook air, macworld

… or maybe the water.

Unless you were living under an Internet rock, you likely know that today was Keynote Tuesday. That is, the day Apple CEO Steve Jobs tells us loyal apple fanbois what we will be spending our money on this year.

The star of this year’s show was the Macbook Air, a thin, light laptop designed to fit somewhere inbetween the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. At first I was wow’d by the Air. Jobs, as always, is the consummate showman and I will admit that I bought into the reality distortion field for a little bit. Then the "air" cleared and I began to think about what the Macbook Air really is. So let’s take a look at the Macbook Air and where it fits.

• Maximum thickness of 0.76". The Macbook is a quarter inch or so higher at 1.08".
• Weight of 3 lbs. The Macbook, a slightly heavier 5 lbs.
• Battery life is slightly longer at 5 hours. The Macbooks average between 3-4 in my experience. However, the battery is not removable, whereas I could carry several Macbook batteries with me.
• For $1200 more, you can get a solid state drive.
• 2GB of memory, and only 2GB of memory. The Macbook comes in at 1GB standard, but can be upgraded to 4GB.

In my opinion, these are the areas where the Air wins. Now, let’s look at where it loses.

• 1.6ghz / 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo. The Macbook slides in at betwen 2.0 and 2.2 ghz.
• Storage is an 80GB 4200rpm PATA drive, whereas the Macbook boasts an 80GB 5400rpm SATA drive. Granted you can get a 64gb SSD drive with the Air, but for $1200 I can’t believe that anyone other than the biggest fanboi will be buying those for that price.
• The Macbook can be upgraded to as much as 4GB of memory. The Air is stuck at 2GB, and since it’s sodered onto the board, it’s stuck there forever.
• 1 USB plug? No onboard Ethernet or FireWire? No mic plug?
• No optical drive. Granted, you can buy an external drive, and you can use that boot from another computer thing, but that doesn’t help you if you have no other computer.

Now, Brian Moon often tells me that I don’t think from the point of view of an average user because I’m not an average user. While it’s true that I’m not your average user (as a computing professional, I have needs generally beyond most consumer computing gear), I like to think that I can look at all choices and choose the best one. In this case I just can’t understand where this product is being targeted.

I just don’t understand how anyone could want to trade off all the features you get with the regular ol’ Macbook for what is essentially a small gain in dimensions and weight, and the "wow!" factor, especially when all those added features on the Macbook come in at $300 less for the top-end Macbook model. At that price, you could upgrade the memory and buy an extra battery and still come in less than the base price of the Macbook Air, with the only tradeoff being that it’s 0.32" thicker and 2lbs heavier.

I can’t believe that any informed consumer is going to choose a feature poor Macbook Air when the standard Macbook, at between $300 and $750 less, is just so obviously a better deal. Brian Tiemann said it best: "a ridiculously overpriced, feature-poor, and generally useless pig of an idea."

Also, I wonder if Steve Jobs knew Randy Newman was going to go all Michael Moore on everyone. Someone please be sure he never sees a microphone again!

Four Free Mac Apps I Can’t Live Without

Tags: apple, mac

I know top X lists are almost passe at this point, but that’s not going to stop me from giving a shout-out to some of the applications that daily make my life easier:

MarcoPolo

MarcoPolo is a neat little application that is capable of executing actions based on a set of rules. That is, if something on the system changes (such as an IP address, power status, USB or even the light level), it can execute a series of commands (such as mounting network drives, setting the screensaver, changing the default printer, etc). It can even run arbitrary shell scripts!

Why this is useful to me: At dealnews, we (the dev team) all use MacBook Pros for our development work and constantly alternate between home and office. Whenever I arrive at work in the morning, the minute I plug my MacBook into the network, MarcoPolo senses that the IP address has changed from my home and changes the default printer, mounts some network shares, adjusts the screensaver settings, and runs a few other custom shell scripts I have to set up my environment. All without having to do a single thing. When I get home, it executes still more commands to change to a remote development environment. Completely effortless.

XMeeting

XMeeting is a SIP softphone (and videoconferencing application, but I’ve never used the video features) that allows you to connect to a SIP server and place calls using your laptop.

Why this is useful to me: At dealnews, we run Asterisk as our phone system (see my earlier posts on Asterisk). One of the many nice features of Asterisk is its standards compatibility – that is, you can use anything that can talk SIP with Asterisk. Since CounterPath has apparently decided that Leopard compatibility for their free softphone (X-Lite) is not a priority, XMeeting comes to the rescue. As a bonus, it actually acts like a Mac application and doesn’t do the stupid things that X-Lite did (like messing with the system volume).

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is the single application I cannot live without. On a Mac without it I am almost lost. More than just a launcher, it is a tool to help you work more efficiently. You can press Ctrl+Space and type what you want and Quicksilver will launch what you need. That’s a horrible description for how cool this app is.

Why this is useful to me: Without Quicksilver, I am lost. It makes it literally so fast to move around your Mac without taking you hands off the keyboard. A quick hit of Ctrl+Space gives you the ability to launch programs, open files, navigate contacts and send emails, and make quick notes among many othe things that this program can do. It is essential to my everyday life as a Mac user.

DejaMenu

DejaMenu is a neat little program that will display the current application’s main menu as a popup menu where the mouse is whenever a key combination is pressed.

Why this is useful to me: I use my MacBook Pro with a second monitor when I’m at the office. One of the things that has infuriated me for awhile as a Mac user with multiple monitors is the inability to have the top menu bar either on each monitor respresenting the application on that monitor, or the ability to have it move with whatever monitor the mouse is on. It’s irritating to have to go back to the main monitor when the application is running on a different one. DejaMenu allows you to pop the application menu wherever your mouse is, which makes things a little easier. Additionally, I mapped the key combination to a button on my Logitech MX-1000 to make things even easier.

Set Leopard’s Menu Bar Back To White

Tags: apple, mac os x, leopard

There’s been a good bit of debate about Leopard’s new translucent menu bar. For me, it doesn’t cause many issues. However, some of my coworkers despise it and, to be fair, I can see the arguments that many of the people who dislike it have: it doesn’t add anything to the OS and actually makes it more difficult to read the text.

Well, here’s a litle tweak that will set the menu bar back to a white background. In the terminal, you can use the following command to change the default appearance of the bar:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.appledowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 1

Restart your Mac, and voila! White menu bar! Changed your mind? Set it back:

sudo defaults delete /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE'

Restart your Mac and your menu bar is back to being translucent.