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Converting WMA to MP3 on OSX or Linux

October 3, 2006 By Bruce Kroeze 5 Comments

headphones Converting WMA to MP3 on OSX or LinuxFinding this technique took more time than I thought it should, so I thought I’d share a quick and simple music transcoding tip.

Converting WMA to MP3

1) Get mplayer and lame installed. I use the accelerated and precompiled mplayer and lame for OSX.

2) Create a simple shell script:

#! /bin/sh
set -e
F=$1
mplayer -ao pcm:file="${F%.wma}.wav" "$F"
lame --preset hifi "${F%.wma}.wav" "${F%.wma}.mp3"
rm -f "${F%.wma}.wav"

Save as “convert_wav.sh”, make executable, and run it on your wma files. An easy way to hit all of them in a directory tree is:


find . -name "*wma" -exec convert_wav.sh {} \;

Thanks to the original version, found and modified from that given on Macosxhints.com.
[tags]mp3, osx[/tags]

Filed Under: Linux, Macintosh, Tips

Pgrep and Pkill for OSX

September 13, 2006 By Bruce Kroeze 6 Comments

happy Pgrep and Pkill for OSXUsually I am satisfied by the commandline tools available in OSX. However, one itch that has been unfulfilled for quite a while since my permanent conversion to the Mac is the lack of “pgrep” and “pkill”, two of my favorite time savers from Linux.

Solution

sourceforge.net/projects/proctools/

Works like a dream.

[tags]osx,utilities[/tags]

Filed Under: Linux, Macintosh, Open Source

Sqlite3 made Safari Crash

July 3, 2006 By Bruce Kroeze Leave a Comment

crash Sqlite3 made Safari CrashShort story: upgrading SQLITE3 makes Safari crash in OSX.

Using Sqlite on several systems recently, I decided to upgrade the installed Sqlite on my Macbook Pro. Otherwise I kept running into version incompatibility problems between the Linux systems and my Mac.

Compiling was easy enough, but by habit before I installed the new libraries, I made a backup of the current libraries. Good move.

Since upgrading, I noticed that several apps started crashing on start. Safari & Ecto were the worst offenders. This morning, I finally had enough and began digging into the root cause.

Aha! Sqlite3 library errors. Seems the Safari engine needs Sqlite the way it was installed. A quick rollback and Safari and my old friend Ecto are once again happy. Annoying for my cross compatibility needs, but I’ll just have to figure out how to make the old and new ones run side-by-side.

p.s. I’m back from vacation, and regular posting will now resume.

[tags]crash,safari,sqlite[/tags]

Filed Under: Libraries, Macintosh

Mac software I use every day

April 17, 2006 By Bruce Kroeze 1 Comment

cd tilted Mac software I use every dayIn the grand tradition of Daring Fireball I’m going to share my software choices. To keep it short and sweet, this time I’ll limit myself to software I use every day.

Software which is always loaded

These are the ones I almost always have running.

  • Path Finder – Finder done right.
  • Ecto – A great blogging client, which understands that I have several different blogs to update. It is easy to use and gives me exactly the right amount of power for daily use.
  • ITerm – I suppose there are some better shells, but I always end up going back to the trusty multi-tab ITerm.
  • Sciral Consistency – A new addition, this little app keeps me aware of my main tasks, and helps remind me to be “consistent” in doing them on time. It is really quite clever and effective.
  • SSH Agent – Never type your password again on your hosting accounts! I use this more than you could believe. I’m always amazed at how few people know about SSH key agents. Check them out, they are well worth the few minutes to understand.
  • Pastor – Keeps my passwords all organized and secure. I think I may be trying Yojimbo as a more full-featured replacement.
  • ITunes – I don’t know what would ever shake me loose of this killer app.
  • Quicksilver – Geeky, gorgeous, and far far superior to Spotlight for what I need most often. I hate mousing around looking for apps, I want to launch them now with a couple keystrokes. I’ve never seen anything which matches Quicksilver on any other platform. It is a true killer app.
  • Firefox – I program for Firefox, and test in IE/Win and Safari. It is the best practice, since if it works in Firefox it usually isn’t that hard to get it to work in the other two.
  • NeoOffice – Yes it is a memory hog, and it starts slower than molasses. But it works very very well as an office suite. I usually have a word processing document up, and often a spreadsheet.
  • Mail.app – Built-in, multi-account, and not ugly. It wins.

Software I use every day, as needed

  • Carbon Emacs – I am an Emacs-head. I’ve tried TextMate, but didn’t feel the love. Emacs is everything I need a programming editor to be. Plus, I actually like Lisp.
  • Endicia – I reviewed this software a month ago, and I use it every day. I cannot even begin to say how many hours it has saved me preparing shipping labels and (more importantly) allowing me to skip the post office lines.
  • Adobe ImageReady – I used to use Photoshop for everything, but Imageready is smaller for my day-to-day purposes. Mostly what I need to do is resize graphics and possibly lay in a bit of text. ImageReady is more than enough for this, and I really like the “save optimized as” command.
  • VoodooPad – A personal Wiki which is great for capturing ideas and details. I’m considering replacing it with Curio as a more usable way to integrate graphics and handle multiple projects.
  • TextWrangler – Some things aren’t worth booting Emacs, so I end up using the small, fast TextWrangler for them.

[tags]OSX Software[/tags]

Filed Under: Macintosh, Reviews

Endicia for Mac Review, initial impressions

March 15, 2006 By Bruce Kroeze 6 Comments

snail Endicia for Mac Review, initial impressionsI’ve been shipping a lot of packages lately. It was a big pain, and now it is not. That’s my basic review of Endicia for Mac.

Manual shipping

When I first started shipping, I’d manually label each package. My handwriting is terrible, so it looked like a retarded monkey wrote the label, and I wasted several bubble-mailers by boneheaded misprinting. It took more time than you might think to label each package. But that time paled next to the time it took to stand in line at the Post Office to mail the things. Ouch.

Automated shipping – the equipment

I purchased a 25-pound USB scale for $85 from Endicia. It works very nicely from within the software. Just put the package on the scale and click “weigh”.

My label printer is a Dymo 400 Turbo from Label city for $109, and I bought a roll of three-part internet postage labels #30387.(Here’s a coupon Endicia for Mac Review, initial impressions) for $15.

It all worked right away on my G5, with no fiddling about, pleasing me greatly.

Endicia Account

To use Endicia, you create an account and pay a monthly fee. I’m using the “premium account” at $15.95 per month. This lets me print unlimited postage, creates customs forms for me, and gives me access to the cheaper-than-USPS Endicia insurance.

Then, I attached a credit card to the account and bought an initial pool of postage. You can add more at any time from the website or from the software itself.

The software

I am pleased to say that the software has performed flawlessly so far. I’ve shipped about a dozen things over the weekend, and been pleasantly surprised at how seamlessly it works.

  • Get an order, copy the address from the confirmation email
  • Paste into Endicia’s address area.
  • Hit validate, this reformats it according to what the post office in that country wants as a standard. (Very helpful indeed.)
  • Select the type of shipping.
  • Click “Weigh”.
  • Put a note in logging area about what this is (so you can look it up later). There is an area for an order number as well.
  • Click print, then confirm on the next page
  • Drop the packages in the bulk-mail bin and the post-office and skip the long, slow lines!

Conclusion

This wonderful, easy-to-use system has cut my shipping time down from 4-5 minutes each to less than 2, and made the drop-off part almost instantaneous. I ship every day, so that alone is saving me 10-30 minutes. Add up all that time savings and you’ll quickly see why this is a complete winner of a setup for me. I rarely give such unreserved recommendations, but so far they’ve really earned it.

[tags]Mac, Endicia, label printing, dymo, usps,reviews,online postage[/tags]

Filed Under: Equipment, Macintosh, Reviews
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