This week’s mac techmail is completely non-technical and is a bit of an opinion/rant piece: iPass on the Apple iPad: It’s no netbook killer and it pretty much sums up my feeling about the much-touted iPad. I get what Apple has in mind with this thing, thinking it’s a better thing than a netbook but I was really really hoping for an OS X-based netbook (like a 10″ powerbook or something) and this, while really neat looking and really slick, is more flash than substance (less flash? ha ha ha). Anyways… I fear for the future of computing if people think this kind of vendor lock-in is acceptable. Read the techmail for my feelings on it.. they’re definitely not warm nor fuzzy.
FreeBSD 8.0 installation walk-through
This week’s techmail is FreeBSD 8.0 installation walk-through where I take a look at a quick install of FreeBSD 8.0. I’ve toyed with FreeBSD for many years and it’s never really appealed to me beyond a curiosity because Linux is so capable. I’ve also gotten used to (or spoiled by, perhaps) the GNU command line tools and the BSD equivalents for a lot of things just seem… dated. Anyways, every major FreeBSD release that comes out I like to fiddle with a little bit just to see what’s going on, and every time I’m always amazed that they have the exact same installer. =) If you’ve never played with FreeBSD or any BSD system (excluding OS X) and you like to tinker, FreeBSD is pretty fun to goof around with (probably plenty fun to use as well, but I don’t see a personal need for that when Linux does what I want for the most part, and OS X does what I want for the rest).
Why PostgreSQL is a better enterprise database than MySQL
This week’s techmail is Why PostgreSQL is a better enterprise database than MySQL which takes a look at what makes PostgreSQL a compelling database, when compared to MySQL. Particularly in light of the whole Oracle/MySQL thing, I think it’s good to remind people that choice still exists, and that the “runner up” might actually be the better choice. This one mostly focuses on authentication, but that is definitely one area where PostgreSQL shines over MySQL (among many others).
Managing SSL Certificate Authorities on OS X
This week’s mac techmail is Managing SSL Certificate Authorities on OS X which takes you through adding a CA to the OS X keychain to verify SSL certificates. This is mostly useful for internal networks that use their own CA and it (obviously) doesn’t come bundled with any OS. This allows OS X to trust these SSL certificates as if they were signed by one of the expensive/big-wig SSL certificate authorities.
Manipulate monitor displays easily with the xrandr extension
This week’s techmail is Manipulate monitor displays easily with the xrandr extension which talks about how to automatically resize, re-orientate, and reconfigure your monitors using xrandr. xrandr is really cool and shines especially bright when used with laptops and dual-head displays. It certainly makes docking my laptop much simpler, and is really easy to use.
Using Cornerstone to handle Subversion on the Mac
This week’s mac techmail is Using Cornerstone to handle Subversion on the Mac. Subversion is my favourite VCS; I moved to it from CVS years ago. Git is still pretty new to me and one day I may invest more time into using it more fully, but subversion still has my heart, so to speak. So this tip is about a commercial svn GUI client for OS X: Cornerstone. As far as I’m concerned, it is a best-of-breed app for handling subversion. I’ve tried the others, and Cornerstone is definitely top-notch. This tip introduces you to Cornerstone and some of it’s features.
