Tip

So I upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion yesterday. The install was pretty smooth (though had a tough time with the redeem code for the upgrade, worked on the third code that Apple sent across). Most of the software is working fine. However, I found that my existing Xcode installation needed an upgrade (via a Xcode install from the App Store). The problem is that any new Xcode install seems to nuke the command line development tools (think make, autoconf, etc.). The solution is pretty simple though. Once Xcode has been installed, run Xcode and then open the preferences. There is a section on downloads, which lists installing the command line tools as an option. ...

The short answer to someone looking for a solution: just copy over iSync from your Snow Leopard installation back to the /Applications folder in Lion, and also copy the phone plugin you need back into /Library/PhonePlugins folder. Everything will be as it was. Enjoy. The longer story requires more explanation … The Problem I have been looking forward to upgrading to the latest version of OSX (Lion) ever since the announcements were made in the WWDC earlier this year. ...

The M-<TAB> key in Emacs provides a useful completion function (`completion-at-point’), which tries to complete the current symbol at point to something useful, usually based on other symbols in the buffer which have the current partial symbol as a prefix. However, using this key is a pain in most OS GUI systems, since it is usually mapped to the Task Switching function as well. Note that the <Alt> key doubles as <Meta> on most keyboards. ...

Updated to Firefox 3.6 today. As usual, a very solid update, and was pleasantly surprised by the full-screen mode (finally!) that works exactly as you would want it. This was one of the few areas where Firefox on OSX was lagging behind as compared to other platforms. There were a few plugins that claimed to enable this in prior versions, but never worked very well. The option is available under the “View”menu and has a standard Apple-Shift-F shortcut as well. ...

A very simple eLisp function to add new path elements to the PATH environment variable. Very useful for adding new comint executables from within .emacs/init.el files. (defun my-add-path (path-element) "Add the specified path element to the Emacs PATH" (interactive "DEnter directory to be added to path: ") (if (file-directory-p path-element) (setenv "PATH" (concat (expand-file-name path-element) path-separator (getenv "PATH")))))

The gnuplot graphing utility has always had excellent support for multiple terminal types. While the X11 terminal is a satisfactory GUI view for the graphs, I prefer to use the AquaTerm terminal on OSX as it is more ‘Mac-like’ and feels more natural. Also, I do prefer to compile gnuplot by myself on OSX rather than downloading the pre-packaged binaries - as this gives me more control over the compilation (including getting around the stupid Apple readline bug - where Apple has essentially shipped a broken readline by using libedit to emulate the non-existent libreadline). ...

This is an absolute must, unless you like contorting your fingers and risk RSI. It is also an easy thing to do on OS X. You need to bring up the System preferences → Keyboard & Mouse and then click the “Modifier Keys” to remap the Capslock to Control. This is available on OS X 10.4 and later versions.