Before tweaking MySQL: it used 5% of the CPU and 250MB of the memory.

After tweaking, it uses 94.3% of the CPU and 2.33GB of the memory.

I could increase the memory use even more if I needed it.

I downloaded an ebook, it contains hundreds of one-page pdf files.  I certainly don’t want to upload all of these one-pagers to my Kindle. To concatenate these files, there is no simply and easy way.  Commercial software packages are available from $14.00 to 20Euro.

A simply perl hack does the job:

1. Install the perl module:
   perl -MCPAN -e 'install("PDF::Reuse")'
2. Create a perl program, call it “catpdf.pl”:
   
use strict;
use PDF::Reuse;

   prFile(”output.pdf”);

   for(@ARGV) {
   prDoc($_);
   }

   prEnd();

3. To concatenate, call it in two possible ways:

• perl catpdf.pl a.pdf b.pdf, or
• perl catpdf.pl *.pdf

————–

As a side note, it is really easy to concatenate mp3 files on mac, just do:
cat *.mp3>output.mp3

Need to add the following lines to ssh config (~/.ssh/config or /etc/ssh/ssh_config depending on your desired scope)

ServerAliveInterval 300
ServerAliveCountMax 3

The default key bindings for the home and end keys in Mac OS X are different to any other operating system I’ve ever used. By default, they seem to be bound to the viewport, rather than the line of text you are editing. In a multi-line document, the Home key scrolls up to the top of the document, and the End key scrolls down to the bottom. In each case the caret stays where it was.

As a programmer I find this behaviour to be just plain wrong— I want Home and End to move to the start and end of the current line.

I have found a way to “fix” this problem by editing the default keybindings file, ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict. Create the directory and / or the file if they’re not already there, and make it look like this:

{

        /* Remap Home / End to be correct  */

        "\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";                   /* Home         */

        "\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfLine:";                         /* End          */

        "$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Home */

        "$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";       /* Shift + End  */

}

If there are already entries in DefaultKeyBinding.dict, just add the 4 new mappings above to the main section of your file.

Add the following line to get a “recent applictions/documents folder” on the dock.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{"tile-data" = {"list-type" = 1;}; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

I have my MATLAB installed in Parallel Desktops for Mac. Since I do majority of my work in Mac now, I hate to open Parallel Desktops very often. So I’m thinking about porting some important packages to use in Mac OS natively.

CrossOver is a good package, I managed to port my BaKoMa TeX into Mac OS, it works fine. MATLAB turned out to be hard. When I install it within CrossOver, it gives an error:”Can not install OLE server”. It is related to Database, so I cleaned up all the extra toolboxes, and only install MATLAB itself. The error message still comes up.

Then I zipped the MATLAB from Parallel Desktop and unzipped the files to the “Drive_C” in CrossOver. Running MATLAB gives an error “License Manager Error -9.”. Checking MATLAB website, it seems that even if I have the serial number, I still need to reinstall, but in CrossOver, I simply can not install.

Here is the solution. Just open %CrossOver_Drive_C/MATLAB7/bin/win32/license.dat, and look for something like this: “HOSTID=DISK_SERIAL_NUM=d8682dc9 PLATFORMS=i86_n SN=0″.

Go to %CrossOver_Drive_C and create a file “.windows-serial” and “echo d8682dc9 > .windows-serial”.

Everything will be fine.

As soon as I can port SAS into CrossOver, I can delete Parallel Desktops and save me 30G hard drive space.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I installed the latest JRE in CrossOver before I copy MATLAB.

Full version of MATLAB 2006 for Windows. Java GUI included (_without_ -nojvm).

The new Java Runtime Environment Version 5.0 Update 6 for windows (jre-1_5_0_06-windows-i586-p.exe) must be downloaded from: http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_manual.jsp.

JRE must be installed either in windows or through wine.

Then the jre folder in matlab (../Program Files/MATLAB/R2006a/sys/java/jre/win32/jre) directory must replaced by the newly generated jre1.5.0_06 in ../Program Files/Java/.

After that the ../Program Files/MATLAB/R2006a/sys/java/jre/win32/jre.cfg file must be edited to contain a single line withe: 1.5.0_06

After that, MATLAB 2006a will be fully functional (as far as know). You can either use the windows installed version or copy the whole MATLAB folder to ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/ (that way you won’t need the windows partition anymore).

Note the beautiful title bars you see in this blog.

They are on top of the blog, each time you reload the page, you get a different title bar.

I may write a post about these title bars and the stories behind them later, but today, I’d like to record how I can copy them quickly to the title bar directory from my Mac.

There are a few steps:

1. Create publickey authentication on the remote server, in this case: mikezhang.com
   • Type “ssh-keygen -d” on the local server
   • Then, typ “ssh -l username mikezhang.com ‘test -d .ssh || mkdir -m 0700 .ssh ; cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 0600 .ssh/*’ < ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub”, this creates a new directory on the remote server called .ssh and paste the public key into the file “authorized_keys”
   • Make sure the .ssh created on the remote server is chmod to 0700
   • test if we can directly go there by “ssh -l username mikezhang.com” without typing the password
2. Create a new directory on the local machine:
   • and a new file at ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/Copy To Server.sh
   • the content of the file will be
#!/bin/sh
#
infile=`echo $1|tr '"' '\"'`;
filename=`basename "$infile"`;
`/usr/bin/scp "$infile" username@mikezhang.com:/home/username/mikezhang.com/wp-content/themes/aura/headerimg/`;
base="http://mikezhang.com/wp-content/themes/aura/headerimg/";
echo "$base$filename" | perl -ne 's/ /%20/g; print';

   
   

3. That’s all

To use the shortcut, select the newly created title bars, invoke QS, type “Current Selection..”, then “TAB”, then “Copy to”, the option called “Copy to Server” will show up, press Enter. It’s done.

Here is the newest addition:

To prevent the creation of these files, open the Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

I sometimes use MIT’s VPN to download obscure papers from the MIT library. To do it, you have to have an MIT IP address. The MIT VPN software allows me to obtain one.

I sometimes also download files through BitTorrent (for legitimate files of course), and HKUST blocks this kind of traffic. So the VPN proved also useful.

This trick can be used in mainland China, too. Last time when I visited Shanghai, I tried to access a Wikipedia article (in fact, I was writing a wikipedia paper, and needed to check the page). Due to the block in China, I could not access Wikipedia directly, so the MIT VPN was used again. Alternatively, I can set up a quick proxy connection in my Mac. Here is how:

open Terminal, and type:

ssh -ND 9999 zxq@mikezhang.com

where “ssh” is the command to connect to the server “mikezhang.com”, which is hosted in California. “zxq” is my login name on that server. The “-ND 9999″ part tells the machine to keep the connection and use it as a proxy server.

That’s all, then I just need to go to Firefox to set up the proxy. Below is how, just choose “Manual” and change the port for “SOCKS Host” to 9999.

I need to copy some songs from my iPod Classic 80GB to the Mac.  Many programs fail to work here, for example, ipoddisk, isynctunes, etc (since the iPod is very new).

One software works greatly is called Senuti, I don’t know the meaning of this word, but it does what it was meant to do.  One tiny thing to note is that since I have many songs with Chinese titles, they became unrecognizable in iTunes.  The solution is simple, in the “preferences” menu, select “Always add songs to iTunes Library” and “Add Songs to Playlist” under “iTunes”.

I guess Apple’s concern about allowing people to copy songs from ipod to itunes is to prevent piracy.  It really doesn’t make sense.  Suppose my friend has an iPod, and would like to share the songs for me, it is easy to use the iPod itself as a hard drive and copy everything to my machine.  The only reason I wanted to copy songs from iPod to iTunes would be

1. My computer crashed, or
2. I need to copy songs among several computers and still keep the ratings, playlists, etc.

In both cases, Apple’s decision makes it very difficult for the consumers to perform legitimate actions with their own songs.