Sander van Dragt's Notes

• Sander January 9, 2017 at 9:41 am

  After a while Fusion Drives stop being fast when accessing files not recently modified as they are backed by 5400rpm drives.

• You too can improve Firefox

  Sander January 6, 2017 at 11:11 am

  Google Chrome is too dominating, this is not good for the web. So I'm switching back to Firefox, but it can be pretty ugly by default in places.

  I like to apply the following tweaks to make it pretty again:

  

  Increase the Address Bar font size

  Edit userChrome.css to make style changes to the Firefox UI. My Profile is located at %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Gibberish>, use the previous link to find the location on your system. Inside your profile create a chromefolder and inside that create a userChrome.css. Add the following line:

  #urlbar { font-size: 13px; }

  The possibilities are endless but this does the trick for me. Restart Firefox after saving the file.

  Remove unwanted buttons and the searchbox

  Right click on any of the toolbar buttons > Customize... to bring up the Customize Firefox screen. Remove unused buttons and the search box (search via the address bar instead) by dragging them to the Additional Tools and Features panel -- or the hamburger menu panel to access them with a click.

  Make the tabs square again

  Firefox tabs have this rounded look to them, which I find displeasing: install the Squared Australis Tabs addon to add square corners instead.

  Hide the menu bar

  Did you know you can access the menu bar by pressing the Altkey on your keyboard? The menu bar is visible by default but it is not frequently accessed, so press Alt+V or bring up the View menu bar menu and untick the Menu Bar and optionally the Bookmark Toolbar items.

  Hide bookmark toolbar item names

  You can blank out the Name of a bookmark to have it display just the icon in the toolbar, which tidies up those frequently accessed sites.

  #web

• Life on Earth is Dying

  Sander December 12, 2016 at 11:40 am

  I would quote part of this article but you should just click the title and read all of it.

  #life #link

• Just Walk Out technology

  Sander December 6, 2016 at 1:16 pm

  Amazon Go, shopping without checkouts:

  Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world’s most advanced shopping technology so you never have to wait in line. With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go!

  With the amount of recorded prior art they will find it difficult to pantent the Just Walk Out technology ;-)

  #link #technology

• Building on temporary foundations

  Sander November 17, 2016 at 10:18 am

  Just came across an interesting perspective on frameworks by Timothy Perrett:

  It is imperative to understand that the need for composability in our software tools is an absolute requirement. If we as an industry have any hope of not repeating ourselves time and time again, we have to change our ways.

  I definately agree that we're doomed to keep making the same mistakes if we're building on top of frameworks and then switching them out for a different one, which I hadn't considered before.

  #development #link

• Updating Homebrew for macOS Sierra

  Sander October 20, 2016 at 1:50 pm

  If you've just upgraded to Sierra and previously had Homebrew installed you may find that it no longer works because of the stricter security feature in macOS. In order to get Homebrew back up and running you need to execute the following commands in your terminal (thanks thehitmaniptf):

  sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local
  xcode-select --install
  

  The first command simply gives your local user account ownership of /usr/local (where brew installs things). The second command updates the Xcode command line tools without which Homebrew cannot compile packages.

  Once this is done you can successfully update Homebrew as normal, and diagnose any remaining issues:

  brew update
  brew doctor
  

  After running this you will receive instructions on how to restore the permissions on /usr/local as after updating Homebrew no longer will use this path.

  Update 6th Nov, 2016: When using cask you might get told to update the cask room location:

  sudo mv /opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom /usr/local``

  #macos

• How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit

  Sander October 17, 2016 at 4:32 pm

  I think we have stumbled upon the reason why there are no new Macs. Apple was wasting resources on the car.

  Apple Inc. has drastically scaled back its automotive ambitions, leading to hundreds of job cuts and a new direction that, for now, no longer includes building its own car, according to people familiar with the project.

  [..]

  Zadesky handed the reins to his boss, Dan Riccio, adding to responsibilities that already included engineering annual iPhone, iPad, and Mac refreshes.

  Source: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit - Bloomberg

  #link #technology

• Sander September 23, 2016 at 10:55 am

  Your job affects your mind. Disadvantage of being a developer: we must be so focused on the task at hand that we evict everything else from our memory.

• Dropbox Modifies TCC.db to Give Itself Accessibility Access

  Sander September 22, 2016 at 11:30 am

  Dropbox was using a sql attack on the tcc database to circumvent Apple’s authorization policy

  Another issue like this and a lot of people will switch to iCloud Drive.

  #link #technology

• How to signup for Flickr without disclosing your mobile number

  Sander September 7, 2016 at 1:10 pm

  I was looking to setup a Flickr account and noticed that it requires you to enter a mobile phone number to sign up. I prefer not to disclose this information to third parties so I looked for a solution. Unfortunatley, a lot of information is out of date as Yahoo! (which owns Flickr, and which is the service you sign up to so you can login) turned off third party signups back in 2014. However I found a way...

  To complete this process you will need to have a non-yahoo email address. I recommend you try Hover and register your own domain with email (such as your surname), so that you will never have to change it when your email provider closes up shop.

  Follow these steps:

  1. Instead of signing up via Flickr, Sign up for a Yahoo!'s account via their website.
  2. Notice that a mobile number is required. Follow the I'd rather use my own email address link just below the email address input.
  3. Notice you can now sign up with your own email and a mobile phone number is no longer required.
  4. Choosing your password and create a Yahoo! account.

  Now you can use the credentials to sign into Flickr!

  #web