Michael Bianco

Splitting & Merging Binary Files

Yesterday I had to upload a huge file (1.4GB tar.gz file) to my web-server and uncompress it once it was uploaded. Even my new fiber optic (FIOS) internet connection couldn’t handle a file that big (it dropped out at around 900mb). So I figured I would split the file up into manageable chunks, upload the split files to server, join them together, then uncompress them. Since I’m no unix shell guru I googled “splitting and merging binary files unix”; nothing useful came up, I tried changing the search terms a little bit to get different results, still nothing. Using ManOpen I found the split utility. Looked like exactly what I was looking for…

Sliced Dock!

Yesterday my Dock decided it didn’t like the finder, so it cut it off from the Dock. Mousing over or clicking on the Finder icon wouldn’t cause anything to happen. Pretty weird, I’ve never seen this before. A simple killall Dock fixed it, so it must of been a obscure bug with the Dock.

Disabling NSTableView Sorting While Using Bindings

Cocoa is very nice in that it gives you alot of functionality “for free”; spell checking, table sorting, text searching, font selection, etc, etc. Unfortunately it can be hard to disable the “for free” functionality; for instance, table sorting. To disable table sorting in a NSTableView using Cocoa bindings (via NSArrayController) isn’t as simple as clicking a “isSortable” checkbox in interface builder, or calling -[table setIsSortable:NO];; the solution is less straightforward than you would expect. Apple hasn’t documented how to disable sorting in table views using bindings, so it was up to a clever programmer to figure it out…

Prosit Software: iDictionary 1.0

I’ve finally unveiled what has been keeping me busy over the last few months: iDictionary 1.0; my first shareware application. iDictionary enables you to put a dictionary or thesaurus on your iPod, check out the product page for more information. Now that I have released that, I’ll have some more time to put into this site. I have a couple of new open-source things I’ve been wanting to put up for download, so hopefully I’ll be able to put that up soon.

XHTML 1.0 Transitional Compliant

This isn’t any big news for any of you non-web people, but I just finished making this site fully XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant. In the process I’ve added some new content on some pages, and tweaked the style of some. On previous sites I’ve created I really didn’t care that much about compliancy but with the last couple sites I’ve made I found that keeping the site complaint made the development process alot easier. If you really don’t know much about XHTML I recommend reading this article; I found it very informative.

XASH 1.2

XASH 1.2 has just been released. This release has the following enhancements. Fixed a nil URL bug Added live (itunes-like) searching Some code cleanup/reorganization Added drag n’ drop for adding additional search paths Added the sparkle update framework Enjoy! If your a Cocoa developer you may want to check out XASH’s source code, it has a nice implementation of enabling a NSTableView to have a drag n’ drop capabilities while still using NSArrayController to populate the table.

XTrace: Flash Debugging Without The Flash IDE

XTrace 1.0, a replacement for the horrible trace window in the Flash IDE, was released a few days ago. Take a look at the product page for more information on how it works and how to integrate it into your flash application. This is one of the pieces to the puzzle, I’ll release the BASH script I’ve written that allows better MTASC Xcode integration as soon as possible. I need more beta testers for the new application I’m going to be releasing, email me if your interested!

TextMate: Most Advanced Editor. Ever.

If you haven’t tried out TextMate I command you to download it right now. Its the most powerful and flexible editor I have ever used, I’m having trouble understanding how everything works its complicated. The syntax coloring is amazing, its so incredibly customizable. This is the only Cocoa text-editor I’m aware of that has code-folding, which is a very cool feature. The documentation is awesome and the wiki and mailing list are awesome resources too. It has amazing integration with the command line, allowing almost endless customization!

Color Blender 1.1

I came across a couple bugs in my Color Blender application while using it to create a web-site. The hex values of the colors were always off a little bit from what they should be, and when I selected colors using the “eye dropper” tool (or “eyeglass” tool in Apple’s case) the RGB & hex values always seemed to be shifted a little too. While fixing the problem I figured I’d add a few new features…

Beta Testers Needed

You might have noticed the lack of updates on this site recently; its not just laziness (although that might be part of it :P), I’m working on releasing a new (shareware) application. I’m almost done with the application, the web-site is nearing completion also so its time to beta test it. I’m looking for a bunch of beta testers, here are the requirements: You must have OS X 10.4.x You must have an iPod 3rd generation or higher If you meet those requirements, or have an intel mac, please let me know.

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