How to use Homebrew on a Multi-user macOS

You'll find descriptions of how to do this, like on StackOverflow: How to use Homebrew on a Multi-user MacOS Sierra Setup.

It's said that using `sudo` is wrong.

It's said that using a per-user local version of brew is right, but...

1. it doesn't play well with `nvm` (see)

2. it is completely and entirely unsupported (see)

3. many packages don't support it (see)

4. many packages will install from source instead of a binary (see)

So the practical, quick and dirty solution is to just use `sudo` (see).

In my experience, if I recall correctly, homebrew on macOS 14 by default uses the group "admin" for where it installs things, and it sets the permissions to "read" and "execute" as needed already.  The only thing missing are "write" permissions.  And for the user to include brew binaries on their PATH.

Also, "Administrator" users on Macs are in group "admin" by default already too.  I'm guessing if your user is using brew, they're probably a macOS "Administrator" too (or else why would you let them use a global brew install?).

So I just ran in Terminal:

$ sudo chmod -R g+w $(brew --prefix)

Then for the user that wants to use brew, put in their home directory's ".zprofile" file:

eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

To ensure brew is working for them, run in their Terminal: $ brew doctor

Warning: this is unsupported, and it's said to be wrong, and you're letting all Admin users on that machine to share one single installation of homebrew!

If roommates fight over fridge space, you've got no one but yourself to blame for not buying each roommate their own fridge!

So what use-case does this safely enable?  A single human with multiple macOS user profiles to isolate their work space while sharing (with themselves!) the same global brew install.

You can mount Linux Ext or LUKS disks on Mac, Windows!

This is exciting! I’ve been looking for a disk format that works seamlessly across Mac, Windows, and Linux.  Something like a USB or disk image that mounts on all three desktop platforms.

The obvious choice is exFAT, but what if I want a modern disk format with journaling for data safety?

Ext4 is one option, although it used to be read-only on Macs (see Mounting Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 USB Flash Drives on Mac: Read Only Success). Maybe things have gotten better in the last 10 years?

And what if I want disk encryption?

VeraCrypt with an exFAT disk works: see Sharing TrueCrypt USB volume on 3 platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux.

But what if you want both encryption and a modern file system? I couldn't find a solution to this, until I found… 

 

linsk

In summary, linsk is an easy way to run an Alpine Linux VM using qemu to mount a disk within it, and then share that disk back out to your local host machine via a networking protocol.

So now you can mount an Ext4 disk, or a LUKS encrypted Ext4 disk, on your Mac or Windows machine!

The usage notes are so good, you can just look there for how to install and use.

Here's a quick use reference, more for my own reference than anything

How to use linsk to mount a Ext4 disk within a LUKS encrypted disk on macOS

Note: If you're not me, please read the linsk documentation first and understand it completely before proceeding below!  This assumes you installed linsk correctly, including qemu!


1. With the disk plugged into your Mac, make sure to unmount all volumes that macOS auto-mounts!!!

Warning Danger Caution Danger: If you don't unmount all volumes first, the following may delete, nuke, and destroy all your disk data.  macOS likes to repeatedly auto-mount any volume it sees, so after every step below, make sure to unmount those volumes again!!!  You'll see warnings to this effect from linsk in the terminal as well.


2. In Terminal, run: $ diskutil list

Find your disk and note its path: e.g. `/dev/diskX`

The value of `X` in `diskX` may change every time your Mac encounter the disk!

However, the LVM group/volume/luks-container names within that disk should be stable (unless intentionally changed), so in the future, you can skip down to the `linsk run` step 5 below if you're just re-mounting the same volume.


3. Find the LUKS volume to mount within diskX.  Run: $ sudo linsk ls dev:/dev/diskX

Note the `vda` drive you'd see are the system drives within Alpine Linux, so ignore those.

For this example, suppose: `vdb1` is the `crypto_LUKS` volume you're interested in.


4. Find the Ext4 volume inside the LUKS volume by running: $ sudo linsk ls dev:/dev/diskX --luks-container vdb1

Now suppose that `cryptcontainer` is the ext4 volume you want to mount.


5. Mount the ext4 volume. Run: $ sudo linsk run dev:/dev/diskX --luks-container vdb1 mapper/cryptcontainer


6. Alternatively, mount the ext4 volume and open a debug shell.  Run: $ sudo linsk run --debug-shell dev:/dev/diskX --luks-container vdb1 mapper/cryptcontainer

This will mount that volume and open a shell within the Alpine Linux VM so you can do whatever you want to that disk volume from within Linux.  Good for changing disk ownership or permissions as needed so your Mac can access it.


7. Mount the volume from macOS.

You can use Cmd+k to connect to the network volume that linsk / Alpine Linux sets up for you locally.

You can also use the Mac Terminal.  Run: $ mount_afp -i -o noowners afp://linsk@127.0.0.1:9000/linsk /Path/to/mountpoint

`sudo` is not needed and unhelpful here!

You might find the folders in the mounted volume do not have the right permissions for you to open them up.  You might try using `sudo chown` or `chmod`, etc., and find they don't work to fix this.  You might try `umask` on your Mac, and find they don't work.

If it's your own disk you want access to, you might as well just tell linsk to open up a debug shell into the Alpine Linux VM and change the permissions on the disk from there.

i.e. Run: $ sudo linsk run --debug-shell dev:/dev/diskX --luks-container vdb1 mapper/cryptcontainer

Then use the Linux chown/chmod tools as needed.

Use ISO 8601 dates in PCManFM on Debian LXQt

I like ISO 8601 or RFC 3339 style dates.  That is, rather than "January 15, 2021", I like "2021-01-15".

This is especially useful in a file manager, having all the year-month-day lined up vertically in a column.

I also prefer 24-hr time format for the same reason.  But how to set this up?

 

macOS Finder

For Mac's file manager, it's really easy to set the date/time format:

Just open System Preferences > Language & Region > Advanced > Dates, then modify the date formats to whatever you want.  At the same time, you could go to the Times tab and set it to use 24-hr format. 

Done!  I offer this as just a point of comparison for what's below...

Debian LXQt PCManFM

On LXQt's PCManFM file manager, running on Debian, the setup was... annoyingly difficult.

PCManFM does not allow custom date/time formatting.  It only respects the system set locale.  So you have to choose the right locale.

Step 1.1: Select Locale

On LXQt, you can easily set the locale (they call it "Region") by running lxqt-config-locale in the terminal, or else click the system Preferences > LXQt settings > Locale.

Step 1.2: Which locale to choose???

You have a number of options.

Do you want:

• English language
• dollar denominated
• metric
• ISO-8601
• but 12-hr time?

Use Canadian English (en_CA) locale.

If that's not close enough, and you really want 24-hr time as well, you can enable Detailed Settings and change the Time locale to Sweden - English (en_SE).

Be sure to see Step 2: Installing Locales in Debian, because chances are doing the above will cause system errors later!

Note that en_CA uses Canadian dollars, not USD!  You can change the Currency locale to American English (en_US) if you want real USD dollars.  Although it probably doesn't matter for formatting purposes.

Why Sweden?  It turns out lots of Europeans want something similar, as in a locale that is English language, metric, using ISO-8601 or similar style dates!

Sweden - English is an unofficial locale made up to give us that [1], but it does use Swedish kronor SEK for currency [2].  That's why you only want to set the Time locale to use en_SE, keeping the rest as en_CA (or en_US).

 

Step 2: Installing Locales in Debian

Selecting the "Region" in LXQt's locale preference app is just half the story.

PCManFM will probably work fine as is.  Qt apps are fine because it uses it's own Qt locale definition lookup system, and includes en_CA and en_SE by default.

Debian does not include en_CA by default, so you'll have to install it.  And it does not have en_SE... not at all... you'll have to add the en_SE definition file manually then install it.

You can download a copy of the en_SE locale definition written by Mikael Auno [7].  Then create this directory if it doesn't exist:

/usr/local/share/i18n/locales

Place the en_SE file into the above locales directory.  Create a text file in the above i18n directory containing this text:

en_SE.UTF-8 UTF-8

Then run in terminal:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

You should see a list of locales you can install.  Look for and install the ones you selected in LXQt's locale preference app.  For my example above, that means en_CA, en_US, and en_SE.

Lastly, logout and re-login for the changes to take effect.

 

Fully Custom Locales in Debian: don't bother

From above, you see Debian allows you to create totally custom locales, so you can customize all the formats the way Macs can!  After all, that en_SE locale file you downloaded was just made up so to speak, and you can customize it however you want.

...but Qt won't use it.  Qt's locale system runs parallel to Debian Linux's.

So why go through the trouble of installing the en_SE locale if Qt won't use it?  Because if you don't, you'll run into problems with non-Qt apps, problems like:

Run locale in the terminal, and it'll complain:

locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory

Unzip certain archives using file-roller results in a dialog box complaining:

An error occurred while extracting files.
Pathname can't be converted from UTF-8 to current locale.

That occurs because a locale you chose in LXQt was not installed in Debian [8].  Qt is perfectly happy though, as it runs a separate locale system...

 

Firefox locale incompatibility

If you set your locale to Canadian or US English (en_CA or en_US), and enabled Detailed Settings to change the Time locale to Sweden - English (en_SE), Firefox will show numbers in Swedish / European style, like "3,14" instead of "3.14".

This problem happens at least in the downloads window.

Method 1: Fix by setting LC_ALL environment variable

The most reliable way to fix it in Debian is to set the LC_ALL environment variable, but only for Firefox [13].  Don't set LC_ALL globally or it'll undo the locale changes above, plus you just shouldn't as it overrides everything [12]. 

For the terminal :

With that said, all it involves is opening Firefox in the terminal like this:

LC_ALL=en_CA.utf8 firefox

You can save that in a script that's in your PATH so running Firefox always uses the LC_ALL locale.

For the Firefox icon:

The Firefox icon in Debian requires a different fix though.  That icon in the applications menu is controlled by a  firefox.desktop file located at:

/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop  

You can modify it directly or, safer, copy it to your user's applications folder:

~/.local/share/applications

Once copied, open it in a plaintext editor and change the Exec line to this:

Exec=sh -c "LC_ALL=en_CA.utf8 /usr/bin/firefox"

 

Method 2: Fix by setting Firefox locale internally

The "official" way to set the Firefox user interface locale is via Firefox's preferences [14]:  open preferences, then go to the Language section of the General panel.

I've tried it on Debian and it doesn't work.

You could also try finding in about:config the intl.locale.requested key and set it to the desired locale [15].  I didn't test this method though because setting the LC_ALL environment variable worked perfectly for me.

Other locale options

Sweden - English (en_SE) is an unofficial locale made up to give us English language, metric, ISO-8601 date format [1].  But it uses Swedish kronor SEK for currency [2].

Denmark - English (en_DK) is another unofficial locale made up with similar English and metric formats [3].  But the date is backwards (in dd/MM/y format), and uses Danish kroner DKK currency [4].

Ireland - English (en_IE) is an official locale that, like Denmark - English, gives us English and metric units [5], and like en_DK, the date is backwards (in dd/MM/y format).  It uses Euro for currency [6] though.

So by mixing and matching Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden, you should be able to get a reasonable ISO 8601/English/Euro(pean) locale.

And mixing Canada, US, and Sweden will get you a reasonable ISO 8601/English/Dollar locale.

References

[1]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/62318

[2]: https://icu4c-demos.unicode.org/icu-bin/locexp?d_=en&_=en_SE

[3]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/272665 and https://superuser.com/a/1269909

[4]: https://icu4c-demos.unicode.org/icu-bin/locexp?d_=en&_=en_DK

[5]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/62317

[6]: https://icu4c-demos.unicode.org/icu-bin/locexp?d_=en&_=en_IE

[7]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/langpack-locales/+bug/208548/comments/11

[8]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/269293

[12]: https://wiki.debian.org/Locale#Configuration 

[13]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/34965/how-to-change-firefox-language#comment47453_34967

[14]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-firefox-another-language?redirectslug=use-firefox-interface-other-languages-language-pack&redirectlocale=en-US#w_how-to-change-the-language-of-the-user-interface

[15]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1223719#answer-1127761

Bibliography

[9]: https://github.com/lxqt/pcmanfm-qt/issues/656

[10]: https://github.com/lxqt/lxqt-config/issues/507

[11]: https://wiki.debian.org/Locale

Mac Finder still shows incorrect folder sizes

It's been two years, and the Mac Finder still shows incorrect folder sizes --- on macOS 10.15 Catalina.

A single screenshot shows how hilarious / sad this is:

 

The screenshot here shows the Finder thinking my "lol" folder is 17.92 GB.

But inside "lol" are two sub-directories: "magic", and "movs".  Finder thinks those two folders are zero KB.

Inside "movs" are a bunch of MP4 files that together are several hundred MBs.

Bring up the terminal to check, and du shows "lol" is actually 211 GB !!!

For the record, du is correct.  "magic" contains a lot more files.

Oh Apple... I can't recall classic Mac OS Finder, since the System 7 days, ever having this level of... mistake? incompetency? error?  If every time the Finder's Get Info window is open, it would just spin out a du sub-process to get the folder size, then it wouldn't get it this wrong.  But nope.

And for the record, I had to restart the Mac to get the folder size to show correctly.  Something with the Finder got really screwed up I guess.

This problem has been known for two years, since macOS 10.14.  See:

- 2019 February: Finder Shows Incorrect Folder Sizes --- on macOS 10.14

- 2020 February: What You See in the Finder Should Always Be Correct

- 2021 February: here we are...

Remap one key to another in Windows, like Capslock to Control

There's three options to consider for remapping keys on Windows.

(1) Manually edit the Windows Registry

You can directly edit the Windows registry to remap keys, for example to Map capslock to control.  You'll need to know the keyboard hex scan codes involved though.

(2) Edit the Windows Registry with SharpKeys

If you have many keys to remap, or don't want to manually mess with the registry, there's an App for that!  SharpKeys looks pretty good.  You can use it to remap the Right Alt to the Left Windows key for example.

(3) Don't edit the Registry but run a background app like PT or AHK

Some common remappings like Capslock to control can be easily done without editing the registry at all!  You can run an app that stays in the background, listening for the keys you want changed, then they'll inject the key you want for it to change to.

Microsoft's PowerToys has a module for that sort of usage, and it comes with other toys like advanced file name changer, etc.  The kind of key remapping allowed is extremely limited though.

Another option is AutoHotKey (AHK).  It'll give you extreme customization beyond remapping a single key to a single key.  It'll let you script keys and combos to do pretty much arbitrary things to the keyboard and mouse.

Don't run both PowerToys keyboard remapping module and AHK key remappings together as they may interfere with each other!

(NEW!)  Check out kinto if you're interested in mac-style hotkeys on Linux and Windows!

 

Remap Capslock to Control with AutoHotKey

Make a text file and copy the script below into it, then save the text file with a .ahk file extension.  Double click the .ahk script file and AutoHotKey will run it to give you this 3FTD behaviour.

If you want the script to run every time you log in to Windows, you'll need to move the script or add a shortcut to it into the Windows startup folder.  See detailed instructions for that.

CapslockAsControl.ahk

#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
; #Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

#SingleInstance force

Capslock::Ctrl

Limitations to all methods

Some Windows hotkeys cannot be remapped!

Key combos like Windows key + L are dealt with by the Windows OS at a much lower level and treated specially.  Those cannot be remapped by PowerToys or AHK, at least not normally or usefully.

You could disable Win+L completely by disabling the Windows lock screen function [1].  But then your computer will never lock... ever.  Not when waking from sleep, not from the Control + Alt + Delete menu.  It's all or nothing.

Some apps don't allow / respect the remappings

Also apps that access the keyboard at a lower level, like some games and VirtualBox, don't play nice with AHK remappings.

Games access keyboards in a way that reduces latency to increase gaming responsiveness. And some games have anti-scripting functionality to discourage cheating.

VirtualBox is virtualizing your PC for another OS so a Windows background app messing with the keyboard of course won't play nice with VirtualBox.  And yes, Win+L will lock Windows even if you're inside a Linux guest in VirtualBox!

Vendor hotkeys can't be remapped

There are vendor specific keys and combos that your PC maker may have added via their keyboard drivers.  Like Lenovo's Fn+Tab starts the Windows magnifier key combo.  Press that while in a VirtualBox guest OS and it'll still run the magnifier!

Neither AHK nor PowerToys can remap the Fn+Tab combo either.  In fact, remapping the Fn key is usually tough if not impossible.  It's something handled specially by vendor's drivers on laptops to provide special functionality.

 

 

Compared to Macs

Scripting with AppleScript

Coming from the Mac world where AppleScript lets you implement customized and scripted automation of tasks, AutoHotKey (AHK) is similar in many ways.  Since AppleScript can be substituted with JavaScript, then the scripting language itself is better than AHK.

However, AppleScript doesn't provide hooks to customize or remap keys and key combos, so AHK does have this feature AppleScript doesn't.

On the flip side, Mac apps that make extensive use of Apple's Open Scripting Architecture allow AppleScripts to directly access certain data inside those apps for better integration.  Not every or many apps support advanced OSA usage, but it gives AppleScript an edge.

Remapping with Karabiner

As for providing key and combo remapping, I'm finding Karabiner-Elements on Macs to be better for that job than AHK.

Karabiner is more intuitive, purpose built for remapping keys, with many of the same AHK features for multi-key remapping.  It can also run scripts on key triggers like AHK, so Karabiner + AppleScript is roughly equivalent to AHK's functionality.

Less limitations

Macs have less limitations than Windows on the key remapping front too.  You'll have no problems using Karabiner-Elements to remap the "Apple key" (command key) vs the difficulties of remapping the Windows key (especially special combos like Win+L).

Key remappings with Karabiner on Macs are also respected by VirtualBox unlike remappings done via AHK on Windows.  To be fair, some AHK key remappings do work with VirtualBox, but I had trouble with modifier keys and special Windows hotkeys.

References

[1] How to disable Windows 10 Workstation Lock (Window + L) Functionality

How to reduce PDF file size on Macs and Linux?

 Of the suggestions I saw, using the "shrink PDF" script files with Ghostscript was the best.

Install Ghostscript first.  On Linux, apt install ghostscript or on Macs using homebrew, brew install ghostscript.

Save that shrink PDF script into a shrinkpdf.sh file.  Make sure to chmod u+x shrinkpdf.sh to allow it to execute.

Then use it, /path/to/shrinkpdf.sh in.pdf out.pdf.

On my old Mac running Sierra macOS 10.12, Ghostscript had trouble running because the way brew built it, Ghostscript was looking for the libXt.6.dylib library in the wrong place.

You need XQuartz installed first.  But XQuartz installs X11 libraries into /opt/X11.  But Ghostscript looks for X11 libraries in /usr/X11.

Easy fix?  Symlink the X11 directory to where Ghostscript expects it.

Go to where Ghostscript looks for X11: cd /usr

Then symlink to where the X11 libraries actually are: sudo ln -s /opt/X11.

Done.

Quickly Open source code file location in OS's file browser from Netbeans

Want to open the file system browser to the location of a file or folder from Netbeans?

Easy, use the QuickOpener plugin.  Such a basic functionality requires a plugin, whereas it's built in in VS Code, but there it is.

Not the old QuickOpener that's been abandoned.

Use the new QuickOpener that's the fork of the old one (it's a friendly fork).

It works with Apache Netbeans, and can be found in the Netbeans plugin search area at least up to version 11.

For Netbeans version 12, you'll need to download the NBM plugin file from the online page of the new QuickOpener, then install it in Netbeans from the downloaded NBM file.  It worked for me in basic testing, so it should work fine.

profile bash_profile bashrc on Ubuntu Linux, Macs, and Windows

I'm trying to get the same script to run and also set the $PATH for the login and non-login terminal shell on all 3 OSs: Windows, Mac, and Linux.

There's 3 parts to making it work:

Does the shell start in login or non-login mode?

1. Mac's Terminal.app by default starts bash as a login shell.
   
2. Ubuntu graphically logs in as a GUI shell (i.e. your desktop environment, gnome-session, etc.), so it's just not bash at all.  But if you then open a terminal in the desktop environment, your manually opened bash shell on Ubuntu may well start as a non-login (i.e. interactive) shell.
3. Debian LXDE graphically logs in with bash and runs as a login shell by default.
   
4. Windows Git Bash (MINGW64) seems to start as a login shell by default as well.

Which script runs on shell startup: .profile, .bash_profile, .bashrc?

1. Gnome-session or whatever is your desktop environment (DE) is not bash, but the script that starts your DE is supposed to source ~/.profile but NOT ~/.bash_profile.  However, it's possible with Debian LXDE that it'll prefer ~/.bash_profile if it exists over the fallback that is ~/.profile.
   
2. Bash as a login mode shell sources ~/.bash_profile and if that's missing then ~/.profile as a fallback.
   
3. Bash as a non-login (interactive) shell sources ~/.bashrc and NOT those other two.

Where should scripts go to run on shell startup?

1. So scripts that run only when your desktop environment or graphical shell starts goes into ~/.profile.
   
2. Scripts that run only when you start bash in login mode --- e.g. started with bash -l, via the text console mode in Debian or Ubuntu e.g. via Ctrl + Alt + F2, when Mac's Terminal.app opens, or when Git's MINGW Bash opens on Windows --- goes into ~/.bash_profile.
   
3. Scripts that run only when you start bash interactively (non-login mode) --- e.g. started by clicking the terminal icon having graphically logged in to Ubuntu's DE --- goes into ~/.bashrc.  This assumes you didn't configure your terminal emulator to run as a login shell!
   

Want the script to always run however shell starts up?

Suppose you want a bit of code to run when your shell starts.  It doesn't matter if it's a login, non-login (i.e. interactively started), graphical login from your desktop environment, on Macs, on Windows MINGW, etc.

In principle, I think ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile both should source in ~/.bashrc as well, so scripts in ~/.bashrc should run whichever way you get your hands into a terminal UI in Ubuntu.  But Macs and Windows Git Bash doesn't have a proper .bash_profile to start.

Thus for Macs and Windows, favor ~/.bash_profile.

For Ubuntu Linux, favor ~/.bashrc.

A single method that works on all 3 platforms would be to put the code in ~/.bashrc, then make sure ~/.bash_profile sources in bashrc.

Bibliography

Why ~/.bash_profile is not getting sourced when opening a terminal?

DotFiles

VeraCrypt download: how to verify its PGP signature

Important Consideration:  Be sure to know your way around Bash in the terminal, and understand the concepts around GPG / PGP signatures, before using the instructions below.

These instructions are not intended for you if you don't know e.g. what a PGP signature verification is really for.

The steps here is really just a quick reference for you if you already know how to make GnuPG work, but maybe you don't remember the exact steps because, like me, you use it maybe once every 5 years... so you just need a quick reminder.

For better or more detailed instructions: please look for the clear explanation on how to verify downloads from VeraCrypt's own official download page (here's the direct link to it).

Note that VeraCrypt has moved their website!
They've moved their website from the old Codeplex page to the new download page here: https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html

VeraCrypt is apparently sponsored by IDRIX (https://www.idrix.fr) and you can verify the new PGP signature/key from them too: https://www.idrix.fr/Root/content/category/7/32/60/

Their open source development has moved to GitHub where you can see when PGP signature/key update occurred: https://github.com/veracrypt/VeraCrypt/commit/3e25b07646fdb5f01f48da329b91b0553f54a396

On Macs
Make sure Homebrew is installed (or else you can install these yourself from source).  Then in the terminal, you can use these commands to install GnuPG and GPG:

brew install gnupg
brew install gpg2

Next, get VeraCrypt's PGP key ID from:
https://www.idrix.fr/Root/content/category/7/32/60/

It's probably a good idea to cross-reference different websites to ensure the PGP key you got is the right one.  There's a few links above to get you started if you want to do this.

Next, in the terminal, run the following command --- you should make sure the key I wrote below is in fact the VeraCrypt PGP Key ID you got from the link above (and do note the PGP signature/key has changed since version 1.22, in case you're verifying an older version):

gpg --recv-keys 0x680D16DE

That should import the public key and say "VeraCrypt Team (2018 - Supersedes Key ID=0x54DDD393)" etc.  

Then run the following command in the terminal --- again, you should make sure the key I wrote below is in fact the correct and official VeraCrypt PGP Key ID:

gpg --fingerprint 0x680D16DE

That should display the key fingerprint in the terminal, which you should compare and ensure is the same as the key fingerprint that's posted on:
https://www.idrix.fr/Root/content/category/7/32/60/
and on:
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Digital%20Signatures.html 

Next step in verifying your download, run the following in the terminal for your downloaded version of the files:

gpg --verify veracrypt-1.23-setup.tar.bz2{.sig*,}

Obviously, I'm verifying version 1.23 here.  If you're looking at a different version, you should figure out how to modify this command above to verify whatever you downloaded.

The command above should cause a verification message to be displayed in the terminal.

That verification message should say the signature used key ID 0x680D16DE  --- again, you should make sure the key displayed is in fact the correct and official VeraCrypt PGP Key ID!

Alternatively, that message may state that the primary key fingerprint is 5069A233D55A0EEB174A5FC3821ACD02680D16DE --- this should match the correct and official fingerprints found from the links above!

And it should also say the signature is a "Good signature" from the VeraCrypt Team.

That's it!

If during any of the above steps, an ID or fingerprint doesn't match, then something terrible has happened and it's probably a signal that the verification has failed (or some command was used incorrectly).


On Linux or Windows

Similar instructions apply for Linux, but install GnuPG and GPG from your system's package management system instead.

You can see similar instructions for setting up VeraCrypt on Kubuntu here.

Similarly for Windows, but you'll have to figure out how to install GPG yourself --- see the Tor project's manual on doing that (that's what helped me piece together the above anyway):
https://www.torproject.org/docs/verifying-signatures.html.en

 

Need More Help?

If you want more instructions, please look for the very clear explanation on how to verify downloads from VeraCrypt's own official download page (here's the direct link to it).

Create React Native App using TypeScript compiled with Babel

Here's every step to creating a React Native app, written in and type checked with TypeScript, but compiled with Babel 7.

You're assumed to have some proficiency with using the terminal.

Tools to Install on your PC

I'm on a Mac, but the steps shouldn't be much different on Ubuntu Linux or Windows.

1. Install Homebrew.
   It's a package manager for Macs, and Linux too, but if you're on Ubuntu or Debian, I suggest just use the built-in one like APT.
2. Install Node thru brew.
   Installing Node should include the NPM package manager with it, which is needed below.
3. Some say to next install Yarn thru brew.
   Yarn is yet another node package manager... you can skip this if you want, it's not strictly needed, and I won't use Yarn in this tutorial.
4. Fix NPM if you installed Yarn.
   I actually mentioned Yarn at all only because with Homebrew, you might now need to fix the Node NPM install as it might be broken by installing yarn.  Simply[1] run: yarn global add npm.  Remember, we don't need Yarn in this tutorial though.
5. Install React Native CLI thru npm:$ npm install -g react-native-cli
   This is basically a template that creates a RN project for you to start from.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33870520/npm-install-cannot-find-module-semver/49422151#49422151

New Project with React Native

1. Create a React Native project:

$ react-native init CoolProject

1.5. Upgrade core-js:
I got an error like this:

warning react-native > create-react-class > fbjs > core-js@1.2.7: core-js@<2.6.8 is no longer maintained. Please, upgrade to core-js@3 or at least to actual version of core-js@2.

You just need to upgrade core-js.  Go into your CoolProject folder and run:

npm install --save core-js@^3

2. cd CoolProject to go into the new project's root directory, then install Babel:

$ npm install --save-dev @babel/core @babel/cli

I assume this will install for you Babel 7 or above.  We'll need it later to migrate to TypeScript.

3. Create a lib folder in the project root.

$ mkdir lib

The lib folder will be used to contain the App's JavaScript files. Traditionally, the folder would be called "src", but looking forward, these JavaScript files eventually will be produced by the TypeScript compiler for us.

So instead, we're going to reserve "src" for later when we migrate to TypeScript, instead of calling it "src" right now when we're still dealing with just JavaScript JS, or JSX, files.

Separating the TypeScript and the compiled JavaScript files is a technique to avoid in-source builds (a usual technique used in compiled languages like C++: see e.g. in-source vs out-of-source builds).

Homebrew blew up from libffi, ruby, or? Here's how to fix it.

I wanted to upgrade Homebrew itself and what it installed on my Mac.  It's probably been over a year, so lots of outdated stuff.  I ran:

brew update
brew upgrade

Everything looked good, and it gave me some instructions to add to my PATH the Homebrew installed ruby and ruby gems along the lines of adding the following to my .bash_profile:

PATH="/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:$PATH"
PATH="/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bin:$PATH"

So I did that, and tried out ruby, irb, and emacs. It starts spitting a bunch of different errors, and I probably confounded the causes and errors as I was trouble shooting, but it gave me errors about:

dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/libffi/lib/libffi.6.dylib

Especially when I ran emacs, I got:

dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/libffi/lib/libffi.6.dylib
Referenced from: /usr/local/opt/p11-kit/lib/libp11-kit.0.dylib
Reason: image not found

And when I ran irb, I got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
2: from /usr/local/opt/ruby/bin/irb:23:in `<main>'
1: from /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/2.6.2/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems.rb:302:in `activate_bin_path'
/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/2.6.2/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems.rb:283:in `find_spec_for_exe': can't find gem irb (>= 0.a) with executable irb (Gem::GemNotFoundException)

Hmm?  I tried a bunch of stuff and it probably made it more confusing, especially as I started running brew and got errors like:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/lib/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- active_support/core_ext/object/blank (LoadError)

Or when I ran brew help and got:
 

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/lib/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- mechanize/version (LoadError)

Well now I just wanted to "start over".  You could do that by deleting all of Homebrew and what it installed, to start fresh, but what a pain!  I'd have to know what packages to re-install with a new Homebrew installation and go through installing those one by one.

Instead, the easier thing to try first is this:

1. Remove from your PATH the brew installed ruby and rubygem

On Macs, it's probably "safest" when troubleshooting Homebrew to use the Mac OS X's original Apple installed ruby.  Yes, it's an old version of ruby, but when I changed my PATH to use the Homebrew installed ruby, I probably made troubleshooting much more difficult.  It's tough enough to troubleshoot Homebrew, but if brew (a ruby program) runs on the brew installed ruby, brew just might be running on a ruby that brew screwed up...

2. try brew update-reset

This fetches and resets Homebrew and all tap repositories to the latest from their git repositories.  In other words, restart them fresh.

3. brew reinstall libffi

emacs, ruby, python, and a bunch of other stuff needs it.  Even if you've got it installed.  Reinstall it to make sure it's installed right.  It fixed emacs for me for sure.  Probably ruby too.

4. update and upgrade brew again

brew update
brew upgrade

And that finally fixed it.  I added the ruby and gem paths back into PATH in my .bash_profile, and installed irb as a ruby gem (Mac OS X has old versions of both ruby and irb pre-installed, but getting the latest means installing ruby via brew and irb as a ruby gem).

How to migrate ReactXP App to make an Electron Desktop App

ReactXP comes with a few sample apps. The TodoList app is the most developed and closest to the structure of a production app written in TypeScript, but doesn't target Electron.  Here's how to migrate it to run on Electron so it could work as a desktop app.

I'm on a Mac, but Electron is cross platform with Windows and Linux so it should work there too.  ReactXP 1.6.x is current right now (hilariously, it upgraded from 1.5.x just as I was working on this and it introduced some new error so this migration is totally in beta).

Strategically, the idea is ReactXP can already directly target the web via React (in addition to native iOS, Android, and Windows via React Native).  So we just target the web with ReactXP, modify the web page loader to run in Electron, and modify some code so it doesn't assume it's running at the root of a web server.

Make TodoList into a web app. Run it on a local dev web server

First, use git to clone the ReactXP repository:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/reactxp

In the reactxp/samples directory, you'll find the TodoList app. Open it:

cd reactxp/samples/TodoList/

Install Electron into it:

npm install --save-dev electron

Now we need a web page to load the app into Electron.  We'll use the default one from Electron quick start.  Just copy the main.js from electron-quick-start into the TodoList folder, and rename it to electron-main.js just for clarity.

Maximally Cross Platform with React?

Once upon a time, going cross platform meant making an application that ran on both Macs and Windows, and maybe Linux/Unix if you're into that crowd.

Now everything is fragmented and compartmentalized.  Consider what "platforms" there are now for making apps:

1. desktop web browsers --- i.e. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, vs Edge --- further divided by Macs, Windows, and Linux (at least for browsers that are cross platform, ha!)
    
2. mobile web browsers --- i.e. iOS vs Android --- further divided by phone vs tablet display sizes
    
3. Electron desktop apps --- i.e. Macs, Windows, vs Linux (built with web browser technology)
    
4. native desktop apps --- i.e. Macs, Windows, vs Linux
    
5. native mobile apps --- i.e. iOS vs Android --- further divided by phone vs tablet display sizes

Some of the above differences are a matter of building user interfaces sized for use on that display size, while other differences are a matter of framework (e.g. Cocoa vs Android SDK).

But at worse, that's still 26 different platforms to build for!  There are technologies that help bridge the divide, and one family of such tech is called React.

Here's a survey of some React based technologies and which platforms they work well for.

Create React Native App using TypeScript with Babel and Expo

(updated 2019-07-23 for clarity)

Here's every step to creating a React Native app (with or without Expo), written in and type checked with TypeScript, but compiled with Babel 7.

You're assumed to have some proficiency with using the terminal.

Tools to Install on your PC

I'm on a Mac, but the steps shouldn't be much different on Ubuntu Linux or Windows.

1. Install Homebrew.
   It's a package manager for Macs, and Linux too, but if you're on Ubuntu or Debian, I suggest just use the built-in one like APT.
2. Install Node thru brew.
   Installing Node should include the NPM package manager with it, which is needed below.
3. Some say to next install Yarn thru brew.
   Yarn is yet another node package manager... you can skip this if you want, it's not strictly needed, and I won't use Yarn in this tutorial.
4. Fix NPM if you installed Yarn.
   I actually mentioned Yarn at all only because with Homebrew, you might now need to fix the Node NPM install as it might be broken by installing yarn.  Simply[1] run: yarn global add npm.  Remember, we don't need Yarn in this tutorial though.
5. Install Expo thru npm:$ npm install -g expo-cli
   
   Expo is apparently kind of a mini-platform for running React Native apps, and makes it easy to test a React Native app on devices through its Expo app, or on Macs and PCs without resorting to an Android or iOS emulator (which is great, because those emulators are dreadfully slow in my experience).  Plus installing Expo should include React Native with it.
6. Install React Native CLI thru npm:$ npm install -g react-native-cli
   This is basically a template that creates a RN project for you to start from.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33870520/npm-install-cannot-find-module-semver/49422151#49422151

New Project with React Native or Expo

1. Create a React Native project (possibly thru Expo):

$ expo init CoolProject

or alternatively without Expo:

$ react-native init CoolProject

1.5. Upgrade core-js:
I got an error like this:

warning react-native > create-react-class > fbjs > core-js@1.2.7: core-js@<2.6.8 is no longer maintained. Please, upgrade to core-js@3 or at least to actual version of core-js@2.

You just need to upgrade core-js.  Go into your CoolProject folder and run:

npm install --save core-js@^3

2. cd CoolProject to go into the new project's root directory, then install Babel:

$ npm install --save-dev @babel/core @babel/cli

I assume this will install for you Babel 7 or above.  We'll need it later to migrate to TypeScript.

3. Create a lib folder in the project root.

$ mkdir lib

The lib folder will be used to contain the App's JavaScript files. Traditionally, the folder would be called "src", but looking forward, these JavaScript files eventually will be produced by the TypeScript compiler for us.

So instead, we're going to reserve "src" for later when we migrate to TypeScript, instead of calling it "src" right now when we're still dealing with just JavaScript JS, or JSX, files.

Separating the TypeScript and the compiled JavaScript files is a technique to avoid in-source builds (a usual technique used in compiled languages like C++: see e.g. in-source vs out-of-source builds).

Elixir and Phoenix on MacOS for the First Time: install to first project

Let's install Elixir and Phoenix on MacOS, and create our first web app project.

I looked through 3 separate web pages to figure it out (it was relatively easy), and thought it'd help to gather it into a single page of 10 steps.

What's Elixir?  Elixir is a programming language that superficially looks a little like Ruby, but more importantly is designed to be dynamic, functional, and capable of building concurrent, distributed, low-latency and fault-tolerant systems (perfect for the web!).

It does that by running on the Erlang VM (like a Java VM, not like a VirtualBox VM), and that also gives developers access to Erlang’s ecosystem (this reminds me of how Clojure runs on the JVM, providing access to Java's ecosystem).

What's Phoenix?   Phoenix is an Elixir framework implementing the server side of a web framework for modern web applications.  Like Ruby on Rails or Python's Django, but Phoenix is written in Elixir and derives benefits from that (in addition to whatever other advantages it may have as a framework - we're not comparing frameworks today).


(1) Install Homebrew

To begin, you need Homebrew installed on your MacOS.  Homebrew is a package management system that makes installing lots of developer software much easier on Macs.

Once installed, especially if it's been a while since you've last used Homebrew, make sure to update it (commands after "$" are to be typed in your terminal window):

$ brew update

Do a self diagnostic to make sure it's all okay, carefully read the instructions it provides:

$ brew doctor

(2) Install Elixir

Elixir requires Erlang to be installed.  Fortunately, the Homebrew package will automatically make sure of that.

Sharing TrueCrypt USB volume on 3 platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux

Edited 2017-04-02.

tl;dr: TrueCrypt exFAT volume on an exFAT disk. But creating such a volume is tricky!

Update for macOS Sierra: I upgraded to the latest macOS and TrueCrypt wouldn't work. After spending a little time on the problem, I gave up and went with VeraCrypt.  Remember to verify the VeraCrypt download though!

I've tried to find a solution to sharing a TrueCrypt encrypted volume on a USB memory stick between three platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux.  It's been tough to find something modern and reliable, as I tried HFS+, Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 on USB and in a TrueCrypt volume.

Modern means that it'll properly deal with big files (over 4 GB), and long international file names (over 8.3 UTF characters).

The best solution I've found so far is a TrueCrypt exFAT volume on an exFAT USB stick.  But creating such a volume is tricky!  Using the wrong software to do the formatting will destroy the TrueCrypt file.

It's modern, and okay but not great in reliability.  There's some caveats and things to watch out for though to make this work well for you.

Such a tri-platform TrueCrypt volume can be created in basically 2 steps:

VeraCrypt: how to verify its GPG signature

(Update:  the following is still correct, but the fingerprint keys I noted have changed after they released version 1.22.  See my recent update.)

I'm not sure why the steps to verify a VeraCrypt download isn't more prominently displayed on their website, so I pieced it together myself here:

Downloaded latest stable release and PGP signature here:
https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Downloads

On a Mac, make sure Homebrew is installed (or else you can install these yourself from source).

brew install gnupg
brew install gpg2

Get VeraCrypt PGP key ID from:
https://www.idrix.fr/Root/content/category/7/32/60/

In the terminal, run the following with the VeraCrypt PGP Key ID you got above:

gpg --recv-keys 0x54DDD393
gpg --fingerprint 0x54DDD393

That should display the key fingerprint, which you should compare with the key fingerprint that's posted on:
https://www.idrix.fr/Root/content/category/7/32/60/
and on:
https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/

Now to verify your download, run the following in Terminal for your downloaded version of the files:

gpg --verify VeraCrypt_1.18.dmg{.sig*,}

The message displayed should say the signature used key ID 54DDD393 (make sure it's the key ID found from above!) and is good and from VeraCrypt Team .

Similar instructions apply for Linux, but install GnuPG and GPG from your system's package management system instead.

Similarly for Windows, but you'll have to figure out how to install GPG yourself --- see the Tor project's manual on doing that (that's what helped me piece together the above):
https://www.torproject.org/docs/verifying-signatures.html.en

After all was written above and done, I found VeraCrypt's instructions hidden away at the bottom of a page without mention of what to install and such, but here it is anyway:
https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Digital%20Signatures

SMART Notebook 11.4 on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite requires Ruby 1.8

I upgraded my Mac to OS X 10.10 Yosemite and SMART Notebook 11.4 started to crash upon opening it.  SMART doesn't provide a patch or any information on why that is, except that you'd basically need to buy a newer version of Notebook (which I wasn't about to do).

So with some investigation it turns out SMART Notebook 11.4 requires Ruby 1.8 to work.  Except installing Ruby 1.8 from, e.g., Homebrew doesn't work.  I guess SMART had statically linked Notebook 11.4 against the particular Ruby library that was distributed by Apple.

A bit of research online turns up a post describing the same problem and the solution: copy Ruby 1.8 from a pre-Yosemite Mac over to Yosemite in the same directory.

The directory is /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/.

Someone even made an installer and posted a link in the comments in that post, although I can't say whether you should trust using that installer...  Not feeling comfortable using that installer, I dug up an older Mac and zipped up the 1.8 folder from the above directory and copied it over to my Yosemite machine.

Leave a comment here or message me if you want a zipped copy of the Ruby 1.8 folder.  Or else if you feel comfortable with using that unvetted installer, then go download it from that comment.

Problems with this fix

Note that this method of making SMART Notebook 11.4 work will make the program less stable.  I've had crashes from time to time.  It also makes the toolbar unusable, and in fact, it won't even show up on the screen!  So get used to picking tools the long way via the menubar instead.

I do wish there was a better software solution to what I'll call the "Projector Transparency Roll - Writable (50 feet)".

Photo album sync fail on iPad with Mac

I'm not usually one to blog complaints about products, but this seems outrageous.  Using the built-in Photo app on an iPad, I've got a bunch of photos organized into albums.  You can download the photos to a Mac in a mass download using the Mac's Image Capture program, or using Mac's iPhoto.  You can backup the iPad's Photo and albums using iTunes, but the backups are inaccessible on the Mac as albums, photos, or files, just pure backup to be reloaded to an iPad in case of "emergency" I guess.  But you cannot download the photo albums to the Mac from the iPad for further use or organization.

Apparently, you cannot download photo albums created on any iOS devices to a Mac for further use or organization at all, and it's been this way since forever.  There is a third-party app called "Phone View" that reportedly can let you do this.

But really?  A simple feature like syncing albums in an Apple built-in app requires a third-party solution?  And it's not obvious when using the beautifully created Apple Photo app on the iPad that album sync was not possible, luring unsuspecting users into creating albums that could not be synced.

This is an especially sad situation for users on iPads or other iOS devices on which they don't have access to install apps.  Where does that ever happen?  Well, corporate and school based usage comes to mind.

2010 MacBook Pro black screen graphics switching bug workaround

Apple 15 inch MacBook Pros from mid 2010 were manufactured with some hardware defects causing it to intermittently freeze or stop displaying video on the built-in or external display. Apple has been replacing affected machines' motherboards, but the problem seems to persist even afterwards, but less frequently.

Any program that makes the system switch graphics processor can trigger the defect.  Typically, for example, the system starts up using the Intel integrated graphics, then you open Chrome, which kicks it over to the Nvidia discrete graphics.  Later, you quit Chrome and when it switches back to the Intel integrated graphics, the screen may now flicker and then go black.

Strangely enough, a workaround exists.  Sleep the computer at least once after starting up.  Once it's gone to sleep at least once, the defeat seems to no longer be triggered upon graphics switching.

Resources:

1. MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010): Intermittent black screen or loss of video
2. Apple acknowledges 2010 MacBook Pro black-screen bug
3. Lion randomly crashes - black screen
4. Black screen with flickering on top on MacBook Pro 6,2