can't use it

a blog by Cemre Güngör

Snow Leopard hangs, beachballs frequently (in Safari and Flash Player)

Two things to do after upgrading:

  1. Upgrade your Flash player because the one that comes with Snow Leopard is old. It gets choppy with HD videos, for example.
    Flash Player update and Snow Leopard
  2. Follow the instructions on this forum post to clean caches
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=778819

UPDATE: I found out that the real problem was caused by extensions that weren’t compatible with Snow Leopard thus were giving errors and re-launching every few minutes (thus the beachballing). So open the Console and check your logs. When you identify the offending extensions from the Log, uninstall them if possible.

If you see launchd complaining that it can’t find something,  a handy script called “Consultant’s Canary” may help you see where they are configured so you can go ahead and delete the launcher scripts.

How to prevent iTunes from launching when play/pause key on Macbook/iMac keyboard is pressed

This is quite annoying for Spotify/Hulu users. Even if you have iTunes closed, when you try to play music in Spotify by pressing the play key on the keyboard, iTunes launches and starts playing too. Essentially hijacking the key.

Solution is, keep QuickTime X open (without any files) when iTunes is closed. Then iTunes won’t launch when you press the play/pause keys.

Another excellent workaround is provided with a Python script which is essentially an iTunes launcher which doesn’t launch the application if Spotify is running. It is found here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2122639&start=30&tstart=0

Fireworks CS4 crashes on startup after upgrading to Snow Leopard

Solution: install the Fireworks CS4 upgrade from Adobe’s website.

Adobe – Fireworks Support Center : Downloads : Updaters

Then Fireworks will start crashing after quitting, but that’s not such a big problem :)

3-finger 4-finger multi-touch gestures/Expose not working after upgrading to Snow Leopard

I don’t know why, but after transferring my account from my old Macbook to the new one, 3-finger and 4-finger multi-touch gestures stopped working (in Snow Leopard). To solve this, just reset the PMC. The following procedures is for Macbooks which have internal batteries.

  • Shut down your computer normally.
  • Press (only once and shortly) left shift + left control + left option keys and the power button.
  • Wait 5 seconds
  • Turn the computer on. The sleep light should blink shortly.

After doing this the 3- and 4-finger gestures started working again.

On Flickr’s new buttons

Flickr has changed their buttons with flat ones instead of the thick-bordered ones they had before. I didn’t like the new ones very much because they lack the affordance of being “pushable”:
flickr_1

Here’s a crude version on how I’d make them more button-y
flickr_2

Also, I think UI-wise the buttons could lead the user to do the more desirable action for Flickr. In this case, they have placed a Preview button so users would read what they write and end up leaving smarter comments :) Why not highlight it a bit?
flickr_3

or then in the style that Facebook has introduced:
flickr_4

It’s good to provide users guidance in the form of defaults actions in forms and dialogs. A good example is Mac OS UI’s dialogs such as:
Screenshot 332

getElementsByClass and getElementsByName in FBJS

I found a great library that makes FBJS more similar to real javascript by adding functions like getElementsByClass and getElementsByName, while also borrowing some prototype/jQuery syntax and extending $(’..’).show() etc. syntax to objects. Map and collect as a bonus! :)

http://github.com/gdeglin/inigral-fbjs-library/tree/master

UI Fail: Error message without back button

Turkcell’s web page for managing mobile phone subscriptions not only annoys customers with superfluous captcha and password aging, they do not provide a ‘back’ button in their error page as well!

Screenshot 266

They probably expect the customer to return to the previous page using the tab. However, it should ideally not be a link and should have the same content in every page, as they don’t have any secondary navigation.

Calling view helpers from/inside other view helpers in Zend Framework

Normally in views you would use $this->helper(); to use a helper, and inside other view helpers, you can simply use $this->view->helper(); to access other view helpers.

Bug in Gmail

This has continued for the last few weeks. Interesting… I wonder if this has anything to do with me using the Offline version too.

Screenshot 208

Mac OS X 10.5.7 update breaks Cisco VPN Client

After updating to 10.5.7 I started to get kernel panics and the system would not start.

To fix this, restart your Mac in safe mode by pressing shift. Then launch the command line and use this to uninstall the VPN client:

sudo /usr/local/bin/vpn_uninstall

This will remove the kernel extensions which prevent the system from booting up.