Updated Streaming Prices

I'm updating the prices to help a brand new cordcutter. Starred prices are not yet updated.

Philo	Sling TV	Hulu		You Tube	Fubo		DirecTV
no local	no local	with ads	no ads	TV	Pro	Elite	Ent	Ch	Ult	Prem
28	61	83	96	83	85	95	85	80	110	155

(updated) Errata: Using the Macintosh Toolbox with C (2nd Edition)

(Updated 2/22/25)

If you're like me, you're going through every old Macintosh Toolbox programming book you can find and typing the code into THINK C to see what will happen. No? OK then.

If you're still here, maybe you've picked up Using the Macintosh Toolbox with C (2nd Edition) by Fred A Huxham, David Burnard, Jim Takatsuka.

And maybe everything in their book works perfectly well for you, but for me, and no shade to these fine authors, there are few tweaks I had to me.

On page 432, in the main() event loop, in the keyDown case, keyCodeMask is 0xff00, so c ends up being zero. If you change it to charCodeMask, which = 0xff, you'll get a valid result you can pass to MenuKey.

On page 435 *in both the rename and delete procedures* PBFlshVol should have a "u" in it.

On page 436, in the file info procedure, PBGetVolInfo should just be PBGetVInfo.

Shabbat Mode (iOS)

Do you wish you could turn off social media during Shabbat? Here's how I did it on my iOS devices:

1. Go to Settings → Screen Time; scroll to the bottom and turn on Share Across Devices; do this on all your devices before you set up your allowed-apps list.

2. In Settings → Screen Time, under Limit, tap Always Allowed and add the apps you will allow to run during Shabbat. I'm including my list as a guide/reference: Phone, Messages, FaceTime, Maps, App Store, Authenticator, Blink, Boston Globe, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Docs, Drive, Find Devices, Find Items, Find People, Fitbit, Flo by Moen, Google Translate, Kindle, Lowell Sun e-Edition, Merlin Bird ID, Music, New Hampshire Union Leader, Notes, NYTimes, Overcast, Photos, Podcasts, Reminders, Sefaria, Sheets, Strava, Tasks, Venmo, Voice Memos, Wash Post, Weather, Workout, YouTube.

3. In Settings → Screen Time, under Limit, tap Downtime. Tap Customize Days. Turn all days off. Then turn on Friday from 6-ish pm to 12 am and Saturday from 12 am to 9-ish pm. Again, this is just an example.

You'll still be able to run apps you forgot to include, but to me it felt much nicer not having to press that button. Go back to Settings and add them.

One thing I didn't figure out was how best to use the browser. There were a couple times I needed to look something up, and I would have preferred white-listing certain sites to pressing the override button. Let me know if you know a good way to do this.

MARCHintosh Day #1: How Much Memory?

I should have done a better job keeping track of the memory that came installed in the Power Macs I recently bought.

Mac #1 is a 7100/66, it has four SIMM slots.

Mac #2 is a 6214CD with two SIMM slots.

I also bought 4 32MB SIMMs I figured I would split between the two new Macs.

So Mac #1 now has 64 MB plus two 8 MB that were leftovers, for a total of 80 MB. There must have been two SIMMs that were leftover, size unknown.

And Mac #2 now has 64 MB total. The sizes of its two leftovers are also unknown.

Let's see if we can figure out the size of those four SIMMs.

Or six. You see, there were a bunch of SIMMs in a shoe box, also of unknown size. I'd swear there were three, so maybe the 7100 only had one leftover? Who knows.

Here's the log of my analysis:

SIMM #	How many?	Total inc one 32 MB simm	Size of this SIMM
1	2	40,960 KB	8 MB
2	2	40,960 KB	8 MB
3	1	49,152 KB	16 MB
4	1	49,152 KB	16 MB

So the result is that I should have measured all of the memory before I re-cabled the 7100, which is a huge pain in the butt. But replacing 16 MB with 32 MB will give me a total of 96 MB in that system, which will be well worth the effort.

And I'd say MARCHintosh Day #1 was a success!

Back in the day, you could find my recipe for Sherry Noodle Soup on dave-net.com. Well that old domain is long gone. And sadly, I don't think you can even find it on The Wayback Machine!

But I found it on a hard drive and decided to cook up a batch. But nah, that recipe needed a little tweak here and there. So without further ado, here's version two...

This latest rewrite represents a simple change that made a huge difference. Cut up the chicken and mushrooms and let them marinate in the sherry. Mwah!!

Sherry Noodle Soup v3

Ingredients:

• A couple chicken bodies or one turkey frame, with a little meat left on (you'll want about two cups of meat off the bones later)
• 3 quarts, water (or 12 cups if you prefer)
• 2 cups, raw mushrooms (optional)
• 1 cup, dry sherry
• 2 tsp, kosher salt (if you really must)
• 1½ tsp, oregano
• 1½ tsp, thyme
• 1/4 tsp, ground black pepper
• 1 medium-large onion (chopped)
• 2 cups, chopped carrots
• 2 cups, chopped celery
• 1 lb, cooked pasta or rice - maybe make it diners' choice!

Combine meaty bones and water in a large pot. Bring to boil and then simmer for an hour or so.

Remove everything from the broth. Salvage whatever meat you can from the bones. Discard the bones and other yucky stuff. Set aside two cups of meat for later. The rest will make a nice sandwich! you can give to your dog!

Strain the broth. If you like, you can let it cool and skim the fat off the top.

Combine the chicken meat (diced) with the mushrooms and sherry. Let this marinate in the refrigerator until about 30 minutes before dinnertime.

Combine the broth, optional salt and herbs, and the vegetables. Bring it all to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, or until the carrots are al dente.

Add the sherry/mushrooms/chicken mixture and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add the pasta or rice to each bowl as you serve it. Maybe set it out buffet style?

Enjoy!!

JDeveloper Font Size

Funny how two posts ago I was having trouble with font size in Emacs. The other day, I don't know what I did, I don't have a cat I can blame for walking across the keyboard, but I made the JDeveloper font size SO SMALL, I could barely see it. OK, it was like 7-8 point - still, VERY SMALL!!

So I did what you do, I quit JDev. Then today when I started it up, oh damn, I never did solve the font size thing. Clearly there is some keystroke that makes fonts smaller. I know there is, because I fell into a big bucket of that.

What I did find, though, is if you go to Tools -> Preferences and just search for "font" it's under Code Editor. I made it SO BIG, it's now a pleasure to use!!

There's nothing wrong with getting older that changing your font size won't fix!!

🙂

How to turn off Force Click and Haptic Feedback on MacBook Pro

Boy was this annoying:

Every time I'd make a big selection, I'd end up force-clicking and something odd and magical would happen. Don't need that. Don't want that. Gone.

Let me tell you a long story about... yeah, no.

Go to System Preferences. Tap Trackpad. Uncheck the box. Or check it. It's your Mac.

Emacs Font Size

 Emacs (on Mac OS) font size kept changing on me. I finally figured out what was causing it.

CTRL-OPT + two-finger swipe up/down

And the status line, where it shows the file type, actually shows +1, +2, etc when the font size increases by one or two steps, etc.

This was driving me crazy. I'm going to blame this, like everything else, on the enormous trackpad.

Generating Screenshots for the App Store

I don't usually just post links off to other sites, but here's one that
    a) I don't want to forget and
    b) the world needs to know about.

https://blog.winsmith.de/english/ios/2020/04/14/xcuitest-screenshots.html

It's been a while since I published an app to the App Store and either
    a) something has changed or
    b) I've forgotten what a pain it is to have to collect all the screenshots you need to include with your app submission.

And I've heard there is a service you could use, and I'm all for hiring experts to do difficult things, but why should that be necessary? Is this really that hard? No, it's really not. 

But I should let you find out from Daniel Jilg. I took the script he posted and needed to make a few changes to suit my environment. 

And it works great! It generated all the screenshots I need for the App Store! Thanks, Daniel!

Logitech K400R Wireless Keyboard

I have two Logitech K400R wireless keyboards. Let's call them Fred and Barney. They're great. Each has a tiny USB thingy - dongle makes me think there's some kind of wire. It's just a tiny little thing that plugs into USB. Turns out it's a Unifying Receiver. I'll come back to that.

In my case, I'm only able to put my hands on Keyboard Fred and Receiver Barney. The other keyboard and the other receiver are probably on vacation somewhere. So I've got this mismatched set. Plugged in the receiver and turned on the keyboard and... nothing.

Well I googled and discovered there's software for the Unifying Receiver. Don't know how that could possibly solve my problem, but I download and install it.

(You'll find it here: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/manuals/11916)

To make a longish story shorter, when you plug in the Unifying Receiver (oh and it might even be from yet another Logitech device) and turn on the K400R, it will detect that keyboard and set up a connection. My mismatched Fred Keyboard and Barney Receiver are working great!

Thanks, Logitech!!

Comparing channel listings of Philo, Sling, Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, Fubo TV, DirecTV

Update (29 July 2022) this appears to be out of date - NESN, for example, is not on YouTube TV, but might be on DirecTV - not sure. I'll update this soon.

All the wordy nonsense is at the bottom of the post.

Service (Level) $$/month	Philo	Sling TV	Hulu	You Tube	Fubo		DirecTV
			Live TV	TV	Startr	Elite	Ent	Ch	Ult	Prem
	25	50	65	65	65	80	70	85	95	140
Local Channels			*		*	*	*	*	*	*
A&E	*	*	*				*	*	*	*
ABC News Live			*		*	*
ACC Network			*	*		*		*	*	*
AccuWeather	*				*	*	*	*	*	*
ActionMAX										*
AMC	*	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*
American Heroes	*					*			*	*
Animal Planet	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Aspire	*								*	*
AWE								*	*	*
AXS TV	*	*					*	*	*	*
Baby First HD							*	*	*	*
BBC America	*	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*
BBC World News	*			*		*			*	*
BET	*	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*
BET Her	*					*			*	*
BET Jams						*
BET Soul						*
Big Ten Network			*	*	*	*		*	*	*
Black News							*	*	*	*
Bloomberg TV		*	*				*	*	*	*
Boomerang	*		*				*	*	*	*
Bravo		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Cartoon Network		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
CBSN			*		*	*
CBS Sports			*	*	*	*			*	*
Cheddar Big News				*
Cheddar Business			*	*
Cheddar News	*	*		*	*	*		*	*	*
Cinemax East										*
CleoTV	*							*	*	*
CMT	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
CNBC			*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
CNBC World				*		*		*	*	*
CNN		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
CNN En Español							*	*	*	*
CNNi			*				*	*	*	*
Comedy Central	*	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Comedy TV								*	*	*
Comet		*			*	*
Cooking Channel	*					*		*	*	*
Cozi TV			*	*	*	*
Crackle	*
Crime + Investigation	*
C-SPAN							*	*	*	*
C-SPAN2							*	*	*	*
Curiosity Stream						*
The CW			*	*	*	*
Destination America	*					*			*	*
Discovery	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Discovery Family	*					*			*	*
Discovery Life	*					*			*	*
Disney Channel		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Disney Junior			*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Disney XD			*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
DIY Network	*					*			*	*
DUST						*
E!		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
ESPN		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
ESPN2		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
ESPN3		*
ESPNEWS			*	*		*		*	*	*
ESPNU			*	*		*		*	*	*
ESPN Bases Loaded			*
ESPN College Extra			*
ESPN Goal Line			*
ESTRELLA					*	*
FM									*	*
Food Network	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Fox Business Network			*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Fox News Channel		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
FOX Sports 1		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
FOX Sports 2			*	*	*	*			*	*
Freeform		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Fuse		*				*		*	*	*
FX		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
FX Movie Channel			*	*		*			*	*
FXX			*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
fyi	*								*	*
GAC Family	*					*
Galavision					*	*	*	*	*	*
Game Show Network	*					*		*	*	*
getTV	*				*	*
GINX eSports						*
Golf Channel			*	*	*	*			*	*
Great American Country									*	*
Gusto	*				*	*
Hallmark Channel	*				*	*	*	*	*	*
Hallmark Drama	*				*	*
Hallmark Movies & Mysteries	*				*	*	*			*
HBO East										*
HBO 2 East										*
HBO Family East										*
HBO Latino										*
HGTV	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
HISTORY Channel	*	*	*				*	*	*	*
HLN		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
HSN							*	*	*	*
IFC	*	*		*	*	*	*	*	*	*
INSP	*					*
Investigation Discovery	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Justice Central								*	*	*
Law & Crime	*					*
Lifetime	*	*	*				*	*	*	*
LMN	*								*	*
Local Now		*		*	*	*
Logo HD	*					*			*	*
MLB Game of the Week				*
MLB Network				*		*		*	*	*
Motor Trend	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
MSNBC		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
MTV	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
MTV Classic	*					*			*	*
MTV Live	*					*
MTV2	*					*	*	*	*	*
MTVU						*
NASA TV			*
Nat Geo WILD			*	*		*			*	*
National Geographic		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
NBA TV				*		*		*	*	*
NBCLX					*	*
NBC News NOW					*	*
NBC Sports		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
NBC Universo				*	*	*			*	*
NECN				*	*	*
NESN				*	*	*
Newsy				*
Newsmax HD					*	*	*	*	*	*
NewsNation					*	*		*	*	*
NFL Network		*			*	*
NHL Network						*			*	*
Nick Jr.	*	*			*	*		*	*	*
Nickelodeon East	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
NickMusic						*
Nicktoons	*					*		*	*	*
Olympic Channel			*	*	*	*			*	*
One America News							*	*	*	*
Ovation							*		*	*
OWN	*				*	*		*	*	*
Oxygen			*	*	*	*			*	*
Pac-12 Network						*
Paramount TV	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
PBS Kids							*	*	*	*
People TV	*					*
pocket.watch	*
POP	*		*	*	*	*		*	*	*
QVC							*	*	*	*
QVC 2							*	*	*	*
Reelz							*	*	*	*
Revolt	*					*	*		*	*
Revry	*
RFD-TV							*	*	*	*
Ryan and Friends	*
Science	*					*		*	*	*
SEC Network			*	*		*		*	*	*
Shop LC							*	*	*	*
SHOWTIME® East										*
SHOWTIME 2® East										*
SHOWTIME EXTREME®										*
Smithsonian Channel			*	*					*	*
SNY				*
Sony Movie Channel						*
Sounders FC				*
Stadium		*				*
Start TV				*
Sportsman Channel									*	*
STARZ										*
STARZ ENCORE...									*	*
STARZ Kids & Family										*
SundanceTV	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Syfy		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Tastemade	*			*	*	*		*	*	*
TBS		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
TCM			*	*			*	*	*	*
TeenNick	*					*	*	*	*	*
Telemundo			*	*	*	*	+	+	+	+
Tennis Channel HD				*		*		*	*	*
TLC	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
TNT		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
Travel Channel	*	*	*	*	*	*		*	*	*
truTV		*	*	*			*	*	*	*
TUDN					*	*			*	*
TV Land	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
TV One	*							*	*	*
TVG					*	*		*	*	*
TYT				*
UniMás				*	*	*		*	*	*
Universal Kids			*	*	*	*			*	*
Univision East					*	*	*	*	*	*
UPtv	*							*	*	*
USA Network		*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
VH1	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
VICE	*	*	*				*	*	*	*
WE tv	*			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Weather Channel					*	*		*	*	*
HBO Max							+	+	+	*
Cinemax							+	+	+	*
Showtime							+	+	+	*
Starz	+						+	+	+	*
Epix	+	*					+	+	+	+
And More!			Originals	YouTube	Sports++	Sports++

I "cut the cord" recently and went looking for a way to get the standard set of "cable" stations as streaming. See, already this is too many words. I swear most of those sites are paid by the word. Anyway, here's my thinking: I was going to pay for Hulu anyway (the $6 one without live TV) because of their original content. So when I compared that with YouTube's Live TV, I ended up saving money. The nice thing about Fubo is they have NESN, so you can watch the Red Sox. And The Weather Channel actually has some original programming, believe it or not. I honestly don't understand why DirecTV is so expensive, but they can probably afford to test the market and adjust later. It's also nice to see some offerings at the low end, and I did initially sign up for Sling when I got off the phone with Comcast and realized I now had NO way to entertain the family. But like I said, I signed up for Hulu. Maybe I'll switch to Fubo next baseball season? Oh, and don't do like I did and call Comcast all pissed off and tell them goodbye without remembering to WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING IN YOUR DVR. Yup, had do reconstruct my whole list from memory. Also I'm using ReelGood to keep track of all my streaming shows, which is something a cord-cutter has to do, that's just life. And I'll say one other thing: I have added back HBOMax to watch Curb (coming soon) and I've signed up for Showtime to watch The Circus and American Rust. It's unlikely everything will ever add up to what I had been paying Comcast. But if it does, that's fine with me, as long as I'm only paying Comcast for Internet. And if another provider comes along (fingers crossed for fiber!!) I'll give the Internet money to them instead. Don't get me started on Comcast's monopoly. OK, enjoy the channel comparison, and if you find anything incorrect, drop me a line at "channels" at-sign "jadbury" dot com and I'll make the necessary edits.

Mac Finder needs password for every delete

 This was driving my crazy. My Mac's Finder was asking for a password for every delete, every rename, every move, everything.

I should have put two and two together and realized it was only happening in a folder I had restored from a backup volume.

Here's how I fixed it.

1. In Finder, go to the top folder giving you trouble, then go up one to its parent.
2. Right-click the trouble folder and select Get Info
3. Go to the Sharing & Permissions section
4. Tap the lock and enter your password.
5. Under Name you should see your username, and under Privilege it should say Read & Write. Click your username.
6. Below the list of names and privileges is a plus sign and a minus sign and a circle with dots inside next to a menu pull-down. Click the circle/pull-down.
7. Select Apply to enclosed items... from the menu.
8. Click OK to update the whole folder hierarchy with your Read & Write privileges.

You should now be able to work on the files in your formerly trouble folder!

docker logs the one I just started

Nobody ever told me about this, so I'm telling you, you're welcome! $ docker logs -f $(docker ps -ql)

Deploying Swift/Vapor Apps to Cloudhost

My Swift/Vapor deploying adventure with lots of words, because I stand in solidarity with the Recipe People. But no pictures, because I never think of that.

I thought it would be pretty straightforward. I’ve got Linux hosting at Cloudhost (not its real name) so I can just log in and install Swift and Vapor and build my app and run it, right?

Ha ha, good one.

But my hosting is modest - 1 GB of memory is plenty for my typical needs, which is usually limited to hosting an HTML site - Apache on Ubuntu 16.04.

So try and build a Vapor site? Nope, try and try and fail and fail - fatalError kind of stuff. Try adding -v to the build and re-run just that last command directly in Swift and all of a sudden I see the real problem: I’m running out of memory.

Well hell, of course I am!

So all I need to do is build my app off-site and copy the Run file, right? *Hey, don’t get ahead of me, this is my adventure.

Oh, I almost forgot this part. I’ve got a Linux system, and in fact I’ve already built my app there. Just copy the Run file, right? No, because this is Ubuntu 20.04 and so it depends on libraries and such that are four years newer than what’s running at Cloudhost.

But I’ve got this other PC and it’s got a bunch of memory. It might even ben running Linux already, who knows. Scrounge a keyboard and mouse and monitor. Plug it in. Beep beep beep. Won’t even POST.

No problem, pull the drive and drop it into yet another PC. Boot it up and wouldn’t you know, it’s actually running Ubuntu 16.04. In fact, there are ancient Swift directories from November 2016 when I thought I’d have time to play with the compiler. I didn’t. So get a network hooked up, get Swift installed, and…

$ swift -version

blah blah (I didn’t bother saving all the output)

Illegal Instruction

Oh yeah, if you are thinking about running Swift on Linux on an older PC, do this first:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep ssse3

because if it comes up blank, you’re going to have a bad time.

So no problem, that Ubuntu 20.04 PC is willing to sacrifice itself temporarily (and I know already it’s got ssse3) so unplug its drive and drop in the Ubuntu 16.04 drive.

Now here’s something I’m not 100% sure I needed to do, but I made sure that I installed Swift in the exact same place on both Ubuntu 16.04 systems - the one on my PC and the one at Cloudhost. In both cases, I have /opt/swift-5.4.1-RELEASE-ubuntu16.04. So if there are libraries that would cause a freakout because of different locations, that’s not going to happen.

And finally I see what I’ve been hoping for:

$ export PATH=/opt/swift-5.4.1-RELEASE-ubuntu16.04/usr/bin:"${PATH}"

$ swift -version

Swift version 5.4.1 (swift-5.4.1-RELEASE)

Target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

So get Vapor installed, pull down my app, and (sudden thunder clap drum roll)

It works!!

*Oh wait… connect from the browser, no it doesn’t!! And this is something I didn’t realize about Vapor, you need to have the Resources/Views directory and all its .leaf (or .html) files. And, it turns out, your Public directory. No problem, so I did a clone of my whole app to get whatever files it needs. As they change, I can pull to refresh them. Then I re-copied the Run file, but this time dropped it in the same x86_64-linux-whatever location as where it came from. This way git doesn’t think I have any untracked files.

Now run it again, and it looks like it works, then hit it from the browser, and it actually does!!

So here are the takeaways:

• Here are the links for installing swift and vapor
• You'll have much better luck with your build system separate from your hosting
• `cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep ssse3` # to make sure your build system is up to running Swift
• Make sure you have enough memory on your build system (not sure how much that is tbh)
• Make sure your hosting and build systems have the same exact Ubuntu version (major.minor is probably enough, but…???)
• Install Swift to the same location on both build and hosting (not 100% sure you need to do this, but I think you do and it can’t hurt, right?)
• `git clone` your whole app, even though you don’t need the Sources, you do need Resources and Public folders
• scp .build/x86_64-linux-whatever/debug/Run from your build system to the same spot, so it’s ignored by git

I think that’s it. I hope this helps somebody!

Vapor/Leaf #ifdef(sortof)

The Swift/Vapor site I'm working on has one index.leaf to rule them all. (index.html, actually, because I thought I might want to look at my templates in a browser, but tbh I never have - but I digress)

And I find it really handy sometimes to throw in an error message just wherever, like this:

<div class="container">

    #ifdef(error):

    <p class="text-danger">#(error)</p>

    #endif

    #bodyBlock()

</div>

Of course there's no such thing as #ifdef. And I searched and I searched and even thought about implementing #ifdef. 

And then just when I was about to ask on Discord (and I hate doing that)... I don't even know what made me think of this, but here's what works:

<div class="container">

    #if(error??false):

    <p class="text-danger">#(error)</p>

    #endif

    #bodyBlock()

</div>

And tbh I don't know why it works, because if error doesn't exist, why should ?? even help? But it does. And it does!

So if "error" is in my render context, I'll get a nice red dangerous error message. Sweet!

(not) Auto Vapor Restart

 I was thinking it might be fun to have auto restart of Vapor, like you can do with NodeJS. But then I thought more about what happens when you need to change multiple files, and you make change after change, and it won't build & run until you've made all of the changes.

Anyway, if you add this to routes.swift:

app.delete("kill-switch") { (req: Request) -> Response in
    exit(0)
}

And you start the server like so:

$ while true ; do vapor run ; sleep 3 ; done

Then you can restart it using curl or Postman or (if you use app.get) your browser:

$ curl -s 'http://localhost:8081/kill-switch' -X DELETE

Wait, what about reloading the page when the server restarts? That should be doable, right?

Vapor 4 and MySQL

tldr; if you get connection reset/connection refused errors, try using unixDomainSocketPath instead of hostname.

I've had a heck of a time connecting Vapor 4 to MySQL. I know, maybe I should be using PostgreSQL, but I've got this old database I'd like to be able to connect to and provide new functionality with Swift code.

So I put this code in configure.swift on Linux:

    app.databases.use(.mysql(
            hostname: "localhost",
            username: "dbuser",
            password: "passW0rd",
            database: "whichdb",
            tlsConfiguration: .forClient(certificateVerification: .none)
    ), as: .mysql)

and that worked great.

But connecting to my Linux system is sometimes a pain in the neck, but it turns out that for some reason I have the same database on my Mac. I connect from the command line and `show tables;` lists every table I have on the Linux database. So copy the project to the Mac and `vapor run migrate` (because I'm going to play with the galaxies sample) and I get this error:

connection reset (error set): Connection refused (errno: 61)

Well to make a long story short, I ran lsof and saw that mysqld was listening on port 3306 but also had the file /tmp/mysql.sock open. Then I knew what to search for, and discovered that there is indeed an option to connect by socket:

    try app.databases.use(.mysql(
            unixDomainSocketPath: "/tmp/mysql.sock",
            username: "dbuser",
            password: "passW0rd",
            database: "whichdb"
    ), as: .mysql)

So basically you replace hostname with unixDomainSocketPath and you don't need the TLS configuration nonsense. Oh, and that init throws, so add try.

Hope this helps somebody!

Picture This

If you're like me, you've got sticky notes covering every inch of every service of your vast empire.

If you're really like me, those sticky notes are all virtual. Mostly they take the form of "hey Siri, remind me in an hour to do a thing." They end up in my Reminders app and I can route them to whatever todo app they belong to.

The Apple Watch makes that super convenient. Raise your wrist, speak the magic phrase (or hold down the giant button) and remember to include a time, so it will put a badge on the reminder app.

Sometimes, though, there's a glitch. From Apple, can you even believe it? If Steve Jobs were alive, this would be solved by now, but he's not, and that's just how life goes.

Uh oh, something's wrong. Please try again. Oddly enough, if you try again, it will work. But if you've said something brilliant and you're not sure you can re-create it, here's a way to capture it: Apple Watch Screen Capture.

So it turns out that if you press the two buttons on the side of your Apple Watch, it will take a screenshot. I think you have to go to settings to enable that, which you should do before you need it, right? This will show up in your Photo Library as a PNG. And now you've got your brilliant utterance, or whatever gibberish Siri thinks you said.

And if you're like me, you've got a reminder to look at your Photo Library every now and then, because otherwise who knows when you'd ever see it, right?

---

Update (5/14/21): for what it's worth, I hardly ever see this anymore - the WatchOS 7.4 update must have fixed whatever was causing so many Siri problems. So thanks, Apple!

Play my slides, please!

Did you ever need to take notes while you watch your slides play, but you don't want to switch back and forth between your Keynote and your text editor? Here you go... Save this to your Mac as main.swift - no other name will work, then run it in a terminal like so:

$ swift main.swift

---

import Cocoa

var pid = pid_t(-1)

let bid = "com.apple.iWork.Keynote"

for x in NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications {
    if x.bundleIdentifier == bid {
        pid = x.processIdentifier
        break
    }
}

guard let keynote = NSRunningApplication(processIdentifier: pid) else {
    print("Can't find Keynote")
    exit(-1)
}

let src = CGEventSource(stateID: CGEventSourceStateID.hidSystemState)

let key: UInt16 = 0x79

guard let keydown = CGEvent(keyboardEventSource: src, virtualKey: key, keyDown: true) else {
    fatalError("Can't get keydown")
}

guard let keyup = CGEvent(keyboardEventSource: src, virtualKey: key, keyDown: false) else {
    fatalError("Can't get keydown")
}

while (true) {
    keydown.postToPid(pid)
    usleep(10_000)
    keyup.postToPid(pid)
    usleep(15_000_000)
}

---

Creating a CloudKit Container

I was working through a CloudKit tutorial and needed to create a container for my app.

I tried clicking the + button to create a CloudKit container from XCode 12 directly, but nothing happened.

So I clicked the CloudKit Dashboard and could see there were no containers.

I tried to create one. I entered iCloud.com.domain.app (reverse URL format) and gave it a name. Then I got an error message in red, "Unable to find a developer."

OK, well I'm logged in as the Account Holder, not as a Developer per sé, but this should work. Kept trying. Nothing.

So I tried something a little crazy: I went to the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles section of App Store Connect. I created an identifier for the container I was trying to create.

After I did that, I went back to XCode and clicked the plus (+) again. Lo and behold, the container I had specified in the identifier I had created, all of a sudden showed up.

Will this work? Time will tell. But if you're getting the same error trying to create a CloudKit container, maybe this will help.

If so, you can buy me a beer!

😀 🍺