This should be fun; its almost embarrassing I haven’t done this before, considering I’ve held down development positions for most of my professional career. Nothing too big: PhoneGap + free. Should be doable.  Already using cheerio to create scrapers. 

Some will burn me for saying this but I think shutting down Apple’s pro software line is not such a bad idea. The problem of the OSX platform is not the software.

Pier Bover, The problem of OSX hardware in 2016

There’s a reason why my blog posts about Mac Pro drive the majority of traffic to my blog and echoes my reaction to the abysmal Mac Pro 2013. In the nexi-verse of 2016, creative pros are switching to Windows. 

If Hackintoshes were more viable, I’d of ditched Apple hardware ages ago. I tried. I really did. 

So this happened to me today after I updated Netflix. Logging in and out didn’t help. Netflix’s app redirected to its website, ask me if I’d like to start a free trial and then proceeded to direct me to the app store. Annoying and the 1-star app reviews didn’t help. Having had a similar experience with Audible, it didn’t take much to figure it out.

 So here’s how to fix it, using Netflix Reset.

1. Go to your home screen, double tap your home button and swipe up on Netflix to quit it. 
   
2. Go to Settings, and scroll down to Netflix and tap it.
   
3. Tap the “Reset” Button (see picture below)
   
4. Hit home and relaunch Netflix, you should be asked to log back in. Congrats! The Netflix app should be working again!.
   

Capturing midi and using external controllers isn’t as straight forward as you might think with Maschine and Cubase. This tutorial was created on Cubase 7.5 using Maschine 2.4.x. The version of Cubase shouldn’t matter as the midi I/O configuration hasn’t changed terribly since even Cubase SX 1.0, but I can’t make any guarantees.

The Maschine in its default mode isn’t a standard Midi controller (although it does have a midi mode which isn’t useful for the Maschine software) capturing Midi from the pads requires a few steps for the VST.

The few tutorials I could find are Windows-centric pre-2.4, and video. So to keep from forgetting, I created this guide.

Initial Setup:

Step 1)

Add a Maschine VST, and bring up the window.

Step 2)

Select all pads in the Maschine Group (Command A works on this window or shift-click). Right click the title Group A1 in the sequencer area.

Step 3)

Under the Group panel, select Input, and make sure the Midi is active, and Thru is checked.

Step 4)

Under Sound, Input, make sure that the Thru is checked. You may want to set the channel if you intend to use separate midi channels. This isn’t necessary.

Step 5)

Under the Sound panel, go to Output, Select Midi on the right-hand side and check to make sure its Host or Default.

Step 6)

To use the Maschine pads, you’ll need to set the input to Maschine 2 Midi Out and Maschine Midi in.

For external Controllers:

Set midi input to all. 

It should default to C1. I’ve found the that the translation between Korg padKontrol and Korg NanoPAD2 both need to be set to C2. Below are examples of default Korg configurations for the NanoPAD and PadKontrol.

Note: Currently I’m unaware of a way to use both internal and external pad capturing at the same time. You can use as many external controllers as you want and capture. For pads, you’ll want to make sure your root note matches your pad configuration. However, playing both the maschine and an external midi pad will trigger sounds which means you can figure out an idea and then capture each part separately.

Other thoughts:

I’ve found it best to map the Maschine Groups to start the Root note one right after another as opposed to channels so groups can be all part of the same choke group if needed, effectively letting you access more than 16 samples at once.

So the lower right pad of the PadKontrol is mapped to C2 and counts up on Scene 1, and E3 counts on up on scene 2, A4 on scene 3, etc…

I love Packery, but sometimes its rounding causes gaps only at particular screen resolutions when using proportional scaling. Note the small white line in the image below. 

This error was frustrating and mind-bogglingly bizarre. I spent hours combing the GitHub page to see similar-but-not-quite fixes. With the ability for this project to have 1-4 items in a row, I couldn’t simply target nth-child. I didn’t want to write crazy jquery just for a simple fix.

In the end, I had a lightbulb moment:

CSS Transforms don’t affect the occupied space but causes the images overlay. Knowing this, I could force the images to be a hair larger their parent container without stacking issues. Someone somewhere may be saved a lot of heartache
That’s it! Problem solved.

Running "cssmin:minify" (cssmin) task
[BS] File changed: ../css/app.prefixed.css
>> TypeError: Cannot read property '1' of null
Warning: CSS minification failed Use --force to continue.


If you’re new to grunt and/or Sass, this error can seem mystifying, but we’re actually given enough information to troubleshoot it. First, note that it occurred in the cssmin:minify task. The scss is compiling but minify doesn’t like something. The Sass compiler is more forgiving than the minifier.

Unlike your usual sass errors, minification will not display the sass file in question ( since its only processing the compiled CSS file) nor the line number.

The quickest way to identify the source of the problem is to comment out your individual sass files and compile to see if the error pops up. In my case, I found out it was in my _ HelveticaNeue.scss file. A quick scan revealed I had a @font-face inside another @fontface tag.

If you’re truly stuck, try running your code through CSSlint, there’s even an online csslinter. Pay special attention to the parsing errors. Unexpected Braces will cause minify to fail. Locate and correct the errors and save. You should now be compiling sass error-free.

A bill that’s currently making its way through the New York state assembly would require smartphone manufacturers to build in the ability for law enforcement to decrypt or unlock phones on demand.
- New York bill would give law enforcement a backdoor into your smartphone” TheNextWeb.com

This is no different that asking building doors (Commercial, Home, or otherwise), safes, file cabinets, vehicles, pad locks  and bike locks to be unlock-able with one master key. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Videos especially on user services like YouTube & Vimeo, sometimes have panned audio that are terrible, sometimes only on one channel or have bizarre mastering such as this video.

Go to Accessibility -> Audio and check “Play Stereo Audio as mono” 

That’s it! Don’t forget to uncheck it when you’re done!

Occasionally in your adventures on the internet, you’re bound to encounter cue/bin disk images. For this example, I’m using an old PSX game, Crash Team Racing and converting it for use with pcsxr, OS X/Windows Playstation emulator, however, this isn’t the only reason for converting to ISOs as Parallels / VMWare and VirtualBox all use ISOs.

Method 1) Roxio Toast

In the era of disk burning, Toast was THE utility to own and still is, if you happen to still use optical media. If you happen to have a copy, it’ll convert BIN/CUEs to ISOs without much trouble.

Step 1) Launch toast, select image file

Step 2)  Drag the bin file to Toast

Step 3) Select  from the file menu, “Save Disk Image…”

Step 4) Save ISO

You may get an error prompt on naming the disk, type in a name and proceed. At the actual save dialog to be sure to change .toast to .iso and save. Congrats, you’re done!

Method 2) Binchunker

Binchunker is a CLI utility, meaning it’ll take a few terminal commands to operate. Its pretty easy once its set up as you simply need to run a single command to spit out an ISO. Most guides for using Binchunker are pre-10.11 (El Capitan) and suggest installing Binchunker to /usr/bin. OS 10.11 really wants you to avoid using this so we’ll be using the “rootless” method. Users running old versions OS X may be able to use the now defunct GUI wrapper BChunkerFE, but I was unable to, despite my damnest to make it work. To my knowledge, the only freebie utility for OS X that’ll convert ISOs is Binchunker, fortunately, its fast, free and easy to use. Users with even basic terminal familiarity shouldn’t have any problems.

Step 1)

Install MacPorts; the full instructions are here including the download links. MacPorts is package manager and compiler for open source software.

Step 2)

Open a terminal and type:

Now you’re able to run binchuncker

Step 3)

Binchunker requires the paths to the bin and cue files and always follows the following pattern:

or the less terminal savvy, dragging files to the terminal window will automatically type the path to the file. In the terminal type (with a trailing space) and do not hit return:

Drag the bin file to the terminal window, it should read:

bchunk -v path-to-file/my.bin

Make sure there’s a trailing space after bin and drag the cue file. It should now read:

Now name your file by typing in your desired name. Note: You do not need to type .iso as the file will be given the .iso suffix.

Hit return and binchucker will do its magic; the completed .iso will end up in the root of your user/home directory. Congrats, you should now have an ISO file.

If you’ve recently updated to OpenEMU, you may have a problem importing newly supported consoles (PSX, N64, etc.) or are having problems playing games after the update.

Step 1)

Go to /Users/<your-user-name>/Library/Application Support/ and locate the OpenEMU folder and drag it to a temporary spot, such as the desktop.

Note: You may need to enable your users ~/Library.

Step 2)

Launch OpenEMU, it’ll take a second to launch. Then run check for updates. Likely your update didn’t fully take, and you’ll see the pop up for OpenEMU 2.0.1. Install your update.

Note: You may need to manually install the OpenEMU drag and drop if you do not see the update.

Step 3)

Relaunch the application. You should now see more console options. Quit.

Next, you’re going to need to go to /Users/<your-user-name>/Library/Application Support/OpenEMU and your old OpenEMU folder.

Drag your old Games Library folder into the /Application Support/OpenEMU folder.

Step 3.5) Optional

Recovering your Game Saves requires more work. There should be several more folders with names of the emulation cores like PicoDrive, SNES9x, GenesisPlus, etc. and Save States folder. Drag all these folders (excluding the Cores, Bindings, Bindings Configurations and openvgdb.sqlite file).

Step 4)

Relaunch go to your preferences. Reinstall your cores. Congrats! You should have a working OpenEMU.

Note:, Mupen64Plus won’t play all games. Super Mario 64 is a good test.

As the lead front end dev for on a redesign of a Fortune 100 company’s corporate site, I was told the client loves gifs... so much so they want to have the ability to post animated gifs for their Hero image. 

Their Hero image is size is supposed to be 1440 x 700… and double density. So much for Google Site Speed.

Some will burn me for saying this but I think shutting down Apple’s pro software line is not such a bad idea. The problem of the OSX platform is not the software.

Pier Bover, The problem of OSX hardware in 2016

There’s a reason why my blog posts about Mac Pro drive the majority of traffic to my blog and echos my own reaction to the abysmal Mac Pro 2013. In the nexi-verse of 2016, creative pros are switching to Windows. 

If hackintoshes were more viable, I’d of ditched Apple hardware ages ago. I tried. I really did. 

In your OS X adventuring you may come across this message: 

“Application Name” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

Fortunately, there’s a giveaway. The icon shown is the Security & Privacy icon. Go to your prefs, to Security and Privacy and in the “Allow apps downloaded from:” set to Anywhere.

Now try relaunching the application. It should launch now.

Then go back to your security and privacy and set it back to “Mac App Store and identified Developers” (if it wasn’t set there before, you really should. Some of the best apps aren’t in the Mac App Store)