SteamSHIFT

Yesterday I posted an improvement to Cyberfunk’s composition for using key up/down. However, if you used the output to rotate a cube for instance, it was very juddery - so I got to thinking if there was another way …

I proudly present the Javascript Key Up/Down version. Basically, it takes the input of the key, divides it by the value of a passed multiplier and adds or takes the result away from the stored value. When applied as a value to a cube’s rotation, you get smooth rotation.


var prevScaledTime = outputs[0];


var dummy = inputs[0];

var speed = Number( inputs[1] );

var speed2 = Number( inputs[2] );

var mult = Number( inputs[3] );


outputs[0] = (prevScaledTime + speed/mult - speed2/mult) || 0;


Enjoy. SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
quartz composer, mac, osx, experiments

Cyberfunk posted an answer to a Quartz Composer question the other day about how to get a composition to do something while a key was pressed. His Key Up/Down composition, whilst it works, is by his own admission clunky. And thus here is my attempt at the same thing - Key Up/Down v1.1. You’ll notice that on the back of the interpolation items, are two different approaches for creating a signal for increasing or decreasing the counter - using a conditional patch or using a round patch. My guess is that round is quicker but I don’t really know. Enjoy!.

SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
quartz composer, mac, osx, experiments

This is the slightly ongoing saga of my dead PowerMac - a very old but until recently, trustworthy G4 Dual 450Mhz Gigabit Ethernet that served as my back-up machine.

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mac

(more…)

I’m totally loving Parallels! It’s giving me the opportunity to try out Linux without any fear … for instance, today I decided to install Ubuntu Linux (more on why later), but for no obvious reason, a bit of the way into the install it just froze. I just stopped the virtual machine, recreated the disk image and tried again (this time ending in success).

I like Ubuntu 6.06 better than Suse 10.1 thus far, although I haven’t spent enough time with either to make an informed decision; maybe it’s because the former feels a little more Mac like!

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mac, osx, linux, suse, how to, windows xp, parallels, ubuntu, internet explorer, wine

(more…)

So I’ve created a backup of my Parallels XP install, so I can roll back to a clean, stable version. (and for storage of it, what a difference compression makes - reducing it from 3.35Gb to 1.34Gb using the built in archive utility on the mac - when it eventually decided to do the compressing.)

What I’m wondering is, with a backup, would it be possible to use a patching application to work out the differences between the current disk image and a previous one, and thus create a patch that you can store. So I could create my clean stable version, then use the system for a bit, maybe install a few apps, then create a snapshot of the differences and save that as a patch; then if I wanted to go back a few snapshots, I start with the clean install and just apply the relevant patch.

Would it work??

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mac, osx, windows xp, parallels

Useful tips for working with Parallels from Dave Shea (Virtual Machine Tips):

Upon installing (and activating) a fresh copy of Windows and all your various applications, make a duplicate of this file. It’ll be a gigabyte or two in size, depending on how much you’ve added, but you can easily store it on a backup drive or DVD.

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mac, osx, windows xp, parallels

As the proud owner of a MacBook Pro, I have finally had the opportunity to give Parallels Desktop a try. I have thus far installed Free BSD 6.1, Suse Linux 10.1, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. All have worked flawlessly and have run at totally acceptable speeds (I have used VirtualPC in the past and found it generally to be so slow as to be unusable).

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mac, osx, developing, linux, suse, windows xp, windows 2000, parallels

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No point in saying anything but take a look at this :-

(Via Engadget.)

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Quick heads up for those mac based web developers out there who are using CocoaMySQL-SBG because the standard version wasn’t working on the version of MySQL you are using, you might want to try the latest beta of CocoaMySQL (version 0.7b4) which fixes a load of the bugs. One thing that I love is that unlike SBG, the standard version remembers your passwords if you ask it to!!

SteamSHIFt out.

Technorati Tags:
mac, osx, developing, mysql, database

test post from within textmate