Mac OSX

All posts tagged Mac OSX

Finder Service to Convert Image Formats

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.04.17
Posted in: Apple, OSX. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

In this post I make use of Automator to create a service available via any Finder window that will allow the quick conversion of one or more image files from TIFF, JPEG, etc to PNG.  This could be modified to convert to whichever format you choose.

1) Open Automator.

2) Select Service and click Choose:

OSXServiceToPNG1

 

3) If Library is not selected (blue outline in top left, click it).  Under the Actions, select Photos in the left most pane, then select “Change Type of Images”.  Drag it to the right most pane:

OSXServiceToPNG2

 

4) When prompted select “Don’t Add”.  This will cause the service to remove the original file after it has been converted.  To keep copies of the originals, select “Add” instead:

OSXServiceToPNG3

 

5) Now the action has been added to the workflow in the right plane with default values:

OSXServiceToPNG4

 

6) Change the target image type to “PNG”:

OSXServiceToPNG5

 

7) Change the “Service receives selected” value from “text” to “image files”.  Change the “in” application from “any application” to “Finder”.  Both of these are at the very top of the workflow above the action:

OSXServiceToPNG6

 

8) Now save it and give it a name.  Since this tutorial converts to PNG, I chose “To PNG”:

OSXServiceToPNG7

 

To use it, just select the file or files you want to convert, right click, choose Services, then “To PNG”.  That’s it!

OSXServiceToPNG8

 

Enjoy!

 

Where is Java Home in OS X?

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.04.15
Posted in: Apple, OSX. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

So you have Java installed on Mac OS X and you have a program that needs the JAVA_HOME variable set, but you don’t know where Java’s home directory is.  This is an easy way to find out.  Open Terminal and run the following command:

/usr/libexec/java_home

 

It should spit out something like this which is the home location:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_31.jdk/Contents/Home

 

Now if you have a program that launches via script or command line and needs JAVA_HOME set, you can add this to the script to set it:

export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home)"

 

Making OS X, LibreOffice, and MySQL Play Nice!

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.03.04
Posted in: Apple, OSX. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Recently I found a need to have a desktop database application for a simple database.  I have MySQL running on my Synology NAS and have written PHP/JavaScript/HTTP interfaces for MySQL databases in the past.  That said, it’s a lot of work!  I wanted something simple and quick for this, but still need good table relationship support.  Basically I was looking for something like Microsoft Access.  This doesn’t exist on the Mac except in the Office 365 package of which I have no interest and only the one application need.

There are several alternative applications out there.  There was a good one called Bento, but it was pulled from the market in 2013.  Of the remaining ones (I won’t name them so none get wrongly percieved), some are slow, some don’t allow enough input form customization, some are too expensive, some don’t have enough table relationship support, and others are so new they are not yet feature rich (enough for me).

I looked at several builder applications both web based and application, again not naming them.  I really spent far too much time looking at them.  None of them do what I need.

Then I started looking at the open source office applications such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice.  I also found Kexi, but it requires mild hacking to get it installed via Fink or Homebrew.  More trouble than it is worth (for me), though I did work with it in a Linux VM and liked what I saw.  Needs official Mac distribution!

I chose to go with LibreOffice.  I downloaded and installed it.  Launched it and proceeded to the “Base” application which is the database application and nearly a clone of Microsoft Access.

Through all the trials of software I already setup a MySQL database for the data.  So I pointed Base at the MySQL database and was promptly greeted with an error:

Legacy Java SE 6 runtime error

I resolved this in the previous post: https://unfinishedbitness.info/2015/03/03/os-x-legacy-java-se-6-error-resolution/

Now that LibreOffice doesn’t complain about Java, I tried to set up the MySQL Base application again.  This time a new error: Unable to load MySQL JDBC driver.

 

MySQL JDBC Driver Install

To resolve this download the MySQL Connector/J driver (platform independent) from MySQL.com: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

Extract the archive to get access to the jar file.  The jar file needs to be in the CLASSPATH for the JVM.  Since this is not defined in the user shell find a location to store the jar file where LibreOffice can access it, while at the same time keeping it out the Documents folder.  I chose my users Library/Application Support/Java directory.  Just copy the jar file to the location you choose.

If you choose the Library location you have to unhide the Library from Finder because the Java pick dialog in LibreOffice can’t see it, even with the Option key trick.  Open Terminal and issue the following command to permanently unhide your user Library from Finder.  Enter your password when prompted:

sudo /usr/bin/chflags nohidden /Users/<your_username>/Library

Now start LibreOffice and select the Preferences menu item.

Next click the Advanced item in the LibreOffice section.

If you have more than one JRE installed, select the one you want LibreOffice to use.

Next click the “Class Path” button on the far right.

In the “Class Path” popup, click the “Add Archive” button.

In the file picker dialog, navigate to the location you put the MySQL JDBC driver jar file in, select the jar file and click OK.  It should now be populated in the “Class Path” popup:

OSX LibreOffice Java ClassPath

Click OK to close the “Class Path” popup.

Click OK again to close the LibreOffice preferences.

Exit LibreOffice completely.

Restart LibreOffice.

LibreOffice should now be working with a newer version of Java than the legacy 6 SE, and have access to remote MySQL databases using JDBC.

 

Try It Out

After restarting LibreOffice, start Base and choose “Connect to an existing database” (to connect to MySQL).

In step 1 set the database type to MySQL:

OSX LibreOffice Base MySQL

 

In step 2 set the connection type to “JDBC”.

In step 3 set the MySQL connection parameters as required by the MySQL database.  Then click the “Test Class” button to ensure LibreOffice can load the MySQL JDBC driver.  If it fails, go back and re-trace your steps.

OSX LibreOffice JDBC Test OK

 

In step 4 enter the password (if required) and click the “Test Connection” button to ensure Base can connect to the MySQL database.  If it fails, check the database name, server name, port number, user name, and password (on previous screens):

OSX LibreOffice MySQL Connect OK

 

Click Finish.  If all went well you’ll be staring at and empty Base application (document) ready to start building forms and reports:

OSX LibreOffice MySQL Base

 

Now you have an Microsoft Access type application but with a better backend database!

 

Taming Talk (on OS X)

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.02.10
Posted in: Apple. Tagged: , , , , , . 4 Comments

I’ve been playing with the text to speech capabilities built into Apple Mac OS X recently.  There are many voices to choose from, and a handful of high quality voices that are very close to almost being indistinguishable from human speech (Siri quality).  Text to speech is available by selecting text you want spoken, right clicking and choosing “Speech” -> “Start Speaking”.  You can even have it read this text.  Try it!

Hello, this is a test of the Apple Text to Speech capability.  Some of the voices sound better than others.  Apple has given control over speaking speed as well. 

The weather is sunny and cool.  How did this sound?

 

Pauses

Right away I found it wasn’t quite perfect.  Sentences are run together with nary a pause.  This can be mitigated to some extent by using “…” at the end of each sentence.  The preceding paragraph can be re-written as follows and between sentence pauses are evident which makes it much easier to listen and follow:

Hello, this is a test of the Apple Text to Speech capability...  Some of the voices sound better than others...  Apple has given control over speaking speed as well...

The weather is sunny and cool...  How did this sound?

But there is still a problem with long pauses between paragraphs.   Any amount of whitespace can be added between paragraphs but it is ignored by the parser.  If you insert “…” on a blank line it will speak “horizontal eclipses”.  Likewise for “,” (comma) and “-” (dash).  The secret to pausing lies in the parsers ability to process embedded speech API commands inline with the text.  In this case you want to use the silence command.  To place a pause you add “[[slnc x]]” where x is the number of milliseconds to pause.  For a 2 second pause you would add “[[slnc 2000]]”.  To add a 3.5 second pause between paragraphs in the preceding text, it would now look like this:

Hello, this is a test of the Apple Text to Speech capability...  Some of the voices sound better than others...  Apple has given control over speaking speed as well...
[[slnc 3500]]
The weather is sunny and cool...  How did this sound?

Now its much easier to follow.

 

Numbers

Sometimes you may want it to speak each digit of a number individually rather than speaking the numbers value.  Let’s say you have the number “5551234” and want it read as “five five five one two three four” instead of “5 million five hundred fifty one thousand two hundred thirty four”.  To tell the parser you want the number read literally insert “[[nmbr LTRL]]” before the number.  To return to the normal parsing method add “[[nmbr NORM]]”.

[[nmbr LTRL]] 5551234 [[slnc 2000]] [[nmbr NORM]] 5551234

 

Emphasis

Maybe you want to really stress a particular word like “do NOT try this at home!”.  Simply capitalizing has no impact.  Have a listen:

Do NOT try this at home!

You can tell the parser to speak particular words with more emphasis by using the emphasis command “[[emph +]]”.  Turn it off after the word with “[[emph -]]”.

Do [[emph +]] NOT [[emph -]] try this at home!

 

Others

You can also the context interpretation which helps when a word has two different pronunciations depending on context, example: coordinates as in a map location, and coordinates as in coordinating an event.  You can also change the pitch, speed, and volume, among others.

Here is a link to the Apple Speech Synthesizer API for customizing the output: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/FineTuning/FineTuning.html