Josh’s instructions include everything that I need except mcrypt.  Luckily Michael Gracie has provided a walk-through for installing mcrypt on Snow Leopard which involves re-compiling some things, but isn’t as tough as it first appears.

After getting PHP and mcrypt going, the last step for me is setting up MySQL which has some caveats on OSX.  The main problem is that the MySQL installer places the mysql.sock file in a non-standard place and so you have to either create a link or alter your php.ini file before PHP will be able to talk to MySQL.  (If you get “Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’” or  “No such file or directory” when calling mysql_connect, then this is the problem)

After completing the steps on Josh’s & Michael’s pages and running the MySQL installation package, here are the additional steps that I like to take to get my local environment configured:

Edit /private/etc/php.ini

display_errors = On
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
date.timezone = ‘America/Chicago’

Edit /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

DocumentRoot “/Users/jason/Sites”

Edit /private/etc/apache2/users/jason.conf

Append FollowSymLinks to the Options

I also like to change the permissions on php.ini and httpd.conf to allow my user account edit permissions and create an alias to those two files somewhere easy to get to.

Installing MAMP is probably easier, but for some reason I prefer using all of the services that are pre-bundled with OSX.  Also Snow Leopard includes PHP 5.3 which led me to find a couple of deprecated functions in some of our libraries.

Solution 1: Create a symbolic link

Open terminal and do the following:

sudo su
mkdir /var/mysql
ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

You just created a symbolic link in the place where PHP expects the socket file to be located so it should be happy.

Solution 2: Edit php.ini

If you don’t like the idea of creating a symbolic link, you can also simply alter your php.ini file to point PHP to the real location of mysql.sock.

Locate /etc/php.ini. (If php.ini doesn’t exist on your system, copy /etc/php.ini.default to /etc/php.ini).  You will likely have to do this from the terminal unless you have Finder configured to show hidden files.  Open the file and update the setting mysql.default_socket so it looks like this:

mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

To commit the change you need to restart Apache.  You can do that in System Settings -> Sharing, then  uncheck, then recheck Web Sharing.

TortoiseSVN is my personal favorite SVN client, unfortunately it’s only fully supported on Windows.  With a little bit of hacking, though, TortoiseSVN is usable on OSX.  You can checkout, commit, update view the repo, etc.  At this point there are no overlays or Finder contextual menus.  These instructions are not for the novice user, but chances are if you’re using SVN it shouldn’t be a problem.

Requirements:

1. Crossover or Wine for OSX

2. Subversion server using the svn: protocol (http: doesn’t work yet)

Step 1: Install Crossover/Wine

The first thing you need is either Crossover or Wine.  Crossover is the commercial version of Wine that is already customized for OSX.  With Wine you’ll probably have to learn some terminal commands.  The choice is up to you but for these instructions are for Crossover.  Wine should work the same but I don’t know what the interface is like so you’re on your own.  Please post a comment if you have any tips. After you’ve installed Crossover, download the .msi installer for TortoiseSVN.  My testing has been done with version 1.5.5.  If you have success with a more recent version, please post a comment.

Step 2: Create a Bottle and install TortoiseSVN

NOTE: For these instructions, use the default bottle name of “winxp”  If you use another name for your bottle, you’ll need to adjust the commands appropriately below.

Installing an app in Crossover is pretty easy using the installation Wizard.  Open Crossover and go to the menu item Configure -> Install Software.  Click on the button that says “Install Unsupported Software.”  Ignore the warning and click “Continue” to proceed.  If you are prompted, select the option to install to a “New bottle” and continue. Once you have a bottle created, Crossover will want to know where the installation file is.  Click the install button and select the TortoiseSVN .msi file that you downloaded.  This will run you throught the typical Windows installer.

Step 3: Using TortoiseSVN

Now that you have Crossover installed, created a bottle and have installed TortoiseSVN the big question is “how do I use it?”  The problem is that you normally use TortoiseSVN by right-clicking folders in Windows Explorer.  There is no explorer and there are no Finder contextual menus that have been added.

The solution is to set up some Crossover commands and then save them.  Basically TortoiseSVN supports various windows command-line arguments.  Crossover allows you to save a command and make it appear as a regular OSX application shortcut.  So you just need to initially execute the command, then save a shortcut so you don’t have to re-type it all the time.

Checkout an existing Repository:

1. Create a folder on your Desktop called “jasonrules”  (This will be the test folder used for the rest of the instructions.)

2. Enter the checkout command. To run a windows command, open Crossover and go to the menu item “Programs -> Run Command…”  There is a field for the windows command you would like to execute. The command to checkout is below.  replace USERNAME with your home folder name and MY.SVN.SERVER/REPOPATH with your full svn repo path.  You must keep all double-quotes in the command as they are typed below:

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:checkout /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules” /url:”svn://MY.SVN.SERVER/REPOPATH“

3.  Click the “Run” button.  You should see the familiar TortoiseSVN dialog appear confirming your action and, if your server requires authentication, you’ll be prompted for your username and password. If successful, you should see the files pulling into your working folder at this point.   You don’t need to save this command because you generally only run it once.

You now have a working copy of your project.  Yay!

NOTE – BEFORE YOU SAVE ANY COMMANDS, GO TO BOTTLE MANAGEMENT AND DUPLICATE YOUR BOTTLE!  There seems to be an issue with Crossover where it doesn’t work when saving multiple commands with the same executable but different arguments.  Most TortoiseSVN commands use the same executable so this creates a problem.  For the moment my workaround is to create a separate bottle for each command.  Hopefully that will be resolved by Crossover.

Updating your working copy:

Once you have a working copy, the next logical thing is to update the project.  Of course if you just checked it out, it should be pretty much up-to-date, however you will use the update command all the time so you want to save it. Follow the same steps that you did for running the checkout command, only using the command below instead.  (Be sure to replace PROJECTNAME with the name of the folder that is now inside jasonrules.)

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:update /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules/PROJECTNAME“

Click the “Run”button again and you should see the familiar TortoiseSVN dialog.  If all goes well, you will be able to successfully update the working directory.

Since you will want to run update regularly as you work, you should save a shortcut for this command.  To do this, click the “Save Command to Programs Menu” button.  This will create a shortcut icon which you can rename, drag it to your Dock or whatever you’d like to do.  Everytime you double-click this shortcut, the update command that you saved will be executed.

Committing Changes:

The last command I’m going to describe is the Commit command.  Basically updating and committing are the most common operations, so you should be able to do your basic work at this point.  The commit command is run the same as update:

“/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/drive_c/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoiseProc.exe” /command:commit /path:”/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/jasonrules/PROJECTNAME“

You should again see the familiar dialog and be able to commit just as if you were working in Windows.  Again, save this command.

Additional Information:

With the three commands I showed you above you should be able to do basic development work using TortoiseSVN in OSX. You will most likely want to repeat the process using your actual working directories and not the jasonrules folder on your Desktop.  One thing to note is that if you work on multiple projects, you’ll have to create separate shortcuts for all of them because the working directory path is hard-coded into the commands.

Obviously there are a lot more commands, branching, merging, patching, etc.  The basic concept behind running these is the same.  You just need to know the correct syntax in order to run them.  The inline TortoiseSVN help lists all of the commands.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who comes up with more commands, or knows AppleScript and would be able to write contextual Finder menus.  I don’t think it would be too difficult.  The SCPlugin source code might provide some clues.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you used this tutorial and found it helpful (or not).

The solution is that you need to do at least one initial checkout using the command line in order to give SVN access to the keychain.  To do this, just open terminal and navigate to an empty folder.  Do a checkout of your project with the command “svn co http://myrepolocation.com/ –username myusername –password mypassword .”

when you do this, you’ll get the OSX Allow/Deny dialog and you should Allow SVN access to the keychain.  From this point on SCPlugin will be able to correctly remember your authentication information.

Step One: Open up terminal and enter the following command:

ssh -N -p 22 USERNAME@HOSTNAME -L 5480/localhost/548

Replace USERNAME with the remote username and replace HOSTNAME with the domain name or IP address of your server. For example jason@192.168.1.100. If you run SSH on a non-standard port, you can also replace 22 with your port number. You’ll be prompted for a password then you won’t see any further output.

This creates an SSH tunnel from local port 5480 to remote port 548. In Apple terms you might think of this as an alias. The remote server’s incoming port 548 is the default port used by Apple File Sharing service. Our local outgoing port 5480, on the other hand, could be any unused port number on the local machine.  I chose 5480 just because it’s similar to 548, therefore easy to remember.  For these instructions assume you’re using 5480. Anyway, you might think of your tunnel as something like this:

local port 5480 -> SSH -> Internet -> SSH -> remote port 548

Step Two: Click anywhere on your desktop or open Finder so that you see the “Go” menu in your menu bar. Select from the menu bar: Go-> Connect to Server…

In the server address, enter “afp://localhost:5480″ (without the quotes)

This may seem crazy because it appears you are connecting to “localhost” which would normally be your local computer. Remember though, port 5480 on your local machine is an ‘alias’ (if you will) to port 548 on the remote machine.  So this will connect to port 548 on the remote machine via the encrypted tunnel.

After a moment you should get a standard login dialog. Enter your remote username/password and you’ll be presented with the available shares. Select the share you want and you should see it appear in the Finder in a moment. That’s it! You can now open and drag/drop files. The connection will probably be slower depending on your connection speed, but otherwise it works the same as if you were connecting directly.

(Optional) Additional Software and Alternatives

If you’re uncomfortable with the command like, there’s a GUI application for connecting to SSH servers and creating tunnels called SSH Tunnel Manager. You can download it from http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/stm/. The functionality is the same, but if you prefer clicking a button instead of typing in the terminal window, it can be useful.

If you don’t really care about mounting the drive and you just want a way to securely transfer files, CyberDuck is a great program that works basically like an FTP client, but you can specify SFTP as your connection type to connect over SSH.

Another method for connecting to shares over SSH is through an application called MacFuse with it’s required counterpart sshfs. This may look the same as an SSH tunnel, but is technically very different. MacFuse is a program that allows you to make anything appear to be a file system and SSH is just one of the possible implementations. You might say that this app tricks your computer into thinking something is a local hard drive. I gave MacFuse a try and personally did not find it reliable for this specific purpose. A plain old SSH tunnel works great for me so I don’t plan to use MacFuse for this purpose. However it is an interesting idea and has many other uses.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any remote connection tips or tricks.

JavaVM FATAL: Java for ppc cannot run in this configuration.
JavaVM FATAL: Please consult documentation.

This error appears in PPC applications that have a Java component and are trying to use an older version of the Java runtime. Apple seems to have not included the complete 1.3.1 JDK with Leopard, instead the 1.3.1 folder simply contains an alias to the Java application launcher.

** WARNING! AS OF THE OSX UPDATE ON 10/1/2008 THIS PATCH MAY CAUSE SOME APPLICATIONS TO STOP WORKING. THERE IS NOW AN ADDITIONAL FILE UNDO.ZIP WITH THE PATCH THAT YOU CAN USE TO REVERT THE PATCH CHANGES. KNOWN APPS THAT ARE AFFECTED ARE ECLIPSE AND FLEX BUILDER. OTHER JAVA APPS MAY BE AFFECTED AS WELL. **

A patch file LeopardJavaPatch.zip includes a replacement for the 1.3.1 JDK that resolves the issue in some cases. Installation is easy – simply unzip the archive and follow the instructions to update your 1.3.1 JDK folder.

If this doesn’t solve your problem, you can also try downgrading the JDK using the instructions included in the “Advanced” section of the LeopardJavaPatch.zip ReadMe. Or alternatively macoshints.com provides a script to manage your system JDK settings.

Please note that this patch only fixes issues for Leopard. If you are running Tiger or an earlier version, then you are more likely to solve your problem by downgrading the JDK (see above).

If you have any comments or additional information about this error, please feel free to leave a comment.

With the latest version of Parallels coherence mode you can run Windows apps yet have the Windows OS itself transparent. This creates the visual effect that you are running Windows apps within OSX. The coherence feature is still a little rough but it got my gears spinning and I saw some amazing possibilities. The illusion doesn’t seem quite complete to me without being able to launch Windows apps from the Dock. I created this simple app as a proof of concept that it could be easily done. It’s simple but it works!

You can try it out for yourself: Download docksync_v01.zip

The app requires .NET Framework 2.0 which you can install from Windows Update

Update: Grab Matt’s add-on DockSyncOSX and you can drag/drop Windows Shortcuts!

Demo Video

How does it work?

Obviously there is some communication between OSX and Windows already through parallels. But, not having access to that API, I decided to create a simple app on the Windows side that basically monitors a shared directory. On the OSX side, you simply create a specially crafted text file in that directory to send a command over to Windows. Any OSX method to generate a text file can be used. Just to keep things simple, I used a shell script that can be executed by double-clicking an icon. The result is crude but it works and hopefully might inspire someone to take it a little further.

Here’s a screenshot of the Windows app that’s monitoring for commands:

This is being released with no license so use the code at your own risk. If you have any suggestions or updates, please post them here. In particular if you know of an cleaner way to trigger the creation of the task file on the OSX side, that would be cool. Preferably something that people can create and edit without having to compile.

Download docksync_v01.zip

Well I have seen the future. And it is not quite what I was expecting.

I’ve been playing around with the latest beta version of Parallels, which is now available for download from the parallels forums. There’s a surprising amount of new feature for a minor version update, but one that I found strange and interesting is a feature called “Coherence Mode.” Coherence mode is supposed to allow you to run windows applications right on the OSX desktop.

As you can see from the screenshot, it really does visually look like you are running a windows application right there on the desktop. Since you can drag your mouse around and grab various windows in either Windows or OSX, it really does somewhat feel like the apps are running in OSX too… kinda! What Parallels seems to have done is basically to have windows running over the top of OSX, but visually hide the actual desktop. So, it is more or less just a visual trick. One wierd thing that you’ll notice from the screenshot is that the windows taskbar is floating just above the OSX dock. I’m sure Apple fanboys will struggle to keep their lunch down at the sight of it! Even I find it a ugly.

In addition to the Coherence Mode feature, Parallels now supports drag-n-drop between the two operating systems. This feature works really great. Though it is again some amount of visual trickery again, since files could be easily copied through the virtual shared directories. You can’t drag a file from a windows app to a mac app – now that would be cool! But, it’s seamless and this is a really nice feature.

All in all, I think they are on the right track. If they can get the drag-n-drop working a little better when in coherence mode, perhaps even dragging and dropping between applications, that would really make it feel like the windows app is truly running in OSX.