Display link issues

Today, I am giving a status report on my experience connecting my Macbook Air (running OS Mavericks) to a Anker USB hub with usb to display link adapters to 2 external Dell U2410. 

See the image for a schematic of the major pieces. 

DisplayLink has issued warnings that things aren't perfect: "Unfortunately there are still issues using multiple DisplayLink displays on OS X 10.9. A summary of these known issues can be found in this article."

My experience has been random. 

Sometimes, it works perfectly. 

Sometimes, only one of the external monitors get a signal. 

Sometimes, things work fine and then one of the monitors just goes blank. 

I think things work better if I start with my laptop completely OFF, and things work a bit worse if I start from a laptop that was just in Sleep Mode. 

I'm living with it, but I hope things improve in the next version of Mac (OS Yosemite).

*Update* - July 4, 2015 - I tried to use this set up today, and it didn't work. The external monitors were recognized, but they would show a blank screen. I tried restarting, unplugging, etc... but it was to no avail. I finally got it to work by reducing the resolution of each monitor several notches worse than their optimal settings.

Mac Apps

Here are some general purpose apps that I use on my Mac.

Spectacle - http://spectacleapp.com/
This is an essential app for me. It lets you use the keyboard to rearrange windows. Apple should build something into the OS to handle this. Until then, this works pretty darn well.

CheatSheet - http://www.cheatsheetapp.com/CheatSheet/
This app that makes learning Mac keyboard shortcuts much easier.  When you want to look up a keyboard shortcut for the app you have open, hold down the "Command" button.  After a few seconds, a popup appears with a menu of keyboard shortcuts available for a given application.

It is basically a keyboard shortcut to the keyboard shortcuts menu for a given application.

This is a great idea for any operating system.  Give the user one way to quickly see available keyboard shortcuts for any application. Over time, I have been using this app less and less, probably because you don't need the app once you've learned them.

MySQL on Macbook

My wife wanted to set up an environment so that she could practice her sql skills.  After a bit of research, I decided to give MySQL a try.  Here are my notes on how it went.

Step 1. Download the software.
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
I chose the 64 bit DMG archive for Mac version to install.  Before the download started I had to jump through a few hoops.  First, I had to register to get a new oracle account.  This sign up was pretty painful.  I had to provide my name, full address, phone number, and a complicated password.  As usual, I entered a password that I will surely forget by the next time I am asked for it.  I then had to fill out a survey about my job, what I will use the software for and some other questions.  This was a bit off-putting, but in the end, I finally downloaded the file.

Step 2. Installation.
I clicked on the downloaded dmg file and then the pkg file which started the installation process.  I was told that the install would use 680.9 MB of space, which seems a bit high.  The software was installed in less than a minute.  I also installed the MySQLStartupItem.pkg, but I'm not sure what that is.  I finally installed the MySQL.prefPane, which gives a GUI (placed as an icon in system preferences) so that you can easily start the MySQL server.

Step 3. Hello world.
I wanted to do the basic operations with a database to make sure that I had installed everything ok.  In the programming world, when you start working with a new language, you would try to write some code, compile it, and then output the results.  Typically, you make the program say, "hello world".  I think I got my database to say "Hello World" with the following commands:

a. First, I created a database:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE testdb;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

b. I confirmed that my database was created by showing them:

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

c. I then told mysql to use the database I just created.

mysql> use testdb;
Database changed

d. I created a table.

mysql> create table phrase_table ( 
    ->   words char(25)
    -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

e. I added one row. It has one column called words and the phrase "Hello World".

mysql> insert into phrase_table (words) values("Hello World");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

f. I finally selected all rows from my table to get the program to say "Hello World".

mysql> select * from phrase_table;
+-------------+
| words       |
+-------------+
| Hello World |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

e. Done. I got the basic operations to work. This link was pretty helpful. http://www.mysqltutorial.org/basic-mysql-tutorial.aspx

Steps to make your own passport or visa picture

If you need to renew your passport or get a visa, then you will need a picture.
You can easily pay to get this picture taken, or you can pretty easily make one on your own.

Here are the steps I took:

1. I had my picture taken with a digital camera.  
2. Connected the camera to my Mac.
3. Used iPhoto to import the image off of the camera and then to export the image to a jpg file.
4. Used http://www.idphoto4you.com/?Target=DownloadPage to create four 2 inch x 2 inch images placed in a 4x6 inch area.
5. Verified that the image looks ok and follows all the rules set in - http://travel.state.gov/_res/flash/cropper/FIG_cropper.html#.
6. Downloaded the image.
7. Uploaded the image to Walgreens photo site.  
8. The final cost was less than 40 cents.

Hello World with MacBook Air in C++

I like having a bare-bones setup to write code.  All I need is a dream and:

• a text editor ( vi, vim, gvim ) 
• a compiler ( g++ )
• a terminal

Given that Mac OS X is backed by Unix, I thought it would be simple to get up and running.  As always, it took me longer than expected.  Here's what I did.

Instead of gvim, I installed macvim.  As suggested I moved the MacVim icon to the applications folder.  I also made a copy of the mvim script to /usr/local/bin folder.
  sudo cp ~/Downloads/MacVim-snapshot-66/mvim /usr/local/bin

Now I can open macvim from any terminal directory with commands like:
  mvim
  mvim main.cpp

In order to get the compiler working I installed xcode.  You can write, compile and run code all from xcode, but the compiler isn't available on the command line.  To install the command line tools:
  open xcode -->
    open the xcode menu -->
      open preferences -->
        open the downloads and install the command line tools.

After it all installs, you should be able write a simple c++ file and compile it in the terminal with commands like:
  g++ main.cpp
  ./a.out

Day Two with MacBook Air

So, today is my second day with the MacBook Air.

One of the driving forces I had for switching from Windows to Ubuntu in the past and now from Ubuntu to Mac OS X  is to learn new things.  But of course, on my first days of using a new computer, I need to do some sanity checks and make sure that I have the same functionality that I had before.

One of my biggest difficulties with my old computer was that it was completely incapable of running an Android emulator.  To do so, rendered my computer pretty useless.  So, I wanted to see how this new computer stacked up.  To test, I wanted to run one of old Android projects with an emulator.  These are steps needed to get started:

• Downloaded and installed Eclipse
• Downloaded Java support
• Installed the Eclipse Android Developer Tools (ADT) plugin
• Downloaded the Android SDK and told Eclipse where to find it
• Downloaded an emulator (virtual device)
• Used Git Hub for Mac to pull my old code from my repository
• Downloaded one library which I didn't include the git repository
• Cleaned and built the project

And, after all that.  I got my Android app to work with an emulator.  It worked much faster than on my old laptop - which is expected and good.  

So today, on day 2, I spent a bunch of time re-creating my old setup, struggled against my muscle memory as I fumbled with new keyboard shortcuts, confirmed that my new laptop is much faster than my old one, and started to use one new program, GitHub for Mac, which is pretty cool.

And as a final checkpoint for the day, I just checked and I'm now down to 91 GB of free space. This is down from 97GB from the time I first opened this laptop.  

First Impressions of Macbook Air

My Macbook Air arrived today.  These are my first impressions.

Let's get physical 

Before I get to installing software and running stuff, the computer's physical attributes deserve some attention.  This laptop is light and hard.  The edges of the computer are pretty rough, and I can imagine my wrists feeling sore from them over time.  Hopefully, I get used to the hard-ness, but I hope I never take its lightness for granted.

Onto the softer side

The first time I turned on the computer, I was asked to do some upgrades.  I complied, and after a restart, I checked the memory.  Starting from a 128 GB hard drive I had about 97 GB free to use.

I then installed some programs.  I was a bit confused as to the process.  I click on the downloaded file.  It sometimes opens a file on the desktop, sometimes it has a file ready for copying to another location, ... I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I sure do not grok it just yet.

• Citrix - I need this to remote connect to work, which is Windows machine.  Login worked great and it seemed to work more seamlessly than when I logged in from Ubuntu.  I will need to do some additional checking with emphasis that I can do everything with a Mac keyboard as I am logged into a Windows machine.
• Eclipse - I downloaded this.  I wasn't sure where it is best to install this.  I created a folder called Development in my home directory for now, and left the whole directory structure there.
• Android SDK - I want to do some Android development, so I need this Software development kit.  I'll start up an emulator and test it out later.  For me, using an emulator was a pretty taxing operation on my old computer.  We'll see how the new computer fares.
• Git - I can use this to retrieve my previous projects.
• MacVim - I usually use gvim, so this will hopefully be very natural for me.  
• Xcode - I've never used this, but I do want to see what it is.  

Everything installed pretty easily, so no complaints for now.  I'll try to do some things with these programs in the coming days.

Updates

• After several months of usage, I'd recommend this computer to anyone.
• I just checked online (July 2014), and I saw that this same Macbook (a refurbished mid-2012) is going for $779. I bought the same machine, also refurbished, for $999.