Invalidating Preferences Cache in Mavericks (OS X 10.9.x)

I recently set up a fresh install of Mavericks (OS X 10.9), and copied over some of preferences (plist) files from old installation to new box ( (~/Library/Preferences).

I noticed, applications failed to use (manually copied) preferences files, instead kept throwing errors (like one shown below):

cfprefsd[xxxx]: CFPreferences: error renaming file /Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.codeux.irc.textual.plist.bPsEnTV to /Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.codeux.irc.textual.plist

Unlike previous versions of OS X, Mavericks (OS X 10.9) caches preferences files. That means, if we edit or overwrite a preferences (plist) file, we need to invalidate the cache so that applications can see the changes, and start using this updated preferences file.

I didn’t want to set up everything from scratch, in this case all IRC servers, nodes and chatrooms. It is not fun editing binary plist files, even with the help of XCode :-)

To fix this problem, we need to run this from terminal:

defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.codeux.irc.textual

We also need to make sure preferences file has correct permission. In my case, permissions were messed up because I copied file from different disk (installation).

Permission should look like following (i.e. owner can at least read/write; umask 077):

-rw——-

I would suggest restarting the respective application, if it is already running.

Amazon Cloudfront - Video Streaming (rtmp) Issue?

Are you using Amazon Cloudfront for public/private video streaming over rtmp? Having trouble to figure out why some of your videos fail to stream (over rtmp) and throw ‘Stream not found’ flash/actionscript client side errors?

I have figured out:

• Videos with invalid chapter markers would not stream over rtmp (Adobe Flash Media Server) or via Cloudfront.
• Adobe’s FLVCheck utility suggests our videos have invalid chapter markers. I am not sure, if chapter markers in our videos are invalid or Adobe Media Server expect those to be in different format.
• Same set of videos play fine with Quicktime/VLC player, Adobe Flash Player (over http progressive download) and html5 player (chrome or others which support H.264 videos)

I am disappointed with the fact - Adobe Media Server ceases to play (core feature) a video because of (optional feature?) chapter marker(s) which can be ignored if it is corrupt or invalid.

Thanks to AWS engineers who confirmed the case, and provided more details.

Update: Thanks to Justin Riley for sharing a solution (in comments below). He suggested to use ‘-map_chapters -1’ to get rid of this issue. It works for me.

We’re Hiring Developers!

We have been working on bunch of products (indiereign.com, and others) for sometime. To take these products to next level, quickly and elegantly, we have recently started expanding our team.

We are starting our new development centre in Noida. We want to connect, talk to and hire smart and passionate developers (hackers) who love to work on products in a small company or a startup (like ours).

We are looking for:

• bright and smart guys
• one who can fit in our (small team/company/startup) culture, and becomes a great team player
• can learn, adapt and use cutting/bleeding edge technologies
• can inspire and mentor others
• importantly, loves building cool, useful and scalable products/services

Experience, we would like to see:

• Application Developer
• Proficiency with web standards and frontend (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, etc.) development
• proficiency with one ore more languages (Python, Ruby, PHP, Scala, etc.)
• proficiency with analytical approach to problem solving
• has worked or very interested to work on other frameworks (Django, Rails, Symfony, etc.)

• Mobile Application Developer (iOS or Android or both) - apps/games development;

Installing NumPy and SciPy on Mac OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion)

I am playing with ExpEyes, which is awesome tool for anyone who wants to learn electronics (and physics).

ExpEyes comes with software (written in python) for GNU/Linux and Windows. I intend to run it on Mac OSX, because it can (provided all dependencies are met).

It is generally easy to install python packages on OSX using easy_install or pip, however, installing NumPy and SciPy turned out to be pain on OSX (10.8.2, latest version the time of posting).

In my case, I am using python binary installed via homebrew, so I can’t take advantage of numpy (which comes installed with mountain-lion).

I have XCode 6 installed, which comes with gcc-4.2.1 (llvm build). I figured out, I can build numpy and scipy from source.

Following is what I did to build numpy and scipy. SciPy requires gfortran, so that has to be installed (I used homebrew to do that):

$ git clone https://github.com/numpy/numpy.git $ git clone https://github.com/scipy/scipy.git $ cd numpy $ python setup.py build && python setup.py install $ brew install gfortran $ cd ../scipy $ python setup.py build && python setup.py install

BTW! In case, you are wondering, why didn’t I use Scipy Superpack script, which indeed makes job easier?

I didn’t, because I want to install gnu/unix packages using homebrew, and I already have git and other things. Super Spicypack downloads (gfortran, etc.), builds and installs packages directly to system, making it harder to remove those later? Homebrew makes job easier.

IndieReign - Discover a world of independent film and have fun doing it

My team and I have been working on bunch of products/services for last 3-4 years.

IndieReign is the one, we have been mostly focused on, and took care entire engineering and technical architecture.

It is a platform for indie filmmakers to promote, distribute and monetize content. It is actually more than that.

IndieReign runs on open-source software stack (for everything including video transcoding) with exception of Adobe Flash Player (used for video playback), and Amazon’s cloud.

Please share your feedback.

Update: Whereabouts

Just in case, you still follow this blog and wondering about me? I thought, it would be fair to leave some details on that.

• In Kanpur (my hometown)
• spending most of time on (or around) IndieReign,
• learning electronics and trying to build something,
• yet to grow to team, because it is hard to find and get right ones :-)
• still does ActionScript, mostly for fun stuff,
• might start blogging again; got so much to talk about, and share.

Mac OSX (10.8) Mountain Lion: Fixing Apache, PHP, Subversion, User Sites, Virtual Hosts Directories

While Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8) has brought many enhancements and fixes (mostly performance), it has also caused frustration to old users.

You might have noticed following issues in Mountain Lion:

1. Web Sharing Preferences Panel has been removed, i.e. you need to launch apache manually or write some launch-agent script or hack to bring web-sharing preferences panel back
2. User Sites (per-user web directories) is disabled, i.e. http://localhost/~username doesn’t work by default, and you need to modify apache config file to enable it
3. PHP extension for Apache is disabled by default i.e. you need to enable it by modified apache config (httpd.conf)
4. Subversion is not installed by default, either you can install using homebrew or by install XCode command line tools

You can fix these issues (1-4) by following these two links:

• Install and configure Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin on OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion
• Where is SVN on OS X Mountain Lion?

Whenever I upgrade to newer version of OSX, I end up with broken development-setup i.e. custom permissions on directories are messed up, configuration files are overwritten/removed, etc.

I think, I have found a way to keep default directory permissions, so future upgrades don’t break things.

My development setup requires my virtual hosts to use directories within my home-directory (and outside of ~/Sites or /Library/WebServer/Documents directories).

I am using following technique to setup my virtual-hosts:

• Enable User Sites (i.e. fix #2 problem above)
• Create symbolic-links(symlinks) of your project folder(s) inside ~/Sites directory
• Enable FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch options in virtual-host configuration.

In my case, I have a project inside ~/projects/myproject . I create a symlink of this directory inside ~/Sites , like this using Terminal (command-prompt)

$ ln -s ~/projects/myproject ~/Sites/myproject

I have following virtual-host configuration for this project:\

` `

DocumentRoot “/Users/myusername/Sites/myproject/trunk/web” ServerName myproject ServerAdmin myusername@localhost Options Indexes MultiViews Includes +FollowSymlinks +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch CustomLog “/private/var/log/apache2/myproject_access.log” common ErrorLog “/private/var/log/apache2/myproject_error.log”

I use it on my development machine (i.e. my laptop), so I don’t really bother about security at Apache level, and I take care of security at firewall/other levels.

If you are going to use above technique/configuration, please understand everything (by reading documentation) before you use it.

This set up works for me and solves some problems for me - I don’t have to change default directory permissions, and I don’t have to keep my projects within ~/Sites or /Library/WebServer/Documents directory.

RIP, Kenneth Gonsalves "KG" (1953 — 2012)

(Image Courtesy: Linux Bangalore (foss.in))

Kenneth Gonsalves, a champion in Indian (NRC)FOSS, Python and Django community passed away on August 3, 2012. Kenneth’s presence would be hugely missed in the community.

In 2008, Tarun Dua introduced me to Kenneth. I interacted with him at various occasions about NRCFOSS and general stuff. I was very inspired to see his contributions, specially some of his open-source projects.

While checking out NRCFOSS website today, I came to know about this sad news.

May his soul rest in peace.

Adobe Online Store for India is now available

We have been asking for an online Adobe Store (for India) for years, finally it is here - http://shop.adobe.com/in.

I am sure, Adobe would soon realise that they should have done it earlier. Anyway, it’s better late than never.

Thanks to everyone in community and at Adobe, who pushed for this.

RIP Dennis Ritchie (DMR), 1941 — 2011

(Image Courtesy: WikiMedia)

Dennis Ritchie passed away couple of days back (on October 8, 2011).

As Tim Bray has written summerised, this world would have been different, if Dennis Ritchie had not created ‘C’ and helped inventing UNIX.

I don’t know, if I would be what I am today without ‘C’ programming-language — the first programming language I learnt, used to solve problems, and wrote programs.

These days, I don’t write pure’C’ code except when I am debugging something or in need to write some utility executables. But UNIX (in some-form) is part of my day to day life.

Thanks to you, Dennis Ritchie Sir. May your soul rest in peace.

I regret for not thanking you when you were alive. Why we don’t do that when people are alive?