OS X Yosemite

Apple today announced at its WWDC keynote the new version of OS X that will be arriving soon. Codename: Yosemite (YO-SEM-MIT-TEE). It shows great promise, but I'm not a fan of the new UI. Let's hope this doesn't become Windows 8.

What do you guys think? Comment below.

Linux, OS X, and Windows... oh my!

This post is being written in lieu of a serious update in a while. First, an update on Mac Linux USB Loader. As indicated by my lack of commits, I haven't really continued coding the application in a while. This is because I've decided to take a hiatus from coding on it so I can focus on my personal life as well as on my other projects. I have lots of programs sitting my Code folder on my hard drive and some of them, like Enterprise, my Linux EFI boot loader, and Invasion, my first person shooter, have development levels akin to abandonment.

It's always difficult when a program isn't being developed. It leaves those who rely on the project in the dust and perhaps unable to perform their daily tasks. Eventually the program gets dated and it reaches the point that no matter how good the application is (or was), nobody can use it anymore. I have been a victim of this myself when looking for good development tools and libraries. Sometimes, a tool just too beneficial to let die gets picked up by another author who works on it. But many die alone.

Looking back on my own really old code projects, I've seen this myself. Old games I've worked on for a few days and then scraped, pieces of code that are now outdated, etc. I've written programs for OS X, Windows, even Linux... Even a project you're super thrilled about can meet its day. It's unfortunate, but true.

I hope to pick up some additional projects for the Mac App Store. I have a few ideas already, but I'm keeping them a secret. I do have some ideas for all of my old code, however. One of these days, I'm going to grab a bunch of old code that I've written or that has been written by others, and I'm going to look at it on this blog. Some of my old programs will go open source as well with a kind of scrap pack that I'll open source and put on GitHub. It'll be downright terrible code, but maybe somebody can learn from it.

A Method to Boot Linux from Flash Drives via EFI on Macs and Why I Hate the EFI Support in Linux

Linux and Macs are like estranged cousins who are always a little antsy around each other. While they can trained to play together, deep down there is a deep resentment of each other. This relationship is not inherently by fault of either Linux or Apple; rather, the issues seem to lie with the hardware and firmware on Mac computers.

Sadly, the situation does not look like it will fix itself anytime soon. Macs require booting via EFI, which for all intents and purposes is horrible on the Linux platform. The only real way to boot Linux via EFI is unfortunately by hacks: GRUB 2, the rudimentary and ubiquitous Linux boot loader used on practically every installation, has working but poor EFI support, and other software like ELILO is not much better.

EFI is going to be way more common now than it was in the past largely due to Microsoft's decision to require UEFI firmware on all new PCs shipping as Windows 8 certified. So the Linux community finds it necessary to get a working EFI boot solution going quickly, but, as the video below demonstrates, everything is not all roses and unicorns:

So, what is to be done with PCs (and Macs) that are now booting via EFI? Well, I have one solution for   a common issue faced by Mac users: booting a Linux distribution from a USB drive without using rEFIt or rEFInd. Fedora seems to have something going, as shown by the following video below, which demonstrates Fedora booting natively on a Mac via EFI:

Sadly, Ubuntu and its derivatives do not have any native or supported way to boot via EFI on Mac platforms. So, I have created a tool called Mac Linux USB Loader to do just that! Open source (license pending) and on GitHub, Mac Linux USB Loader is a free application that copies a selected Linux distribution's ISO file and copy it and an EFI boot loader to the thumb drive of your choice. Best yet, it is non-destructive, which means that unlike other tools, you do not have to erase your thumb drive: all your data is preserved and untouched.

The tool has been successfully used to boot Linux Mint 14.1 from a 2 GB thumb drive. In theory, this shouldn't be restricted to Ubuntu; the only real requirement is that the distribution supports loopback. If you want to try the tool, fork the repository on GitHub and then compile the code in Xcode (binary releases will be released when the code is cleaned up a bit). Please note that the tool is in beta, is buggy, and may not work. You have no warned.

Give it a try and leave your comments/questions/thoughts in the comments below.

Product Review: Notepad++

Imagine a super fast, sleek, and easy to use text editor that doesn't give you shit. Well, Notepad++ is it. Sleek, elegant, and easy to use, it is exactly what I like to use everyday. Inspired by Scintilla, the editor component, but written in pure Win32, Notepad++ is perfect for code editing, HTML webpage coding, and other tasks that require plain text.

Although it is only available for Windows, it runs very fast on platforms such as Linux and Mac OS X through the use of software emulation layers like Wine. For instance, it runs fairly well under OS X:

It offers support for many programming and markup languages: from ActionScript to Matlab to Fortran to C, Notepad++ does any task for me (did that seriously just rhyme)? To get the lowdown on Notepad++ go over to their website at their website. And to download it, click here.