14 Mar 2008

Using OS X fonts in ImageMagick

Introduction This is a short explanation of how I got my OS X fonts working in ImageMagick. I won’t guarantee that it’s the best way — leave me a comment if you know better — but it’s what I did. This worked for me on OS X Leopard 10.5.2, with ImageMagick 6.3.3. I used MacPorts to grab one bit of […]

28 Feb 2008

Google Errors

Why can’t every error message in the world have a GUID? Every single one? Seriously. How many times have you copied and pasted the text out of an error message so you could put it into Google1? How many times did you have to fiddle about with it, maybe to take your specific filename out […]

5 Dec 2007

Screencast: Creating an iTunes Music Visualizer in Quartz Composer

I’ve put together a basic screencast tutorial which introduces you to Apple’s Quartz Composer, the graphical programming environment which ships with OS X. Quartz Composer is a graphics generator, capable of drawing 3D graphics, animations, and all sorts of Good Stuff. And you make it work just by dragging little boxes about and connecting them […]

2 Dec 2007

Please describe any steps needed to trigger the problem…

Sometimes, I really wish I was an Apple devleoper. Not because I’d like to work in the funky headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, although I imagine it’s quite fun. I don’t even want to score myself a free iPhone — well, not until they come with 3G, anyway. No, I want to read their error reports. […]

25 Nov 2007

New Look

I’ve spent a fair chunk of this week learning about CSS and WordPress, because I figured both of those could come in handy, so here’s the new site design for your delectation. It’s almost entirely aesthetic update. The banner heading is from one of my own photographs, taken at Bristol Uni’s Botanic Garden earlier on […]