Tame the firefox by blocking flash

My web browser firefox keeps hogging the cpu 30-40% sometimes going crazy and taking 140% I believe that this is mainly due to embeded flash content. I have just started using the FlashBlock pluggin hoping it will help tame Firefox's cpu usage.


http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

Snow Leopard Shortcut to Home in Finder

Snow Leopard by default does not have a 'Mac OS X' Icon on the desktop but there is a keyboard short-cut to launch a new finder window open with your home directory.

cmd-shift-h (Shortcut to Home)
cmd-shift-a (Shortcut to Applications)

Scripting pinning Subversion Externals

How to control Subversion externals with scripts (bash):

Command Line setting 1 External
cd ./ProjectB/Reuse/A
svn propset svn:externals "Generic -r 19049 http://svnl/ReuseA/something" .

Command Line setting multiple Externals
cd ./ProjectC/Reuse
echo "A -r 16234 http://svnl/ReuseA/something" > svn.externals
echo "B -r 18086 http://svnl/ReuseB/something" >> svn.externals
svn propset svn:externals . -F svn.externals
#Optional
rm svn.externals
svn update
cd -

Subversion find all externals

When working in a subversion repository it is some times (often) nesecary to pin the externals. This requires the often tricky task of finding them all first, made easier with this command:

$ svn propget svn:externals -R

Which will recursively list all you externals from the current directory.

CD to Computer Music File

For audio conversion on Windows I use CDex. The file name string I prefer is:
%1\%Y-%2\%1-%Y-%2-%7-%4

On Mac OS X Snow Leopard I prefer to use Max. The file name string I use is:
{fileFormat}/{albumArtist}/{albumDate}-{albumTitle}/{trackArtist}-{albumDate}-{albumTitle}-{trackNumber}-{trackTitle}

My prefered output formats are:
[1] FLAC for archive/media server copies.
[2] 112kbps AAC for portable media.

[1] FLAC is a lossles codec and represent exactly what is on the cd, this is a great free codec with players available on most platforms. It will compress a 700MB cd on average to 400MB.

[2] AAC is high quality (Superior to MP3) lossy audio codec. Setting to 112kbps with a variable rate codec means that I actually get files sizes expected from a constant bit rate 128kbps codec. The loss in sound quality is not that important when listening with headphones.

mac ports since OS X Snow Leopard upgrade

Since upgrading to Snow Leopard I have noticed that Mac Ports (Previously called Darwin Ports) started giving me lots of errors. So I manually downloaded and installed the latest version, from here.

I then had to run through the insructions here [1] to clean every thing up:
[1] http://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration

$ port installed > myports.txt
$ sudo port clean all
$ sudo port -f uninstall installed

The look through myports.txt and install any you need.

$ sudo port install fping scite