Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

After much experimentation, I got Emacs to build and run on Tiger. I ran mac/make-package instead of the usual configure/make/install cycle, as advised by Stefan Tilkov. That built an installer instead of the usual Emacs.app, but the installer worked fine. (I started with a clean checkout, but make-package wouldn’t bootstrap so I just copied a bootstrapped lisp directory over from one of my failed attempts and that worked.)

So it seems that something is messed up in the main emacs configure script in CVS, since I saw someone else suggest commenting out the link to fink. I may have lost ispell, but at least I have Emacs back.

As I mentioned last night, I had to rebuild emacs for both MacOS 10.4.0 and 10.4.1. The second build failed, and then I screwed up my CVS (that is, my copy of the emacs source code) by trying to check out an older version. Let that be a lesson to you young’uns: Always Google first!

Google tells me I’m not alone in my emacs difficulties. I shouldn’t have been able to build Emacs for 10.4.0 and now my luck has run out. I could check out the source tree again and try a patch, but it will probably be easier to download one of the Tiger binaries that are floating around:

• Aquamacs claims to work with Tiger.
• John Wiseman’s build is hosted by a friend.
• This mystery build which you can also download from Apple is probably your best bet.

Of course, you could skip them all and use the built-in terminal emacs, but I prefer the GUI.

[Update] I should have downloaded Aquamacs, because the other two didn’t work. I’m trying some hacks now, but they’re not going well.

Maybe the opendarwin port would work. I also found a couple of links to 10.4.1 binaries:

• Carbon Emacs for 10.4.1
• Emacsen for many OSXen

Upgrading my MacOS version is a hassle for me because I have Too Much Stuff™ on my mac. I have three virtual hosts to configure in the new Apache config file. I have Emacs to rebuild. I have too many fonts so I have to do the font cache deletion ritual. I have system hacks like CandyBar that require upgrades.

On the bright side, I now have all my fellow bloggers loaded into Safari RSS, so I can keep up with the fen without opening NetNewsWire Lite. (Safari RSS looks kind of like a LJ friends list. I could just read my LJ friends list, but Safari is so much cooler.)

And now Tiger is up to 10.4.1, so I’m building emacs again…

The tablet mac has been rumored since about the time of the Lisa, but now there’s finally hard evidence in the form of a US Design Patent No. D504,899.

Here’s a break from my all-Tiger-all-the-time coverage: Longhorn has a new Red Screen of Death. It’s nice to see that Microsoft is giving so much attention to core Windows functionality by sprucing up the traditional Blue Screen of Death. How will Tiger compete with this vaporware, should it ever come out?

Pantycat is now a Dashboard widget called Maki. I orce wrote my own Konfabulator widget just to play the game, so I suspect that more addiction is in my near future. Plus some hacking…

There’s also a Wiki Widget that I skipped and some useful ones I downloaded. (If a widget doesn’t install automatically, toss it into /Library/Widgets.) I’m also thinking of turning the color wheel into a color widget after I read the Dashboard tutorial.

It seems that iTunes was just the beginning of Apple’s Windows invasion. Bonjour, the software formerly known as Rendezvous, is now available for Windows. It’s not really end-user software, but it’s an interesting sign of Things To Come.

Brain of the day: His Brain, Her Brain

Daring Fireball has a page of cool Tiger details including one that I can’t wait to see in action: modify the modifier keys. This will put uControl out of business (it was free) and hopefully clear up that pesky uControl problem of caps-lock turning into control-lock on sleep.

Soon the whole world will realize THAT CAPS LOCK ISN’T DOING ANYONE ANY GOOD AND IT OUGHT TO BE A CONTROL KEY.

My Tiger is in the mail, but Slashdot already links some reviews of tomorrow’s MacOS, including a David Pogue review in the New York Times. (I used the BugMeNot FireFox extension to read it.)

Color wheel user Jim wrote in to say that he was having trouble with the transparent shading square in both FireFox 1.0.2 and Internet Explorer 6. I couldn’t replicate the FireFox problem, but my IE at work is doing the same thing. More breakage from the perpetually broken browser is frustrating, to say the least, but you can still use the shading box without the color background (while you’re waiting for a real browser to download).

So if you want the geeky explanation, here it is: I use a directX thingamajig (DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader filter) to get around IE’s fundamental brokenness as it manifests itself in PNG transparency. The latest service pack (SP2) seems to have turned off directX stuff for some people, which is, I suppose, what I get for using stupid proprietary extensions to broken browsers.

If you’re interested in stupid proprietary extensions for your antique broken browser, here are some other links about PNG alpha transparency support:

• all in the <head>
• an alpha example that will be broken if your browser is broken
• channel9 wiki on PNG tricks

Or just use FireFox.