Silence fitbitd console messages

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I found Fitbitd (the Fitbit running daemon) sending tons of strings like this to console:

Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : [9A] 0x00, 0x3b, 0x61, 0x0e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : [0A] 0x00, 0x01, 0x0a, 0x0e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : [05] 0x00, 0x01, 0x05, 0x0e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : Pending acks: 0
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : [9B] 0x00, 0x3c, 0x41, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : Pending acks: 0
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : Received logical packet.
Aug/11/2011 14:57:32 	com.fitbit.fitbitd[351]	Thu Aug 11 14:57:32 mycomputer.local MacUserInterface[351] : Received terminating status packet.

So, I silenced these by altering the top of /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.fitbit.fitbitd.plist
Note: the -e switch I obtained from:

fitbitd --help

from:

   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/usr/local/bin/fitbitd</string>

to:

   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array>
      <string>/usr/local/bin/fitbitd</string>
      <string>-e</string>
   </array>

Vemedio Snowtape RadioAgent

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In Mac OS X (10.6 Snow Leopard), after closing Snowtape version 2.0.4, I see in Activity Monitor there is a service/process running named RadioAgent. In Snowtape under Preferences → Recording → “Enable automatic wakeup from sleep”, is NOT checked, and thus I expect all related processes to quit when I exit the program. However, this is their response to this:

This is intended behavior. The RadioAgent has a purpose. I won’t go into any
detail. If you kill the agent manually you might get unexpected behavior we can
not support.

If you do want to stop or deactivate the RadioAgent (for example, you are trying to upgrade Snowtape and get the message “The operation can’t be completed because the item ‘RadioAgent’ is in use”.) is this the Terminal command to use:

launchctl remove com.vemedio.Snowtape.RadioAgent

Silencing Frigidaire mini in-window compact room Air Conditioner Model FAA065P7A

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Instructions on Silencing Frigidaire Mini In-Window Compact Room Air Conditioner Model FAA065P7A – 6000 BTU MSII

If you look at reviews for this otherwise nice, small A/C unit, you’ll see lots of people complaining about a loud beep every time you press a button on the unit or the remote (e.g. changing fan speed or temperature). It’s a high pitched, noisy, piercing, annoyingly loud beep, which wakes spouses and babies. I know of no way to disable or turn off this “feature”. I looked for a wiring diagram and didn’t find anything promising, so I decided to slightly disassemble the unit and hope to find a speaker. I wound up fixing it and here’s how you can to!:

Tools required:

  • Phillips screwdriver
  • Flathead screwdriver
  • Glue (I used a glue stick)

Time required: about 10-15 minutes

Skills required: Basic Handyman. Having said that, here’s my disclaimer: Only skilled, certified electricians should attempt to fix electronic equipment. These units may contain capacitors which hold electric charge. Do not touch any of the electronics. I am absolutely not responsible for loss of property or person, damage to this unit or your cat, accuracy of these instructions, nor do I guarantee that this will even work. Opening this unit may void the warranty.

Steps:

  1. UNPLUG THE UNIT!
  2. Swing open the front vent like you’re going to change/clean the filter and then gently and slowly swing open further to pop the two bottom hinges until it comes off. Set it and the filter aside.

    ( First swing open, then remove vent )

  3. Remove 3 large screws and set aside (be careful not to brush anything up against the fragile aluminum vents).

    ( Location of the 3 screws to be removed for removal of outer plastic ring )

  4. Remove 4 (there may only be 3) small screws around the control panel and set aside.

    ( Location of the 3 (or 4) small screws needed to remove the control panel )

  5. Pop off the outer plastic front piece which has the top vents attached. Do this by gently inserting a flathead screwdriver from the inside into the slot about half-way down on the right side until that side comes off. Repeat for the left side. Then, the trick is to try and gently pull this outer plastic piece up (there are two tabs along the top like there were on each side). Be careful as there is a wire which attaches this piece to the rest of the unit, so orient it so that you don’t put any tension on this wire.

    ( From along the inside, press tab with screwdriver to assist in removal of outer plastic ring )


    plastic ring removed

    ( Set plastic ring gently aside -- there's a wire connected to it )

  6. Remove 3 screws (there may only be 2) which were behind the control panel and set aside.

    ( 2 (or 3) screws to remove from electronics plate )

  7. Lift slightly (there are two hooks along the right edge) and carefully pull out this plate with attached electronics only far enough so that you can see and can just access to the small, black cylinder (about the size of an Altoid mint). This is the PCB mounted speaker.
    Top view of Speaker

    ( View of the hole to plug with glue (looking down) )

  8. Take your glue and make a small (about the size of a grain of rice) ball and place on the end of your flathead screwdriver.
  9. Carefully use the screwdriver to apply the glue ball to fill the hole which is at the center of this piece (don’t get glue on anything else). Be sure to pack enough in the hole to muffle the sound (about 2 grains of rice worth). You can also use an unfolded paperclip to help push the glue inside the hole and to damage the diaphragm which makes the noise.
  10. Now, carefully reassemble the unit in the reverse order.

NOTES:

  • I would not test your success until you have at least the two electronic panels securely screwed back into place.
  • For my three attempts at this, one now makes no beep, one left the beep barely audible and the other reduced the volume by half.
  • I did all this while my units were installed in windows.
  • If not obvious, this is basically irreversible.
  • This also works on model # FAA055P7A and may work on these model #s: FAA084P7A, FAC124P1A, FAA086P7A, FAA064P7A and FAC104P1A.

Good Luck!

Firefox, setup secure google search in quick search box

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Google now has encrypted Google web search. Here’s how to enable it in the quick search box in Firefox:

Firefox search box

In Mac OS X, edit this file /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/searchplugins/google.xml, (on Windows you should find it at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins\google.xml ). Go to the 7th line and add an ‘s’ after ‘http’, so that it looks like this when done editing.

<Url type=”text/html” method=”GET” template=”https://www.google.com/search”>

Save this file and relaunch Firefox.

Mounting Windows portion of data DVD/CD from Mac

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I have a data driver disk (CD / DVD) which has both Mac and Windows (i.e. a hybrid disk) portions with their respective driver files. When you put the disk in a Mac, it mounts only the Mac portion of the disk. I want to also copy files off the Windows portion. So, this is how to get access to the Windows files by mounting as a iso9660 format disk in Snow Leopard (version 10.6.2)

1. Put the disk in the drive and let it mount normally.

2. From a Terminal Window (yes, we are using commands on the command line):

Get mounted disk location, e.g. ” Name: /dev/disk1 ” (to be used in third command):

drutil status

Make a temporary mount point:

sudo mkdir /tmp/foo/

Mount the disk:

sudo mount_cd9660 /dev/disk1 /tmp/foo/

You now have access to the Windows files in the Finder.

When done, unmount the iso9660 portion:

sudo umount /tmp/foo/

Then unmount the rest of the disk as normal in Finder.

You can use this command to remove the temporary mount point, (or it should automatically get deleted upon reboot)

sudo rmdir /tmp/foo/

HOWTO: Hookup two wireless routers

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I have an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router. Because I have an iPhone (it can’t connect via 802.11n), I had to have my Airport Radio Mode set to “802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)”, which means when the iPhone was connected (and maybe at other times) the Airport was broadcasting at the slower b/g protocol speeds. Well, I also have a spare Linksys WRT54G v2.0 wireless router. So, I flashed it with dd-wrt firmware, and following these instructions I’ve configured the Linksys as a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and connected an ethernet cable from one of its LAN ports to a LAN port on the Airport (serving as the “main router”). I now have a 802.11g router (Linksys) for my iPhone to connect to, and my Airport’s Radio Mode is now set to “802.11n (5 GHz)” for my Macbook Pro and Macbook to connect to at their fastest speeds. Goodness.

Eclipse with Aptana plugin and SFTP support, a free website editor

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A friend wanted a good, free web development IDE for Mac. Personally, I use Coda and love it, but it’s not free.

I found this resource as a starting point.

I quickly found that although KompoZer and Nvu were good for her because they were WYSIWYG editors, they both don’t support SFTP, which was required in this case (and most cases really), and were also lacking a little love. SeaMonkey and the rest below that on the list were either too simple or too complex. For me, this left three: Aptana, Komodo Edit, or Eclipse to try.

The Komodo Editor is actually pretty good, but I felt didn’t have a very good remote connection tool. Aptana doesn’t officially support SFTP without paying $99/yr (I tried using their free SFTP plugin, but it didn’t work in Eclipse 3.4.2). So, since I use Eclipse for my Python projects, I wanted to see if I could get Eclipse with the Aptana plugin to work. I found this blog with the answer.

These are the shortened steps I followed:

  1. Download and install the Eclipse SDK ver. 3.4.2 (Ganymede)
  2. Install the Aptana Studio as an Eclipse plugin
  3. In the Aptana Perspective, ‘My Aptana’ tab, select ‘Plugins’ at the top, then choose to install ‘Aptana PHP’.
    aptana_plugins
  4. Using the Eclipse Software Updates, install a new remote site, Remote System Explorer, by adding this URL: http://download.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/updates/, but you only need to select the ‘Remote System Explorer Core’ and ‘RSE SSH Services’ portions, found under the ‘RSE_Runtime’ when selecting features to install.
    select
  5. Now, with the Remote System Explorer perspective selected (top right of the IDE), on the left side, in the Remote Systems tab, right-click and choose ‘New Connection…’, then input the settings to connect to your remote webserver.

    6. perspective

    remote_connection

  6. Once you’ve logged into your site and see the files, right-click on the one(s) to edit and choose ‘Open With’, then ‘Aptana PHP Editor’
  7. You can now edit with all the syntactic highlighting, auto complete and other features of Aptana Studio.