The Coppit Family Daily News

I’ve released a new version of the Category Order Wordpress 2 plugin. This plugin allows the blog administrator to set an explicit ordering, spacing, and indentation of categories in the category list that appears in the sidebar. The administrator specifies the ordering in the new “Category Order” management page. There is also an option for placing the category post count inside the link.

New changes:

• Fixed a problem where subcategories would not be displayed properly with their parent categories when the date and time permalink structure was in use.

A screenshot shows the management page. Download it on my code page.

I’ve released a new version of the Category Access Wordpress 2 plugin. This plugin allows the blog maintainer to restrict access to posts belonging to particular categories on a user-by-user basis.

New changes:

• Fixed a problem where per-user category settings still weren’t being set properly. Hopefully it’s fixed for good now.
• Fixed a problem where pages would be hidden if the default category was hidden.

Download it on my code page.

Yesterday Christopher had his cochlear implant surgery. The short story is that it went really well.

We drove to Charlottesville on Wednesday to have our pre-op meeting with the surgeon, Dr. Hashasaki. Afterwards we stayed at Dorothy’s parents house. Christopher did pretty well with not being able to eat the day of the surgery… better than he did before when he had to go under anesthesia for the CT scan.

The morning of the operation, we dressed Christopher in his gown, and met with the nurses, anesthesiologist, and Dr. H.’s resident doctors. Overall we were impressed that there wasn’t much waiting around. By 11:00 they took him for the 11:30 surgery.

We waited until about 3:00, and Dr. Hashasaki gave us a call in the waiting lounge. He reported that the surgery went well, and that it only took 2 hours. Unfortunately, Christopher has so much baby fat that it took them a long time to get an IV into him. The good news is that they had him on gas so that he was knocked out and didn’t have to feel them poking him like a pincushion.

He also said that they tested the device in the operating room, and the Christopher’s brain was responding to the signals given to the implant. (We can’t really say that he could “hear sounds”, since they gave him electrical stimulation, and he was unconscious.)

We then went to the recovery room to sit with Christopher as he woke up. We wasn’t hardly a happy camper. He was swollen from the IV fluids they gave him, and woozy from being under the anesthesia. After about two hours we finally got our prescriptions and paperwork and were discharged.

On the way home he mostly slept, but he did wake up around Williamsburg. He was pretty groggy but I did get a little giggle from him. He pretty quickly found out that he had a headband and ear cup on. He slept most of the night, waking up around 6:30 this morning.

Today he’s still a little swollen looking in the face, but seems to feel just fine. His balance is a little shaky, but he’s still walking around a little. But as he woke up this morning he definitely didn’t want to have anything on his head. We ended up taking off the head gear, which Dr. H. said would be okay.

His incision looks clean. Apparently the stitches are inside… How they keep the outside of the skin together is a mystery to me… (glue?) The site of the surgery is a little swollen, and I think I can see where the magnet is under the skin. This is all good–I heard from some parents that their kid’s face is bruised, and their eyes swollen shut. Christopher just looks like Rocky Balboa the day after a fight.

Here are some pictures. WARNING: the last few are of the surgery site.

So the bionic baby is doing great!

Christopher lately has been taking a few steps on his own. This usually ends with him going into a crawl, but at least he’s trying. He can stand on his own pretty well now.

I’ve released a new version of the Category Access Wordpress 2 plugin. This plugin allows the blog maintainer to restrict access to posts belonging to particular categories on a user-by-user basis.

New changes:

• Fixed a PHP warning created by changes in the last release.

Download it on my code page.

I’ve released a new version of the Category Access Wordpress 2 plugin. This plugin allows the blog maintainer to restrict access to posts belonging to particular categories on a user-by-user basis.

New changes:

• Fixed a bug where changes to category access on a per-user basis would sometimes not be reflected in the updated page.
• Added support for preventing comments for hidden posts from showing up in the comments RSS.

Download it on my code page.

Moving from the Windows world to the Mac world, I encountered a number of annoyances while trying to make my Mac comfortable. Below is a list of software and tweaks I’ve made to get things “just right”.

Good software that is free:

• Adium: IM Client with more protocol support than iChat (works with Google Talk, AIM, MSN, etc.) Unfortunately there is no video support, unlike iChat.
• AutoPano Pro: Simply the best way to create panoramas from individual photos.
• CubicConvertor: Make Quicktime VR from panoramas.
• Gallery Remote: For uploading photos to my gallery.
• iStumbler: Find open wireless networks
• Spark: global hotkeys for iTunes
• Quicksilver: Keyboard-oriented application launcher
• MenuCalendarClock: To get the date along with the time in the menu bar
• Thunderbird: For reading news and mail.
• Eclipse Java Development Environment (XCode isn’t cross-platform)
• Fink Commander: For all those good 3rd party unix tools
• Firefox: A good browser. I would use Safari, but I can’t live with my plugins: Adblock Plus, All-in-One Gestures, Always Remember Password, Clone Window, CustomizeGoogle, Download Statusbar, Google Toolbar, IE View, InfoLister, Mimetype Editor, Open Java Console, Regular Expression Find, Sort Extensions and Themes, Tab Mix Plus, TargetAlert, Web Develoepr, SwitchProxy.
• Fugu: SCP Client for secure file transfers
• GraphicConverter: Free upgrades to pre-installed version
• GraphViz: Native Mac version of graph layout tool is awesome
• VLC, RealPlayer, MPlayer: Play media
• Chicken of the VNC: A client for the popular VNC remote desktop protocol
• MS Remote Desktop
• MS Internet Explorer: For websites still in the dark ages
• Apple OS X Developer tools: For gcc 3.3 and stuff. Link the /Developer/Applications directory to /Applications/Developer for easier access.
• Apple X11, with the quartz-wm window manager. See http://www.chemistry.ucsc.edu/~wgscott/xtal/page1.html for info on how to get rid of the dock icon.
• FileMerge from the Apple Developer Tools: File merge that is better than WinMerge. I also created a script called “fdiff” with the following:
  #!/bin/sh
  /Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMerge -left $1 -right $2 -merge $2 2>/dev/null &
• startupsound.prefpane: Silence the loud startup sound
• TinkerTool: Advanced tweaking of options, such as not creating .DS_Store folders on Windows mounted drives
• Pacifist: For looking inside packages on the Mac install disk. I’ve needed this once or twice to retrieve a file.
• Growl: Notifications for Quicksilver, Adium, and other apps
• MenuMeters: CPU, network, and disk monitors in the menu
• Sightspeed: For video camera chats with Windows users.

Good software that is not free:

• Quicktime Full
• Synk: folder synchronization for backups. Free for academics
• Compost: Manage the trash better, namely wipe oldest files first as necessary.
• Missing Sync: For syncing my Palm with the Mac. Works better than the buggy Palm Hotsync.
• Adobe Acrobat: Needed to edit PDF files
• iView MediaPro 3: The best photo management software I’ve found. More powerful than iPhoto, although the image editor is less user friendly.
• Adobe Photoshop: For when iPhoto doesn’t cut it
• Norton Anti-Virus
• Parallels: For running Windows inside Mac OS X.

Unsolved Problems:

I’d appreciate any help on fixing the following issues.

• When you copy a folder and one already exists, why does it replace the entire folder? Can I get it to add the contents, overwriting or skipping existing files in the folders?
• How do I lengthen a window without accidentally changing its width?
• How do I remove context menu items for uninstalled programs?

Can’t be fixed:

• Icon spacing is too wide. How can I narrow it?
• In the terminal, why does “mv a A” prompt to overwrite? The file system is not case-sensitive, although it is “faked”. The solution is to “mv a temp; mv temp A”
• How can I drag something into folder enclosing the current one? You can’t. Pathfinder has a dock/shelf for this, as well as other options.

Solutions to Annoyances:

• What’s a good Visio-like drawing program?: OmniGraffle
• How do I kill an unruly program? You can try command-option-esc. If the program isn’t listed, use the activity monitor.
• Where is the right-Del key? (Right delete): Fn-Delete
• How do I run apps like X11 on boot?: Sys Prefs, Users, Startup
• http://www.cs.ecu.edu/~collins/rm/rm.html: Can I get the rm command to move the file to the trash instead? (For undelete…)
• Where is ctrl-c? Use command-c
• How can I get the function keys to work as function keys instead of volume etc? Use fn-f5, for example.
• How come the desktop doesn’t refresh after downloading a file, and having Stuffit automatically unpack it? (I have to click the desktop for it to refresh.): That’s just the way it’s implemented. (Haven’t seen this problem in a while–maybe it was fixed.)
• How can I add “Open with Vim” to the context menu of every file?: Zingg, also /User/coppit/Library/Contextual Items
• How do I make the terminal window close automatically after running a .command? (It says [Process Completed]): Save As in terminal allows you to specify a command to run.
• How can I open a terminal at the current finder location?: http://www.entropy.ch/software/applescript/welcome.html
• How do I extract a single file from an archive?: http://www.charlessoft.com/
• CPAN module doesn’t do command history and stuff: There’s a bug in XCode 1.5’s version of gcc. Need to roll back cc1plus to the version from XCode 1.2 (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/costabel/cc1plus_12). Update fink, then do an Update-All

Good resources:

• osxfaq.com
• http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/docs/customization/
• macvim.org

Congrats go out to Steven, Tammy, and Diego on the new addition to their family, Dominic James Coppit. My dad now has another grandchild, and this time one that shares his name! He was born early this morning, at around 4 am at a weight of 6 pounds 9 ounces. Pictures: