Install Xcode 4 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Macintosh and iOS developers upgrading to Lion are in for a slice of annoyance, courtesy of Xcode 4.

Xcode was one of the first programs I installed after the Lion upgrade, but after downloading the massive (4GB+) setup file for the second time – direct from the Mac App store – I was met with an error informing me that Xcode was not compatible with Lion.

But I downloaded it straight from the Mac App Store, where all of the latest software is available, right?

Well yeah, that is correct, kinda. Unfortunately it seems that anyone who shelled out for Xcode 4 on Snow Leopard is being directed to the old version. There is a new version available on the Mac App Store, but if you’re reinstalling from your purchase history then you’re downloading the wrong thing, man.

So don’t download Xcode from your purchase history! Head over to this page and grab Xcode 4.1 instead.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion DOES Ship With X11

And I’ve got the eyes to prove it. There seems to be some concern online that Lion ‘ships’ (can we even say that any more?) without X11. Well, one of the first things I’ve checked out on my retail copy of Lion is X11, which is present as ever.

Open a Terminal window, type ‘xeyes’ at the prompt and you’ll see X11 staring right back at you.

This installed by default on my MacBook Pro, but if you find it missing from your installation you can install it from the ‘Packages’ folder on the Lion install USB key/DMG.

Install Java for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Like many people out there living on the Macintosh, I’ve spent the best part of this evening backing up, installing and downloading files, all to upgrade my machines to the latest and greatest from Cupertino, CA – OS X Lion. I’ve got a pretty epic Evernote listing all the software I need to reload, but one absentee from the default install is the Java platform. As a Java dev, this is one of the first points I’ve looked to address.

Installing Java on OS X Lion is actually really easy, but for some reason starting the process is not very obvious.

Java is installed by the Software Update program, however to launch the process you’ll need to open a Terminal window and type:

$ java

Software Update will take it from there. Seems so odd, the pairing of Terminal and Software Update, probably the least and most friendly parts of the Mac OS.

Mac OS X Lossless Audio Converter – XLD

This is a really useful tool for any Mac OS X users who want to convert audio from a lossless source to a more broadly compatible format. (I use it to convert high quality source material to MP3 for my iPod.)

XLD (X Lossless Decoder) is compatible with pretty much every lossless audio format you’re likely to encounter – APE, FLAC, Wavepack, TTA, Shorten, wave/AIFF – and can output files in MP3, M4A, OGG as well as any alternate lossless file type.

There’s a full range of encoder options for each codec (CBR/VBR etc…) and conversion is really, really fast. It’s a great piece of software.

XLD is available for download here.

Super Simple Mac OS X RAM Disk Tool – rdmanage

I’ve ported my Linux RAM disk management simplification tool, rdmanage, to Mac OS X. Now you can enjoy all the benefits of zero seek times and upwards of 1GB/second sequential read speeds on an operating system that humans can use. The program still has to be launched from the command line, but I’ve kept it very, very simple – all you have to do is specify the size of the drive.

Operation:

To create your RAM disk, open a Terminal window and navigate to where you’ve saved the program. At the command prompt, type:

$ ./rdmanage [size of disk in MB]

For example, to create a 500MB drive, you would type:

$ ./rdmanage 500

When your disk has been created, it will appear on your desktop and in Finder just like a USB or FireWire drive. When you’re done, eject the disk just like you would an external device.

Download:

You can either download the program by right clicking this link and pressing ‘Save As’/'Save Target As’, or if you’re already at a command prompt, use cURL:

$ curl -O http://www.zebpedersen.co.uk/python/mac/rdmanage

Once you’ve downloaded the file, you might have to specify it as executable:

$ chmod +x rdmanage