Lion: Hardware Growler crashes

For anyone using Lion and Hardware Growler (part of the excellent Growl package), you may have noticed that it crashes under some circumstances. (For example, see )

And if you're using it faceless, you may not even notice for awhile - say, til you realize you're waiting for a Growl that'll never come.

Fortunately, this is easy to slap a bandage over, with a simple bash script (all on one line):

while true; do if [ $(ps jaxwwww|grep [H]ardwareGrowler|wc -l) = 0 ] ; then open /Applications/Growl-1.2.2/Extras/HardwareGrowler/HardwareGrowler.app; echo "$(date): launched one"; fi; sleep 1; done

(I know; a hard-coded path - you'll have to fix it if your path differs - if you know a better way, feel free post in the comments.)

I tried using a longer sleep, though the resource utilization was indistinguishable, so I left it at "1", which means it recovers almost instantly.

This can be "automated" even further: Into a text document, paste this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>WindowSettings</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>ExecutionString</key>
<string>while true; do if [ $(ps jaxwwww|grep [H]ardwareGrowler|wc -l) = 0 ] ; then open /Applications/Growl-1.2.2/Extras/HardwareGrowler/HardwareGrowler.app; echo "$(date): launched one"; fi; sleep 1; done</string>
<key>Columns</key>
<string>44</string>
<key>Rows</key>
<string>15</string>
<key>WinLocULY</key>
<string>678</string>
<key>WinLocX</key>
<string>611</string>
<key>WinLocY</key>
<string>0</string>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>


Save it as "something.term".

Double-click / launch the document and it opens Terminal.app for you. Add it to your Login Items, in the Users & Groups (nee Account) preference pane, and it's automatic.

(I believe the "WinLoc" keys are ignored in favor of an offset from the most recent Terminal window; pity - I'd like to place this at the same location on the screen each time. Though of course, Lion's "Auto Resume" handles this nicely too. :)

Snow Leopard "safe sleep" tweak

A quick bash script to dynamically adjust the sleep behavior under Snow Leopard - to avoid the expense of maintaining the sleepimage if the battery is above a certain level.

Thanks again to Joe Kissell for the original script from (TidBITS#893/20-Aug-07).

#!/bin/sh

#
# 20090902 mvgfr: rules have changed (ex: hibernatemode; there is no 7) so recode
#                 AND be more fault-tolerant...
#                 (setpoints raised, & cron freq increased, since lately been losing power before sleep)
# 20090901 mvgfr: Snow Leopard now defaults to "Secure Virtual Memory" so change safe mode to 7
#    (need programmatic way to check, anything better than system_profiler?)
# 20090728 mvgfr: reduce setpoints by 10 (%)
# 20070908 mvgfr: impl setpoints, tweak msgs, Trash vs rm, debug...
# original: Joe Kissell ,  (TidBITS#893/20-Aug-07)
#

debugMe="" # simple toggle; empty means NO & anything else means YES

setpointLow=20
setpointHigh=25

MODE=`/usr/bin/pmset -g | awk '/hibernatemode/ { print $2 }'`
LEFT=`/usr/bin/pmset -g batt | grep Internal | awk '{ print $2 }' | awk -F % '{ print $1 }'`

if [ $LEFT == "(removed)" ] ; then LEFT=0; fi # catch case in which no batt is seen

if [ $debugMe ] ; then /usr/bin/logger -t "hibernatemode" "current mode (on entry): $MODE; batt % remaining: $LEFT"; fi

if [ $LEFT -le $setpointLow ] && [ $MODE == 0 ] ; then
  {
  /usr/bin/logger -t "hibernatemode" "Battery level ${LEFT}%; setting hibernatemode ON"
  /usr/bin/pmset -a hibernatemode 3
  }
elif  [ $LEFT -ge $setpointHigh ] && [ $MODE != 0 ]; then
  {
  /usr/bin/logger -t "hibernatemode" "Battery level is ${LEFT}%; setting hibernatemode OFF"
  /usr/bin/pmset -a hibernatemode 0
  mv /var/vm/sleepimage /Users/mvgfr/.Trash
  }
fi

if [ $debugMe ] ; then
    MODE=`/usr/bin/pmset -g | awk '/hibernatemode/ { print $2 }'`;
    LEFT=`/usr/bin/pmset -g batt | grep Internal | awk '{ print $2 }' | awk -F % '{ print $1 }'`;
    /usr/bin/logger -t "hibernatemode" "current mode (on exit): $MODE; batt % remaining: $LEFT";
fi

#end

macports notification of outdated

A quick and dirty bash/shell script to get automatic notification of outdated macports:

#!/bin/bash

# 20090902 mvgfr: tweaks
# 20071110 mvgfr: check for outdated macports & notify if any - via growl & stdout (emailed when cron'd)
# 20080209 mvgfr: must run sync before, so it can learn about updates!
#                 also added "-H localhost" workaround for growl Leopard bug (ignores some)

debugMe="" # presume we'll only use alphanum; like "YES" or empty string for NO

# may take awhile; is this an issue?
if [ ! $debugMe ] ; then /opt/local/bin/port sync; fi

if [ $debugMe ] ; then
    potentialOutput="`echo 'debugging:';ls -1|head -1`"
else
    potentialOutput=`/opt/local/bin/port outdated`
fi

if [ "$potentialOutput" != "No installed ports are outdated." ] ; then
    echo "$potentialOutput" # for cron to email to root
    if [ -f /usr/local/bin/growlnotify ]; then
 NumLinesToDisplay=$((`echo "$potentialOutput" | wc -l` -1))
 if [ $NumLinesToDisplay -lt 1 ]; then
     echo "underflow error; see log" | /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -H localhost -s -t 'macports outdated:'
 elif [ $NumLinesToDisplay -gt 20 ]; then
     echo "overflow error; see log" | /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -H localhost -s -t 'macports outdated:'
 else
  echo "$potentialOutput" | tail -`echo $NumLinesToDisplay` | \
      /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -H localhost -s -t 'macports outdated:'
 fi
    fi
fi

if [ $debugMe ] ; then echo "`date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`: $potentialOutput" >> /var/log/port-outdated.log; fi

#end

(Old 2007/12/01 script here.)

Script to notify if any outdated MacPorts

Updated version here.

-----

Add the script below as a cron job and it'll notify* you if you have any outdated MacPorts.

*Presuming you're configured to have cron job output emailed to you, it'll notify by email. If you have growl installed, it growl at you too. Lastly, it logs to /var/log (which probably requires creating that log file first).

(Updated for recent tweaks.)

#!/bin/bash

# 20071110 mvgfr: check for outdated macports & notify if any - via growl & stdout (emailed when cron'd)
# 20080209 mvgfr: must run sync before, so it can learn about updates!
#                 also added "-H localhost" workaround for growl Leopard bug (ignores some)

# may take awhile; is this an issue?
/opt/local/bin/port sync

potentialOutput=`/opt/local/bin/port outdated`

if [ "$potentialOutput" != "No installed ports are outdated." ] ; then
    echo "$potentialOutput"
    if [ -f /usr/local/bin/growlnotify ]; then
        /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -H localhost -s -m "macports: $potentialOutput"
    fi
fi

echo "`date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`: $potentialOutput" >> /var/log/port-outdated.log

#end