TaxOnWeb, OSX and Chrome

Aug 2015 - working

• eID viewer leads OSX to try to install Java 6, which is old and a security risk
• Sometimes need to reboot (perhaps just login again) to enable Chrome to find my card reader and card

June 2013: working

I believe that the Belgian government website went heavily with Microsoft for its electronic ID cards, and that means Belgian citizens and residents that are not Microsoft slaves have had a much tougher time using eGovernment.

And so it was for several years, but the newest version of the middleware does work with Chrome for OSX (Mountain Lion) and Tax-On-Web can be accessed.

Convert OpenStreetMap data for Mac

Download a map.osm data file using the OpenStreetMap export option - it only seems to permit small areas.

Main instructions are here, but I also had to follow this workaround having got an error "Failed to read option file". That resulted in a gmapsub (and several other files), but not something that could be used with Basecamp.

I then used gmapibuilder, to automagically combine all the outputs into a gmapi file.  Using the cyclemap style files the end result looked like

Ubuntu to OSX Lion with netatalk

Turned out to be quite easy to follow these instructions, namely:

• adding an extra apt source: 
• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jstrunk-math/ppa
• editing  /etc/netatalk/afpd.conf to add
• - -tcp -noddp -uamlist uams_dhx.so,uams_dhx2_passwd.so -nosavepassword
• /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default was already OK
• ~/

Logging into Keytrade bank with e-ID

For some bizarre reason Keytrade bank have dropped their existing 2-factor authentication process in favour of the Belgian e-ID.  The latter is notoriously linked to Microsoft, and Keytrade's instructions only refer to IE.

Although the FAQ suggests that Mac is supported, so far Keytrade's Java applet is not working for me - it fails to load completely.  If I find a way to login using Mac or Linux I will post here.

OpenStreetMap for Garmin Edge

The standard OpenStreetMap downloads for Garmin may be appropriate for car drivers but the end result is little use for cycling using a Garmin Edge 605. I'd like to use the cycling specific data on OSM (see OpenCycleMap for the UK, or OpenFietsKaart for the Benelux) data instead with Garmin's Basecamp for OSX.

Do-it-yourself
As there doesn't seem to be a pre-made version anywhere, I had to role my own using these instructions. That got me a gmapsub.img, which worked on the Edge 605 albeit with very slow rendering due to an excessive level of detail.

These instructions are needed for converting to the Mac gmapi format used by RoadTrip and BaseCamp.

LAMP on OSX

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1293484/easiest-way-to-activate-php-and-mysql-on-mac-os-10-6-snow-leopard

Editing http.conf (How to find hidden files in Finder) to enable php: uncomment
LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Then restart Apache.

Download MySQL version: Mac OS X ver. 10.6 (x86, 32-bit), DMG Archive

TimeMachine on an external hard drive

I tried to make a LaCie drive connected to the USB port of my Belkin N+ available for TimeMachine back-ups.  The Belkin uses SAMBA but can only share a FAT(32) partition, and Apple seem to have found ways to prevent homebrew approaches.

I was mainly following these instructions.

1. Making the disk accessible
After trying too many options, it seems I could not get it to work despite great instructions with a disk formatted for ntfs - although the router could find and share it (which it can't do for Linux or Mac formats), it was still not possible to write to the sparsebundle. Went back to FAT32 and I think it works.

2. Unable to backup
I have a lot of problems accessing the disk once I have mounted it using finder:
The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 80.


Is it possible that I had to mount the disk as guest in finder before it was accessible to timemachine?  Also looks as though the disk was badly corrupted - even these instructions to use fsck_hfs didn't work.

Export OS X Address book to Thunderbird

I tweaked the script at incisive geek so that it could deal with longer notes (with carriage returns) and with commas in fields and to add code for extra emails and multiple mobile phones.

My version is here.

Linux OSX file sharing

Getting my new Macbook to see my main Linux box turned out to be rather complicated.
I followed this guide to begin with. I just had to change a few names for a Mandriva system:

• the config file is /etc/netatalk/netatalk.conf
• to add directories that can be accessed use /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default

This provided instructions on using howl, but that has been deprecated in favour of the avahi that is installed with Mandriva. The rest of the instructions I used were these, including the creating of

• /etc/avahi/services/afp.services (a file with this name now comes with Mandriva 2009.1)
  

Apple advise that you need to open port 548 on your firewall.