WhatsApp Web desktop client for mac

Whatsapp Messenger finally enabled users to use it from desktop. Unfortunately it is not a desktop client and you have to open the browser all the time to open it. Safari lovers have to open Google Chrome just to open WhatsApp! So I created an unofficial desktop app for mac using which you can get a standalone desktop experience while using it.

Installing

Firstly I am assuming that you have installed chrome browser. This will be a wrapper application around Google Chrome. Download the zip file. Extract the zip and simply double click on Whatsapp.app to open it! You can also move it to Applications folder to access it from anywhere. This is how it looks.

Download WhatsApp for Mac

How it works

If you want to make the app yourself, Simply execute the following shell script!

Now simply open the app!

How to mount NTFS External Disk in write mode in OS X Yosemite

This works for Mavericks also :)

It is not possible by default to mount a NTFS External Drive in write mode on OS X since Mavericks. There is a complex way to do this. In order to make it simple for you, I wrote a script which does it.

First you need to install Xcode and Homebrew. Google how to install them :P

Download this script

Then do this:
chmod +x ntfs_write_mode_enabler

./ntfs_write_mode_enabler

Now connect the drive. In Mavericks you will get a warning “Kernel extension is not from an identified developer”. You are good to go if you click OK. However, if you are using Yosemite, you have to restart your system to load the kernel extension. For more on that read this.

In Yosemite you might get the following error if you are updating old osxfuse. As we have enabled developer mode which allows you to run unsigned kext, it will not be a problem.

osxfuse: OS X Mavericks or older is required for this package.

OS X Yosemite introduced a strict unsigned kext ban which breaks this package.You should remove this package from your system and attempt to find upstream binaries to use instead.

Uninstalling

Execute the following command to replace the modified NTFS mounter with the original one

sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs.old /sbin/mount_ntfs

Loading unsigned kernel extensions on Yosemite

Since Mavericks, OS X started checking signatures of kernel extensions. However unlike in Mavericks, loading unsigned code to kernel is disabled in Yosemite (in Mavericks only a warning, “Kernel extension is not from an identified developer” was displayed). It is required to sign kernel extensions using the Developer ID obtained after enrolling in Mac Developer program. With Yosemite still in beta, it is hard to find signed kernel extensions other than the ones officially released by Apple. 

You will get this error when you try to load unsigned kext:

Diagnostics for [unsigned kext]:

Code Signing Failure: not code signed

ERROR: invalid signature for [unsigned kext], will not load

This being said, it is possible to sign all unsigned kext by doing this:

sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

Restart to get all the kext running!

Porting from Eclipse to Android Studio on mac

First download android studio from here.

Install Android studio from the .dmg file as usual

Now, before opening Android studio, open the terminal and delete the sdk which comes with it.

cd /Applications/Android\ Studio.app
rm -rf sdk

Now create a link of your old sdk in that folder

ln -s [absolute path to old sdk]  /Applications/Android\ Studio.app/sdk

Now open Android studio like any other app and open your existing project. You are good to go!

Or follow this to migrate your eclipse project to gradle!

How to fix blurry windows on retina display on mac

You might've observed that some third party apps have blurry windows on mac. This is due to the fact that those apps are not making use of the retina display introduced by Apple sometime back. I found a simple way to fix this using an app called Retinizer. Simply drag and drop the app (.app file from Applications folder) to its window to "Retinize" the app!

DOWNLOAD: http://retinizer.mikelpr.com/

How to open apps from terminal on mac

I switched to mac from ubuntu recently. I noticed that apps installed from .dmg files are not accessible from terminal. In ubuntu to open say, gvim (MacVim in mac) I used to simply type gvim in the terminal. This doesn't work on mac :(

After doing some analysis on how apps are maintained, I noticed that each application (.app) is stored in /Applications folder. And .app file is simply a directory holding contents of the app. Say I open firefox, the executable which launches the app (firefox), stored in /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS is executed.

So if I execute:
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
from terminal, firefox is launched!

However I do not want to type this huge path every time I want to launch firefox nor do I want to alias each and every app I install nor do I want to add all of them to $PATH. So I wrote a simple script to automatically open any app I want to.

Step1

Download this gist

Step2

Make it executable and move it to /usr/bin. You are done!

$ chmod +x app

$ sudo mv app /usr/bin/

How to use it?

Say you want to open chrome from terminal to open a html file

$ app chrome index.html

Say you want to launch vlc from terminal to open a file

$ app vlc file.mp4

Say you want to open MacVim from terminal and open a file. Note that it is case insensitive.

$ app macvim file