Mac Screensaver Freezes - OS X Lion

Hi all,

I keep getting a random error with the Mac OS X Lion Screensaver in that from time to time when I try to get back to the desktop it will show then login prompt, then carry on playing the screen saver!

In other words, you can't get back to the desktop.

On the few occasions that this has happened, I have been able to bring up Mission Control with a gesture (three-fingers swipe up), then laboriously load the Activity Monitor.

Then you get back to the screen saver.

Then I entered Mission Control again, selecting the recently loaded Activity Monitor.

This takes you back to the screensaver, but the programs behind respond to keys events, so I pressed S to select the ScreenSaver process within the Activity Monitor.

Back to the ScreenSaver, then reopen Mission Control again.

Then I pressed Alt-Cmd-Q to quit the process.

Back to the ScreenSaver, then reopen Mission Control again.

I always had to select the Activity Monitor again, then press Left twice to select the "Force" option and press space.

Ta Da! Your desktop is back!

I got bored of this the third time I had to do it, so I created a simple bash script that will kill the screensaver process for me:

#!/bin/bash

killall -9 -c ScreenSaverEngine

I then used QUICKEYS to assign a keyboard shortcut to run this.

If you don't have QUICKEYS, try QuickSilver - very good shortcut/abbreviation programs.

Now, when the screensaver goes wonky, I just login, then press the keyboard shortcut to run the script, and the screensaver goes away!

Not perfect, and I'm sure Apple will fix this in a future patch, but for now it just might help you to carry on with your day...

Have fun!

VBScript - Still Useful? Yes! With VbsEdit....

A friend of mine from school got in touch with me today to say that his company had let him loose on the servers with VBScript to automate a lot of the jobs he does - this way then get run outside of business hours...

I immediately advised him to checkout an IDE called VbsEdit - this is an awesome app for doing VBScript.

There are two huge features that make it well worth while:

1. Huge Library of samples
2. Debugging

That's right folks! You can debug VBScript! this make it an unbelievably powerful tool, and coupled with the huge library of samples you should be set to run with VBScript for life!

The library of samples contains stuff that blew my mind when I first saw them - I honestly didn't know you could so much with VBScript!

I fell in love with this tool for doing house-keeping and out-of-hours processing, automating work-flow, etc...

Since moving to a Mac, I have found that Automator fills this niche, but not completely, I still have to resort to bash or perl scripts to do some clever stuff, and at these times I miss VbsEdit for the two reasons mentioned above...

So, I just wanted to really say that VBScript is still a very useful tool for Windows users, and that if you do get into it, you should definitely try VbsEdit.

Anyway....

Research & Development

Hi all,

I am just about to start designing a new module for our integration service, and it occurs to me that the hardest part of designing anything is actually starting.

I find that once I get going, it all seems to flow, but any interruption is usually fatal to the current work.

It is these interruptions that lead to aspects of the design being missed completely, or misunderstood - which will inevitably come back to get you in QA...

So my advice to you all is to make sure you can do significant sections of the design with minimum interruptions.

My preferred approach is to start with a template document that contains the various sections that need completing.

Once I have this, I will work on a section at a time. If any graphics are required in any of the sections, such as process flows, they should be left and completed later.

I always do the process flows and graphical work after I have completed the bulk of the design to make sure everything ties up nicely.

It's easy to change text to cater for modifications to the design, but going away and updating a raft of process flows is annoyingly laborious...

For example, I have completed the bulk of the document now for the design of the new module, but have yet to complete the process flows.

Anyway, back to the salt mines...

And so it begins...

I saw "The Social Network" at the weekend, and it truly inspired me to write a blog.

Given that whenever I need help with an issue, I usually find the answer in someone else's blog, I thought it was time to contribute myself!

As always, any problems - let me know...