That highlights one common complaint I’ve made and heard about Podcast Producer — that it demonstrates it’s heritage with a decided bias for Apple-endorsed wrappers and codecs (read: QuickTime).

In my quest to use these fantastic(ly inexpensive-but-handy) Flip video cameras, I recently found out that simply adding a QuickTime plugin to Mac OS X 10.5 server provides the capability to transcode far more file formats and encodings than the stock installation of Podcast Producer allows: AVI, FLV, 3ivx, DivX, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, Flash Video, Indeo 1 & 2, to name a few!

The solution is drop dead simple (as any Mac OS X endeavor ought to be):

First, download the Perian plugin: http://www.perian.org/

Second, open the disk image.

Third, double click the Perian.prefpane icon in the disk image window.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you install for all users of the computer. This is because the Podcast Producer service runs as its own user. If you do not, it *will not* work for Podcast Producer.

Finally, confirm that the preference pane indicates and “Installed Version #.#.#”, and set the Audio Output to “Stereo”.

Restart Podcast Producer.

First, navigate to the WikiServer directory:

cd /Library/Application\ Support/Apple/WikiServer/

Then, create a plist file with the following XML:

sudo tee whitelist.plist

Enter your administrator’s password. If you don’t know what it is, you probably have no good reason to be doing this stuff any way.

Now, copy and paste this in:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.
com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>protocols</key>
	<array>
	</array>
	<key>styles</key>
	<array>
		<string>font-size</string>
	</array>
	<key>tags</key>
	<dict>
		<key>object</key>
		<array>
			<string>width</string>
			<string>height</string>
		</array>
		<key>param</key>
		<array>
			<string>name</string>
			<string>value</string>
		</array>
		<key>embed</key>
		<array>
			<string>src</string>
			<string>type</string>
			<string>allowscriptaccess</string>
			<string>allowfullscreen</string>
			<string>width</string>
			<string>height</string>
		</array>
		<key>iframe</key>
		<array>
			<string>src</string>
			<string>width</string>
			<string>height</string>
			<string>frameborder</string>
			<string>scrolling</string>
			<string>marginheight</string>
			<string>marginwidth</string>
		</array>
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Now, press “Return” on your keyboard.

Next, press CTRL-D to close the file.

Check that the file was properly written:

echo whitelist.plist

It should output the exact XML data from above.

Stop the WikiServer:

sudo serveradmin stop teams

Start the WikiServer:

sudo serveradmin start teams

Email addresses

Matches major top level domains plus two-letter country codes. No it doesn’t check for the validity of two letter country codes. Yes, you could add them to the list of top level domains at the end of the string. And that would be a really long regular expression! It does allow for subdomains (joe@test.blow.com).

TIP: When copied, make sure it appears on one line. Your best bet is to make sure your server’s regex matching is set to case-insensitivity, otherwise addresses like joe@blow.cOm won’t be matched:

/^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@(?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.)+(?:[a-zA-Z]{2}|aero|biz|com|coop|edu|gov|info|jobs|mil|mobi|museum|name|net|org|travel)$/i

States (two letters)

Matches the two letter United States Postal Service abbreviations for all fifty states:

/^(A[LKSZRAP]|C[AOT]|D[EC]|F[LM]|G[AU]|HI|I[ADL N]|K[SY]|LA|M[ADEHINOPST]|N[CDEHJMVY]|O[HKR]|P[ARW]|RI|S[CD] |T[NX]|UT|V[AIT]|W[AIVY])$/

ZIP Codes

Matches ZIP or ZIP+4 as used in the United States. Doesn’t properly handle 00000 or 0000-####, which are non-existent ZIP codes.

/^[0-9]{5,5}([- ]?[0-9]{4,4})?$/

Phone Numbers

The following regex attempts to match numbers that adhere to the North American Numbering Plan. It matches common entry combinations, such as #######, ###.###.####, ###-###-####, ### ### ####, and (###) ### ####.

'\(?[2-9][0-8][0-9]\)?[-. ]?[0-9]{3}[-. ]?[0-9]{4}'

A quick tip: If you want to then replace whatever the customer enters and store the number in a specific format, use preg_replace. For example, here’s how to replaces all the above formats with (###) ###-####:

preg_replace('\(?[2-9][0-8][0-9]\)?[-. ]?[0-9]{3}[-. ]?[0-9]{4}', $original_input);

Social Security Number

Matches various permutations of a US Social Security Number, such as ###-##-####, #########, ### ## ####:

/^[0-9]{3}[- ]?[0-9]{2}[- ]?[0-9]{4}$/

URLs

Holy cow, this is a hotly debated genre of regex. Well, I’m interested only in matching strings such as http://www.domain.com, http://domain.com, https://test.domain.com, https://localhost:8080, and ftps://domain.com. The answer is forthcoming. I hope.

/\b((ht|f)tps?:\/\/(([0-9a-z-]+\.)+([a-z]{2}|aero|biz|com|coop|edu|gov|info|jobs|mil|mobi|museum|name|net|org|travel))(:[0-9]{1,5})?(\/[^ ]*)?)\b/i

NOTE: This URL regex sucks, because it allows domains and subdomains to begin with a dash, which is illegal. Don’t use it.

dscacheutil -flushcache

This gives you several nice options, including a handy network timeline.

There are a few core requirements you must take care of before getting started. Choose to ignore these, and you’re doomed to failure!

1. Always back up your system before a command-line activity such as this.
2. Update your system to Mac OS 10.5.5. I could detail how to do this with prior versions, but I don’t have time.
3. Install the latest version of Apple’s Developer Tools: XCode 3.0+ for 10.5. XCode is available on your OS X DVD, or from Apple as a free download.
4. X11 must be installed (it is by default), as well as X11 SDK (from the Developer Tools in step 3).

DISCLAIMER: The author claims no responsibility for any damage that may occur from the use of any information found here or found on links followed from this document. If you choose to use this information, you do so at your own risk.

Get Started

To begin, open Terminal (Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities ->Terminal) and invoke the superuser do command. You will need to enter your administrator password. Careful – you can now utterly destroy your machine:

sudo bash

You will need to enter your administrator password.

Determine Your Architecture

Mac OS X Leopard comes in two flavors, depending on the capabilities of your CPU — 32-bit or 64-bit. YOU MUST COMPILE FOR THE PROPER ARCHITECTURE.

Which architecture do you have? Easy enough using Terminal or the GUI. For Terminal, issue this command:

/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep "Processor Name:"

Or, in the GUI, choose the Apple Menu, select “About This Mac”:

Match your CPU to the table below:

Make a note of whether your CPU is 32-bit or 64-bit, because you will be compiling software using vastly different settings depending on your CPU.

Install libjpeg

The free image compression library, libjpeg, is required by GD.

First, let’s create a directory for storing the source files we’ll be downloading:

mkdir -p /SourceCache

cd /SourceCache

Download the source file and unpack it:

curl -O http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz

tar xzpf jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz

cd /SourceCache/jpeg-6b

cp /usr/share/libtool/config.sub .

cp /usr/share/libtool/config.guess .

For 32-bit only, use the following command:

./configure --enable-shared

64-bit architecture uses this command instead:

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 CFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe -no-cpp-precomp" CCFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe" CXXFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe" LDFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -bind_at_load" ./configure --enable-shared

Continue on for both architectures:

make clean

make

mkdir -p /usr/local/include

mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

mkdir -p /usr/local/lib

mkdir -p /usr/local/man/man1

make install

You now have compiled libjpeg!

Download and compile the GD graphics library extension (gd.so)

We will be using Apple’s Darwin sources for PHP, which interestingly contain the GD source code. Why Apple doesn’t ship with gd.so already compiled is known only to the maker.

mkdir -p /SourceCache

cd /SourceCache

curl -O http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.5.5/apache_mod_php-44.1/php-5.2.6.tar.bz2

tar xjf php-5.2.6.tar.bz2

cd /SourceCache/php-5.2.6/ext/gd

phpize

Again: YOU MUST COMPILE FOR THE PROPER ARCHITECTURE.

For 32-bit use:

./configure --with-zlib-dir=/usr --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib --with-png-dir=/usr/X11R6 --with-freetype-dir=/usr/X11R6 --with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6

For 64-bit use:

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 CFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe -no-cpp-precomp" CCFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe" CXXFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -Os -pipe" LDFLAGS="-arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -bind_at_load" ./configure --with-zlib-dir=/usr --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib --with-png-dir=/usr/X11R6 --with-freetype-dir=/usr/X11R6 --with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6

Continue on for both architectures:

make clean

make

make install

Add gd.so to PHP

PHP needs to be configured to load the gd.so shared object extension that you just compiled. You will tell PHP to load it by adding a directive in your /etc/php.ini file.

First, let me give you a couple of pointers about this file. It *probably* exists on your machine. If not, you should just create it as a simple text file. Directives in the file can be commented out by placing a semi-colon in front of the directive.

Open the /etc/php.ini file in a text editor, and search for the section on Dynamic Extensions. Mine looks like this:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Simply add the following line, which loads your newly compiled GD shared object:

extension=gd.so

Search your /etc/php.ini file for the  extension_dir= directive, and either comment it out (by inserting a semi-colon in front of it) or ensure it is pointing to the directory where your new GD shared object is stored:

extension_dir=/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613

Confirm gd.so is loading

Restart Apache to force the reloading of the PHP configuration file.

apachectl graceful

Confirm that PHP is loading the gd.so extension by running the following command, and looking for the line “GD Support => enabled” in the resulting output:

/usr/bin/php -i|grep -i gd

Alternatively, you can create a file called phpinfo.php in your web server document directory (/Library/WebServer/Documents/) with the following contents:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Point your web browser to http://localhost/phpinfo.php, and you should see a GD block verifying installation, as shown below:

SSH into the machine you want to enable VNC on.

EDIT 2/12/2009: Thanks to David Jones for pointing out a document from Apple which details a command-line equivalent to all the steps detailed in my original post. Instead of the original directions posted here, simply execute the following command after SSHing into the target machine in order to enable screen sharing for the admin user and restart ARD:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -users admin -privs -all -restart -agent -menu

THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS ARE DEPRECATED:

First, we need to make sure that Remote Desktop is turned OFF. Issue the following command:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -stop

Enter your administrator password if requested.

Then, navigate to /Library/Preferences/

cd /Library/Preferences

We’re going to create three text files there, which set up the preferences for Remote Management and VNC.

sudo tee com.apple.RemoteManagement.plist

Enter your administrator password. Then, copy and paste the following text:

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"><plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>ARD_AllLocalUsers</key>
<false/>
<key>LoadRemoteManagementMenuExtra</key>
<true/>
<key>ScreenSharingReqPermEnabled</key>
<true/>
<key>VNCLegacyConnectionsEnabled</key>
<true/>
</dict>

</plist>

Press return, then press CTRL-d to close the file.

sudo tee com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd

Enter your administrator password if prompted. Then, copy and paste the following text:

enabled

Press return, then press CTRL-d to close the file.

Set the default VNC password to “pass” by creating this file:

sudo tee com.apple.VNCSettings.txt

and copying and pasting the following text:

6755221D8BA8C5E2FF1C39567390ADCA

Press return, then press CTRL-d to close the file.

Let’s change the ownership and permissions on these files to their correct values:

sudo chmod 644 com.apple.RemoteManagement.plist
sudo chown root:admin com.apple.RemoteManagement.plist
sudo chmod 644 com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd
sudo chown root:admin com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd
sudo chown root:wheel com.apple.VNCSettings.txt
sudo chmod 400 com.apple.VNCSettings.txt

Let’s set up launchd to automatically launch Screen Sharing on startup:

sudo echo enabled > /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd

sudo bash -c 'echo enabled > /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd'

Finally, let’s reboot the machine:

sudo reboot

You can now VNC into your Mac, using either Leopard’s built in screen sharing or a third party VNC utility. On Mac, I recommend Chicken of the VNC, available for free download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/. Point your app of choice to your machine’s IP address or hostname. When prompted for a password, use the default one from above (pass).

Once you’re in, you need to go to System Preferences -> Sharing -> Screen Sharing, and click the “Computer Settings” button. There, enter in a new password to replace the default used at the beginning steps of this article.

If you have the silver remote you can do it yourself. But, keep in mind that I don’t guarantee any results. YOU MIGHT JUST JACK UP YOUR REMOTE:

1. Press ‘CABLE’
2. Press and hold ‘SETUP’ until the light flashes twice
3. Enter ‘994′
4. Press ‘SETUP’ once again 
5. Enter ‘00173′ (or just 173 if that doesn’t work)
6. Press the unused button you want it mapped, such as the LOCK button just below the 10 second back button

If you jack up your remote, don’t blame me. You can restore the original function to your reassigned button by following these steps:

1. Press and hold the “Setup” key until the a device button blinks twice.
2. Type in the code 994. The light will blink twice.
3. Press the device key you are restoring twice.

Reportedly, this works on all 64xx series DVRs, as well as the 34XX series. 

Hold down the shift key while depressing the volume keys will silence the auditory feedback while raising and lowering the volume, but still show the visual cue.

Other cool tricks:

Hold down option while clicking one of the sound keys to access the Sound system preferences.

Get more granular volume control by holding down shift-option while clicking one of the sound keys to increase/decrease volume in 1/4 the normal increments. Normal, the Mac provides 16 volume levels. Holding down shift-option gives you 64 increments.