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I came across this hint about display properties on StackOverflow and thought it was worthwhile to write down for later. If you want to get the screen or Desktop resolution of a Mac via Python, you can do so with PyObjC.

First, let’s get the information about the main screen:

If you want just the horizontal and vertical resolution from that blob of data, you can pull the width and height out:

This might be useful in situations where you don’t have any of the “hundred of portable libs in Python that give you access to that information” — such as in your stock Mac OS X Python installation. To clarify: I’m in no way meaning to belittle that there are portable libraries that would let you do the same thing, but you also have to program for your audience and its constraints. One of the reasons I appreciate Python over some scripting languages is that you get so much capability in the Standard Library. However, on Mac OS X, you don’t get modules like pygame by default (yet … and maybe never) while you do get PyObjC.

Nigel and Jeff present Mac OS X Laptop Deployments with Puppet in the MacIT track at Macworld Expo 2009. They are two of the first Mac system administrators I knew of using Puppet, and both had a background in Radmind.

I’ve been reading through James Turnbull’s Pulling Strings with Puppet, since our library had a copy. I had hoped to get through it during our winter break, but illness and other factors (no Puppet pun intended) conspired to get in the way. From what I’ve read about it already, Puppet is clearly interesting. Nigel was very enthusiastic about it when we talked at WWDC 2008.

To me, it seems that it would take some effort to model what you want in it and build up a repository of what you want managed. Perhaps I’m feeling like an old dog trying to learn new tricks. Grin.

One point that Nigel and Jeff made in their presentation slides that struck me is that they needed a solution that works when offline, which Puppet does. Radmind can work offline but I daresay that’s not the way that most people would think to use it (lapply with its “-n” flag would be the most basic change).

Kyle also mentioned to me that he’s been using Puppet in conjunction with Radmind. I believe he has Puppet managing configurations and Radmind managing the bulk of the filesystem.

I’m really going to have to dive into one new feature in iTunes 8: last night, I discovered that it has per-podcast settings. I’m pretty sure the settings were only available globally before, and I didn’t see anyone else talking about this change yet.

These settings can override the defaults for:

• how many episodes to download
• how long to keep episodes.

This is tremendous, although unfortunately it will lessen the opportunity for third party tools like Cast Away. (However, I’ve found Cast Away extremely complex.)

Does anyone else think that Apple has some ulterior motive for promoting Viva la Vida, the track on the new iTunes ad featuring Coldplay? That maybe its lyrics are indicative of something going on at Apple?

“When I ruled the world,” indeed.

No matter. I find it a fantastic visual treat and now the haunting music is stuck in my head. I would not be surprised if it were featured at WWDC 2008 in a few weeks.

Now that I have my dual-monitor Gateway FPD2485W setup, I’ve got a few complaints. Of course!

The two monitors take an awfully long time to wake up from their power-saving mode. Then, when they finally wake up — invariably at different times, the newer one first — I get the on-screen display (OSD) overlay telling me that they’ve chosen to accept the DVI input.

Well, duh, that’s the only video source hooked up to them, so it’s not helpful. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the OSD overlay stays on the screen for what seems like eons. Since the overlays are smack dab in the middle of the screen and are opaque, they block important visual elements like Mac OS X’s login window.

So far, I haven’t been able to find out how to get rid of the OSD overlay. If I could do that, I think I’d tolerate the wake up delay more readily.

Certainly, some of this is Gateway’s fault. I guess I can’t blame them much since they specifically don’t support Macs and that’s what I’ve hooked the flat panels up to. I could have gone with some brand that did advertise Mac support, but I didn’t. This must be my payback. Grin.

Rick Falkvinge responds to the European Commission about the inadvisability of mixing DRM and law (in English, despite the preamble in Swedish, even though he is the “founder and leader of the Pirate Party movement and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party”).

[Via Waffle.]

I got a new monitor at home. I broke down at the CompUSA going out of business sale, spotting a deal I was happy with, and bought the Gateway FPD2485W. It’s a flat panel LCD monitor I’ve been eyeing for a while and the price was acceptable. I was willing even though I was leery of purchasing an expensive new display without the possibility of return (“absolutely no returns,” CompUSA’s signs read) and without having a modern computer to connect it to.

See, eventually I’d like to get something like a Mac Pro with a large display. Actually, I’d like to have a computer that could handle two large DVI flat panels, just for the overkill factor.

I like the 1920×1200 resolution on the 24-inch LCD panel. I think the picture quality is excellent; compared to other 24-inch monitors on the shelf at Best Buy when I first discovered it, I felt it was the best. I like that it is supposed to handle HDCP for HD content; that makes it more future-proof in my mind, along with its bevy of digital and analog ports, including component video. It doesn’t hurt that its design gets out of the way, looks similar to a black plastic version of Apple’s aluminum flat panel monitors, practically glides on its elevation-and-swivel stand, and has a 90-degree screen rotation feature. It’s also wider than my chest!

I had concerns yesterday evening after unboxing it. The on-screen display (OSD) controls were driving me nuts; Gateway had decided to equip the monitor with touch-sensitive controls, and they weren’t responding well to my commands. The response was sluggish and instead of the main menu, I kept getting the Product Tour popping up on-screen when I pressed the admittedly-cool blue-backlit “buttons” that dim when not in use. Things were going so badly with these buttons that I wished with a sour feeling that I hadn’t gotten the monitor. I filed a support request with Gateway while I attempted to sort it out myself — because I knew that they wouldn’t care if I couldn’t get it working with a five-year-old Power Mac.

Today, I hooked the monitor up via VGA to my Athlon PC — and even though it has a similar GeForce 4MX card as the Power Mac I tried yesterday, using DVI, the OSD controls worked! Trying it on the Mac again, it appeared to work with both VGA and DVI.

However, I still haven’t quite figured out whether it plays nicely with the Energy Saver settings on the Mac and I still haven’t decided on VGA or DVI. I have some quibbles with its operation in both modes, but that could be due to the old computers or the Belkin KVM that’s in the loop. I’m hoping when I get a new computer, this will all work itself out.

It’s when, not if, that we plan to get a new computer. I just don’t see the point of getting today’s Mac Pro towers, when they may be replaced at any minute. But, in the meantime, this display makes me feel as if we already have a new computer; it’s bright enough to light up the room it’s in. It reinforcing my view that a good display, especially one with a higher resolution, can really change your computing experience.

I plan to write a full review at Epinions in a bit.

Update 03/08/2008: Just for reference, I did get a second one … along with a more modern computer.

Barefeats weighs in with its performance review of the Intel GMA X3100 integrated video controller in the revised MacBooks:

“Not only is the new MacBook with the GMA X3100 a bummer for high rez gamers, it’s going to disappoint pro users when running serious graphics intensive apps.

On the other hand, if you are running purely CPU intensive tasks (Compressor, Photoshop, After Effects), the new MacBook should compare very well with similarly clocked MacBook Pros. We’ll publish those results next.”

They also have pages of results for lower-res, lower quality gaming and for non-gaming applications benchmarks.

In this video, Pamela Fox and Ryan Boyd talk about the Blogger JavaScript client library. Ryan used to have an office around the corner from mine, and now he’s got videos posted to the Blogger Developers Network. Neat!