david sidlinger

I recently started using VMware Fusion instead of Parallels Desktop to run virtual machines on my MacBook. The main reason I switched was support for multi-processor VMs, but I also had a nagging suspicion that Parallels’ kernel extensions might be behind the sleep issues my machine has been having.

I think Fusion is a great product, but I’ve run across something that caused me huge amounts of frustration. Sometimes, it would warn me that it couldn’t write preference information. Once that happened, it was all downhill. Attempting to change the application preferences would cause the whole application to die immediately. Most of the other applications I use would start acting funky.

It turns out you should never ever launch Fusion using Quicksilver.

I don’t know what exactly VMware is doing, but Fusion has earned the dubious distinction of being the only application that I know of that won’t work with the best application in the explored universe. My first guess is something to do with changing the process identity.

I like to imagine that it does feel some shame being the only item that I’ve had to add to my dock since installing Quicksilver.

I’ve got to get one of these. My 360 decided to go belly-up last week.

RRoD t-shirt design @ © SplitReason.com

Quicksilver is the best thing since any kind of bread. I can’t live on a Mac without it, and I even find myself attempting to use it on Windows when I’m at work.

One its tricks that I use all the time is “Go to Directory in Terminal”. This command opens a Terminal window and cd’s to the directory that was the subject of the Quicksilver sentence. Very handy.

Recently, this command got “stuck”. Every time I would open a Terminal window, it would change to a directory I had opened with Quicksilver. Nothing seemed to make Terminal forget the command. Since I didn’t know how Quicksilver caused the command to be run when the window was created, I wasn’t able to do anything about it.

My first guess was a term file that was created by Quicksilver and set as the default. No dice. I wasn’t able to find any term files that I hadn’t created myself.

Next, I thought it might have altered my .profile file. Nope. It was still just like I left it.

Turns out there is a Terminal preference I was unaware of. If a key named ExecutionString exists in the com.apple.Terminal domain, all new Terminal windows will execute it upon creation. My cd command was found there. My best guess is that Quicksilver modifies the key, opens a window, and then returns it to its previous state. It must have somehow lost its mond and forgotten to return ExecutionString to its original state. Quicksilver does crash on me sometimes.

If this happens to you, correcting it is fairly easy:

defaults delete com.apple.Terminal ExecutionString

When I first found this, I tried to think of some other way to put the preference to use, but I think I’ll just use .profile and term files.

Here’s another one for all you Greasemonkeys out there. The Snizzlator solves one of the world’s most pressing problems: How do I inject Snoop-speak into the web? I can’t take much credit for this one. One of the code monkeys I keep in a subterranean lair, P. Carl Wilson, recognized this need years ago and solved the problem with a JavaScript bookmarklet. My only contribution was to make it a Greasemonkey script. Like every good partnership, we’ve decided to split the fame, money, and groupies 50/50. You should definitely grab the script regularly. P to the C has found his calling in life and regularly updates the script. Those of you interested in what you can do with Greasemonkey should take a look under the hood. There’s all kinds of JavaScript goodies in there.