8
Nov, 2020
Resizing Windows to a Specific Size on macOS
CloudI recently had a need (OK, maybe more a desire than a need) to set my browser window(s) on macOS to a specific size, like 1920×1080. I initially started looking at one of the many macOS window managers, but after reading lots of reviews and descriptions and still being unclear if any of these products did what I wanted, I decided to step back to using AppleScript to accomplish what I was seeking. In this post, I’ll share the solution (and the articles that helped me arrive at the solution).
My first stop was this blog post by Ethan Banks. I tried replicating the AppleScript he used, but couldn’t get it to work. I’m still running macOS 10.14 “Mojave,” so perhaps his code was specific to macOS 10.15 “Catalina.” I moved on, never realizing there was another section to his post that had the information I needed (and would eventually find). Let that be a lesson to be sure to read the entire post next time.
Moving on, I arrived at this post. OK, this used a different mechanism than Ethan’s post. I tried it, and it sort of worked, but it didn’t create the window geometry I was expecting. As I’ll later learn, it was just due to an incomplete understanding on my part of how the set bounds command works in AppleScript.
Finally, I found this article that shared how to use AppleScript in conjunction with Automator to create a macOS Service to resize the current window of the active application. After trying it for a while, and not getting the results I wanted, I started digging again to see what it was that I was doing wrong.
I found the answer to what I was doing wrong here. The parameters to the set bounds command had been illustrated as x-position, y-position, width, height, but they should be more accurately described as starting-x-position, starting-y-position, ending-x-position, ending-y-position. My mistake was that I was providing the desired window size (like 1920×1080 or 1280×720) as the last two parameters, when what I needed to be providing was the desired window size plus the starting X and Y position, respectively. So, if the window was placed 300 pixels away from the left edge and I wanted to the window to be 1920 pixels wide, then the third parameter needed to be 2220 (300 + 1920 = 2220). Ah! I had seen one of the examples doing this but didn’t understand why, so I hadn’t included the portion of the code. Once I fixed my code accordingly, then it started working exactly as expected.
(This piece of missing information, by the way, is also found at the bottom of Ethan’s post—the one I started with. Go figure!)
Nothing earth-shattering here, I know, but I wanted to share it nevertheless just in case it would benefit others. Contact me on Twitter if you have any questions.
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6
Nov, 2020
Technology Short Take 133
CloudWelcome to Technology Short Take #133! This time around, I have a collection of links featuring the new Raspberry Pi 400, some macOS security-related articles, information on AWS Nitro Enclaves and gVisor, and a few other topics. Enjoy!
Networking
- Pratik Mankad shows how to use DNS hostnames as targets for an AWS NLB. If we’re honest, it’s a bit of a hack; it uses AWS Lambda to periodically resolve the hostname and update the NLB target IP address(es) accordingly. Native DNS hostname support in NLBs would be a far better solution.
- Netflix has a good post on how they use prioritized load shedding to provide a good user experience during system outages.
Servers/Hardware
- The Raspberry Pi 400 is a neat offering. See this post for more details.
Security
- In the last Technology Short Take, I mentioned that some testing with macOS Big Sur indicated that Apple had left itself a backdoor for network traffic from its own applications. Here’s another article on the topic, with some additional technical detail.
- Here’s a fairly detailed article on macOS authorization.
- Wojciech Regula takes a look at accessing (“stealing”) confidential data stored in the macOS Keychain.
- How did I not know about Network Time Security (NTS)? Here’s a post on using NTS to secure NTP on Fedora.
- Here’s a list of some
Dockerfilesecurity best practices.
Cloud Computing/Cloud Management
- Raphael Yoshiga provides an Azure-to-AWS mapping of services.
- Ben Bridts has four tips to help you level up your CloudFormation usage.
- Chip Zoller explains how to use custom registries with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG). His method is enabled by the fact that TKG leverages Cluster API, and Cluster API builds on other community efforts like
kubeadm. (See, this is why learningkubeadmstill has value in a Cluster API-based world!) - Validating Kubernetes manifests in some sort of automated fashion is something I’ve been interested in for a while (I’ve had a draft blog post sitting around for nigh on a year now), and
kube-linterfalls right into that area. Check out thekube-linterGitHub repository, and read the Stackrox blog post announcing the project. - vSphere administrators may find this guide to day 2 operations with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid helpful.
- Google has a guide on how users can help prepare their Google Cloud environments for the Docker Hub pull request limits that will, by the time this post is published, have been live for almost two weeks.
- Forrest Brazeal provides his take on the rumor that AWS will announce a multi-cloud management tool.
Operating Systems/Applications
- Geert Baeke has a post on the new HashiCorp tool, Waypoint, showing how to build and tag an image using Docker.
- And while we’re on the topic of building images, here’s a post from Alex Ellis on building containers without Docker.
- Richard Hughes provides an update on
fwupdversion 1.5.0. - Here are some handy
gittricks. - This is a pretty awesome (pun intended) list of resources for Visual Studio Code.
- Scott Bollinger has a post on an all-in-one alias for updating macOS.
- The Cilium team recently conducted the eBPF Summit, focused on all things eBPF. The Cilium website hosts recap posts of day 1 (here) and day 2 (here).
Programming
- I haven’t (yet) had the chance to walk through it, but this tutorial looks to be very promising, providing exposure to both AWS Lambda and using Go. It’s definitely on my list!
Virtualization
- David Stevens has a write-up on how to backup vCenter v7 using SMB.
- AWS Nitro Enclaves look like very interesting technology; see this blog post from AWS. Also, this post by Aidan Steele has some great information on Nitro Enclaves as well. If I’m honest, this is an opportunity VMware should have capitalized on a long time ago with vSphere. (If you’re wondering why this is under the “Virtualization” section, go read the blog post!)
- Sam Perrin has a list of useful automation/orchestration resources.
- Ian Lewis and Michael Pratt have a good post on gVisor and how it uses the concept of a “platform” in its functionality.
That’s all I have for now—hopefully you found something useful and informative! Feel free to hit me on Twitter if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement. I’m also open to items that I should consider for inclusion in a future Tech Short Take.
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