Here's how to get rid of the log message-- INFO: The Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path when you startup Tomcat on OSX. On Windows, all one needs to do is drop in a precompiled dll, on OSX there are a few more steps...

OSX has what I would call an undocumented feature of the operating system- the portable home directory. Basically, it keeps a user's home directory sync'd up between a network share and the local pc. If you are not on the network you work on the local home directory. Whenever you login on the network, the mirror agent running on the local pc synchronizes the two directories. This simple, extremely useful concept came with a steep learning curve. I think it took me two weeks to get this all working...

I was rapidly chewing up disk on my laptop with photos, video and music. I had two major options on the table: external drive via firewire or network attached storage (NAS). I already had an external drive that I was using for backups but it felt so limiting after being wireless. I decided to shell out some more bucks (and time) and chose the NAS option...

In late August, I reported an issue to Apple about a kernel panic when using external hdtv monitor. I decided to check again last night (randomly) and guess what.. no panic, everything works! I really don't know which update did it, but I would guess the fix came in the 10.4.8 update. This is good news because I can finally use my laptop as a movie player like I originally wanted to. Of course I'll need to go out and purchase a Mini-Toslink adapter or cable to hook up sound to my receiver but that shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Heinz writes The Java Specialists' Newsletter. In his latest issue he offers up a little program that will test CPU efficiency...

When I try to hook my MacBook pro up to my hdtv monitor (rear projection Hitachi Ultravision) it instantly kernel panics. I am kinda bummed about it because I would love to use the mbp on this giant monitor.

I wanted to use iChat as my universal chat client on my mac. iChat has native connectivity available for Bonjour, AIM and Jabber but not MSN, Yahoo! or ICQ. How could I use it then to communicate with those services? Easy.. hook up to a jabber server that has the appropriate legacy gateways enabled.. yeah real easy..<img src="" title="" alt="" />

I just installed Microsoft Office on my guest XP instance and it sucked up all of the available hard disk. Here's how I was able to resize my XP virtual disk used by Parallels...

It looks like [this bug|OSX Spotlight: on or off, never dim] was fixed in the last update (Mac OS X 10.4.7 (8J2135a)). Nice job apple. I can still get the spotlight window to appear off-screen (using the same technique detailed below) but the searching doesn't break anymore. <img src="" title="" alt="" />

I have had intermittent problems with [spotlight|http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight] on my macbook pro. Sometimes it would find stuff, sometimes it finds absolutely nothing. Here's the problem and the solution..