The Syncing Apple An Exploration of Technology and Devices

MacBook Update

I've had my MacBook (white) for a few weeks now. And I strongly suggest you get the glossy screen if you don't work with over head fluorescent lights. The screen is so bright and nice I can't go back to my older LCD panels any more- they look horrible. Also my G5 now seems so sluggish. The first thing I did is put 2G ram in, and its just an incredible deal from Apple. This much power for such a cheap price. Parallels runs so nicely that I don't even use my XP laptop anymore.

OSX 10.4.7 and JDKs

The recent 10.4.7 update switched the JDK to java 5.0. If you still need to use 1.4.2 for some reason, its still in there. Here is how you change it. It's just a symlink in /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions

chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ ls -l
total 40
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.3 -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.3.1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Apr 18 09:31 1.4 -> 1.4.2
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.5 -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 27 19:23 A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 Jun 10 22:20 Current -> A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 CurrentJDK -> 1.5.0
chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ sudo rm CurrentJDK
chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ sudo ln -s 1.4.2 CurrentJDK

chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ ls -l
total 40
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.3 -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.3.1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Apr 18 09:31 1.4 -> 1.4.2
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.5 -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 27 19:23 A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 Jun 10 22:20 Current -> A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 28 10:55 CurrentJDK -> 1.4.2
Now it's all better.

MacBook LCD Screens- Gloss or Not?

There is a large amount of chatter regarding the new glossy LCD screens on the MacBooks, and the option to have one on your MacBook Pro. I found an amazing link to page that describes what the technical differences are, and why you want one or the other.

It seems to me that it comes down to your viewing habits- if the majority of your work with the laptop is going to be in a well-lit space, like and office, where you don't have so much control over the lighting conditions, you are best off with the non-gloss (matte) panels. If however, you work mostly at home, or in some darkish coffee shop the sharpness and the clarity of the glossy LCD is undeniable.

I'm favoring the gloss, since I get to work at home most of the time.

Tiger is Good

Archive & Install is da bomb. Everything just works so far. I only have to upgrade VPN Tracker it seems. At this point I have no gripes, and I like the new mail (it seems way faster to me), but I should have just deleted all my existing email and let IMAP re-sync... instead Mail.app began to import my old mail indexes....

Also, iChat may be using Jabber, which is very, very cool, but the interface SUCKS. The sorting is dumb, and it has no concept of Jabber groups.

Which would you rather look at all day?

Napoleon Dynamite Soundset for Adium

I hope you are using AdiumX for your messaging needs on the Mac. But wait-- now that iChat does jabber natively, perhaps it is a worth a look, once I get Tiger. But back to the matter at hand-- namely AdiumX. How are you alerted via sound regarding changes in status? Might I suggest you need the Napoleon Dynamite soundset now.

Don't be a friggin idiot Kip!

Sweet.

Day Three- Still No Tiger for Me

So I still don't have Tiger. Having fought so hard to keep my 10.3.9 machine working with firewire and usb, I'm actually able to resist the lure of a new Mac OS X operating system. I know it will make me angry. I've been hearing bad things about the new Mail.app. Which I rely on.

Also the fact that I no longer have access to the wonderfully lower prices at the University of Pennsylvania computer store. Sigh. It's $70 there, as compared to what, like $150 from Apple? And all I need is a Penn Card. I may wait till 10.4.1, or I may end up running across a copy. File this away for that time.

To gripes about the price:

1. Apple is making tons now-- why not a free upgrade?

2. Failing that, .Mac users should get Tiger for $50. Apple is not getting $150 (or the lame $94 that Amazon is offering)

Linus Torvalds uses PowerPC not Intel for Linux

From Slashdot, who got it from ZDNet Australia:

"As to the why ... Part of it is simply that I wanted to try something else, and I felt like there were enough people testing the x86 side that it certainly didn't need me. Part of it is that I personally believe there are two main architectures out there: Power and x86-64 are what _I_ think are the two most relevant ones, and I decided that I had to at least check the other side of it out seriously if I really believed that," said Torvalds.

So Linus uses a Mac too, but apparently, he got it for free.

More SATA in my G5

I was just notified of my G5DriveBracket shipping, so I went out and ordered the SATA card I'll use with it. I got the SATA card from FirmTek for $69, which is a nice deal, since Sonnet sells the same card for $99. I read about stuffing more drives into your G5 at Barefeats. They have good info about this process.

My G5 is Fixed

All the trouble, toil and worry that I've had with this new Apple G5 was finally solved by calling Apple, putting up with the BS of the first level techs, getting to a 2nd level and calmly trying to explain the issues with this damn thing rebooting on its own. I've tried new harddrives, clean systems, a new UPS, switching to different circuits in my house. Everything. But for the last 4 months it just reboots on its own, saying (in the system log) "PMU forced shutdown." Apple finally had me take it into the local service center for examination.

Which itself is an ordeal, since I have to pull my drives (no way are those service monkeys getting near my data-- I was once one myself, and I remember... just no way.) install a SATA drive and then install a fresh system on it. Pull my 'non-apple' RAM, which will only cause them to point their finger at as the problem, which is a whole nother agonizing story about those idiots at Apple Phone support. Verify that the problem still exists (it did) then drive into Center City, find parking and drag the beast into the dealer. Wait, wait more, and then wait even some more and then explain the whole entire problem all over again. I asked "Can't you pull this up from Apple's database or something?" "Nah" they said. Finally I can leave. The only nice part was that I was leaving for two weeks to go to Florida for the holidays, so I wasn't going to miss not having it.

To make a long story short, in four days they called and said they fixed it.

Bad power-supply.

I could have cried. All the time and energy I've put into solving this, and its cause Apple put a piece of crap power-suppy into this computer. Argh.

And then, to top it all off, they didn't even put the piece of aluminum that covers the power supply on correctly, and mis-threaded the small screw that holds the front part down. Which is also a pain in the ass, because I plan on getting the G5 Hard Drive Bracket from G5DriveBracket.com soon, and it will use that very same threaded post to mount the drive bracket on. That should be fun now. See why I called them monkeys?

Apple 10.3.6 OSX and Disappearing Firewire AIT Drives

Damn Apple and their shoddy upgrades. I heard about people losing Firewire drives with the 10.3.6 update, but I was thinking disk drives... so why did it take over a week to finally put 2 and 2 together and understand why my Retrospect backups were failing... on my external AIT firewire drive? It wasn't showing up. I plugged it in and out, checked the System Profiler. It reported just a firewire device. Retrospect saw nothing. So i Googled 'missing firewire drives' and got a hit on MaxfixIt about the same thing happening to people with 10.3.3. Someone there suggested using an older kernel extension for firewire, IOFirewireFamily.kext and just replace the crap one that Apple released. Luckily, I had done a clean system install about a month ago, where it just replaces your system folder and nothing else, so I had a backup system... The kext in 10.3.6 was 1.8.6, the one I had in the Previous System was 1.8.3. I copied it over and rebooted. And got my external tape drive back. Thanks. Now I have to figure out why this USB multi-format card reader also stopped working with 10.3.6. I'm amazed that Apple lets this out the door.

To replace a kext, it's best to use a shell. The finder won't let you copy into that folder. This did it for me:

blinky:~ dillera$ sudo cp -rpf /Volumes/BlinkyClient/Previous\ Systems/Previous\ System\ 1/System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext /System/Library/Extensions

G5 UniProcessor Update

I got bit by the 5.1.5f1 Uni Processor Update on a 1.6G Mac, but not as bad as some. See the massive thread at the Apple boards. Funny, now the thread is locked. So apple released a fix today, and I've applied it-- we'll see what this does. Bottom line: Never install a firmware update for no reason other than "..improves general system reliability..." I did learn about Archive Installs, which I never knew about before.

Glutton for Punishment or A Fool and His Money

So as soon as I heard about Information Appliance Associates BlackBerry Sync I went over and purchased it. I had already been completely burned by their PocketMac PocketPC sync a few years ago-- It didn't sync right and removing it caused my Mac to not be able to login (it messed up something in the login sequence), I had to eventually re-install to get back to where I wanted to be. But I got this, cause I love my BB. But I'm sorry I did. These people are bad programmers. It screwed up my Address Book on the Mac (It removed all entries after 'D'). It duplicated all the addresses on my BB. It doesn't log a thing. Its difficult to stop or remove. Basically, it sucks. IAA support is spotty and while they do eventually get back to you, it will take a while. Plus, like I said, their de-install methods are horrible. I'm sorry I got it and I won't let their software get anywhere near my Mac ever again. The only cool thing about it was that it allows you to use it on two macs. BTW, here is a proper removal procedure that for some reason they can't even publish. Stay away from this if you value you data. Luckily, my Address Book data was also on my ibook, and by using .Mac I was able to recover it all. IAA had no explanation for the data-loss.

G5 ReBooting Problems Resolved

Well, it been weeks now, and I've had no rebooting. The trick? I re-installed a fresh os on a drive, then copied my home folder over and started installing apps. Actually, its surprising how well the Mac is congregating applications these days: i was able to just copy the apps from one drive to the new one. I also had to move the corresponding Application folder in /Library/Application Support. But almost all my apps just worked after copying them across.

G5 Rebooting Saga

Unfortunately today my G5 again rebooted. It was up for over a day. So it has nothing to do with the hard-drive, or any corruption of any file. My next step is to move its mains plug around to another house circuit. There is talk that the PMU will act funny if there are line voltage drops or other issues, and the G5 is particular sensitive to this. I am doubtful however, as I have the G5 plugged into a nice APC SmartUPS 1000, which should be stopping any funny business with this circuit.

Tame your Email with Mail.appetizer

Stefan Schüßler has written one of the most incredibly cool add-ons for Mail.app that I've seen. If you know anyone with a PC, then you've probably seen Outlook 2003. Have you noticed the cool translucent new mail notification it offers? When new mail arrives (it may only work with Exchange mailboxes) it momentarily floats up a little window on the screen with the email info... then it fades away. It's cool. Well, now you can do it (even better) with Mail.app. Mail.appetizer over at Bronsonbeta.com does it. This software add-on has tons of features... you can resize the popup to whatever size you want, move it to any location on your screen (or screens). Change the font... It now even shows the photo from AddressBook if you have one... it can show multiple messages, pausing a specified time in between each one. Mail.appetizer is managed via the Mail.app prefs.

It's simply the coolest thing I've seen, and has already changed how I read mail. Now I can keep Mail.app tucked away in the dock and recover my 2nd screen. I have two screens, but Mail is always up in one and I've tended to leave it alone so as to see my Mail... now I can put it away and let Mail.appetizer screen my email! Amazing.